#I knew I had the perfect image for this

[luck-of-the-drawings]

POOR GABRIEL MONTEZ! YOU NEVER SAW THIS COMING DID YOU? ALL YOU WANTED WAS POWER. SECURITY. SAFETY. & THATS EXACTLY WHAT YOU GOT! JUST IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR BODY. LETS JUST HOPE NO ONE FUCKS THIS UP. LETS JUST HOPE YOU WONT HAVE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS.

[fairyroses]

— SMALLVILLE, "Accelerate" (2.21) & "Wrath" (7.07)

+ bonus:

[chemicalarospec]

Me not experiencing any attraction: damn it seems fun kind of wish I did... Lemme pick who I WOULD have a crush on... Trick(??) myself into (thinking I am??) having feelings towards them.

Me experiencing genuine attraction: UMMM what is this i don't know how to deal with this how do i turn it off?

[classicintp]

If only comic artists understood how little effort they have to put into their work for their fans to continue to fall in love with them.

[twopercentboy]

,,,,

[celestiamour]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ me & my husband ]❜

ft. moon ki-yong (the salesman) x f! reader — squid game

╰₊✧ you don’t need your husband to be perfect, you just want him to be honest┊3.3k words; part two (here)

contains: written before s2 came out!! probably ooc or inaccurate, angst with spots of fluff & a bittersweet ending? reader’s pov mostly, suspicions of cheating, lack of communication, mentioned age gap, random inaccurate lore for the salesman

➤ author's note: yeah, i saw the sudden uptick in notes on that gong yoo post i made and realized season 2 came out which i completely forgot about. i intend to watch it soon as possible and write fics for it as well as (probably) add new characters to my writing list, but for now, please be content with this!!

₊˚ʚ ��₊˚✧ this fic was heavily inspired by “emotionally intoxicated” by aurasaurora!

moon ki-yong is the poster image for the ideal husband. he’s always been like that from the moment you met him, and you can’t help but feel like you’re the luckiest woman in the world when he calls himself yours. he’s tall and handsome, someone who catches everyone’s eye despite his only being focused on you. he’s wealthy and hard-working, able to call a luxurious mansion your home, and willing to buy you anything your heart desires as long as you ask for it. he spoils you rotten with that money, gifting you expensive things even if you didn’t ask if it reminded him of you. he’s doting, always sure to smother you in affection with kisses and cuddles whenever together to make it known how much he adores you. the sex is great too, he makes you feel wanted and desirable without ever leaving you unsatisfied. 

most importantly though, you love him, and he loves you. the last two years of marriage have been so blissful, and there isn’t a single thing you would change.

at least that’s what you believe most of the time.

you like to think you know a lot about him, and in a way, you do. you know his favorite color, how he likes his coffee, what he usually orders at restaurants, the type of wine he prefers over beer, the exaggerated shocked fasces he likes to make, how his favorite chore is folding the laundry, how his least favorite is doing the dishes because he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty, the name of his childhood pet, what positions he likes to cuddle or fuck in, the names he’s thinking of giving to your child when they are finally born— there are so many little details you know about him, yet at times you feel like you don't know anything at all.

you don’t really know much about his childhood aside from a few random stories, he claims there’s nothing really notable and that it was as standard as can be. you don’t know who his parents were or what they were like because he said they died when he was young, but surely that’s an important loss which must have impacted him and made youth difficult in some way? you don’t know about his past partners if he even had any, but you doubt you were his first as he was yours with a face like his. you don’t know any of his secrets, like an embarrassing moment or something sinful he might have committed in the past. 

he knew all of these things about you and the little details of your life, so why don’t you know any of the most basic things regarding your own husband?

these periods of uncertainty are few and far, but once the icy tendrils of doubt creep in, it’s difficult to shake them off when you realize you only know these things through observations and not him actually telling you. it’s a miracle your stupidity allowed you to make it this far in falling head over heels for him, getting married, and carrying his child (not that you completely regret it, you still love him, but you wish you had given it more time).

they say there are no such things as stupid questions, yet the main question you have is exactly that as it’s something every wife should know even before the marriage. it would be impressive how long you’ve been clueless about this matter if it weren’t for how often and how skilled he is in managing to evade your curiosity and steer the conversation elsewhere. you didn’t want to press on it since he seems to shut it down every time the topic is brought up and you don’t want to fight over something you technically didn’t need to know, but it weighs on you and presses into your chest with the knowledge you were being kept in the dark. 

what did your husband do for a living, exactly?

his schedule is always unpredictably changing with little rhyme or reason and it confuses you. sometimes you’ll go an entire few days without seeing him, sensing him wake up in the morning before the sun is even up, feeling him kiss you on the cheek before getting ready, and not coming back until long after you fall asleep with no communication aside from a note on the table telling you he’ll be gone for the day along with a wad of cash for you to treat yourself while he’s gone. other times he’ll be chilling at home for an entire week, waking you up with aggressive cuddles (or morning sex), making you breakfast with the morning news on in the background, and taking you out to wherever you want to go on his card in his rare casual clothing and messy wavy hair rather than the typical fancy suits and hair styled with gel. 

as far as you’re concerned, he’s a businessman of sorts, although you don’t know what company he works for or what position he has in terms of hierarchy or how an occupation of that type allows such flexibility in hours or anything at all. 

“what if he’s having an affair?”

you paused for a second before continuing the motion of slicing the cheesecake with a fork and savoring the taste in your mouth. “that’s ridiculous,” you stated simply after swallowing. “he loves me very much, and it doesn’t explain his weird schedule either.”

today was spent with some friends you met back in high school, but honestly, you were only attending out of politeness and tradition since you honestly feel like you’ve disconnected from these girls long before the current. still, you treasure the memories shared in your more formative years and wouldn’t ever say no to them if they wanted to hang out like old times. ki-yong doesn’t bother to hide his distaste for them, calling them a miserable lot who try to drag you down at every opportunity out of jealousy for your happiness. you laugh it off, but you know deep down he’s right and yet you’re still sitting here at the cafe with them with bright smiles like their words don’t cut deep. 

“maybe he’s dating the boss— a sexy office siren type— she gives him plenty of days off and he stays with her at her beach house at jeju island or something to keep her company, and then she gives him lots of money in exchange.”

“oh my god, could you imagine?”

“can you be realistic? it sounds like you’re just writing a plot for a new drama,” you giggled, not allowing the feeling of a twisting blade in your abdomen to show on your face or the venom to drip from your words at the mere thought of the man you loved being stolen away a faceless woman who was everything you wished you were more of: more beautiful, more wealthy, more experienced, more intelligent—

“you don’t know because he’s your first love or whatever— and you’re so lucky to have been able to marry him— but men are dogs, and i don’t see why he would be the exception.”

“but he treats me so well—”

“maybe he only treats you well because you’re pregnant— he probably just feels guilty. i mean, when i was pregnant and had my first, my husband wasn’t attracted to me anymore and demanded a divorce unless i lost the baby weight.” she shrugged like it was so simple, so common, like the notion of marriage wasn’t something so deeply important and could be thrown away so easily.

“we aren’t suggesting you get a divorce, but we’re just saying you should keep an eye on him— you know? a handsome guy like him was always bound to get a lot of attention…” her laugh was shrill and high-pitched, making goosebumps erupt on your skin.

“right… thanks guys…”

that night, you couldn’t stop twisting and turning on the large sectional couch with thoughts rushing through your head of your husband with some other woman. the jealousy from these fictional scenarios without evidence of existence plagued you. it made you want to vomit up the negative feelings and go back to the person you were a few hours ago without the images of him cheating planted in your mind, which didn’t go unnoticed by him and caused him to ask what was bothering you as it wouldn't be good for the baby.

you hesitated for a moment, “could you tell me about your exes?”

“why are you suddenly curious about that?” he chuckled, knowing damn well that it was because of those stupid snakes masquerading as people (it truly takes one to know one) running their mouths again, but still feigning obliviousness for your sake. 

“just wondering,” you muttered. “i mean, you’re the first person i’ve fallen in love with, but you’re a bit older than me so…”

“and i hope to be the only one too,” he smirked confidently, making you laugh as he plopped down on the ground and rested his head on the cushion next to yours. 

it was such a casual setting in such a vast space, bringing you back to the days in your little apartment inviting him over for chicken and beer before you knew about your immense wealth and got embarrassed over your cheap dates when he was so used to expensive restaurants. he found it very endearing though, knowing you liked him for him and not his money.

“well, if you’re so curious…” he trailed off, but you weren’t quite sure if it was because of hesitation or because he simply didn’t know where to start. you can’t remember the last time a conversation like this was held to learn more about him since it was usually about you, maybe back when you first started dating and briefly discussed his late parents.

he started with his crush when he was in middle school since that was his earliest recollection of feeling love, who didn’t really count as a girlfriend or love because nothing was established and because of their age, but she was his first kiss that he ran away from right after because of how nervous he was, and it was never addressed again. apparently it was his second girlfriend who taught him everything he knew before he met you, saying she basically “trained him like a dog” to create a gentleman out of an inexperienced boy who still wasn’t quite sure how to treat a woman like a queen. she was a bit mean though, and he didn’t realize he dodged a bullet until later after realizing she was unnecessarily cruel to him for no reason multiple times if he didn’t do things exactly her way.

you suppose you always knew your husband wasn’t always the suave charmer you know him to be, but the image of younger him being clueless on matters of romance made you burst out laughing because of how you could hardly picture it.

he reached over to pinch your cheek affectionately, “are you of all people really making fun of me when you were too scared to hold my hand for me to escort you out of my car?”

“oh my god, that was on our first date, i can’t be blamed! i was shaking like crazy on that day— you had to tell me that you didn’t bite.”

“i was actually thinking about calling off our date last minute because of an emergency at work,” he confessed, “but i’m glad i didn’t and met the love of my life instead.”

“aw, you flirt.” the memory made you smile and feel all giggly inside, all the fears you had about him possibly having an affair falling away, yet there were still some lingering at the back of your mind with the mention of his job. “what happened at work?”

“nothing that important,” he said instantly like clockwork. “just some boring business things.”

you didn’t push it, not wanting to ruin the mood, but once again, your curiosity was just itching to ask more questions about his work life even if it was truly as boring as he says. you wanted to know every mundane detail whether it was what his office looked like or what the annoying co-worker did on a daily basis, anything to satiate your need to know more about this mysterious man you had made life-long vows with.

it all came to a head one night while you were cooking dinner, you heard the doorbell ring a dozen times in quick succession and answered it to find an older man with fiery red hair that seemed to match his temper. when he addressed your husband by name and verified your relationship with him, he began spewing all kinds of insults about the blood he had on his hands by luring innocent people to their deaths and you felt your heart drop. you tried to reason with him that there must have been some sort of mistake, barely able to get your words out in a fit of confusion and surprise at the absurd accusation, but he wouldn’t hear you out and pointed a finger in your face, asking if you had any idea what moon ki-yong was doing behind your back. 

at that very moment, he was suddenly seized by two anonymous men in all black, causing him to yell out in panic as they dragged him away and stuffed him in the back of a car before quickly driving off into the night without a trace. it all happened so fast, you just stood there with your mouth open in shock, wondering if you should call the police on what looked like an abduction. 

then your husband comes running up the steps with his locked briefcase in hand, shouting out your name, asking you if you’re okay, pulling you back inside the comfort of your shared home, and checking you all over to make sure you aren’t harmed in any way. when you ask about who that man was and what he was talking about, he simply told you he was some crazy customer who was dissatisfied with the company, was looking for someone to blame, and promised to tell you the details later. 

you didn’t tell him that you didn’t believe him, just pursed your lips and furrowed your brow for a second then let go of the topic like you always do, taking his coat off his shoulders with a peck on the lips asking how his day was. he reciprocated the kiss, said it was fine without anything special, and that he would shower before having dinner, something he didn’t really need to say since you already knew but stated anyway as per evening routine. 

as he headed up the stairs and disappeared from sight, you stared at the locked briefcase resting crookedly on the little entryway table and paused for a moment. if you did this, it would be a breach of privacy and a sign of growing distrust in your husband, but it could also answer all of the questions that never cease. 

your hands wouldn’t stop shaking involuntarily as you felt the cold black metal underneath your fingertips, marveling at the smooth material clean of any scratches or dents. fidgeting with the built-in combination lock, six number sequences started rushing through your mind as you started to hastily run through your options with a focus on dates. you were determined to only do this three times since you had no idea if an alarm would be set off or if it would close off permanently.

his birthday?

an electronic beep went off indicating you were incorrect, making you nervous.

your birthday?

wrong again, you only had one attempt left. you swallowed, shaking the accumulating sweat off your hands.

the date of your wedding?

you gasped as the locks suddenly flipped open and lightly knocked against the briefcase. it was undone, you could open it at any moment now and see it all.

and yet you still hesitated during this golden opportunity. was it the fact that the passcode to his most secret possession was the day you got married? was it guilt for going behind your husband’s back for answers instead of directly asking him? was it because you were afraid of what you would find if you discovered the red-haired man was telling the truth?

whatever it was, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and locked it again, leaving it looking untouched and went back to playing dinner.

there was a heavy tension present at the dinner table that night, the only conversation present being him interrogating you about what the red-haired man talked about word-for-word. not really interrogating since his tone of voice was still calm and gentle as he asked questions, but you could see him fidgeting with his fork and not leaving much room for any other topic until he was sure you told him everything. he then sighed and claimed the man was insane, a gambling addict who was too deep in debt to afford treatment and was trying to drag him into his misery after meeting at the subway station. 

“ki-yong?”

he froze for a second, not used to hearing you use his real name rather than a pet name. “yes?”

“what do you do for a living, exactly?”

a pause, you watched him fidget with his chopsticks and shift the grains of rice around. “you know, business stuff— nothing you need to concern yourself about—“

“but i don’t know! that’s the thing!” you felt tears starting to well up behind your eyes, letting two years of frustration trickle through. “i know it doesn’t seem that important for me to know, but is it really so important that you leave me in the dark about it for the three years we’ve been lovers? and now some guy comes to our doorstep and tells me about how your job is playing games with people at the subway station to make them participate in death games?!” you took a deep breath, calming yourself down, “please, be honest with me, that’s all i want…”

“i-i…” that was the first time you’ve ever heard him stutter, and if the situation wasn’t so tense, you would be proud you finally got one-up on him. “i can’t say… it’s for your own safety and mine.”

“so he was right?”

he remained silent, trying to think of some way to counter what seong gi-hun had told you, but if you didn’t believe the elaborate lie he already told you and wanted to learn more, then he knew this was the end of the road. 

“i-i need some time to think…” you looked defeated and it broke his heart. “i’m going to my mom’s house tonight, i’ll be back tomorrow—“ you got up, not bothering to pack anything aside from your phone and your wallet.

he had prepared for you to start screaming and crying (not that he would blame you, i mean, who would willingly stay with a man who was complicit in mass murder), demanding a divorce and packing your things to shut the door for him never to be seen again with your unborn child. the strangely calm reaction was both a relief and extremely unsettling to him.

“i won’t be mad if you decide not to come back” he stated plainly, defeated in a state you’ve never seen him in before. “whatever choice you make, i’ll support you, just know i love you— more than anything else in this world.”

you stared at him blankly through the open doorway. perhaps your husband isn’t the perfect man you believed him to be, but he was as honest as he possibly could have been with you regarding the matter, and that’s enough. 

“i love you too, i’ll be back in the morning.” that’s how you feel at the moment, but you don’t know if you’ll feel the same way tomorrow morning when it sinks in.

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

aND tHen OnE thInG LEd tO AnoTHeR ThINg...

THEIR KARAOKE NIGHT OCCUPIES EVERY CORNER OF MY BRAIN!!! HE👏FUCKED👏THAT👏TRIANGLE👏

(This is my first ever Patreon exclusive print! Details + ramble + how to purchase below the cut:)

I'm so excited to share this drawing!! Originally, I had drawn this doodle last year, and I've always wanted to come back to it, make it into something better. And so, THIS IMAGE was born in my mind. This is a visual I've had stuck in my head for MONTHS and I'm so glad I finally got it out of there. 😭

It wasn't easy. I knew I wanted to make this a digital drawing, because I felt like the medium would lend nicely to an airy, soft vibe, as opposed to the pencil texture that's usually in my work. But I'm NOT used to digital art, especially when making full illustrations where you're aiming for perfection. I'm pretty sure this is the longest amount of time I've ever spent on a digital drawing, and "trusting the process" was hard because it's not a process I'm used to. But a week and 172 layers later, I'm happy with it! It turned out SO gaudy, SO gratuitous in it's mushy colorful-ness. Rainbows and sparkles and shit everywhere. Truly the gayest karaoke night ever.

(People on the patreon discord liked the updates I shared, and the possibility of doing a companion piece came up - Bills pov. So that's a potential goodie on the horizon!)

Now onto the print:

This is a patreon exclusive 8x10 inch print with no bleed on semi-gloss photo paper. If you're interested in buying this print, it's $20 + shipping for those in my $5 patreon tier! Purchases are made through paypal invoices, but I'm open to other payment methods as well. International shipping is available, but shipping cost will be higher outside the US/Puerto Rico. To buy this print, send me a DM on patreon. Please ask if you have any questions!

A link to my Patreon!

[divinedomainn]

Stream and Scream | reader x multiple men

play previous song? || ◁ PART 2 ▷ || play next song?

summary : Your inbox has turned into a horny battlefield—six familiar usernames, six neck-down thirst traps, all hard and very, very eager.

No faces. Just bodies. Dicks. Bold lighting choices. Questionable bedsheets.

You sit cross-legged in your underwear like you’re judging Olympic figure skating, except everyone’s naked and begging to be picked.

Time to start scoring.

contains : camgirl!reader x a whole ass roster, rotating cast, university AU, smut, porn with kinda a crack plot, casual sex, anonymous sex, exhibitionism, recording, oral sex, piv sex, rough kinky sex, everyone wants to fuck reader, horny simp men, sukuna being sukuna, reader being willfully ignorant for her own sanity.

A/N : time to make your first choice for the first week by voting in the poll at the end, i'll be doing this all in descending order based on who was the most voted to the least - so vote well >:) goodluck reader ! (i wonder who the mystery man could POSSIBLY be)

You sat back for a few hours, letting it really settle in for yourself and your viewers. You had hundreds of messages and you hadn’t even finished scrolling through the first wave of submissions when the familiar usernames started sliding into your inbox—like wolves answering the call. And it was obvious, immediately, which messages you were actually going to open.

These weren’t just horny randos with messy lighting and desperate angles.

These were your regulars.

The six you already knew by username. The six who tipped with the intensity of men bidding for real estate inside your body. And now they were showing themselves to you. You hoped to whatever deity was listening that these guys were hot with huge cocks. What? It was fun to be a little superficial sometimes. First up:

EmoWithaBoner.

His message was soft-spoken, despite the picture attached being the exact opposite of that, just like always. No emojis. No bravado.

“Didn’t know how to pose,” it read. “But I thought about how you’d look on top of me, and it kind of just happened.”

It was soft, unfiltered, and a little shaky. The photo was reflected from his mirror and showed him stretched out across gray sheets, pale skin dusted with faint freckles. He looked like he went to the gym often with how built he was. Narrow hips. His cock sat flushed against his stomach, long and lean—at least seven inches, maybe more—and wait.. was that? You looked closer towards the image, inspecting it like you were trying to solve a case. Yep. It was pierced at the frenulum with a delicate curved barbell. A glint of silver. Great heavens. Saved.

TempleOfSin.

His body was art. Broad chest, warm tan skin like satin, sculpted muscle that looked carved. His torso was tapered, lean and strong, with a small trail of black hair leading down to a thick, curved cock—seven inches minimum, hand loosely resting at the base like he was showing it off without trying too hard. He was neatly trimmed. It looked like there was a bunch of robes beside him haphazardly taken off for the photo. “Consider this a formal offering,” the message read. “You could worship every inch of me truly, my loyal little follower.” Odd as always, but hot. Saved. You could hear your prayers being answered, two down and so far all was good - in fact, perfect. You were surprised these were the guys paying you, and for a second or two you felt like you should be paying them for the photos.

SixEyesOnly’s submission hit next—and of course, it came with a $500 tip before you even clicked on the message. The sight that hit your eyes made you choke a little on your own spit. 

Of course he sent multiple angles—three, actually. You picked your favorite: a half-reclined shot on luxurious navy bedding, torso lit with just the right amount of golden light. He was toned, lean muscle over abnormally long limbs, subtle abs. A soft trail of white hair led down to a perfectly girthy cock, mid-stroke—maybe just under eight inches, thick enough to stretch you open. His other hand was holding a handwritten sign: “Good enough for you?” “Oh, SixEyesOnly, absolutely.” You spoke to yourself whilst your eyes remained glued to your laptop screen. Saved. Then—unsurprisingly unhinged—daddyissuez.

“i jerked off right before i took this and got hard again just thinking about fucking you.”

And the photo… Jesus. The photo was taken in low lighting, like a scene from a noir porno. He was sitting wide-legged on a leather couch that looked like it needed replacing, legs thick and powerful, thighs dusted with black hair. His chest was solid, scars faintly visible across his abs and ribs. You closed your eyes for a second and tilted your head up to your ceiling in a silent ‘thank you’ before looking back down at the image. His cock was huge, just like the rest of him. Probably just shy of nine inches, you couldn’t keep your eyes off it. Balls heavy. Tip already glossy with precum. One hand gripped the base. The other rested lazily on his thigh like he was used to being admired. With a cock like that you couldn’t blame him. Saved. OfficeAfterHours was, predictably, meticulous. His message read like an email you’d get from someone managing your retirement plan, if that person also wanted to bend you over a desk.

“Apologies for the delay. Here’s my formal submission. Discretion guaranteed. Let me know if you'd like a second angle.”

Shot in high-resolution against crisp black sheets, his body was a symphony of intention. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, abs that looked like they’d been sculpted from marble. Not huge, but built like someone who took care of himself for discipline, not vanity. A thin trail of blonde hair led down to a cock that was gorgeous—perfect shape, thick but not excessive, probably seven inches on the dot, with veins that begged for attention. Trimmed. Clean. You could almost imagine his voice saying something like, “Breathe through it, sweetheart. You’re doing so well.” A weird sound came out of your mouth in excitement from your own fantasy. Saved.

You were already overstimulated and halfway folded into your sheets when the final message hit.

KingOfRot.

You hovered over it for a second like it might bite. Which was ironic, considering he probably would. He was always the most feral in chat—filthy, relentless, tipping like his wallet had a death wish.

You clicked.

Instant regret. Instant need.

The photo looked like it had been taken during a crime.

Bathroom mirror. Harsh yellow light. Shirt pushed up to his collarbones, muscles tensed like he’d been fucking someone just before he snapped the photo. Chest broad. Arms thick. Veins roped down to his forearms. Stomach lined with clean muscle. Ink everywhere—heavy black bands around his biceps, tattoos sharp and ceremonial-looking across his chest and stomach like a ritual.

And then his cock.

You actually flinched at the offensive monster staring right back at you through the screen. Long. Thick. Too thick. Heavy. Veins running down the shaft like it had a pulse, flushed red like it had been hard for too long. The kind of cock you’d have to apologize to your body after taking. You didn’t even want to hazard a guess at the size.

He wasn’t even touching it. It was just there holding its own weight up like a pole rather than a piece of actual flesh. 

But what got you, what really made your stomach drop, was the tattoos.

They were familiar.

You’d seen them before.

There was a guy on campus—tall, smug, terrifyingly hot in the way that sent your libido into a frenzy—who had tattoos just like that. You’d seen him walking out of the athletics building once, sweatpants slung low and his shirt mysteriously missing, laughing like he knew every secret in the world. He had loudly shouted “What!?” at you when you had stared for a little longer than needed. Embarrassingly seared into your memory for that exact reason.

You squinted.

“Nope,” you muttered. “No. Not connecting the dots. That’s above my pay grade.” Surely it couldn’t be the same guy, right? The tattoos were probably, like, one of those trends that everyone was getting. That's what you were telling yourself at least.

You were about to save the photo when you finally looked at the caption.

“Pick me. I’ll fuck you so hard your ancestors will feel it. You’ll be a fucking shrine by the time I’m done.” Was that a death threat? Probably. Should you block him? Probably. “Ancestors. Okaaaaay.” You nodded your head slowly as if he was across from you saying it with a gun pointing at you. 

And then you saved it. Of course you did. Then flopped onto your back, one arm flung over your face, trying to mentally prepare for the chaos you had just invited into your life. All at the right price of course. “Thank you to whoever is listening for blessing me with viewers that are hotter than the guys I have wilfully hooked up with for free.” You spoke to your ceiling, a common theme nowadays. Seven men. Seven bodies. Seven chances to let your subscribers watch you get absolutely wrecked on camera.

Your legs were trembling from what you decided was mostly horniness.. and a little bit of fear for your own pussy by the time you shut your laptop fully. Friday couldn't come soon enough.

Now, the real question was - who would you choose first?

taglist : @syubseokie @frozenmallows @90s-belladonna @moncher-ire @kunareads @blublublubby @grignardsreagent @soozeu @mochiivqi @sweetsformysoul @killak9mi @celloccino @gurlhere4fluff @gorouenjoyer @linaaeatsfamilies @lov3-ly @des-todoroki @aiicpansion @lazylunarlover @kentoslvr @cherry-berry-21 @cure-alexandrite @yourname-exee @pinkyogoart @sillymortalblob @kyvyes @xxxieli @swoozleee @augustineyukimura @uniquecutie-puff @ayepitita @luna-v-roiya @kill-your-darling274 @babiestarrcandy @b3bybunny @midnightwriter21 @miizuzu

[schrano]

"Siffrin? Are you alright, bud?"

Fanart of Siffrin from @cinnamin-is-a-star's Villain Siffrin AU fanfiction To Extend Our Reach to the Stars Above Chapter 11.

[seumyo]

todoroki shouto and his 8-month-old son having identical pouty faces.

It becomes trouble when your husband and 8-month-old son are quiet as you’re about to finish preparing dinner. You could sense it, like a superpower you could only unlock when you reached a certain milestone in life.

“It’s just a piece of soft biscuit. Maybe we can give him only a little—“

“No, Shou.”

You had only denied your son a snack once, and yet, the betrayal in his big, watery eyes made it seem like you had committed an unforgivable crime.

Your eight-month-old son, snug in Todoroki’s arms, was pouting hard—his chubby cheeks puffed out, lips trembling, and his tiny hands curled into fists against his father’s chest. Tears clung to his thick lashes, threatening to spill at any moment. He was the very image of pitiful distress.

And Todoroki?

He wasn’t much better.

He’s holding your son with an almost identical expression—unmistakably sulking, his lips pressed together in silent protest (but he knew he could never win this war against you). It didn’t help that your son was his near-perfect replica, down to the way his tiny eyebrows furrowed in quiet displeasure. The only major difference was this little boy inherited your eyes.

Thank the heavens, because you almost came to the conclusion that Todoroki reproduced by himself via asexual reproduction.

Because it was dangerous how alike they looked.

You crossed your arms, unimpressed. “Oh, come on. It was just one snack.”

Todoroki’s grip on your son shifted slightly as he responded, voice flat but clearly displeased. “It was just a small piece.”

The baby, as if understanding that his father was taking his side, whimpered softly and nuzzled closer to his father’s chest, letting out a tiny, heart-wrenching sniffle.

“Dinner is literally a minute away. He’ll survive.”

“He might starve and lose his healthy body,” Todoroki tells you warily.

“Shou, take one good look at our son. He’s chubbier than any of his older cousins, plus, we feed him formula 5 times a day, he eats solid food twice, and even gets a snack when he wakes up from his naps—so don’t tell me he’ll starve when he eats more than we do combined.”

Your husband didn’t argue further, but his silence spoke volumes. He gently rubbed your son’s back, sighing as the little boy let out another sniffle. You knew this game—Todoroki might not be saying anything, but his entire posture screamed, “I think you’re being unfair, but I won’t push it… even though I’m clearly upset.”

“The pouting isn’t going to work on me.”

Todoroki blinked, expression unchanged. “I’m not pouting.”

“You are,” you told him. “And he’s just copying you.”

At that, he finally glanced down at the baby in his arms. Your son blinked up at him, sniffling again before sticking his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“…I think this is just his natural expression,” Todoroki finally said, deadpan.

“Uh-huh. I don’t think we’ll ever need a DNA test to prove that he’s yours.”

“Why would we need a DNA test when I’m the only man you’ve ever been with? And our son also looks like me—“

“Oh, Shou. It was a joke,” you sigh lovingly.

“Oh.”

Todoroki hummed, shifting your son slightly so he could wipe away a stray tear from the baby’s cheek. “Your mother is strict,” he murmured, speaking softly to him as if he wasn’t right in front of you. “Very heartless.”

“Excuse me?”

The baby hiccupped, seemingly agreeing.

Todoroki glanced up at you, the slightest hint of amusement evident in his eyes. “It’s true.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh. “Unbelievable. If I left meals to you, he’d be living off of cold soba and whatever random snacks you keep in the fridge.”

Todoroki didn’t deny it (for the most part).

“But I do take cooking classes now...”

“Mhm.”

He gently bounced your son in his arms, his gaze softening as your baby yawned, snuggling closer to his chest now that the dramatics had settled.

You sighed, stepping forward and pressing a kiss to the top of your son’s head. “You’ll thank me later, little pouty boy,” you murmured before glancing up at your husband. “And you—stop ganging up on me with him.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he replied, completely straight-faced.

You gave him a knowing look. “Uh-huh.”

A comfortable silence settled between you before you turned back to the stove, giving the curry one last stir. “Dinner’s ready.”

He smiled. “Finally.”

You shot him a playful glare, though there was no real heat behind it. You took your son from his arms, adjusting him on your hip before pressing a small kiss to his chubby cheek.

“Alright, come on, little pouty boy.”

Todoroki followed closely behind. “Which one?”

You laughed at that.

“Both of you.”

SEUMYO © 2025. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, PLAGIARIZE, MODIFY OR TRANSLATE.

[ireverie]

see a cheerleader, breed a cheerleader

pairing ↠ """nerd!"""jake x (f) reader

genre .. warnings ↠ smut, noncon, dubcon, oral (m receiving), male face sitting, face fucking, unprotected sex, blackmail, choking, hitting, virgin!reader

summary ↠ ever since forever, you have always gotten your way with people by whatever means necessary. a wink and a smile is all it takes to make a boy drop to your feet and worship you. no one told you to think that jake sim would be any different. as it turns out, actions do have consequences.

wc ↠ 14.9k

a/n ↠ jeno version of this fic posted on my nct blog revehae. yea, mine. i am her she is me. THERE WILL BE NO SEQUEL. feedback is appreciated!

don’t like it, don’t read.

▸ short, sweet, sometimes sticky

it was supposed to be like everybody else.

short, sweet, maybe sticky if you considered that one time you’d shaken that sunoo boy’s sweat-coated hands and watched the pale of his face burn the same fierce rose as the lens he saw you through. 

you’d laughed lightheartedly to spare him the embarrassment, telling him that everybody got a little sweaty every now and then, especially you. after all, cheerleading was more than skipping around and twirling. and at those words, you’d watched his eyes haze with the image of you damp with sweat, drenched head to toe.

hook, line, and sinker.

far too easy, exactly how you liked them. smart, easy, and utterly unable to resist you.

no one told you to expect something different from jake sim. and why would you? he knew all the right answers, had some of the best marks, and practically lived in the library. he perfectly fit the bill of your standard victim.

which was why you had no qualms about approaching him in the library while he was typing away at his laptop, occasionally sipping from some kind of coffee.

as if he could sense he was in imminent danger and needed to evacuate immediately, jake turned around before you could even make it completely to the table and saw you advancing on him with a pretty, practiced smile. “hi,” you greeted, waving at him. falling, your hands gripped the rear of the chair beside him. “is someone sitting here?”

jake raised a brow at you, but shook his head. “no, no one’s sitting there.”

“perfect,” you replied, pulling out the chair and taking a seat. you turned so that you were facing him. “jake, right?”

jake nodded slowly, wondering where this was going. he got plenty girls, sure, but none ever approached him in the library. “that’s me,” he said, curious. “do i know you?”

“well, probably not,” you replied, giggling as if something was funny. “but, you know… i’m a cheerleader.”

jake hummed. “are you now?”

you bobbed your head expectantly. “yeah, and i’ve heard about how smart you are. i’m impressed, to be honest. i mean, every time i’m in the library, i see you sitting here. i could never spend so much time here. you must have a lot of resolve to do something like that.”

“you think so?” jake asked, pretending to be flattered just to see where you were leading him. 

“i do. like, really do,” you replied, brushing your fingers against his forearm. “i just have so many other,” better, “things to do, you know. with cheer, i’m either practicing or resting so that i’ll have energy for practice. it’s really hard on me, you know?”

jake stifled a chuckle and glanced back at his laptop screen. “you poor thing.”

your brows stitched. he wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to you. it was almost like he was uninterested. “and that’s why i was wondering if you could help me. i mean, you’re such a genius. you could probably do it in half the time it would take me,” you continued, lowering your hand onto his denim-clad thigh, and becoming surprised by how sturdy it felt.

jake spared a fleeting glance at your hand on his left thigh before his eyes flitted to your face, watching you wink at him and throw him a smile. “let me get this straight,” he started, slowly caressing the back of your hand with his thumb as it sat on his thigh. “you want me to… do your work for you?”

“hey, your hard work wouldn’t go unrewarded,” you insisted, ignoring the unexpected motions of his thumb. “you’d have my attention. i mean, like i said, i don’t have a lot of time to give away. but i’m willing to spend some of it on you.”

jake snickered, unable to help himself anymore. “are you this patronizing to everyone you meet?” he asked.

your eyes flickered. “p-patronizing?”

jake smiled, patting your hand before setting it on your own thigh. “sorry, was that a big word for you? you know, when you think you’re too good for something, but you don’t want to say it, so you play sweet and act like you’re helping me, when really, it’s the other way around.”

switching on a dime, you narrowed your eyes at him. for such a pretty boy, he had quite the attitude. “i know what patronizing means. and right now, i think you’re the one being patronizing.”

“am i?” jake asked, feigning obliviousness. “how’s it taste, cheerleader? doesn’t feel good, does it?”

your face was set in a scowl. sometimes it hurt you to play nice with people, and now was one of those times. “are you gonna help me or not?” you snapped.

“there it is,” jake sang, chuckling to himself. he put his hand on your thigh now, squeezing the flesh gently. for now. “there’s the real you.”

you swallowed, glaring over at him with a hint of defiance despite the disgusting, foreign feeling rotting in your chest. it had never gone like this before. every situation predating this one had been somewhat predictable, to the point where you’d come to expect certain reactions. this was not that.

“i’ll help you,” jake said after a pause.

you forced a smile. “great, so…”

jake interjected, “on one condition.”

smile faltering, you trailed off, processing his words. now he was making some kind of deal with you? who in the hell did this man think he was?

“on one condition?” you echoed, as if you’d somehow misheard him. your brows scrunched in suspicion. “what condition?”

jake grinned, the look on his face sly as hell and a stark contrast from the disgruntled glower on yours. “give me something in return,” was all he said, the tightening hold on your thigh giving away more than his words had.

you gawked, as if you were offended, and quickly swat at his hand. “i’m not having sex with you, you pervert!”

“sure, you’re not,” jake answered with a chuckle, eyes twinkling with amusement. everything about you was alluring to him for mostly all the reasons unintended. “but you said i’d have your attention. i guess you think it’s not often a poor, busy nerd like myself gets anyone’s attention, yeah? but nerds get tired too, don’t they? they need to de-stress…”

“that’s not my problem,” you spat. 

“you getting an F isn’t my problem, either,” jake retorted, shrugging his shoulders. “so what it’s gonna be, cheerleader?”

something about this situation isn’t right to you. maybe it’s the lack of power you currently wielded over him, despite the fact that you had gotten used to having your way with academically competent boys like himself. if he weren’t taller than you and stronger than you, you’d resort to other, more familiar methods.

but jake had changed the entire trajectory of this interaction for the worse, and now you had to determine whether or not it was beneath you to let him treat you as if you were some kind of object. you sulkily mulled it over, arms folded, trying to think of a way to maintain some semblance of power. “fine,” you finally replied, relenting. “but i’m not doing anything that requires me taking my clothes off.”

“you never seen a good porno, cheerleader?” jake asked, a stupid, taunting smile blemishing his lips. “that cute little uniform of yours is the whole appeal to some people.”

“my name is…,” you huffed irritably, tired of being referred to by your title. 

“frankly, cheerleader, i don’t care what your name is,” jake told you with brutal honesty. “you’re the one that introduced yourself as a cheerleader, like that’s your whole personality or something. thinking it would make me fold. you can’t be stupid and demanding.”

you gaped, affronted by the sheer audacity of him to even utter those words to you, like you were some dumb bimbo. “i’m not stupid! i’m just too busy.”

“right. too busy,” jake echoed, obviously none too convinced. “sorry for assuming.”

with a roll of your eyes, you stood up from the table chair, feeling utterly disrespected. “yeah, you should be,” you said, despite knowing his apology was completely inauthentic. “where’s your phone?”

jake arched a brow and glanced over to his phone, sitting face down against the table on the other side of him. before he could even respond, you reached over him to grab it and pointed it at his face, unlocking it as if you’d done it a million times before.

then, you started typing away, all the while jake watched you with an amused expression on his face. he had to admit, you were surely something. and though he found you entertaining, he couldn’t shake the thought that you desperately needed someone to put you in your place.

“reach me here,” you said after a moment, handing him his phone back. the screen was on his messages, a fresh contact with you.  “pleasure doing business with you.”

with that, you walked away. 

jake shook his head, scoffing. who the hell did you think you were?

over the next few days or so, you met with jake to better construct exactly what your expectations were pertaining to your work. or at least, those were the words he’d used. most of those limited encounters had ended with his hands sealing around your breasts.

you let it slide, deciding that a little over-the-clothes stuff was relatively harmless. after all, this was the busiest you’d been all year long, and you were far too exhausted when you got home to be burdened with stupid assignments and pesky discussion posts. the next two months, if not the next two weeks, were going to kill you if you didn’t have someone to carry at least half the workload on your behalf.

it was okay. jake’s inability to keep his hands to himself was fine. it wasn’t like anybody was going to know, or that this arrangement would last long enough for them to find out. you would get to keep your dignity and your grades, without saving one at the expense of the other.

short, sweet, and sticky, remember? maybe the latter was simply manifesting in the way jake’s hands were stuck to you. not that anything about him was sweet.

more like sacrifice.

▸ gilded age

“guess who just made the list of this week’s top ten trending sluts,” jennie said as she walked up beside you and roseanne.

roseanne perked up that, though she couldn’t help but mischievously quip, “you?”

jennie narrowed her eyes. “hoe, as if,” she spat. “i know how to keep my legs closed.”

you snickered. “god, what happened now?”

“a sex tape got leaked. hyeri, and apparently sunghoon.”

your nose scrunched, as if disgusted. “always knew she was a slut. i mean, you should have been there to see the way she acted around the jocks in high school. her eyes were practically screaming, ‘pick me, choose me, fuck me,’” you mocked.

roseanne burst into giggles, downing the rest of what was left in her red cup. “i don’t think that’s how that goes,” she chimed. “but sunghoon? is she crazy? i hope they didn’t do it raw. i heard rumors that he’s got the clap.” 

“he sure clapped something, alright,” jennie retorted, much to your amusement. “it was definitely raw. hope it was worth the itch. you guys wanna see?”

“absolutely not,” you said, shaking your head vigorously. “i bet her parents would love to see it, though. on second thought, send me it.”

roseanne gawked. “are you serious?”

you bobbed your head, grinning deviously. “yeah. you guys have no idea what that bitch was like in high school. i tried teaching her a lesson, but she just never learned. it’s like the bitch is addicted to pain or something.”

jennie shook her head, pretending to disapprove, though she was intrigued to see how far you would your obvious loathing. “just sent it.”

your phone vibrated in your hand a few seconds later. you opened your instagram burner account, scrolling through your main’s following to find hyeri’s mother’s page, and dropped the video in her inbox. your sly giggle alerted your friends to your success and you dropped your phone in your pocket, satisfied.

“oh, you’re sick,” jennie insulted playfully, nudging your arm. “i wonder if she’ll say anything.”

you shrugged your shoulders, feigning nonchalance as if you weren’t excited to see how her mother would respond. “don’t know, but i’m more curious about if she’ll talk to hyeri about it. i’d love to be a fly on the myung’s wall when that happens.”

roseanne tapped your shoulder. “hey, don’t look now, but that jake guy is staring you.”

your head whirled around, spotting jake in his own corner of the party, indeed watching your every move as if he wanted to consume you and was waiting for the perfect moment to attack. which, if he was, would not be surprising. 

roseanne sighed in annoyance. “i literally just said don’t look now.”

you turned back to face them, shaking your head. “don’t worry about that creep,” you replied, brushing it off. “he’s just begging to get in my pants. didn’t even know he went to parties.”

for whatever reason, jennie laughed. something about what you said tickled her, apparently. “um, yeah. that’s jake for you, alright. he’s either partying with his friends or grinding in the library, no in between. perfectly balanced lifestyle, i have to admit it.”

your brows furrowed. that was news to you. and probably an important piece of information that you’d conveniently missed when narrowing down your targets. maybe you should have asked around about him more. you just didn’t think that someone who studied as hard as he did could also be the life of the party.

what was he doing here, anyway? shouldn’t he have been off doing your homework? useless fucking nerdy-not.

“do you guys know each other or something?” roseanne pressed, noticing the strange tension in the air despite the fact that you and jake were feet apart. which was honestly admirable. “do you think you could get him to put me on with jungwon?”

jennie’s laughter rang out again, only this time, it was much louder, and much more mocking. “please. jungwon isn’t gonna touch any of us after how she broke his heart. you’d have better luck with jaehyun,” she sneered.

roseanne glared, a snarl on her face. “fuck jaehyun.”

“yeah, i bet you want to. i bet you’re still dreaming of that big, thick, meaty dick you wouldn’t shut up about, like, two months ago.”

“a lot can change in two months.”

“oh, it sure can,” jennie replied, humming. “it sure can.”

▸ takes two to tango

jake: come over

you: no

jake: that wasn’t a request 

you: no where in our agreement does it say you get to boss me around

jake: not even for an A?

you: that’s what your grabby hands are for

jake: i don’t have to do this, you know. i can let you be a grown up and fiend for yourself like the rest of us

you: i’m otw, chill. jesus

the knock of your fist against jake’s door was incessant, more than likely enough to exasperate his neighbors, given that it was particularly late at night and a good number of them had to have been sleeping.

jake threw the door open with a scowl, obviously irritated. “you are so fucking annoying,” he hissed, dragging you inside and shutting the door behind you. 

“ow!” you cried out, snatching your arm away. “stop that, i’m sore.”

jake shook his head, his discontent frown disappearing in favor of an entertained, idiotic smile. “sore, huh? from doing what?”

you rolled your eyes. “if it isn’t obvious, i’m a cheerleader,” you reminded, gesturing down to your uniform. “meaning, i cheer.”

ignoring your snarky attitude, jake glanced you up in down, taking in the sight of you in that tight, short cheer uniform that clung to you rather snugly. sweat still beaded at your damp legs and likely gathered between your breasts and down your back, as jake was imagining. “yeah, you cheer. you won’t let me forget,” he said, amused.

“well, i’m busy,” you said, crossing your arms.

busy, my fucking ass, jake thought to himself. “yeah, you won’t let me forget that, either. and yet, i saw you giggling with your friends at a party two weeks ago, looking completely fine. your poor, exhausted legs seemed to be working perfectly.”

“what, so i can’t have hobbies now?”

“sure, you can,” jake replied, shrugging his shoulders. “i just have to ask, do you ever do anything productive with your time?”

“of course, i do,” you hissed, before quickly deflecting, “but we both know that’s not why you made me come all the way over here. so, what do you want?”

“your attention,” jake said without missing a beat. his hands plopped against your bare shoulders and began wandering down your arms, rubbing them back and forth. “i’m in desperate need of a cheerleader’s sweet, precious attention.”

the disgruntled grimace on your face was the most effort you made to express your discomfort, not that he was looking there anyway. to him, at the moment, the sight of your body was much more appetizing. you watched with a repugnant burn simmering in your gaze as his eyes met your long, slender legs.

without warning, jake grabbed you by your waist and hoisted you into the air, making you cry out in surprise. arms dangling around his neck, you held on for dear life, not an inch of your body feeling safe in his arms. you had been hauled further away from the ground by your cheermates, but this was different; no one wanted to fail, meaning no one would drop you. you had no reason to assume that jake would handle you delicately.

but his burly arms, however, were not lost on you. though you hadn’t yet seen them in full power, your interactions mostly taking form of him forcing your back flush against the chiseled muscle of his chest as he kneaded yours, you could only imagine what the hands that groped you were capable of. 

in a matter of seconds, you landed on your back against his sheets, another shrill screech escaping your throat. “jake, what the hell?” you exclaimed. 

“i’m not getting on my knees for you,” jake said, the slyest of smiles tugging at his lips. “not unless it’s to fuck you. and you’re just too good to give it up, aren’t you?”

for him, definitely. and you would have said so, but your lips parted in a gasp, surprised and startled. something wet pushed along your sore legs, which were abruptly yanked to pillars far above your head so that they’d be more conveniently within reach of jake’s tongue as he licked long, hot lines at them.

your eyes were rooted on him, fixed in a shape unlike their natural narrowed, black blaze and it would instead be more apt likening them to the fear and fret of a deer in crossed paths. wide, waiting, almost innocent. too used to circumstance to understand its fabric and too unfamiliar to chance to understand its fate.

unsatisfied, jake bent your knee and pushed your leg further as he stood over the edge of his bed, and, in turn, over you, a grip on your ankles that you could feel in your bones. “jake, that hurts,” you whined. 

jake didn’t understand why you were bitching. “but you’re a cheerleader,” he echoed. “aren’t you flexible?”

you writhed uncomfortably as he continued shamelessly, tongue even daring to twist against the bone underneath the bend of your knee, a sensation that itched more than you expected. his lips sealed around your skin, sucking and nibbling.

needless to say, it was unlike anything you had experienced before. “stop, that’s weird!”

“stop complaining,” jake groaned, pushing your leg even harder. “it’s like all you ever do is complain about how hard your life is.”

your eyes stung now not only with loathing, but the threat of hot tears. it was stupid; it sounded dramatic, but you felt it was warranted when he was the one actively making your life harder. “you’re a fucking weirdo,” you snapped. 

jake heard it. the slight tremble in your voice despite the courage you’d been feigning. that was the sole reason he even bothered to look up at your face, the tears in them stealing his attention away in a heartbeat. he didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed, or maybe even both. “god, now you’re crying,” he pointed out. “i haven’t even done anything to you. do you need me to give you a reason to cry?”

you shook your head. all you needed was to go home and recharge. you were beginning to doubt whether or not he was worth the trouble he carried with him in exchange for a grade that would keep your parents off your back, especially if he was going to make pulling stunts like this a regular habit. 

the last thing you expected jake to do was tug the bottom of your top past the shadow of your breasts, slackening the taut grip on your ankles in favor of your wrists as if he knew you would dare resist him, and burying his face between your chest. you exhaled shakily, mortified by the hot, wet feel of his tongue licking a stripe between your breasts, gathering leftover sweat on its tip.

and you did thrash. but you were getting a taste of that power now; a power that wasn’t your own, a power that you couldn’t reap. a power that grabbed you with its calloused fist with a might so strong you couldn’t move. and it was for the first time that you felt utterly weak. there had to be a word for something as unfathomable as that, but it was so foreign to you that you couldn’t think of it.

to make matters worse, jake was taking his time, sucking bruises onto the skin of your chest in between his licking, as if he wanted to ensure there was no spot left untouched, no drop of sweat left behind. your face strained with discomfort, wanting more than anything to get away from him and this awful feeling rotting inside of your heart.

maybe your cries for mercy were heard, because no sooner had you hoped for an end than it came. “you can go now,” jake said, pulling away. he pulled your shirt back down and smoothed out any wrinkles, which was almost kind of him.

even though you were more than eager to be rid of him, you lay there, dumbfounded. it was one thing to be violated, and it was another to be dismissed, but to happen in rapid succession of each other quickly bred some ugly emotion that was only festering.

jake had expected you to scurry out of his bed, and out of his apartment, so the fact that you were still there bemused him. “what, do you want more?” he teased. 

you shook your head, sitting up a little too quickly. your head started to feel lightheaded. you barked, “that isn’t what i agreed to!”

jake had the audacity to laugh. like you had told a joke of some kind. “isn’t it? your clothes are still technically on. that was what you agreed to. remember?”

you dropped to your feet, pushing past him. “you’re disgusting,” was all you said, making a beeline for the door.

“takes two to tango, baby,” jake called after you, simpering.

you didn’t look back. you couldn’t. there was an unpleasant stir in your gut - not as easily distinguishable as the loathing - unlike anything you had ever felt and you desperately wanted it to go away, to rid of yourself of anything that even remotely resembled jake sim.

 ▸ chess, not checkers

deep, low grunts smacked against the walls and bounced back with almost the same amount of vigor of jake’s quick, unrelenting hips, the sound nearly as hard and heavy as he was. the only thing rivaling the tightness of the hole he was using was the wince of his closed eyes and the grip of his strong hands.

jake didn’t want to see. it would be too blatantly obvious that she wasn’t you, and that it wasn’t your blemished hips he was holding. though she sounded nothing like you. he knew that you would have been so much whinier, and despite finding them painfully obnoxious, he found himself longing to hear all your worthless, melodramatic complaints.

instead, he heard soft moans mingling with his own labored sounds as his hips moved with a mind of their own, imagining it was you underneath him where you truly belonged.

the image stained the back of his eyelids, burned behind them every time he closed his eyes; the shortness of your pleated skirt scrunched around your hips, weak legs on his broad shoulders with nicks and bruises scattered here and there, arms swinging aimlessly.

and if he got tired of hearing you, he could simply press his palm squarely against your mouth, muting the sound of your incessant fussing. if he really wanted to put you in your place, he could clasp his hands around your throat and clamp down onto your windpipe till all that escaped you was a pitiful, featherlight squeak.

jake could tell no one had ever properly put you in your place before, no one had ever stood up to you and reminded you of your level. you were in desperate need of a humbling and didn’t even know it yourself. no one better than jake for the role, he figured. a little cheerleader parading around in a uniform to feel different from everybody else she met didn’t scare him whatsoever.

the only thing saving you was essentially the fact that you were undeniably pretty and not necessarily to blame for the school’s superficial culture, which elevated girls like you in terms of status despite it having no real meaning or manifestations outside of campus, and put you on top when you were within the bubble.

but outside the bubble, away from the boys who thought of you as this beautiful, unattainable poison and the girls who enabled you with a faux sense of togetherness, you had no real identity, no real power, and no real worth.

and yet, maybe jake was contributing to the problem. maybe he had inadvertently become one of the people elevating you. because choking in the heat of the moment, he uttered your name, forgetting who he was with and where he was.

hands shoved at him, hard. at least, hard enough for him to be jolted out of his reverie, finally gazing into the eyes that seethed because of him. “did you just call me that evil witch’s name?” seoa barked.

jake winced. that was a fair reaction, all things considered. he wouldn’t have wanted to have been called your name out of everyone’s, either. he rubbed his nape. “well…”

“unbelievable,” seoa replied, scoffing. she got out of the bed and hurriedly began picking her clothes up from the floor, redressing herself.

jake exhaled a breath, mostly annoyed that his orgasm had been ruined, but still feeling a hint of sympathy. “seoa, wait,” he said, touching her shoulder.

seoa recoiled, pulling away. jake had never seen anyone be so ready to put on their pants after being with him, not even with a hell of a schedule after. “never touch me again,” she spat, walking out with her shoes in tow. “fuck you.”

jake ran a hand through his hair, watching her leave, and murmured under his breath, “god dammit.”

a few days later, while they were attending a festival, jay marched over to jake, draping an arm over his shoulder, and asked, “wanna tell me why seoa blocked all of us and she’s been glaring at me and mark since she got here?”

jake snickered, shaking his head in slight disbelief. he was over it by now, he figured she would be too. “i let a certain cheerleader’s name slip while i was balls deep inside her,” he confessed. which he wasn’t necessarily proud of, considering the only reason he even knew your name was because you’d saved your own contact on his phone.

jay’s brows furrowed, glancing around as if he was trying to spot you in the crowd like a heat-seeking missle. “who?”

rolling his eyes, jake grabbed the back of jay’s head with one hand and turned it in your general direction, hoping it would help. and jake knew it had when jay’s confusion melted into disgust. 

“oh, that bitch?” he asked, nose wrinkled.

jake chuckled, releasing his friend’s head. “she’s a bitch, but she’s pretty.”

jay couldn’t argue with that fact even if he’d wanted to. “yeah, i’ll give her that. cute in the face. she’s fake as hell, though. played jungwon like a fiddle. he did six months worth of her homework because she promised they’d get together.”

that was news to jake. he knew you were cruel, having had stories from sunoo and the like, but he never knew of your history with jungwon. if it could be called that. “did they fuck?” he couldn’t help but ask.

jay shook his head, taking a sip from the bottle in his hand before he answered, “he said she always turned him down. told him she was waiting for ‘the perfect moment.’”

now that was funny as hell. jake had only known you for a few weeks and yet even he quickly pieced together that you weren’t the romantic type. “well, that’s fucked up,” he said, happily accepting yet another reason to dislike you. “but he’s dumb as fuck if he did her homework for six months without getting a crumb of pussy in return.”

jay made a face, nodding. “yeah,” he exhaled, giving the impression that he’d wanted to defend jungwon. “but man, what possessed you to say her name while fucking the seoa? i need a good excuse. you just blew my shot with her.”

jake shrugged. “don’t have one. she approached me maybe three weeks ago asking me to do her homework, and i agreed.”

jay gawked. that didn’t sound like jake. like at all. “man, what? is she paying you?”

“oh, dividends,” jake quipped.

“oh, and in what? pussy?”

“nope.”

jay looked horrified. he was so damn dramatic. “then, why the hell are you doing her bidding? that doesn’t sound like you.”

it didn’t, not immediately, but jake had his reasons. “entertainment purposes,” he replied curtly.

jay shook his head, taking another swig of his drink. certainly, he was drinking, not smoking. “you’re becoming her pawn for entertainment purposes? unbelievable, bro.”

“chess, not checkers, jay.” jake smirked, putting a hand on jay’s shoulder. “you’ll see.”

▸ things good guys do 

“you’re lucky i was already out,” jake told you when you let him into your apartment. “it’s the middle of the night for fuck’s sake. what do you want?”

“oh, please,” you spat, damn near rolling your eyes. your arms were folded. “you get to call me over at the ungodly hour, but when i do it, it’s a problem?”

jake exhaled through his nose and ran a hand through his hair, wondering why he bothered to come here when he had no obligation to do your bidding, as jay had put it. but something told him that he wouldn’t have any regrets. “yeah, it is. now, what do you want?”

you were silent for a few moments, somewhat ashamed of the request you would ultimately make. you sighed, surrendering. “i need help with calculus,” you finally said.

jake’s shoulders drooped, eyes shrinking in a contemptuous disbelief. “seriously?”

“seriously,” you repeated, sitting down on your couch as your laptop screen glared back at you from the coffee table.

jake groaned, “i seriously don’t know how you even got into this school. can’t you do anything by yourself?”

you gawked, affronted. he made you sound like some incompetent, immature dickhead. “contrary to a weirdly popular belief, i’m actually really smart,” you insisted, having the transcripts to prove it. “but my professor sucks and i need an eighty-nine on my final to keep my A. and it’s not like you can walk in and take it for me because it’s proctored.”

jake shook his head and reminded, “you know this little agreement we have doesn’t include me tutoring you, right?”

“it didn’t include you assaulting me, either,” you retorted.

“you think that was assault?” jake asked, scoffing. he dropped beside you on your couch, the proximity instinctively making you suck in a breath. “if i wasn’t a good guy, i’d show you assault.”

scooting over to ensure maximum distance between your bodies, you argued, “good guys don’t call themselves good guys.”

“good guys have self-control,” jake replied matter-of-factly, resisting a chuckle. he didn’t make a move to touch you, but he noticed how tense you looked now that he was sitting beside you. “i’ll tutor you, but we’ll have to up the terms of our agreement.”

you swallowed sharply, throat bobbing. you had a feeling you weren’t going to enjoy these new terms. “what do you want?”

“a blowjob.”

“that’s disgusting,” you spat without a second thought, features contorting with repugnance.

jake quipped, “and so is your inability to do your school work without using and depending on every intelligent boy you meet, but hey, i’m sure you can’t help that.”

you sighed, exasperated, and cradled your face in your hands. was this seriously what your life had come to? giving a boy a blowjob in exchange for a pretty transcript?

jake grinned, appreciating the sight of you in distress. it was a sign, a good sign, and he intended to bring it out of you more and more, bleeding you absolutely dry. lowering a hand onto your thigh, he urged, “come on, bruise those little knees for me. don’t you bruise ‘em for cheer?”

“that’s not the same!” you whined. 

“of course, it’s not,” jake said, squeezing your thigh as his shoulders trembled with laughter. “cheer isn’t helping you graduate with flying colors.”

you desperately wanted him to be wrong, you were begging for him to be wrong, but you both knew that if he was, he wouldn’t have been here with you at the moment. not now, not three weeks ago, not ever. so you sucked it up, slamming down your laptop lid, and grumbled, “fine.”

maybe he didn’t come here for nothing, after all. grateful he’d trusted his gut, jake stood up and clutched your arm to pull you along with him. “come on, let’s go to your room. i like my blowjobs a little messy and i’m sure you don’t want to mess up your nice carpet.”

you snatched your arm away from him, hating his insistence on touching you for every little reason whenever he possibly could, even if it was insignificant. your mouth was taut as you begrudgingly headed for your bedroom.

it was obvious that you were sour. walking behind you, jake couldn’t help but chime, “glad to see that you can at least walk by yourself!”

you bristled in annoyance, wishing you could just get rid of him, but you knew it wouldn’t be wise to discard him so quickly. at least for now, he still held some kind of value.

jake walked in behind you, looking particularly radiant, and you hated that you knew why. hell, you hated the reason itself. “get on your knees,” he commanded.

normally, you would complain about him giving you orders as if you were his lap dog or something, but you just wanted to get this over with. you were already so over this entire week. you slowly dropped to your knees, trying to ignore how demeaning it felt. 

“good girl,” jake praised at your compliance. “now, look up at me with those pretty eyes and ask me to help you with calc. ask me nicely.”

you met his eyes, noticing the expectant glimmer in his gaze that you so badly wanted to knock off. but you weren’t dumb enough to incite violence against a grown man that walked around with his bulging muscles on display for all the world to see, and you didn’t doubt that he would hit you back. “jake, please help me with calculus,” you pleaded, choosing your battles.

jake hummed, satisfied. “you sound so pretty and sweet when you ask nicely, instead of demanding things. didn’t know you were capable of that,” he told you, running his fingers through your hair. “take it out. get me hard.”

your hands moved to his sweatpants, tugging at them enough to bring them down just shy of his knees, and doing the same with his underwear. he wasn’t hard yet, but that would be an easy fix; witnessing your state of pure anguish, watching you speak and move as if you were totally dejected, always excited him.

not to mention that the sight of you on your knees for him, the more he took it in, was arousing him even more than he thought it would. he had pictured it in his mind before, you serving him, pleasuring him, existing solely for him, but nothing could compare to the sight he beheld now.

at least, nothing other than you actually doing something rather than sitting there like an idiot. he liked taking control, but he figured you would take matters into your own hands, literally, when he gave the order. “do you need me to tell you what to do or something?” he asked, huffing irritably. “put your tongue on it. tease the head.”

your face and ears burned in ways they rarely did, but you nodded wordlessly and did as told, bracing your hands on his thighs and reluctantly pressing your tongue onto his tip, looking anywhere but his eyes as the muscle swirled around.

that amused jake to no end. at least for now, he would let it slide, not feeling the need to maintain eye contact with you at the moment. if he needed to, he would simply just grab a nice, thick fistful of your hair and yank it back to jolt your head up at him. he could still see your pretty, bare face, hair arranged messily at the top of your head with a few needless strands jutting out here and there.

he liked that. of course, he would have been more than enthusiastic to have you suck him off if you’d been all dolled up, making you ruin your makeup and undo at least an hour of careful, clean work, but he also just took pleasure in seeing this natural, undone part of you. he wanted to see you for what you really were.

it didn’t take long for him to get hard. with all his thoughts revolving around you and the feel of your tongue on the head of his dick, that was a no-brainer. “good, now put it in your mouth. take as much as you can and not an inch less,” jake instructed.

widening your mouth, you accepted his stout, heavy cock into your mouth, lips forming a tight suction around the head and steadily advancing down his shaft. bit by bit, inch by nightmarishly thick inch. you had made it maybe halfway down his shaft when you quickly discovered your limit.

jake was surprisingly content, despite the fact that you definitely still had a few more inches to go. “there you go,” he said, giving your head a soft pat of approval. “suck. go slow. and don’t you dare let me feel any teeth.” 

your heart was thumping out of something you could only understand as fear, even though jake hadn’t done anything to warrant it yet. inhaling through your nose, you tried to level your breathing, taking your time to draw in his cock lest you made a mistake. the hint of warning in jake’s voice, in spite of the calmness, was clear.

jake, on the other hand, was reaching elysian heights. faint grunts of, “fuck,” escaped his pink lips, large hands at his sides reflexively tensing into tightly clenched fists in need of something to grab, hips just barely stuttering. your mouth was hot and wet, with the added benefit of your torturous tongue pressed against his size.

there was a pinch of desperacy in your actions that overcame the resistance; a desperacy not necessarily to please him, but to appease him. accidents were the last thing you could afford and eliciting his frustration was the last thing you wanted.

“lick,” jake said, chest undulating. “up and down.”

with a hum, you started drawing long, wet lines back and forth on his veiny shaft, almost as if you were tracing the bold veins with your tongue. jake’s reaction was instantaneous, deep groans the only thing you could hear other than the wet sound of your mouth on his cock, sucking and licking. 

jake’s eyes fluttered closed. “fuck. yeah, like that.”

you pressed your tongue against the underside of his dick, lingering in each spot for a moment before you continued, mostly because he seemed to like it when you did. which was your north star in an empty, dead night, because you had not a clue what the hell you were doing and you were afraid of making it obvious somehow.

if jake could tell, he didn’t make it known. he was in a world of his own, all too happily reaping the pleasure from your mouth as if it was a dream come true for him. “kiss my balls. lick it.”

you stifled the sigh you were half tempted to let loose, pulling off his cock with a wet sound and a string of saliva connecting from the sticky tip to your glossy lips. moving your head, you took a moment to steel yourself before peppering tiny, soft kisses along his balls, down to his scrotum.

it wasn’t the most dignifying thing you had ever done, it may have even been the least, but your aching, sore jaw appreciated the break from sucking. you dragged your tongue over his testicles, tasting nothing but rubbery flesh. you were too busy avoiding his eyes to notice, but his face was tensing with pleasure, lips parting in low murmurs.

compared to when you first started, jake was drastically harder now, massive, monstrous cock nearly bursting at the veins with precum leaking out from the thick tip. had your goal been to take all of him entirely, the sheer size of him would have immediately overwhelmed you.

“switch to your hand and go back to sucking me off,” jake said, firm yet quiet. it sounded like he was trying to restrain himself, barely holding it together.

at least you were a fast learner. teasing the head of his cock, you gave it a few slow, tentative licks before you began to take him into your mouth again, all the while gently fondling his balls with your fingers. jake groaned, arching into your touch. he couldn’t help himself.

you could taste the vicious amount of precum staining your tongue and you didn’t know how to describe it, other than slightly tart. the flavor blended with that of your own saliva, lingering on the roof of your mouth and the warm flesh underneath the flap of your tongue, mild as could be.

at least it wasn’t downright awful. you had heard stories before, not that you’d ever known what to make of them, or even pictured yourself being inside of them. if a month ago, someone had told you that you’d be on your knees for a man - for anyone - you would have said they were delusional.

jake’s patience had worn thin and when you least expected it, he hauled you into the air, making you cry out in surprise just as you had the first time he’d lifted you into his buff, meaty arms. he tossed you onto the bed, just shy of the headboard, and suddenly straddled your chest. you gasped out a breath.

“open up,” jake said, cock positioned right in front of your mouth.

not that he gave you the time to obey him, because he pressed himself against your slightly parted lips and forced them wider, entering your mouth on his own. your face strained, perfectly threaded brows tugging down into a discontented arch.

when you tried to pull away, jake grabbed the sides of your face and pushed you onto his shaft with trembling hands, making you take him and leaving no room for escape, not until he decided he was done with you. there was only one concern present in his mind and that was getting himself off.

tears stung your eyes, that same implacable feeling you had when he’d dragged his tongue over the expanse of your soft, shaved legs and bare, sweaty chest finding you again in the most of unwanted company. jake scoffed, spitefully tugging at your hair. “you know what’s funny? you’re such a fucking crybaby. you can’t take even half of what you give to others.”

chin flush against his scrotum and your nose not even an inch away from his bush, you almost gagged. the slurping sounds were humiliating, loud, wet squelching with every other big gulp making you want to shrink. however, jake loved it, obsessing over the idea of making a mess out of you. the sound went straight to his dick.

jake held your face in that low position, deeper than you’d ever taken him so far. “i’m really not that bad of a guy, you know,” jake said, sounding like he truly believed it. you could have scoffed, if not for obvious reasons. “you just bring it out of me. i’m really just treating you like how you treat everybody else.”

he made you sound like something straight out of hell and you couldn’t help but think it was an unfair justification for something that felt too close to punishment. he obviously thought he knew you better than he did and it made you aggravated. that, or he somehow thought he was better than you.

there was a fleeting second of relief when jake unmounted your chest and let you breathe, only to be crushed again when he dragged you by your wrists to the edge of your mattress, leaving you in the deep end. your eyes struggled to grasp with the flipped image of him nearing you, cock back down your throat before you could even blink.

though his hips thankfully had been moving at a calmer, steady pace before, despite forcing himself deeper than you could handle, he began to thrust more urgently into your mouth with the new change, embedding himself even further into your throat than you knew was possible. 

you cried harder, hating every second of it. the salty, bitter tang of your tears mingled with the tainted taste of spit and sharp bite of precum that had come to stain your chin and cupid’s bow. the vigor of his movements was overwhelming, overpowering.

“that’s it, cheerleader. cry harder,” jake taunted, tracing his thumb over your face to swipe at the trail of tears. all the while his hips were moving faster, harder.

it felt like such a mockery, him doing that. a feigned act of sympathy while perpetuating the torment that was reducing you to tears as a selfish means of achieving pleasure of his own. 

then, his hands wandered down to your breasts, slipping inside your night shirt and mauling your chest. running his hands in a circle, his thumb brushed the erect, colored nipples and he clasped his hands around your chest, squeezing your breasts. “fuck, i’m close,” he grunted, grip tightening, pace hastening, force increasing. 

with how close he was, your nose was squarely against his the flesh of his balls, effectively cutting off your exhale. your heart thudded, racing and pounding. tensing with panic, your hands frantically moved, striking at his navel and thighs. even your legs were in alarm, unstill towards the other end of the bed. 

jake groaned, smacking your cheek. another slap followed the sizzle, straight against your chest. “calm the fuck down,” he hissed, raising his arm in preparation to hit you again. “i’ll let you breathe as soon as i come, so you better not get in the way, if you know what’s good for you.”

even if you wanted to, you couldn’t stay calm. your body physically couldn’t handle it, responding the only way it knew how, trying to protect you. somebody had to. you closed your eyes, face warm with tears and panic, and you tried to brace your hands on the sheets, anything to comfort and stabilize yourself.

it got to a point where jake couldn’t hold back anymore and he climaxed with a prolonged, guttural groan, hips still brutally smacking into your mouth as he painted your tongue and the back of your throat with his cum. he went as far as to grab your head again, forcing himself onto you as deep as he could go, and demanding, “swallow it.”

like hell you would. you pushed him away, coughing and choking as soon as you did, drops of cum pooling from your mouth and some of it flying here and there in the midst of your coughing fit.

irritated, jake pressed his tongue against the roof his mouth. “you’re so fucking useless,” he groaned, grabbing his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants and quickly turning on the camera. “look at you. sitting here choking on my cum. you want it again, don’t you?”

you sat up, nearly tumbling over the edge of your bed from the intense convulsing, and turned to face the other way as you hunched over, tightly clasping your sheets. “fuck off, you got what you wanted!” you rasped.

jake laughed. you sounded so gravelly. “you’re right. i did,” he replied, putting back on his pants and pocketing his phone. “so, tutoring. i’ll see you tomorrow. nighty night, cheerleader.”

he gave you a pat on the head and turned, heading straight for the door.

▸ hard feelings

something about today was different than usual. 

when you woke up, you had felt a shift in the air, but you’d chalked it up to being nervous about the final you had in three hours.

but when you finally went to go take it, however, you quickly realized that the unsettling feeling you had was not simply pre-exam jitters. it was something much more sinister than that. with the status you held on campus, you were used to being watched and gawked at, but this was different.

it felt like everybody and their mother was looking at you.

you were confused. you had been the subject of this much attention before, but only once; it was a couple years back when someone had spread a dirty, foul rumor about you. there was a social media page for your school called top ten, mostly used to shame women for their sexual exploits, but some men made their way on it too. that was how you heard about sunghoon’s clap rumor.

long story short, a rumor about you had originated there and it had taken you weeks to clear your name. but by that time, there was already another slut of the week. you were lucky to have your situation not only be false and debunked, but word of mouth. only the most unlucky of people, like hyeri, got images or videos of themselves posted.

and you were a community favorite. you would understand if you were new, but you had built a reputation around here. why would anybody believe floating rumors about you now?

but the abundance of stares didn’t end there. even in the cafe, you had caught someone watching you a little too hard to be a casual leer of admiration. and you were determined to find out why.

fortunately, you were able to find jennie and roseanne walking and talking in the courtyard, and you called out their names to stop them.

jennie turned first, and you watched her smile drop in real time. she glanced around, frantic, as if she was worried about someone watching her too.

roseanne smiled thinly, halfheartedly lifting her hand to wave. “hey,” she greeted quietly, matching jennie’s nerves.

they knew something you didn’t and it was glaringly obvious. “what’s going on?” you asked. “everyone’s looking at me and i know i’m not going crazy yet.”

jennie and roseanne glanced between each other, as if they both had bad news but neither of them wanted to be the one to tell you. after a few seconds, jennie groaned and said, “you might want to check top ten.”

your brows furrowed. you, on top ten? again? god, people could be so infuriating. “ugh, what rumor did they spread about me this time?”

jennie winced, which only made you more anxious. “it’s not just a rumor,” she whispered. “…it’s a video.”

“video?” you echoed in disbelief. that didn’t make sense. you hadn’t been with anyone except… except jake. you tensed with anger.

roseanne opened her phone to show you the video that had been posted. it was an anonymous submission that claimed to be a recording of you. unfortunately, it was you, bits of your chest exposed from jake reaching into your shirt and drops of cum landing there as you fought for breath. your face wasn’t visible, but there were some other distinguishing signs, like your hair and skin and sheets.

your heart thudded and your shoulders went cold, but your eyes were scalding. you were well aware that jake didn’t like you, you didn’t exactly love him either, but you never thought he would stoop low enough to hurt you like this.

“i’m sorry,” roseanne apologized, dropping her phone in her purse when you were done. the video was only a few seconds long, but the damage was forever. “but don’t worry. it’s not like it’s top three worthy. everyone will move on next week.”

jennie nodded in agreement and briefly patted your back. “yeah. we’ll hang out again when this all blows over, i promise.”

then, they walked away. leaving you reeling with ache and betrayal. your friends didn’t want to be seen with you anymore. you were an embarrassment.

you swallowed the bitter feeling scorching up your throat and tapped your pockets for your phone, knowing there was one person you needed to see. 

you: you and i need to talk. right now.

jake: about what?

you: don’t play dumb, i know you sent that video in!

jake: maybe u should have swallowed

you: you know what, i don’t need you. i never have. and i don’t want your help anymore. just leave me alone

jake: [one attachment]

jake: you sure about that? because i’m sure there’s plenty of people that would love to see the version with your face in it

you gawked, hiding your phone screen against your chest while glancing around to make sure no one could see.

adjusting your brightness, you unlocked your phone again and texted him back hurriedly.

you: why are you doing this?! i’ve never done anything to you

jake: this is bigger than just you and me

jake: now if you don’t want everyone to see that pretty face, come put those lips around me again and we can work something out

and that was how it started. though you hadn’t had the upper hand in weeks, this was the moment you completely lost it. what was once an arrangement for him to help you in exchange for your attention became a hole of misery that you couldn’t dig yourself out of.

one blowjob became two, and two became three until you started to immediately recognize what it meant when you saw his name appear on your screen, knowing what it was before he even asked. not that he ever technically asked. it was always a command, a claim to your body wherever and whenever he wanted.

if you tried to be strong, if you tried to break free of him, he always threatened to make sure that recordings of you on your knees for him went up for all the world to see and no one would ever think of you the same way again. he was more than willing to taint the pretty, perfect image of yourself that you presented to the world.

you felt stuck, trapped. isolated with nowhere to go, no way out. you tried to conjure up a way to escape this situation, but you couldn’t think of anything feasible. if you wanted to protect what was left of your social life and dignity, if you wanted to go outside without being ashamed, your only option was to be compliant.

no matter how many late nights and sore throats you had to go through.

you were in the middle of dozing off, your head leaning off to the side, when the sound of your phone ringing suddenly jolted you awake. you were tempted to ignore it until you saw the contact and begrudgingly pressed the phone to your ear. “hello?” you grumbled.

“i’ve been texting you,” jake said, sounding miffed.

you sighed, glancing over at the clock on your nightstand. “it’s literally two in the morning,” you complained. “i just got home from cheer practice and i’m trying to study for my last final. i haven’t even showered yet.”

“aw, poor thing,” jake crooned, pretending to care. “come over.”

you heartless, selfish bastard, you snapped in your head. of course, you were in no place to say that out loud, so you settled for a calm, “okay,” and hung up.

stifling a yawn, you grabbed your keys and lazily stepped into a nearby pair of shoes, stretching your arms above your head before willing yourself to get up from your desk chair. then, you accidentally scraped your leg against the bottom drawer of your desk, which you’d accidentally left open. 

“ow!” you cried out, bending down a little. “god, why does this world hate me? what did i do wrong?”

it was a wonder you managed to make it to jake’s apartment without getting into a wreck, although at this point, you wouldn’t care if you had as long as it killed you. or put you into an indefinite coma.

on the other hand, jake seemed strangely enthusiastic to see you and looked full of life and energy. “there you are, cheerleader,” he said, pulling you in to hug you from behind. he led you over to his couch, much like he always did. 

you covered your mouth with your elbow as you yawned. “can we get this over with? i’m sleepy.”

jake chuckled. “i don’t want you to suck me off. not right now.”

your brows furrowed, wondering if you had heard him right. if not for that, then why were the hell were you here?

“i’m sad,” jake said, not even attempting to keep the smug smile off his face. “i need you to cheer me up.”

you blinked at him like he was stupid. “cheer… you up?”

jake nodded his head, glancing you over with a grin. you looked like hell. partly because you were so obviously exhausted, but he knew he’d been having an effect on you too. “yeah, cheer me up. you’re a cheerleader,” he reminded, sounding proud of himself. “i want you to do your routine for me.”

you gawked in disbelief and whined, “i’m not even in my uniform.”

“so?” jake asked. “those bones might be tired, but they still work. matter of fact, take everything off.”

you were quick to exclaim, “what the hell? jake, can i please just do it later? everything hurts.”

“take everything off,” jake repeated, his voice more stern this time. “and move your ass.”

defeated, you reluctantly began to peel off your clothes, ignoring the way jake shamelessly ogled you for the sake of your own comfort and tugging your shirt from above your head. you couldn’t even look at him as you abashedly stepped out of your shorts and panties.

what was even more mortifying was having to perform every stupid little routine for him with your entire body on display and your chest bouncing with every motion. putting on the sweet, forced smile and calling out the chants you’d memorized, all the while ignoring how your bones ached.

when you were done, he made you sit in his lap so he could touch you as he pleased, paying no mind to the way you squirmed uncomfortably.

you cried enough tears to occupy a sixth ocean the next day. you weren’t exactly sure why. you just remembered miraculously waking up in your bed, sitting up and staring into empty space, and the water crashing down after a few minutes. it took you even longer to notice you were sobbing.

after a couple of meaningless hours, you got the random urge to call your moan, yearning to hear her voice. “mommy?” you said when she picked up.

“she calls,” your mother chirped, pleasantly surprised. “hi, baby. i was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about little ole’ me. you know, you never come see me anymore.”

you forced yourself to laugh, trying to strip your voice of the agony so that she wouldn’t notice. “i know. i’m sorry,” you apologized quietly. “i’ll come see you soon.”

“you better,” your mother snapped playfully, no real malice in her voice. “now, what’d you call me for? and don’t say just to check up on me, because that’s a damn lie.”

“i miss you,” you confessed. 

“a lie don’t care who tell it.”

“ma,” you groaned, knowing she was just messing around. “i swear i do.”

“mm-hm,” your mother hummed. you could already picture her in your head, eyeing you with suspicion, arms folded over her chest. “let me guess why you really called. you’re having boy trouble.”

your eyes flickered in surprise. how did she know? you doubted it was exactly what she was thinking, but she was close enough. “yeah, something like that.”

there was no doubt that your mother sounded excited. you had always seem thoroughly uninterested in boys and dating, and while she was thankful when you were a teenager, it was a little worrying now. “it’s about time,” she said, clasping her hands together. “tell me all about it.”

you sighed, wondering how you could tell her about jake without making her fret. she had gotten all pumped, you didn’t want to tear her down and ruin everything. “well, there’s this guy i met almost two months ago. at first, i didn’t feel anything for him. he was just another boy, you know. someone i could keep around for a good time, not a long one.”

your mother hummed again. you could hear metal pans clacking against her counter and assumed she was cooking. she always did that. 

taking a deep breath, you continued, “but everything changed. he’s different from every other guy i’ve dealt with. he doesn’t just do what i say because i say so. and as the weeks passed, he’s started listening to me less and less than he already was.”

your mother chuckled. “and you didn’t like that, huh? got your mother’s stubborn heart and indomitable spirit.”

in truth, you didn’t think you had half of your mother’s strength, but you would never tell her that. as far as she knew, everything was going perfectly in the life you’d created here on campus. and it probably was the last time you’d spoken to her. “yeah,” you replied, wishing that were true. “i don’t like it. he makes me feel something i’ve never felt before.”

“he makes you feel powerless,” your mother told you. “he’s got you feeling weak because he’s the first man you’ve ever met willing to stand up to you. trust me, i was surprised the first time too. that’s how you got here.”

“ma,” you groaned with a wince.

she laughed. the sound made you happy, something you hadn’t been so certain you were capable of feeling anymore. “i’m just keeping it real.”

you thought about her words. she may have been way off in her perception of what this relationship between you and jake really was, but she wasn’t wrong about how he made you feel. weak, powerless. suddenly, this consuming feeling you’d been having for weeks finally had a name, and yet that made it even harder to come to terms with.

because you didn’t want to be powerless. you wanted to be in charge, in control. you hated when things didn’t go your way, and more importantly, you hated when there was nothing you could do about it. it was supposed to be you wielding power over people’s head, not being crushed beneath the weight of tyranny.

and it was then you fully realized the scope of your feelings; you absolutely hated jake sim.

  ▸ cheerleader? breed her! 

standing there in a skimpy dress, face done and your feet clamped in heels that made you four inches taller, you didn’t feel like yourself.

you thought that you would. in truth, you hadn’t feel like yourself in months. today marked a little over two months since you made the mistake of beginning that agreement with jake and you regretted it more than anything. he had completely ruined you, your life, and everything that made you feel whole.

there were pieces of yourself that you would never get back, thanks to him. it was true that everyone had forgotten about the ordeal regarding the recording of you, but not without cost. it was a price you were still paying everyday; even when you weren’t on your knees or otherwise commiting demeaning acts for the sake of jake’s entertainment, you were hurting and mourning yourself.

you were starting to wonder if it was worth it. obviously, you liked being respected amongst your fellow students, but you were no longer certain if their respect was worth the price of your sanity. it was hard for you to even have basic interactions without giving away how incredibly lonely and isolated you felt, how trapped and doomed you were. helpless and powerless.

jake came up behind you, startling you. he was like a wolf and you were a little lamb masquerading as a wolf. “there you are, baby,” he said, snaking his hands around your waist. he seemed to love doing that. “did you know our anniversary was a few days ago?”

you scoffed. the two-month anniversary of the worst decision of your life to date. there was nothing you would’ve give to undo it. doing your homework yourself would have spared you so much unnecessary pain. “stop doing that,” you whined, scanning the party. “someone will see.”

jake chuckled, clearly not giving a damn. “unlike someone, i don’t really care what people think about me.”

you wished you didn’t care. there would always be a part of you that cared, that was so afraid of what people could say about her that she would do anything to tailor her image perfectly. matter of fact, it was all you had cared about in high school, and every year after that was spent maintaining the brand.

jake’s hand went from your waist to your ass, making you tense in his grasp. “you know, i think i deserve some kind of compensation for putting up with you for two months.”

you deserved that too. freedom. being unshackled from his cruel, unrelenting orders was the one thing you wanted most and the one thing he refused to give you. “don’t you have your compensation almost every day?” you asked irritably.

“that’s not nearly enough,” jake insisted, squeezing your ass.

god, how greedy could someone be? it was like he wanted to bleed you dry until there was nothing left.

“you know what i want?” jake asked huskily, leaning into your ear. “i wanna fuck you.”

your eyes widened a little. you had hoped this day would never come, even though you weren’t oblivious to the fact that jake had steadily gotten bolder in his interactions with you, the things he made you do for his satisfaction becoming entirely more erotic. 

grabbing your arm, jake started to lead you away. “come on, let’s go.”

you rooted in place, nearly stumbling. you didn’t want to go anywhere with him, especially if it meant putting up with his insatiable urges. “jake, i don’t want to,” you said, trying to push at him.

jake scoffed, wondering when you would realize that he didn’t care what you wanted and you had no way of winning. “if you want to make a scene in front of all these lovely people, be my guest,” he hissed in your ear.

panicked, you glanced around the crowd in search of someone that could save you. it was like everybody was looking at you until you actually needed them to. 

then, you locked eyes with jungwon. matter of fact, it seemed like he’d been looking at you much before you’d even glanced in his general direction. he saw you, saw the way jake was holding you roughly, saw the obvious stiffness on your face, saw the pleading look in your eyes; but ultimately, jungwon saw the image of you letting him down after bleeding him dry for half a year, and he turned away.

your shoulders slumped in defeat.

jake started dragging you toward the stairs, pushing past a bunch of drunk people dancing on each other. your heart was thumping, and your whole body was rigid with nerves as you tried to think of a way out of this even though you knew there was no option without consequences.

just your luck, the bathroom jake hauled you too was empty. he pushed you in and locked the door, pressing you against the counter. you gasped and glanced at your reflection in the mirror, hardly recognizing yourself. “jake, please,” you whispered, trying to plead with him. “please, don’t do this.”

jake didn’t seem moved by your begging, but he did, however, appear amused. “why are you acting so sensitive about this after all we’ve done together? it’s like you’ve never gotten fucked or something.”

you swallowed, not saying a word. 

the silence was very loud, very telling. jake arched a brow, a realization dawning on him. “you really have never been fucked,” he said, surprised. “damn, i should have figured that out when you were acting like you never sucked dick before.”

your face flushed with heat. it wasn’t like you were necessarily embarrassed about it, not until now. you had always taken it as something to pride yourself on, being fuckable but untouchable. “you say that like it’s a bad thing,” you replied, glancing down at the sink to avoid eye contact.

jake chuckled. it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he had been convinced that you were completely pretending to be a goody two-shoes. to know there was at least one percent of you that was still pure amazed him. he lifted the skirt of your dress with his hand and brought it between your legs, asking, “what, you just never find anyone worthy enough for your perfect, sacred pussy?”

you gasped out when he touched you there. his fingers circled your clothed cunt, thumb digging into your inner thigh. feeling scandalized, you grumbled, “maybe i’m just not interested.”

jake shook his head, astonished by the amount of attitude you still had after all these months and determined to break it out of you. “and maybe i just don’t care if you’re interested or not.”

it went without saying that jake always made you feel like some kind of object, but this was next level. “this is dehumanizing!” you exclaimed. 

hearing you, of all people, talk about dehumanizing made for an interesting conversation. big, calloused hand pressing harder into you, he asked tauntingly, “doesn’t feel good, does it?”

your glossy, painted lips were parted, unable to breathe through your nose. your eyes burned with the threat of tears and it was becoming second nature for them to shed whenever jake was nearby. “i don’t understand,” you whimpered, trying to free yourself, but to no avail. “why are you doing this to me? what have i ever done to deserve this?”

jake could feel you struggling, trying to push him off you, but all it did was move your hips against his rapidly hardening cock. he groaned, grabbing hold of your ass and pushing you further back against him. “fuck, just like that,” he growled. “haven’t i told you this already? this is bigger than you and me.”

it wasn’t lost on you that jake obviously had heard stories about you from other people, stories of happenings you probably couldn’t deny, but it had nothing to do with him. “look, if you’re doing all this to get back at me because i hurt one of your friends or something, i’m sorry, i really am. but i can’t do this anymore, jake. i want to stop, please. please let me go on with my life.”

“what a privileged response,” jake hissed without concealing his vitriol. at the same time, he kept palming you over your panties, noticing them beginning to cling to your cunt, and tore your underwear to the side to insert a pair of fingers inside. “what about all those girls whose lives you ruined? i’m sure they wanted you to stop. and you didn’t until they were too humiliated to show their faces around here again and you had no choice.”

you swallowed the lump in your throat. he knew about the girls? “jake, i haven’t done that since freshman year,” you told him, desperately trying to reason with him.

two loud, harsh smacks echoed in the tiny, crowded space of the bathroom, followed by a gasp consequently. your pussy stung, your head jerking around to look at jake. “do you really think that matters?” he asked, grabbing your hair to turn you back around just as quickly, as if you didn’t deserve to look at him. “you think that matters when the pain you’ve done to them is permanent? they don’t forget. and they damn sure don’t forgive you.”

you tensed, hating the way your walls were gripping and gushing around his fingers. “so what? you think you’re god or something? is this you punishing me for my sins? you’re not exactly what i would call a saint, either.”

“me and you, we’re not the same,” jake remarked, a nip to his tone as if you needed the reminder of how much he disliked you. “you only pick on people that you think are below you somehow. people you think won’t fight back.”

“i know i’m not a good person,” you admitted in between gasps, thighs straining as his fingers pumped into your pussy harder, faster, reaching places you’d never touched on your own. “ i know i don’t deserve to be happy. maybe i don’t even deserve to be treated with respect, but please leave me this one thing. spare me just this once.”

jake laughed cruelly, pulling his fingers out of your drenched hole and smearing your juices all over your folds and thighs. his finger unintentionally swiped over your sensitive clit, making your legs quiver and your stomach tighten, sucking in itself.

“damn, baby. you really know how to hurt my feelings,” jake said, voice dripping with sarcasm. he withdrew his fingers, bringing them into his mouth for a taste. “you don’t want me to fuck you that bad?”

your heart was spiking with dread, thumping belligerently in your chest, your ears, and between your legs. no one had ever made you feel so vanquished.

“take my dick out,” jake said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “hurry up.”

you sighed anguishedly, turning around to undo his pants and slip his aching dick out of its confinements. for months, jake had been suppressing the urge to fuck you, wanting to wait for the moment where it would be most pivotal.

getting a hold of your throat, jake roughly yanked you flush against him the second you whirled back around to face the tiny bathroom counter, making you stand tall against his chest. his voice was almost as rough as the hands that held you. “put it in.”

you gawked, shaking your head.

his fingers tightened dangerously around your windpipe, making your damp eyes widen and your jaw slack against his whitening knuckles, maybe half a wheeze making its way out your throat before he warned, “if i have to fucking tell you again, i’m gonna crush every bone in your goddamn neck.”

with no other option, you meekly reached behind you to grasp him in your quivering hand, aimlessly steering him to your hole and sinking your teeth into your bottom lip as the tip brushed past your dripping folds. jake released a shaky breath, slapping your hand away and rutting his hips into you from behind, sheathing himself inside in one go.

he slackened his unforgiving grip on your throat, shoving you back against the counter none too gently, but you still felt like you couldn’t breathe when he entered you, a mangled whimper echoing out. your fingers desperately braced the edges of the counter for purchase as you tried to will yourself to inhale, but it was like you were choking.

jake had a death grip on your thighs, forcibly pushing them apart a little more as he coated himself with the creamy, hot wetness of your unwanted arousal. “mm, hard to believe you don’t secretly want me when you’re sucking me in like this, baby,” he said, proud.

you shook your head in denial, face flushing with a heat that spread to your ears and neck. it didn’t help that there were beads of salty, hot tears pouring down your face and reducing your vision to one big, hazy blur. you didn’t want him, not even a little bit. but you couldn’t control the way your body was responding.

the lewd, wet smack of his cock thrusting deeply into your tight cunt rang out so loudly that you wanted nothing more than to hide into oblivion and never be seen again, mortified. it made things seem so much different than they were. his long, thick cock was stretching you beyond the cusp your limits and making you gape.

“i’m so nice to you,” jake said, tipping his head back. you could see his chest rising and falling through his clothes, his body taut with pleasure and excitement. “i’ve been holding back for so long, trying not to fuck you. won’t keep me out this pussy now. i’m gonna fuck you till your legs give out. have you at practice limping.”

your knees, wobbly as they already were, began knocking into the cabinets at the bottom of the sink. you winced your eyes closed as your fingers curled around the edge of the counter roughly enough to change the color around your knuckles, hoping to think of something, anything, to take you out of the moment.

but it was too hard. you couldn’t ignore the throb of your gushing walls as they kneaded his cock, making him grunt in your ear as he leaned over your backside. you couldn’t ignore the faint sting of his nails stabbing your hips and his heavy palm slapping repeatedly against your ass. and you definitely couldn’t ignore the dirtiness staining you from head to toe.

sure, it felt good, his body rocking against yours steadily, but it didn’t feel right. many nights you had pictured what losing your virginity would be like, both the way that it was supposed to look and the way that you were more inclined to, but this was neither; it was heartless, it was punishing, and it was brutal.

jake grabbed you by your hair and forced you to look into the mirror, yanking your head up. “there it is,” he spat, words sounding painfully familiar. “there’s the real you.”

your hair was messy from him tugging it every which way, treating you like a doll to mishandle. your makeup was ruined from your sobbing, the path of your tears harsh against everything else. your eyes were red and your right lash looked like it was barely holding on, the effect of rubbing at your face.

jake watched you take in the destroyed sight of yourself, practically hearing the critical thoughts hopping in your mind. “this is what you really are. this is what you’re sucking my dick to keep hidden from the world. is it worth it, baby? or do you just like the way i taste on your tongue?”

no, it wasn’t worth it. you were beginning to understand that now. he was taking too much from you, too much of your peace and too much of your sanity. maybe it would be better to be judged and lonely but free than to be loved by people whose opinion of you could change on a dime anyway at the expense of your soul. 

your pride had been buried a long time ago, brutally murdered in her sleep. “jake, please stop. i’m uncomfortable,” you complained, tearing your eyes away from your reflection in shame.

jake smacked your ass again, making you cry out sharply. “you just love being the victim when it’s convenient for you, huh?”

“i’m sorry!” you whimpered. “i don’t know what you want me to do. what do you want? just tell me.”

jake snickered, running his hands over your hips and waist to knead the flesh. then, he brushed your hair out of your face, nibbling at the skin behind your ear before growling, “you know what i want, cheerleader? i want to assassinate all there is that you love about yourself and leave everything else untouched, so that you understand not why everybody hates you, but why nobody loves you.”

those words hit you straight in the gut. for the first time, you had no retort, no comeback. 

hips beginning to move faster, jake continued, “the boys don’t love you, they just want to fuck you. they would kill to be as deep inside you as i am. the girls sure as hell don’t love you. they either want to be you, or they resent you for beating their asses. and don’t get me started on those girls you call friends.”

“jake, stop,” you whispered, an agony vicious enough to rip through flesh tearing you straight in half. 

but jake didn’t listen. he wasn’t done, not until he made his point. “don’t think i didn’t notice how lonely you were for the whole week everybody was talking shit about you. they didn’t want to touch you with a six foot pole, did they? they don’t want to be seen with you unless it gives them a good rep.”

there was a pang in your chest. you didn’t want to admit it, but that cut deep. you had heard people say mean things about you before, it was to expected when you were an emblem of popularity on campus, but few things had reached you where it hurt.

jake stroked your messy cheek, almost with affection. “but it’s okay. because you want to know something, baby? it was hard for me to admit it to myself, but you truly fascinate me. i can’t get you out of my head sometimes. you piss me off every time without fail, but i keep coming back to you. i like you, baby. if no one else does. you grew on me.”

you weren’t sure if that was supposed to make you feel better, but it didn’t. if anything, you only felt more heartbroken and wounded not only by his words, but by your inability to counter them. it truly dawned on you, right then, just how alone you were.

jake threw his head back, grunting. his hips were moving with a mind of their own, eager to finish. “fuck, i’m gonna come.”

your eyes went wide in panic, remembering that he had gone in bareback. 

“jake, don’t…”

before you could even finish your statement, jake clamped a hand over your mouth, muffling your protests into his pale palm. “you know what guys at my school used to say about cheerleaders?” he asked, obviously not expecting a response. “‘see a cheerleader, breed a cheerleader.’ ‘cheerleader? breed her.’”

you thrashed, but it was pointless. those thick, burly biceps of jake’s were one of the first things you noticed about him and they weren’t just for display. he held you in place as he quickened his pace again, his thrusts unrelenting.

with a couple more quick yet shockingly rhythmic thrusts, jake emptied his load deep, deep inside you. he moaned, moving his hands from your mouth to your hips to keep himself steady as he reeled from the pleasure of a mind-numbing orgasm. “goddamn,” he cursed, panting for breath.

you stifled a small noise as you felt his warmth flooding into you, unsure how to feel at this point. 

to your surprise, jake started fucking you again, never once daring to pull out as if he was determined to fuck every drop of his sticky cum as deep inside you as it could reach. his stringy, thick load gathered on his dick and inside your pussy, leaking down your thighs as he kept going.

you gasped out, moans involuntarily leaving you as you were stuffed full of him over and over. you didn’t mean to, but it was impossible to control.

then, jake stuck a hand between your legs and rolled his thumb over your clit, which didn’t help. you cried out, tensing. “jake, stop! it’s sensitive.”

“that’s the point, dummy,” jake replied, stimulating your clit with his hand while simultaneously pumping himself into you from behind.

your core tightened, heat wafting over you as your chest heaved wildly. “what are you doing?” you stammered. 

jake smiled, watching in the mirror how your face tensed with a blend of confusion and ecstasy that you couldn’t rein. “you really think i’m an asshole, huh? i’m trying to make you come. relax and let me.”

you shook your head. you didn’t want to come, not for him, and most definitely not on his cock for him to feel every unintentional shudder of your pussy as it gushed and pulsed with hot, sweet release; that would be embarrassing.

that made jake chuckle. “no? you don’t wanna come for me, baby?” he asked, furrowing his brows playfully as he tilted your face back up to the mirror with a push of your jaw. “come on, let go. you keep saying i’m not a good guy, but you shoot me down when i try to be nice.”

you moaned again, against your own reason and better judgment. “please,” you rasped with half a breath.

“please, what?” jake asked, rubbing you with just a pinch more force. “do you even know?”

god, you hated him; you absolutely despised him. but damn, if it didn’t feel good to have someone touch you after you’d spent so long avoiding sex like it was something to be ashamed of.

and this? this was definitely something you were ashamed of.

and yet the most shameful moment, perhaps, was when you finally couldn’t resist the pleasure of his big, long fingers twirling around your sensitive nub and his brutal hips smacking into you with a vengeance, clamping around him as you orgasmed with a loud cry and the heat shot through every corner of your body.

“shit,” jake hissed, the feel of you finishing around him draining the cum from his balls for a second time.

your jaw slacked, overwhelmed by how you felt completely and utterly stuffed, ropes of his cum filling you to the hilt. jake thrusted into you a little more, sending a flare through your back and shoulders, until he stilled for good. you could hear him panting behind you.

after a moment or two, jake pulled out. hand between your thighs, he gathered some of his stringy release on his finger and brought it up to your lips. “open up. don’t make me say it again.”

you opened your mouth wide enough for him to insert two of his cum-coated fingers inside. then, you sucked at them and swallowed it down, knowing those would be the next words to leave his mouth. 

jake raised a brow, pleasantly surprised. he took his time to withdraw his fingers, enjoying the sensation of you licking them clean. “see, i knew you loved eating my cum.”

your face burned, but you didn’t have the energy to deny it. not after that. it felt like there was a gaping hole in your chest, a void that would never be filled. 

“you’re learning,” jake commented, humming in satisfaction. “good girl. you know, maybe one day we can get along. don’t you think?”

“yeah,” you murmured weakly. at this point, you would just go along with whatever he said. and maybe that was why he figured you could experience some peace together now.

keeping your dress bunched up, jake grabbed some tissues from his left and started to wipe at you. “let’s get you cleaned up before we leave, cheerleader. don’t want the entire student body to see you like this, right?”

you whipped your head around, eyes widening in surprise. leaving to go where? certainly you weren’t going home with him after tonight. 

“did you think i was kidding?” jake asked with a sly smile, slipping your panties backing in place and giving your shoulder a fleeting kiss. “i told you, i’m gonna fuck you till your legs give out.”

[cinnamorollcrybaby]

To love me better

Tags: Yakuza Lord!Sukuna x fem!Reader, american!Reader, forced/arranged marriage, dark romance trope, dead dove, age gap romance (reader is around 21-22, Sukuna is 37) heavy dacryphilia, finger sucking, use of “good girl”, use of pet names, Sukuna is his own warning.

Synopsis: Yakuza Lord!Sukuna owns all of entertainment district. You’re trying to work to put yourself through law school. He has a proposition for you, and you have one for him.

An: I fear that I was going to explode if I didn’t write this. I’ve been in a not good headspace. Blah blah blah school sucks blah blah work sucks blah everything sucks. I’m sorry if this sucks too. Edit - I forgot to mention that this will be a multi-part fic.

Part one. | Part two.

*art creds for sukuna image goes to @.maru6 here on tumblr

Nothing in this life comes for free.

Your father taught you from a very early age to never take handouts from anyone because they’ll always benefit the other person more. He was an immigrant to Japan, and he worked hard for every yen he made.

He instilled that same work ethic in you.

After being hurt on the job from working in a poor environment, your father became very ill. He couldn’t move around as much. Sitting up out of bed made him feel winded. He slowly withered away into a shell of the man who once raised you.

Your mom was long gone. She couldn’t help out, nor did she even want to.

All you were left with was a pile of debt and utter rage. Had your father not been taken advantage of by greedy corporate conglomerates, he would still be here today.

It inspired you to want to go to law school. Your dad should’ve received a hefty settlement check for what he endured from his workplace conditions. The money wouldn’t have solved everything, but it would’ve alleviated some of the stress your dad dealt with in his final days.

You’ll never forget how hoarse his voice sounded while he was on the phone with different agencies, trying to sue that place who forced him into an early grave.

You’ll never forgive them for stealing your dad away.

If you were more ambitious, you’d work to try to change the system entirely, but you knew that wasn’t your fight to face. You wanted to help the already disadvantaged families who were facing injustices beyond their control.

So, you started law school. You were smart enough for it. You had the heart. You just didn’t have a special last name to fund your college tuition. You were a first generation Japanese American in the family. While both your parents were born in America, you were born in Japan, but you were still an outsider.

You were never properly indoctrinated in the culture. Sure, you knew the basics. You knew proper etiquette and appropriate behaviors to live in Japan, but you didn’t understand the layers of how society operated. It was as if you were never assimilated into society as a Japanese citizen.

Your dad wasn’t born here, so he never could explain to you how your last name means everything in this town.

Despite it all, you’d become a lawyer even if you had to bury yourself into debt to do it. You’d work to put yourself through college. You’d do it and bear a smile on your face because you don’t take fucking handouts.

That lead you to becoming a bottle girl at one of the most exclusive clubs in the entertainment district: Malevolent Mass.

The manager said you had the right look, whatever that means. It didn’t matter. He hired you on the spot despite your lack of a substantial last name.

This would be fine. You’d work at night on the weekends and put yourself through school during the day, and you’d keep it a secret from your school, knowing you could lose your position in the prestigious school.

It was a perfect plan, right?

Yes, it was perfect.

Customers seemed to love your polite attitude and warm hospitality. You had quickly made a name for yourself in the few short nights you had worked there.

It was only your second weekend, and your section was full. It was almost comprised entirely of men and their gold digger wives, but you got use to the sexual comments and predatory smiles.

The environment was heavily secured. When you were hired, the managers made sure to show you where security was posted up at every dark corner. They also showed you where cameras were located and assured you that not anyone could just walk into Malevolent Mass.

However, you were well aware that the most dangerous people often worse suits and golden Rolex’s.

It was a busy Friday night. You had already shotgunned two 5 Hour Energy drinks, and you had been steadily sipping on a Monster throughout your shift. You had been in classes all day, and you were scheduled to work until close at 4am.

“Cherry, can we get another round of champagnes?” a sleazy voice pipes up, calling you by your codename. The club was so security driven that they gave all the bottle girls codenames to protect their identities.

“Yes sir,” you respond with an entirely fake bright smile. Your buzzed customers couldn’t tell the difference especially with the low lighting and bass boosted music.

As you walked over towards the bar, your eyes fall onto another table. A man was leaned back with his hands behind his head. He looked entirely relaxed as a girl was bent over your lap.

A crease formed between your eyebrows. They couldn’t be serious, right? Malevolent Mass had a whole downstairs portion dedicated to public sexual acts and other deviant kinks. Why the fuck were they doing that in the normal club area?

As you took a step further, ready to confront them, you realized that the girl was positioned oddly. She wasn’t angled towards his crotch, instead she was hovering over his thigh.

That’s when you noticed she had a rolled up 10,000 yen note, and she was snorting a white powdery substance off the man’s thigh.

Holy fuck, you were in over your head.

Stumbling back towards the bar, you felt your head start to spin a little. It was probably due to fact you’d only consumed energy drinks in the past 12 hours.

“Girl. You don’t look too good,” the bartender, Yorozu, said as she guided you to take a seat. “Are you okay?” she asked cautiously. Compared to the other bottle girls and dancers, Yorozu was the closest thing you had to a friend in this establishment.

“I’m fine,” you quietly replied, shaking your head. It was just drugs. You needed to take a chill pill. It’s not like people go to clubs like this just for some liquid courage.

Yorozu put a glass of water in front of you anyways, not quite believing your words. “Here. I promise you get used to it all,” she offered with a kind smile.

You gave her an appreciative smile as you took a sip of the water. Your hand was trembling, and you realized you had been sweating.

The water felt nice, and you inwardly warded off energy drinks for the rest of the night. It wasn’t worth feeling like a panicky mess.

“I need another bottle of Dom Prignon for booth 12,” you said as you looked back up towards Yorozu. She nodded and walked towards the back to retrieve the bottle of too expensive champagne.

While she was gone, you took a deep breath and looked around towards the security posts. It felt like a small safety blanket in a place like this. Finishing your glass of water, you felt infinitely better as she returned with the bottle.

“Here you are! Let me know if you need anything else, and seriously, don’t feel bad for reacting that way. It’s a bit of a culture shock for everyone during their first few nights,” she assured you as she handed you the bottle.

“Thanks, I appreciate you,” you replied with a genuine smile. Yorozu had a nice energy to her like you felt like you could get close to her one day. A girl friend would be nice to have in a place like this.

As you walked back over to your section, your lips curled into a frown as empty seats filled your eyes. Had they gotten tired of waiting and abandoned your section?

You felt disappointed as you looked around for your customers. They were nowhere to be found, but one silhouette remained in the very back corner.

“Did you bring that bottle for me? How sweet. Too bad I don’t drink,” a deep gravely voice spoke up with a hint of condescension and pure predatory prowess.

You hesitate as it feels like the air in the club shifts simply from this man’s presence alone.

“You don’t drink..?” your voice is uneasy. You feel off balance while interacting with the man tucked away in a dark corner.

“No,” the stranger replied, and he leaned forward a bit, propping his elbows on his knees as his eyes were staring straight at you. “Don’t be shy, girl. Come closer. I won’t bite…” the condescension in his voice tells you otherwise.

You swallow thickly before slowly taking a few steps closer. As you approached him, you were able to see him in all of his glory. The breath is completely sucked from your lungs as you’re able to finally get a good look at him.

He wore a white button-up top with black slacks that really didn’t leave much for the imagination. His sleeves weee rolled up to his elbows, showing off tattoos on his arms.

His face was hauntingly alluring. His tattoos also went up to his face. He had intricate lines under his cheeks that stretched down to his chin. His hair was a natural light rosy color that was pushed up from his forehead. It looked effortless and messy, unlike most business men who rely way too heavily on hair gel.

His eyes were a soft crimson color that looked like blood that had been spilled. A jarring scar slashed over his left eye, but it wasn’t ugly by any means. No, this man held a god-like status when it came to looks. However, his energy felt nothing short of daunting and corrupt.

“Who comes to a club to not drink?” you ask nervously, having to fill the eerie silence with something. It felt like you were suffocating in this man’s presence.

A rugged chuckle leaves his lips, and he tilts his head back slightly. It feels like his laugh sticks to you, making you relax and tense back up all at the same time. You can feel every yen he’s worth with each chuckle.

“If you must know, I come here for a… different sort of entertainment,” he says as his lips curled into a smirk. His eyes unabashedly roam your body — twice before he meets your gaze again.

“Oh, that’s downstairs,” you reply as you feel relieved. This man was just in the wrong section. Surely, you’d guide him to where he needed to go, and you’d be free from whatever kind of verbal hostage situation this was.

“I’m content with where I’m at,” he says with a sort of finality that leaves little room for argument. “Come closer, doll.”

His arm props up on the back of the curved booth, and his legs part into that sort of manspread position where he takes up a good portion of the booth with his massive size.

“I-“

The man pulls a clip of money from his suit, and he makes a show out of flipping through the money before he lays six 10,000 yen notes on the table.

What the hell.

“60,000 yen for you to shut up and come closer,” he says in a voice that lacks the faux kindness he was putting on earlier.

Every survival instinct in your body was telling you to run, but your brain was telling you that 60,000 yen was enough to cover your student housing and for a train pass for a month.

You slowly inch closer, your heels not even lifting from the ground.

The man gives you an amused look as he raises an eyebrow at you. “How much for you to sit on my lap?”

“I-I’m not a dancer..” you reply sheepishly, wondering if he thought you were one of the performers for the club.

“Good thing I’m not asking you to dance, doll. I’m asking you to sit in my lap,” His lips curl into a feline grin. He’s enjoying toying with you like this. “So, I’ll ask only one more time. How much?”

Your heart is pounding against the confines of your ribcage. It felt like you had a little angel on your shoulder telling you that selling this man your time will only further escalate, but the little devil on your other shoulder was telling you to milk him for whatever he was willing to give.

You stayed silent for a few minutes, calculating what a whole month’s expenses would cost you along with the 60,000 yen you already made.

“90,000 yen,” you sheepishly murmur, bracing yourself for him to yell at you for even suggesting such a high number.

There was a beat of silence before the sound of more money being unfolded was heard. He chuckled as he placed down nine more 10,000 yen notes.

“Look at you being all cute while asking for money from me,” he teased, resting his back against the back of the booth. His hand patted his thigh, signaling for you to take a seat.

“I’m not asking— You offered!” you protested, feeling a bit defensive that he would suggest that you just asked him for money.

“Don’t take such a whiny tone with me, doll. I’m only teasing you,” he says as he gestures to his lap yet again. “Sit.”

You bite your bottom lip as you look down towards his lap. You were really about to sit on this stranger’s lap for money… If your dad could see you now, he’d probably disown you.

Good thing he isn’t here.

You slowly walked over towards him, and you carefully take a seat on one of his thighs, planting your feet firmly on the ground so you’re slightly hovering. You need to be able to get away from him at a moment’s notice.

A strong hand slowly snaked up your back, towards your hair, and you tensed up quickly. The stranger wrapped his hand around the back of your neck.

“If I have to tell you again, I’m taking back my money. Sit,” he viciously growled in your ear.

You were already this far in. You should see this through. This club is safe. You were sure of it.

As you slowly allowed yourself to prop your full weight across his lap, your eyes scan around the club, looking at the security points. None of the men would even glance in your direction as if they were purposefully ignoring your section.

What did you just get yourself into?

“See? Was that so hard?” he taunted as his hand slowly dropped down to clasp around your hip. “Why is an angel like you in a club like this?”

Everything in you told you not to answer that question. As soon as he knew your weakness, he’d definitely use it to his advantage, but he probably already knew money was a good motivator for you.

“I didn’t know there was a no angel policy,” you say, trying to remain casual as you flash him a small smile.

A deep chuckle erupts from his chest. He appreciates you trying to use humor to deflect. Clever girl.

“I suppose you’re right,” he rolls his head to the side, cracking his neck from both sides. The sound of bones popping causes a shudder to go through your body. This man was good at giving a false sense of security. “But angels don’t last long in a place like this. It would be a pity to see you be ruined.”

His other hand firmly rested against your thigh, right above your knee. He gives your leg a light squeeze. “Tell me your name, doll.”

“Cherry,” You respond without missing a beat, giving your code name instead of your real name.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asks, allowing his fingertips to glide against the exposed skin of your thigh. Your breath picks up in speed, noticing he’s getting more bold with touching you.

“Am I suppose to?” you ask, genuinely curious if this man was some big shot that you were suppose to know.

You very rarely kept up with politics, only knowing major crime names from your law classes, and you definitely didn’t keep up with conglomerates. This man wouldn’t be the first millionaire to walk through the doors of Malevolent Mass, and he wouldn’t be the last.

Another deep raspy chuckle escapes him. “No, I actually find it quite cute you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

His hand slithered up your back once again, and this time he grabbed a fistful of your head, tugging your head back to look up at him. A gasp slips past your lips as your eyes meet his crimson ones.

“Tell me a secret, cherry,” he hisses your codename like it’s disgraceful on his tongue. “Do you belong here?”

You think to try to get up from his lap, but his other arm has worked to secure you to him tightly. The security men aren’t even glancing in your direction. No one would hear you over the music blasting if you tried to scream, and if this man was as important as his inflated ego suggested, no one would likely even help you.

You’ve done everything thus far to get out from underneath the rich man’s thumb, but it feels like every time you take one step forward, something pushed two steps back.

Do you belong anywhere? No where feels like home after your dad passed. Tears stung into your eyes. Why were you thinking of him at a time like this? He can’t save you now.

The man’s lips twitched into a smirk as he saw the tears building in your eyes. That alone was confirmation enough. You didn’t belong here at all.

His other hand reaches up to your face, and he gently strokes your cheek — a contrast to how tightly he was holding your hair. “Such a pretty crier,” he deep gravely voice coos to you.

You can’t even help it at this point. You try to blink the water away from your eyes, but the tears slip down your cheeks anyway. You just silently cursed yourself for ruining your own makeup.

“You’re a crybaby, aren’t you?” he asked as his fingers brush against your pouty lips, and he grabs your chin carefully. “Open.”

Accepting defeat, your lips part ever so slightly for him, and you can feel the way his heart races in his chest from the sight. He narrowly eyes you as two of his fingers slip past your lips.

You’re momentarily stunned from his thick fingers filling your mouth. You feel a thrum between your thighs, but you try to ignore it. Surely, your body was just betraying you, and his body was betraying him. You were able to feel every inch of his hard on through his slacks. The sight of your tears only served to spur him on further.

When you give his fingers a light suckle, he purrs a praise for you. Leisurely, he thrusts his digits in and out from your mouth. He admires the way you accept them in without a single complaint.

“Such a good girl for me. Try a little harder,” his voice darkly instructs you as he slides his fingers deeper past your tongue, hitting your inexperienced throat.

Your throat involuntarily constricts, causing you to gag and cry more. You hum around his fingers as you whimper. He merely laughs at your pitiful display.

“We’ll have to train your cute little throat to take more, won’t we?” he asked, making a dull ache settle in your lower stomach. You had never done anything like this, and the way he was treating all this so casually filled you with some sort of… excitement.

His words also struck you with fear as you realized this meant he was likely far from being done with his antics.

His fingers continue until you’ve coated them in a thin sheen of saliva. When he pulled from you, you were panting even though he hadn’t taken away your ability to breathe.

He smirked as he gazed at you as if he can tell that your cunt is clenching around nothing right now. It’s like he knows every perverse desire you’ve fantasized about in your alone time.

“You’re a vision, doll. I’m going to have so much fun breaking you,”

Before you could even think to inquire what he meant by that, an unfamiliar male voice spoke up to your side, causing you to flinch slightly. The other man was dressed in basic business attire, but he had a scrappier look to him.

“Sir?”

The stranger tensed, and you could practically see all the playful taunting energy in his face melt away. He stared daggers into the newcomer’s soul. “Speak.”

“Members of the Gojo clan were spotted near Dante’s 7th circle,”

“Dammit, what a pest,” the pink-haired male growled. He clearly didn’t fancy being interrupted.

You perked up a little from the mention of the infamous Gojo clan. You had heard plenty of whispers about the clan fluttering about on campus, and the clan had been brought up momentarily in your organized gangs class before the professor quickly shut down the conversation.

Yakuza clans were talked about in school, but the professors were very careful about what they chose to say, knowing that members were everywhere amongst them.

The stranger carefully moved you from his lap, and he stood up, gathering himself before turning to you. “You behave. I have to go tend to something, but I’ll be back for you,” he said as he reached into his coat, and he casually tossed a whole clip of yen onto the table.

Your eyes widened at the stack of money sitting on the table, and your heart began to race. It felt like the last two hours had been a complete blur, but now, you were face with a thick stack of money — probably enough to cover you for at least three months… and you weren’t even done with your shift yet.

Your excitement was quickly overshadowed by fear. He was coming back for you. How intertwined had you gotten yourself into this mess?

taglist: @theuniversesnepobaby

[brunchable]

𝗠𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗣𝗼𝗿𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿 [ 2 ]

Part One Pairings: PornStar!Bucky Barnes x f!Reader Themes: Sexual Innuendo/humour,Guy next door, situational comedy? Sexual Themes 18+ ONLY: fingering, cunnilingus, Bucky loves tiddies, dirty talk. Summary: Though you've become oddly close to SergeantBarnes, it's still difficult to act normal around him. A/N: I didn't think many would ask for a part two but here you go. divider by @cafekitsune

It was a peaceful evening in the apartment gym—or, at least, it was supposed to be. You had your plan: thirty minutes on the stair climber, some stretches, and you’d be out of there before any awkwardness could find you.

But then you heard it—the unmistakable sound of weights clanging, followed by a deep, low grunt that made your entire body freeze.

You glanced up, hoping against hope that it wasn’t who you thought it was. But, of course, there he was: Bucky, over at the hip thrust machine, setting up his weights directly in front of you. Perfect, you thought. Of all the machines in here, he has to pick the most… suggestive one.

Your eyes flicked back to the tiny screen on your machine. Stay focused, you told yourself. Don’t look. Just ignore him.

But the moment he started his set, you heard it—a low, powerful grunt that practically reverberated through the gym. You immediately bit down on your lip, forcing yourself to stare straight ahead, pretending you weren’t having flashbacks to his other kind of workouts.

Another deep grunt.

Your hands clenched the stair climber’s handles like a lifeline. Do NOT look, you told yourself, the mantra echoing in your mind. But your treacherous eyes slid sideways, just for a second, and you caught a glimpse of him, face focused, breaths heavy as he powered through each hip thrust. The guy was practically a one-man gym commercial.

You looked away, focusing on your steps—your very uneven, slightly panicked steps. It’s just a hip thrust, for crying out loud! Nothing unusual here, you told yourself, trying to stomp out the heat creeping up your cheeks. But every time he exhaled, your mind filled with images of… well, his other performances.

Then, in the middle of one of his reps, Bucky let out a particularly deep, guttural grunt that nearly threw you off balance. Your foot slipped, your rhythm stuttered, and in a moment of pure panic, you clutched the handles and stumbled forward, practically throwing yourself onto the machine.

“Shit!” you yelped, fumbling to regain your balance as your legs moved faster than your brain, desperately trying not to faceplant.

You heard Bucky chuckle, that low, infuriatingly amused laugh, and felt your cheeks practically ignite. You looked up, heart pounding, only to find him smirking in your direction, eyes dancing with mischief.

“Careful there, Y/N,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Stair climbers are brutal.”

“Oh, yeah, totally!” you squeaked, straightening up, trying to look like you meant to almost eat it. “Just… keeping things interesting. Got to keep the cardio exciting, you know?”

“Looks like it’s working,” he replied, wiping his forehead with a towel, his grin widening as he noticed your death grip on the machine. “You sure you’re good over there?”

“Oh, I’m… I’m great,” you lied, your face flaming as you tried to regain your composure. But he wasn’t done with you yet.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, voice way too smooth. He paused, then tilted his head, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Gotta admit, though… this machine setup does feel a bit familiar.”

Your brain nearly exploded. Did he just—? He couldn’t mean… But his eyes sparkled with that infuriating, knowing look, and you knew exactly what he was hinting at. Your face went beet red as your foot slipped again, but this time you managed to catch yourself, narrowly avoiding another disaster.

“Uh-huh,” you said, laughing nervously, desperately trying to hold it together. “Well, enjoy your… uh, workout!”

“Oh, I am,” he said, chuckling softly. “Especially with the view.” He winked, setting up for another set while you tried not to spontaneously combust.

With one final, mortified glance, you turned your attention back to the stair climber, mentally swearing you’d never step foot in this gym again after this.

Since you survived the stair climber ordeal without faceplanting (barely), you decided it was time to move on. Somewhere—anywhere—that didn’t involve Bucky’s hip thrusts or his incessant, maddening smirk.

You zeroed in on the bench press. Safe, you thought, relieved. Just a standard exercise. Nothing suggestive, no chance of stumbling, tripping, or looking like a klutz. You grabbed the bar, took a deep breath, and mentally prepped yourself. Easy-peasy.

And then—because the universe simply refused to give you a break—you heard that all-too-familiar voice right beside you.

“Need a spot?”

You looked up and almost swallowed your tongue. There was Bucky, looming over you with that same damn smirk, wiping his hands on a towel like he was gearing up for some personal training session from your worst/best nightmares.

“Oh, uh… I—” you stammered, already feeling the heat creep up your neck. You’ve got this, you told yourself. Just let him help you. No big deal. You’re a mature, fully-functioning adult.

“Yeah, sure!” you squeaked, trying to sound normal as he stepped closer, positioning himself behind the bench. You laid back, gripping the bar, and immediately realized what a horrible, terrible mistake this was. You were now lying flat on your back, Bucky leaning over you, his face far too close as he focused on making sure you could lift the weight.

“You ready?” he asked, his face all business, but his lips still had that mischievous curve.

“Ready,” you mumbled, eyes darting anywhere but up at him, trying to ignore how absolutely awkwardly intimate this felt. You started your set, breathing steadily as you lifted the bar, determined to act as if this were a completely normal workout.

But then, midway through the reps, he leaned down a little closer. “By the way, did you check out my new video?”

Your hands nearly slipped. You fumbled the bar, barely catching it as your brain short-circuited. 

“W-What?” you managed, voice strangled, heart racing.

“My new video,” he repeated, casually reaching out to help guide the bar back into place as you struggled not to lose it. “Thought you might’ve seen it by now.”

Your cheeks flamed, but you somehow managed to choke out, “N-No! I… I haven’t seen it!”

Bucky chuckled softly, raising an eyebrow as he straightened up, his voice taking on a teasing, almost disappointed tone. 

“Oh. That’s a shame,” he said, smirk lingering. “Didn’t have a costar this time—just me, actually. First time I’ve ever done that.”

Your mouth dropped open. Just him? Your brain skidded to a halt. Suddenly, you were far too interested in a video you’d just denied seeing. 

“Oh, um… interesting?” you squeaked, trying to keep your face neutral but definitely failing.

“Yeah,” he replied with a shrug, looking at you with twinkling eyes. “Guess you’ll have to let me know what you think… whenever you get around to it.”

“Actually, I… uh… I kind of stopped watching… since we, you know… know each other. Just… feels awkward.”

Bucky’s grin widened, his eyes lighting up with amusement. 

“Oh, so you’re telling me we’re too close for you to watch my work now?” He raised an eyebrow, looking mockingly offended. “I thought we were supporting local artists.”

Your cheeks practically combusted as he said it, and you fumbled with the bar, desperately trying to pretend you hadn’t heard him. Supporting local artists? Was he serious right now?

“Oh my god,” you mumbled, absolutely mortified. “This is not— You’re not— I mean…!”

But he just looked down at you, that smug grin firmly in place as he leaned in, clearly enjoying every second of your flustered state. 

“What?” he asked, feigning innocence. “Don’t you believe in supporting the arts?”

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish, words completely failing you. “This… this is not the same!” you finally blurted, clutching the bar like it was your only lifeline.

“Oh really?” he replied, chuckling. “Because it sounds like you’re saying we’re too close for me to keep doing what I do. You know, my passion.”

You practically choked, waving your hands around in frantic denial. “No! No! That’s not— I’m not stopping you! I’m just— I don’t know, maybe supporting from a… distant, supportive spiritual place?”

He laughed outright, shaking his head. “So, what—you’re like cheering me on… but from across the street?”

You nodded vigorously, still trying to save face. “Exactly! Just… supportive… but in a non-participatory kind of way.”

“Got it,” he said, smirking. “So, I’m officially your guilty pleasure now.”

You groaned, covering your face with your hands as he chuckled, clearly far too pleased with himself. 

Note to self: Avoid all future conversations with Bucky Barnes for the rest of eternity.

× × × × 

That evening, you were finally settled at your dining table, a bowl of pasta in front of you, determined to put the entire gym disaster behind you. You’d survived another encounter with Bucky—barely—and now all you wanted was some quiet, non-embarrassing time with carbs.

But as you twirled your fork in the noodles, your brain betrayed you, replaying his words from earlier.

“Did you check out my new video?”

You paused mid-bite, the fork hovering near your mouth as you stared blankly at the wall, feeling a strange mix of curiosity and dread bubbling up. What could he have meant by “just me”? You tried to shake it off, forcing another forkful of pasta into your mouth. Nope, not going there.

But the thought lingered, nudging you, until you found yourself setting down the fork, fingers hovering over your phone. Just one quick search, you reasoned, glancing around your empty apartment as if someone might catch you.

You typed in the familiar site, thumbs hesitating above the search bar, nearly typing “SergeantBarnes new video” before you snapped back to reality, dropping the phone like it burned.

“Oh, no,” you muttered to yourself, horrified at how close you’d come. “Absolutely not. What am I, insane?”

You shoved another forkful of pasta into your mouth, shaking your head furiously. “I am not doing this.”

But as you continued eating, your eyes kept darting back to the phone, the curiosity gnawing at you, leaving you torn between common sense and the very persuasive power of nosiness.

You took a deep breath, clenching your fists. “Get a grip, Y/N. You are absolutely not watching that video.”

...But maybe just a preview?

You groaned, stuffing your face with more pasta, determined to win this internal battle.

× × × ×

The next morning, just as you were heading out the door for work, you spotted something bright and obnoxiously neon-colored taped to the wall near the mailboxes. Curiosity got the better of you, and you stepped closer, squinting at the bold, glittery letters.

POOL PARTY THIS WEEKEND! it proclaimed. Food, drinks, music, fun! Don’t miss it!

You raised an eyebrow, debating if you’d actually brave a building-wide party when suddenly, the quiet hallway was shattered by a loud, unmistakably ecstatic moan. The kind that could only mean one thing.

From none other than Bucky’s apartment.

You froze, eyes widening in disbelief. Is that—? Is he—?

A second moan, even louder than the first, confirmed it. This wasn’t just any moan; this was the sound of someone—some woman—having the time of her life. At what had to be eight o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, seriously?!” you hissed under your breath, glancing down the hallway as if there might be witnesses to this auditory ambush. Just then, the woman’s voice hit a pitch so high it practically reverberated off the walls.

You winced, clutching your bag like it could somehow shield you from this. Who even has that much energy in the morning? You took a step back, hoping to escape the sonic nightmare, but the moans only got louder, each sound more animated than the last.

You threw your hands over your ears, eyes squeezed shut as you muttered furiously to yourself. 

“Nope, nope, absolutely not. Not today, not right now.” You spun on your heel, practically power-walking down the hall, doing your best to drown out the soundtrack blaring from his apartment.

“YES, SERGEANT! OH MY GOD!”

You practically stumbled, muttering an alarmed, “Oh my god, stop!” as you picked up the pace, pressing your hands even harder against your ears. It was like some kind of cruel game—the closer you got to the elevator, the louder it seemed to get, echoing in your ears like a siren you couldn’t escape.

You winced, feeling your face burn as you all but sprinted down the hall, chanting, “Nope, nope, NOPE!” under your breath like a mantra. It was as if your feet couldn’t carry you fast enough, each step a desperate attempt to put some distance between you and… whatever was happening in that apartment.

Finally, you made it to the elevator, slamming your finger against the button with more force than necessary, glancing nervously over your shoulder as if the sounds might follow you. The doors mercifully slid open, and you dove inside, leaning back against the wall and pressing your hands over your ears one last time, breathing a sigh of relief.

But just as the doors began to close, one last triumphant shout echoed down the hallway, loud and clear, like the universe had decided you hadn’t suffered enough.

You groaned, staring up at the ceiling as the doors shut, wondering if this building had any quiet hours, or if you were doomed to start every morning with a full-blown soundscape of… Bucky’s extracurricular activities.

Note to self: Invest in earplugs. Maybe some noise-canceling headphones. Or a new apartment altogether.

× × × ×

You arrived at work looking like you’d barely survived a natural disaster. Traumatized, sleep-deprived, and still hearing the morning’s very loud soundtrack echoing in your mind, you slumped into your chair, hoping to quietly blend into the office scenery and get through the day in peace.

Naturally, that was too much to ask.

“Whoa,” Trish said, swiveling in her chair to eye you like you were a science experiment gone wrong. “You look like you just spent a night in a haunted house.”

“Or… like you had a wild morning,” Amy added, raising her eyebrows. “You okay there, Y/N?”

“Fine,” you muttered, barely making eye contact as you set your bag down, trying to erase the vivid flashbacks of Bucky’s… extremely enthusiastic co-worker.

Before you could even recover, Trish leaned in, her grin spreading like wildfire. “Sooo… did you finally get around to watching Sergeant Barnes’ new video?”

Your head snapped up, heart stopping in your chest. “Wha—no! Why would I… I mean… I—”

“Oh, come on,” Amy said, nudging you like she’d just caught you in a guilty pleasure. “You don’t know what you’re missing. He’s alone in this one.” She leaned closer, adding in a stage whisper, “The man has talent.”

“Uh-huh,” Trish agreed, nodding like a sage. “No costars this time. Just him, going all in. It’s… impressive.”

You clutched the edge of your desk, mentally scrambling for any kind of response that would shut them down without revealing the secret you swore you’d take to the grave: that Sergeant Barnes was actually your neighbor.

You swallowed, managing to squeak out, “You know we’re in an office, right? As in, the place we do work?”

“Oh please, don’t act like you’re all professional now!” Trish smirked, crossing her arms as she gave you a knowing look. “You were all too eager to do some ‘research’ when we told you about him the first time.”

“Yeah!” Amy joined in, her grin absolutely diabolical. “You should be thanking us! The way you’re looking right now, I’d bet you already took a look this morning.”

You spluttered, mortified. “No! I mean, of course not! It’s just—this is… inappropriate.”

Amy snorted, clearly unconvinced. “Uh-huh, sure. And here I thought you had a little curiosity.”

You glared, fully prepared to tell them off, but Amy cut in first, smirking as she leaned over your desk. 

“C’mon, Y/N, it’s just us girls. Tell me you don’t have some curiosity about what the man can do when it’s just him and the camera.”

You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, struggling to keep your cool. “No, I’m not curious! Not at all. And maybe you two shouldn’t be either, because, oh, I don’t know… WE ARE AT WORK!”

They both cracked up, sharing a delighted high-five as you buried your face in your hands, praying for the ground to open up and swallow you.

“Oh, we’re just messing with you,” Trish said, barely holding back laughter. “But seriously, girl… you look like you need to unwind. Maybe with a drink or… you know… a little quality screen time?”

“Or maybe someone live and in-person?” Amy chimed in, waggling her eyebrows.

You groaned, face down on your desk, cursing the fact that they would never, ever know the full story.

× × × × 

You stepped into the lobby, utterly drained from the day, just as the elevator doors began to slide shut. Without a second thought, you bolted, slipping in right before they closed. Only then did you realize the universe was playing tricks on you.

Because standing right there, with a half-smirk on his face and way too much knowing mischief in his eyes, was Bucky. Alone.

You froze, instantly regretting every choice that had led to this moment. But it was too late now, so you plastered on a polite smile and tried not to look like a deer caught in headlights.

Bucky’s eyes twinkled as he took you in, leaning casually against the side of the elevator as he said, “Tired?”

You laughed, and before you could stop it, the laugh turned into a borderline deranged chuckle. 

“Oh, yes, thank you very much,” you replied, sarcasm slipping out before you could rein it in. Then, muttering under your breath but clearly audible, you added, “Maybe keep it down too… in the morning.”

He chuckled, looking way too amused. “Sorry about that. Work, you know? She, uh… went home right after, don’t worry.”

Your face went flaming hot, and you whipped your head to look straight ahead, pressing your lips together like that would somehow save you from this horror. 

“Oh, you don’t… you don’t have to explain it to me,” you stammered, feeling like your cheeks were practically on fire. “I’m not worried.”

The smirk only widened. “Good to know.” He leaned in just a little, adding, “I wouldn’t want to keep you up… unintentionally.”

You choked, your hand flying up to cover your mouth as you let out a mortified laugh that you could barely stop from turning into a squeak. Just get to your floor, just get to your floor… you chanted internally, keeping your gaze laser-focused on the elevator doors.

But you could feel him watching you, could practically feel the amusement radiating off him as you tried to pretend that your life hadn’t just devolved into a rom-com nightmare.

Finally—finally—the elevator dinged at your floor. You stepped out, sighing with relief, only for Bucky to step out right behind you.

“Hey,” he called, making you pause and turn reluctantly. He was smiling, hands casually shoved into his pockets as he looked you over. “Are you coming to the rooftop pool party this weekend?”

“No,” you replied flatly, the answer escaping before you could even pretend to think about it.

He laughed, clearly not deterred. “Aw, come on. You sure? It’ll be fun.”

You shook your head vigorously, waving him off. “No, no, I’m good. I’m… not much of a party person.”

“Really?” he replied, stepping a little closer, his smile turning into something dangerously persuasive. “It’s just neighbors hanging out, not some crazy nightclub thing. Good music, food… probably no loud… work, either.”

You glared, suppressing an eye roll as he gave you a wink. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, still grinning. “If you don’t show up, who am I going to talk to about all the ‘work’ complaints?”

You stifled a laugh, trying to maintain your resolve. “Pretty sure there are other people you can bother with that.”

“But none of them have your… constructive feedback,” he replied, his gaze dropping to the floor as he pretended to look shy. “And honestly, I need someone to keep me in check. I’m a handful at parties. Who else is going to stop me from climbing onto tables?”

You snorted, crossing your arms as you tried not to crack a smile. “I highly doubt you’re a handful at a pool party.”

He raised an eyebrow, challenging you. “Come and find out.”

You looked away, shaking your head but feeling the corners of your mouth tug upward. “Bucky, I’m not going.”

“So, you’re saying you’ll leave me up there with all these people who… don’t know me as well as you do?” He tilted his head, giving you a mock-pout.

Your face turned red, and you sputtered, “I don’t know you! I barely know you!”

“Oh, so all those research sessions weren’t exactly getting to know me?” he replied, grinning as he watched you turn an even deeper shade of crimson.

“You—ugh, you’re impossible,” you muttered, finally laughing despite yourself.

“That’s what everyone says,” he said, his voice softening just a little as he held your gaze. “Come on, Y/N. I promise, no loud work. I’ll even save you a spot.”

You sighed, feeling the last bit of resistance crumble. “Fine. But only for an hour.”

He beamed, triumphant. “Deal. And who knows? Maybe we’ll find something to actually talk about… outside of work.”

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the way your heart did a little flip. This is going to be a disaster, you thought. But somehow, you didn’t mind as much as you thought you would.

× × × × 

The weekend took forever to arrive, but somehow, you survived it—mostly by avoiding Bucky and doing your best not to think about that ridiculously intriguing video he’d hinted at. Nope, not even a peek. It was your own personal victory, though it took every ounce of willpower you had.

And now, here you were, standing at the rooftop entrance, mentally psyching yourself up. You’d put on a two-piece swimsuit under a white sheer cover-up, feeling only slightly self-conscious as you stepped out. Only because you hated drawing attention to your body. 

The party was already in full swing, a mix of upbeat music and laughter filling the air. You scanned the crowd for a certain troublemaking neighbor, but no sign of him. Great, you thought, rolling your eyes. Bucky drags me up here, then vanishes like an ass. Typical.

You made a beeline for an empty lounge chair, setting down your bag and towel, hoping you’d have a chance to relax before anyone else noticed you. But just as you were about to sit, a deep voice called out.

“Hey there!”

You turned to see an equally impressive figure—a tall, muscular guy with a sun-kissed smile, striding over with a confident swagger. 

“I’m Johnny,” he said, flashing a grin as he handed you a cold glass of beer. “Welcome to the party.”

“Oh! Thanks,” you said, taking the glass, feeling only slightly overwhelmed by all the testosterone on this rooftop. “Nice to meet you, Johnny.”

“Likewise,” he said, eyes flicking over you with the appreciation of someone who knew exactly what he was looking at. “Didn’t expect to see a new face up here. I know most of the regulars.”

“Yeah, I… usually keep to myself,” you admitted, suddenly feeling awkward under his gaze.

“Well, glad you’re here,” he said smoothly, gesturing to a chair beside yours. “Mind if I join you?”

Before you could answer, another familiar voice cut through the air, low and unmistakably amused. “Johnny.”

You turned slowly, bracing yourself for whatever cocky look Bucky had in store, but when you finally laid eyes on him, your brain just… stopped. No thoughts, head empty, because the second he strolled into view, you swore you heard the sultry opening saxophone of Careless Whisper start playing, echoing dramatically in your head like some corny, slow-motion rom-com entrance.

He moved in perfect sync to the imaginary music in your head, each step more absurdly cinematic than the last. This can’t be happening, you thought, but somehow, there he was—tan skin, swim trunks slung just right, and that damn casual shirt hanging open over his shoulders. The man looked like a vacation ad, except he was bringing you dangerously close to a heatstroke.

As he got closer, the sax solo in your mind reached ridiculous, life-altering levels of intensity. Why do you have to look like this? you thought, nearly choking on the vision before you. Bucky’s smirk turned into something almost smug, like he knew exactly what effect he was having, as if he, too, could hear the George Michael anthem of seduction playing in your head. You half-expected him to whip out an actual saxophone and start serenading you right there.

You swallowed, barely keeping yourself from drooling, and willed yourself to stay composed. Get a grip, you told yourself, though you were about 98% certain your jaw was on the verge of dropping.

“Sorry, Johnny,” he said smoothly, not even glancing at the other guy. “I think she already has company.”

You quickly tried to compose yourself, forcing a neutral expression as you willed your face not to betray the sheer catastrophe your brain was going through. 

“Oh, hey, Bucky,” you said, hoping your voice didn’t sound as strangled as you felt. Inside, you were practically screaming. Why do you have to look like a freaking Greek god, Barnes? It’s rude, honestly.

Johnny raised an eyebrow, his eyes flicking between the two of you, clearly picking up on the tension. “You two know each other?”

Bucky leaned casually against the lounge chair next to yours, flashing a grin that practically oozed mischief. 

“You could say that. She’s my neighbor,” he said, his tone implying… well, all sorts of things. You immediately knew that everyone within earshot was definitely getting the wrong idea. “And I’ve been trying to get her to come out of her shell for a while now.”

Come out of her shell? You wanted to throttle him. But before you could retort, Johnny, ever the gentleman, just gave you a knowing wink and clapped Bucky on the shoulder. 

“Well, guess I’ll let you take over, then,” he said, sauntering off with an amused smile.

You sighed, turning to face Bucky, who looked all too pleased with himself as he settled in beside you, stretching out like he owned the place. 

“So, you made it,” he said, taking a leisurely sip of his drink as his eyes did a once-over that was a little too thorough.

“Yep,” you replied, your voice barely concealing your exasperation. “I showed up, just like I said I would. Where were you?”

He shrugged, that stupid smirk still plastered on his face. “Was just giving you a chance to make some new friends,” he said, his tone way too casual.

You rolled your eyes, taking a sip of the beer Johnny had given you. “Please. You just love making an entrance.”

He chuckled, clinking his glass with yours. “Can’t say you’re wrong about that.”

As he leaned back, his gaze lingered a little too long, making your cheeks heat up. 

“Nice cover-up, by the way,” he commented, smirk widening. “It’s… modest.”

You shot him a look, feeling suddenly self-conscious about the sheer fabric draped over your swimsuit. “Why, thank you. That was kind of the point.”

“Yeah?” he replied, his voice dropping just a notch. “Shame, though. Bet that swimsuit’s got a whole lot of personality under there.”

You practically choked on your drink, coughing as you glared at him. “You’re such a flirt, Barnes.”

He chuckled, clearly unbothered by your reaction. “Hey, just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

You settled back in your chair, determined not to let him get the upper hand. But as you sat there, pretending to ignore him, you couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite everything, you were enjoying this game just as much as he was.

You took a deep breath, narrowing your eyes at Bucky, who was looking far too pleased with himself. 

“Like I said, just one hour,” you told him firmly, crossing your arms as if that would somehow fortify your resolve against whatever mischievous plans he undoubtedly had.

He raised an eyebrow, his smirk turning even more devilish. “Oh, I’m sure an hour will be more than enough.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “For what? So you can drive me insane and then sit back and enjoy the show?”

He chuckled, leaning a little closer, and you felt your heart rate spike. “Maybe. But I was thinking more along the lines of just… keeping you entertained.”

“Oh, I’m plenty entertained, thanks,” you shot back, trying to sound unimpressed despite the heat creeping up your neck.

He shrugged, unfazed, and settled back into his lounge chair. 

“Good. Then let’s make it the best hour of your week,” he said, flashing you a wink that sent a new wave of exasperation—and, annoyingly, a bit of excitement—through you.

You huffed, shaking your head as you took a sip of your drink, determined not to let him see just how much that smirk was affecting you. Just one hour, you reminded yourself. What could possibly happen in one hour?

As you and Bucky settled into a strange, almost comfortable silence, you heard a booming voice from across the pool.

“CHICKEN FIGHT!” Johnny’s voice rang out, loud and enthusiastic, immediately grabbing everyone’s attention.

You whipped your head around, eyes widening. Johnny was wading into the pool, rallying everyone like some kind of pool party commander. “Come on! Everyone in! We need two teams!”

“Oh, no,” you muttered under your breath, instinctively shrinking into your lounge chair, hoping you’d be overlooked in the shuffle. Absolutely not happening, you thought, clutching your drink like a lifeline.

But Bucky, of course, was already grinning ear to ear. He turned to you, his eyes gleaming with excitement and mischief. 

“You heard him,” he said, patting your shoulder like this was some team-building exercise. “We’re going in.”

“What? No!” you hissed, clutching your drink tighter as if that would save you. “I didn’t sign up for a chicken fight. I’m just here for moral support.”

Bucky laughed, standing up and stretching in that way that only he could pull off without looking ridiculous. 

“Oh, come on,” he said, flashing you that smug, challenging grin. “Afraid of a little friendly competition?”

You shook your head, digging your heels in. “Nope. Not happening. And it’s not friendly—it’s dangerous!”

“Oh, don’t be such a chicken.” His smirk widened, and then, with a theatrical sigh, he added, “Guess I’ll just have to find someone braver.”

Your jaw dropped. “Oh, you’re really going to play that card?”

He shrugged, glancing around with feigned disappointment. “Guess so. Shame though. I thought you could handle it.”

It was the final straw. With an exasperated groan, you threw down your drink and stood up. 

“Fine! I’ll do it.” The second the words left your mouth, you instantly regretted them, especially as you saw Bucky’s smirk morph into full-blown satisfaction.

“Perfect,” he said, clearly thrilled with himself.

You sighed, slipping off your sheer cover-up, feeling a sudden self-consciousness as you stood there in just your swimsuit. Bucky’s gaze flicked over you with open admiration, his grin widening just a bit. You forced yourself to ignore the butterflies in your stomach, rolling your eyes at his blatant staring.

“Enjoying the view?” you deadpanned.

“Oh, absolutely,” he replied without missing a beat, his eyes twinkling. “But we’ve got a fight to win.”

Before you could second-guess your decision, he grabbed your hand and pulled you toward the pool. Johnny spotted the two of you and cheered, pumping his fist in the air. “Yes! We got a team! Bucky and… Y/N, right?”

You forced a smile, giving him a thumbs-up while silently planning your escape route. But before you knew it, you were waist-deep in the water, Bucky hoisting you up with surprising ease, positioning you on his shoulders.

“Oh my god, this is insane,” you muttered, gripping onto his head for balance as he adjusted to your weight. “I feel like a five-year-old at a theme park.”

“Just hold on,” he chuckled, steadying himself under you. “I’ve got you.”

Your heart skipped a beat as his hands firmly held your thighs, and suddenly, this was a whole new level of intense. Focus on the fight, not the incredibly attractive man holding you in the pool, you told yourself, cheeks flaming.

Johnny waded over with his partner—a muscular, tattooed guy named Jake who was definitely taking this way too seriously. 

“Ready to lose, Barnes?” Jake taunted, grinning up at you.

Bucky chuckled, his hands tightening on your legs just slightly. “Not a chance.”

“Alright, you’re up top!” Johnny yelled, clapping his hands. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”

You barely had time to brace yourself before Jake and his partner charged at you, water splashing everywhere as they made their move. Instinctively, you shrieked, grabbing onto Bucky’s hair for dear life as the force of the impact sent you both wobbling.

“Easy on the hair!” Bucky grunted, though he was laughing, his shoulders steadying beneath you as he held his ground.

“Oh, sorry!” you gasped, adjusting your grip. But before you could even catch your breath, Jake’s partner was lunging at you again, arms flailing as he tried to knock you off balance.

“Oh, no you don’t!” you muttered, your competitive spirit kicking in. You threw your hands out, grabbing his wrists and pushing back with everything you had, determined to hold your ground.

“Yeah, that’s it!” Bucky cheered from below, his laughter bubbling up as he shifted to help keep you steady. “Show ‘em what you’ve got!”

Fueled by his encouragement—and a surprising amount of adrenaline—you leaned forward, pushing against Jake’s partner with all your strength. The guy’s face twisted in concentration, but with one final shove, you managed to throw him off balance. He teetered, arms flailing, before finally toppling backward into the water with a massive splash.

“Yes!” you shouted, punching the air triumphantly as Johnny and Jake went down in a flurry of water and defeat. “Suck on that!”

The words had barely left your mouth when reality crashed back in. You blinked, suddenly realizing that maybe—just maybe—you’d gotten a little too carried away. Oh god, did I really just shout that? you thought, the heat rushing to your cheeks as your triumphant grin quickly turned into a sheepish smile.

“Well, look at you,” Bucky chuckled from below, clearly amused by your victory-induced outburst. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Yeah, well… neither did I,” you muttered, feeling the embarrassment settling in as you tried to slide off his shoulders, desperate to save whatever shred of dignity you had left. But as you started to wriggle down, you realized Bucky’s hands were still firmly gripping your thighs, holding you in place.

You froze, looking down at him. “Uh, Bucky… you can, you know… let go now.”

He glanced up, smirking. “Oh, but you’re comfortable up there. Why rush it?”

You huffed, your face going a deeper shade of red. “Because I’m very much done being the human flagpole, thank you very much.”

Bucky’s grin only widened as he kept his hold, clearly enjoying the situation far more than he should. “Nah, I think I like you right where you are. Adds a bit of… height to my reputation.”

“Oh my god,” you groaned, feeling your mortification level spike. “If you don’t let me down, I swear I’ll—”

“Fine, fine,” he laughed, finally loosening his grip, letting you slide back into the water. But just as your feet touched down, he didn’t back away—instead, he shifted closer, his hands still lingering on your waist, his gaze locking onto yours with a look that sent your pulse racing.

You took a half-step back, but there was no real room to escape, not with the edge of the pool just behind you and Bucky’s broad frame in front, all mischief and steady, unbreakable eye contact. 

“You know,” he murmured, his voice low, “you could stay longer.”

Your breath hitched as Bucky leaned just the slightest bit closer, his hands still warm and steady on your waist, his smirk turning softer yet somehow more intense. Every nerve in your body seemed to jolt to life as he held your gaze.

You cleared your throat, attempting to find your voice amid the chaos of your thoughts. 

“Uh… stay longer? For what?” you managed, trying to sound casual, though your pulse was anything but.

His smirk grew, the corners of his mouth lifting in that way that was dangerously charming. 

“For the victory lap, of course,” he murmured, his voice just above a whisper. “After all, we did just crush the competition. Wouldn’t want you running off too fast.”

“Oh, right, a victory lap,” you muttered, trying to regain your composure but finding it difficult with his hands still lingering on your waist. “But I think the whole pool just watched that ‘lap’…”

“Then they got a good show,” he chuckled, his voice warm with that teasing tone you were starting to know all too well. “But the best part of winning is savoring it… right here.”

Your face went hot as his fingers brushed slightly against your sides, sending a little spark of energy straight up your spine. 

“Bucky,” you said, the word barely a whisper. “You’re… awfully close.”

“Oh, am I?” He didn’t back away; instead, he raised a brow, clearly enjoying your flustered reaction. “Didn’t hear you complaining when you were up there, champ.”

Your cheeks went impossibly warmer. “That was different. That was, you know… competitive. Strategic.”

“Competitive and strategic?” he echoed, his grin turning almost wicked. “Well, in that case…” He shifted his hands slightly, bringing you even closer as he leaned in. “Let’s see if you’re still competitive outside the game.”

He hovered just a breath away, his gaze flickering to your lips for a moment that felt like an eternity. You felt yourself leaning in almost on instinct, your pulse racing, and for one wild, heart-stopping second, it seemed like he might actually kiss you.

But then, as if on cue, someone nearby let out a loud, obnoxious cheer, snapping both of you out of the moment. The sound jolted you, and you quickly took a step back, breaking the tension as reality crashed in.

Bucky chuckled softly, looking slightly too smug as he let his hands fall from your waist. 

“Guess that victory lap will have to wait,” he murmured, giving you one last look that promised he wasn’t quite finished with his teasing yet.

You swallowed, desperately trying to get your heart rate back to normal. “Yeah, guess so.”

As the night went on, you’d lost count of how many concoction drinks had been handed to you, and at this point, your usual sense of caution was practically nonexistent. The rooftop was a haze of laughter, lights, and music, and the whole place felt like it was buzzing with energy. Any embarrassment from earlier had dissolved into pure, uninhibited confidence, each drink making you feel bolder than the last.

One minute, you were in a drinking game, cheering Bucky on as he took down a round of shots like it was nothing. The next, you found yourself in a game of truth or dare that had somehow escalated into body shots. You’d laughed, nearly choking on your drink, when you saw Bucky sprawled out on a table, daring you with that infuriating grin to take your turn.

“Oh, come on, that's not fair,” you slurred, trying to wave off the dare as he raised an eyebrow, that smug look firmly in place.

“Back out now if you can’t handle it,” he teased, lying back and folding his arms behind his head, acting like he hadn’t a care in the world.

The crowd cheered you on, and fueled by liquid courage, you rolled your eyes and leaned down, pressing your lips to his abs, feeling his warm skin under your touch as you took the shot in a quick, heated moment. His laughter mingled with the cheers around you, and you couldn’t help but feel a rush from the attention, from his gaze, from the heat spreading across your face.

Before you knew it, you were in a round of flip cup with Bucky as your teammate, and he downed his drink, slamming his cup down with a victorious shout. He grabbed you by the waist, lifting you up and spinning you around, both of you laughing so hard you could barely stand straight when he finally set you down.

Somehow, you ended up on the makeshift dance floor, music thumping as the party around you roared on, the lights around the rooftop pool casting a glow over everyone. You’d danced with other people throughout the night, but Bucky seemed to have a way of drawing you back, his energy magnetic, his laughter contagious. It was like he was everywhere you turned, keeping pace with you, matching every laugh and smirk with one of his own.

The music thumped, lights flashed, and the DJ’s voice blared over the speakers, “Alright, party people! Here’s the deal—find someone you want to… get close to tonight and give them a kiss, a hug, heck, even a lick if you’re feeling bold!”

Everyone around you burst into cheers and laughter, the party’s energy wild and reckless. By now, you were buzzing on so much liquid courage that everything felt like the best idea ever, including the fact that you were swaying against Bucky, who’d somehow stayed by your side all night.

He leaned in, his smirk way too mischievous, and the alcohol made it feel impossibly close. 

“Did you hear that?” he slurred, barely keeping the laughter out of his voice. “I think it’d be a shame if we ignore the DJ’s request don’t you?”

You rolled your eyes, trying to brush it off, but he just grinned wider, leaning in until his cheek was practically pressed against yours. 

“Hold still,” he whispered, a laugh lurking in his voice.

Then, in a move so outrageous you could barely comprehend it, he dragged his tongue slowly from your chin up to your forehead.

“Bucky!” you shrieked, stumbling back and half falling over yourself, laughter bubbling out of you as you clutched your face in shock. “Oh my god, you did not just—”

He stepped back, looking beyond pleased with himself, the grin on his face pure, unfiltered pride. 

“What? I’m just being… obedient,” he slurred, raising his hands in mock innocence.

“You are the worst!” you squealed, laughing so hard you could barely keep it together, grabbing his arm as you steadied yourself, still half in disbelief. He just chuckled, clearly reveling in your reaction as he pulled you right back into the rhythm, your laughter mixing with the cheers around you as the dance floor pulsed with music.

They cranked up the music, and suddenly, the beat was all around you, pulsing through the crowd, as if daring everyone to let loose. The energy was infectious, and you found yourself moving in sync with him, laughing as you danced together, every touch and sway between you crackling with a chemistry that had been simmering all night.

Without thinking, you stepped closer, your hands drifting to his chest, letting your fingers splay against the warm, solid muscle. Your movements grew slower, more deliberate, and his hands instinctively found your waist, pulling you against him until there was barely any space left between you. His gaze dropped, glued on your lips, and you felt a shiver run through you, your breath hitching as he leaned in, his face just inches from yours. His nose brushed yours, and you looked up to meet his gaze, seeing the same surprised intensity reflected in his eyes.

Bucky held your gaze, his breath mingling with yours, and you could feel the tension building, electric and undeniable. He was waiting—leaving the next move up to you. If you wanted him, you knew he’d let you take him.

🎶Just let me know, can you be the one to hold and not let me go?🎶

Heart pounding, you somehow managed to press yourself even closer, feeling the swell of your chest against him, igniting a flush across his cheeks. But it wasn’t embarrassment you saw in his eyes—it was heat, a look that sent a thrill down your spine. His hand shifted, his fingers tracing along the curve of your hip, and you could feel the strength of his grip as he held you.

🎶I need to know, could you be the one to call when I lose control?🎶

The tension was unbearable, and as you tilted your face up, your lips brushed his in the softest, most hesitant caress—a question, an invitation. His resolve crumbled instantly. His hand slid to your waist, gripping the flesh there as his other hand threaded into your hair, guiding your head back so he could kiss you deeper, tasting you with an intensity that left you breathless. You let out a startled, breathless sound, and he responded by pulling you closer, cradling your face as if you were something precious, something he couldn’t bear to let go of.

Your lips parted for him, and he kissed you with a hunger that had been building for some time. His tongue traced yours, swallowing your quiet moans, anchoring you to him as his hand kept you steady. It wasn’t forceful, just… tender, like he was holding something priceless.

Your breaths came heavy, your cheeks flushed, but you barely noticed; all you could feel was him, his touch, his heartbeat pounding against yours, and the fire in his veins matching your own. In that moment, propriety, the crowd around you, everything else faded into oblivion. If he wanted you to take him right there, you couldn’t even think of saying no.

Every nerve in your body was alive, tingling with an incredible sense of lust and need as his arms held you close. His lips pressed harder, deepening the kiss, his passion and intensity only spurring you to match it. You melted against him, completely consumed by the heat and need between you, and for those moments, it was as if nothing else existed. Oxygen became secondary; the only thing that mattered was the connection between you, growing more fervent with each second.

Finally, when the need for air became overwhelming, you both broke apart, gasping, your faces inches from each other, breaths mingling as you took each other in. His lips tingled, mirroring your own, and every beat of your heart seemed to urge you back into his embrace.

“Let’s get out of here… yours or mine?” Bucky stammered between breaths, his voice husky, his eyes still filled with fire. His body radiated heat, and he looked like he’d dive into the pool at any second just to cool down.

“Mine,” you whispered, your voice breathless, cheeks flushed, a shy smile tugging at your lips as you held his gaze.

× × × × 

You both barely made it down the hallway before the urgency hit, the tension that had been building all night finally snapping. Bucky’s hands were everywhere—gripping your waist, pulling you against him as you fumbled for your keys, the both of you practically tripping over each other in your haste. As soon as you managed to unlock the door, you pushed it open, stumbling inside, his mouth crashing into yours before it even closed behind you.

Wetness pooled inside you, the need for him overwhelming as you pressed back against the door, his body meeting yours in a frenzy of heat and desperation. His stubble scraped against your skin, rough and deliciously manly, a reminder that he was all raw power and intensity. You loved it, the way it scratched against your cheek, adding to the thrill and making your skin tingle wherever he touched.

His lips found the side of your neck, warm and insistent as he kissed his way down, nipping softly, each touch leaving you breathless. You tilted your head back, giving him more access, exposing the full length of your neck to his hungry mouth. His hands slid up your sides, his fingers pressing in firmly, possessively, as his teeth grazed your skin, sending a jolt of electricity through you.

“God,” he murmured against your skin, his voice rough with desire. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

You could only gasp, clutching onto him as his mouth moved up to your jaw, his hands never stilling, gripping you as if he couldn’t bear to let go. Bucky reached a hand up and placed it on your left breast, over the bikini top, and then brought his hand up to the back of your neck to pull you in closer to him. You undid the straps of your top, and down fell the top, exposing your naked breasts to him.

Holy shit—this can’t be real. Am I hallucinating? Is this actually happening? Wait—oh god, is he about to put my boobs in his mouth?!

Like a hungry child desperate for milk Bucky suckled on your nipple, squeezing the bottom of your breast passionately with one hand, and holding the other breast in his other hand. You looked down at him, licking, sucking, rubbing, and he looked as though he was transported to paradise.

He worked himself into a frenzy playing with your breast, until he wanted more. He lifted you up under your thighs, off the floor, and pressed your back against the wall.

Oh shit!

He kissed you again, his hand sliding down to press against you over your bikini bottom. With a quick, desperate motion, he tugged the fabric to the side, his fingers brushing bare skin, making your breath hitch.

As his hand cupped you, he began to move slowly, his fingers exploring, teasing. “Damn,” he murmured, his voice thick with surprise and satisfaction. “You’re so wet. Is this what happens every time you watch my videos?”

“M-maybe…” you stammered, cheeks heating, barely able to meet his eyes as a grin spread across his face.

His fingers slid inside you, moving with a slow, deliberate rhythm, each motion sending sparks through your entire body. He leaned in, his breath hot against your ear as he asked, “How many times have you touched yourself thinking about me?”

You bit your lip, trying to hold back a moan as he continued, each movement intensifying the heat pooling inside you. 

“Mmmh—why would I tell you that?” you managed, trying to sound teasing but barely able to keep your voice steady.

His grin widened, a mischievous glint in his eyes as his fingers pressed deeper, his thumb brushing against you just right. “Because I want to hear every filthy detail.”

He kissed your other nipple, the one he missed when before. Bucky always gave equal time to the breasts. Suckling on one nipple, fingering you harder and harder, you were getting more and more excited for the moment he would penetrate you.

“Oh my god—” You swallowed, feeling your face heat up and you could feel yourself slightly sobering up. With a nervous laugh, you finally gave in, your voice soft but steady.

“Fine… sometimes, late at night—ah—I’d imagine you between my legs, devouring me like your life depended on it,” you whispered, feeling your cheeks burn. “I’d—fuck—I’d think about your hands, the way they’d feel inside me, moving exactly like this…mmmh,” you gasped as his fingers pressed deeper, your own words sparking the desire between you. 

His fingers never stopped their steady, torturous rhythm, each movement deliberate, coaxing you toward the edge with a patience that was as maddening as it was intoxicating.

“And? That’s it?” he asked, his tone thick with amusement, daring you to reveal more. His thumb brushed against you in just the right way, as if encouraging you to keep talking, to give him every last detail he was craving.

“And—hah—I’d picture you… spitting in my mouth while you’re turning me on, you’d put your hand on my neck while I beg you to i dunno? reorganize my guts—because you’re so big Bucky. . . I don’t think you’ll fit inside me.”

“Oh the innocent looking ones are always the dirtiest.” Bucky’s smirk turned darker, his fingers pressing into you with a newfound intensity, his digits hooking and pressing into your most sensitive spot, causing your hips to jerk against his palm. 

“And was I just as good in your imagination as I am now?” he murmured, voice low and rough, sending shivers straight down your spine.

“Yes… yes…” The words left your lips almost involuntarily, your hands gripping his shoulders as your nails dug in, grounding yourself against the overwhelming sensation. Your face twisted with pleasure, each stroke of his digits making it harder to catch your breath. 

Bucky’s eyes darkened with a fierce satisfaction as he watched you, his smirk deepening. “Better than you imagined?”

"Mhhm," you tried to respond, but it came out more like a needy moan, your voice barely a whisper under the intensity of his touch.

Bucky's smirk grew at the sound, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he took in every reaction, every tremble. "That’s what I thought," he murmured, his voice dark and teasing.

Bucky carried you through the open door of your bedroom, his movements purposeful, every touch sending sparks across your skin. When he reached the edge of the bed, he lowered you onto the mattress, but before letting you go, he bent down to capture your lips in a kiss—a kiss that felt as intimate as it did electrifying.

You couldn’t help but notice the difference; this was something he never did in his videos. Bucky never kissed anyone on the lips on screen. But here, he kissed you slowly, deeply.

His hands moved to your shoulders, firm but gentle as he guided you back into the soft downy mattress. “There you go, baby,” he murmured, his voice warm and low. “Lean back.”

He knelt down at the side of the bed. He pulled off your panties, the final barrier to your sex. He pushed your legs apart and back, and gazed at your pussy, already wet for him.

He stared at your exposed pussy for ten seconds, admiring it like it was the greatest work of art he had ever seen.

"Your pussy," he said, his lips nearly brushing your sex. "It's beautiful.”

You lifted your  head up and looked at him. Your jaw was dropped and you were already starting to feel tingles up your body, even though he hadn't licked you yet. You heard his breathing get heavier and heavier, he was so excited to put his lips on your pussy.

Two large fingers of his left hand spread your lips. Two large fingers of his right hand rubbed your clit in strong circles. Each circle sends a shock wave through your body.

"You smell fantastic," he declared, and he dove his mouth right on top of your wet and stimulated clit. Up and down he licked. Up and down, his mouth clasped tight against your pussy.

"Oh," you moaned, as your eyes rolled up to the back of your head. Your arms—with a mind of their own—grabbed the back of your thighs and lifted them back, presenting yourself to this man who used to be on the screen and was now bringing you to ecstasy. He'd only just started to lick you, but even so you felt ready for him to enter you and never leave. 

As Bucky continued to eat you like you’re his last meal, each suction sending thrills through you, a sudden wave of doubt crashed over you, freezing you in place. Images flooded your mind—women he’d been with, all effortlessly beautiful, the kind who exuded confidence and allure. How could you compare? This had to be nothing more than another fleeting thing for him, a “friendship” that would end the moment the night was over.

You tensed, your hands moving to gently push him back. “Bucky… wait,” you managed, your voice barely above a whisper.

He looked up from between your legs, his expression softening instantly as he met your gaze. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice gentle, concerned.

“I… I just…” You stammered, the words getting caught in your throat before you finally managed, “I don’t want to be… one of your girls.”

Bucky blinked, taken aback, his expression shifting as if the words had struck something unexpected, almost offended. 

“One of my girls?”

You nodded, biting your lip as you searched for the right way to explain. “I… I don’t do one-night stands,” you admitted, feeling vulnerable. 

Bucky nodded slowly, his tongue pressing into his cheek as he rose to his feet. "Mhm—no, I get it... it's because of my job," he said, his tone carrying a hint of defensiveness.

You sat up, noticing the shift in his demeanor. "Are you mad?" you asked softly, uncertainty creeping into your voice.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'm not mad," he replied, though his clenched jaw suggested otherwise. "I just didn't think you'd see me that way."

"See you what way?" you pressed gently.

He met your gaze, his eyes reflecting a mix of frustration and vulnerability. "Like I'm some guy who just goes around collecting flings," he explained. "I thought you knew me better than that."

You swallowed, choosing your words carefully. “It's not that I think poorly of you,” you said. “It's just... your work makes things complicated for me. I don't want to be another notch on anyone's belt.”

He took a deep breath, his expression softening. “I understand where you're coming from,” he admitted. “But believe me when I say that this—” he gestured between the two of you “—is different for me.”

“How do I know that?” you asked quietly.

He stepped closer, his eyes sincere. “Because I don't share moments like this with just anyone,” he said. “You think I go around kissing people like that? Off-camera, in my real life?”

Bucky’s expression shifted, his brows knitting together as he crossed his arms, clearly growing more frustrated. “I thought you knew the difference between who I am on-camera and who I am off it,” he replied, his tone clipped.

You sighed, trying to hold your ground. “Bucky, you’re the one who kept teasing me to watch your videos, practically encouraging me to make it my new hobby—how am I supposed to ignore what you do?”

He scoffed, running a hand through his hair in irritation. “Because those videos aren’t me,” he said, voice rising. “You’re acting like everything I do there is just some extension of my personal life, but it’s a job, Y/N. I don’t go around living like that off-set.”

You crossed your arms, not caring that the blanket had slipped off, leaving you bare before him. 

“And I’m supposed to just... pretend that all of it doesn’t mean anything?” you shot back, feeling a twinge of vulnerability but refusing to let it show. “You kept making those jokes, those comments—you have to see how confusing it is for me.”

He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. “And you think I just do that with everyone? That every person who walks into my life gets these... moments with me?” His gaze softened slightly as he gestured between the two of you. “If that were the case, do you think I’d be here, right now, trying to convince you?”

You opened your mouth to reply, but the words caught in your throat. His intensity was throwing you off balance, forcing you to question your assumptions. You’d expected him to brush this off or laugh, not take it to heart.

He shook his head, a frustrated laugh escaping him. “You don’t get it, do you?” He looked at you, his eyes full of something you couldn’t quite name. “I don’t have to be here, fighting for this. I could have walked away and yet here I am.”

You swallowed hard, feeling a lump form in your throat as the weight of his words settled heavily between you. The intensity of his gaze, the raw honesty in his voice—it was all too much, too fast, and yet it tugged at something deep inside you, making it impossible to brush off. But your heart was pounding, confusion and vulnerability swirling together, and you weren’t ready to face everything his words were unearthing.

“I… I think we should call it a night,” you said quietly, barely able to meet his gaze, the words coming out softer than you intended.

For a moment, he looked at you, his expression unreadable, and you could see him processing your response. Then, with a quiet sigh, he nodded, stepping back to give you space.

“Alright,” he replied, his voice subdued. “If that’s what you want.”

The room felt suddenly colder, the tension between you now tinged with a quiet ache. You could tell he was holding back more that he wanted to say, but he respected your decision, his expression guarded as he looked away.

You bit your lip, your mind racing with things you couldn’t bring yourself to say, with emotions you weren’t quite ready to admit. 

“Thank you… for understanding,” you managed, feeling the weight of your choice settle over you.

He gave a small nod, his jaw tight, before he turned toward the door. 

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he said softly, pausing for a moment as if hoping you might change your mind, before finally leaving your apartment, the main door shutting made you flinch even though Bucky closed it softly.

The silence that followed felt heavier than you expected. The tension that had filled the room moments ago lingered, and a wave of frustration washed over you, mixing with regret and uncertainty. You took a shaky breath, running a hand through your hair before letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

Without thinking, you grabbed the nearest pillow, buried your face into it, and let out a muffled scream, releasing all the emotions you couldn’t quite put into words. The pillow absorbed the sound, but it did nothing to ease the twist of emotions churning inside you. Finally, you pulled the pillow away, feeling just as conflicted as before, wondering if you’d made the right choice… or a terrible mistake.

tags: @bohoooitsme @barnescamboy @strangefunthornqueen @mayusenpai666 @seven0714

@rabbitrabbit12321 @alexsl-universe @xunquish-blog @hzdhrtss @winchestert101

@alyana-luvs-u @itsbuckysworld

[urmum-lovesme]

Bunny (P13)

Rafe Cameron x Maybank!Reader

summary: Struggling to keep her and JJ’s home afloat, Y/N turns to the only option that guarantees fast cash- stripping at a club on the Cut. But when Rafe Cameron catches her in the act, he sees the perfect opportunity to tighten his grip around her life.

a/n: Sorry for the cliff hanger guys- but here's the next bit and besides its not like I would leave it on a cliff hanger again- or would I..... ? heh

warnings: angst angst angst, violent behaviour, emotional distress, mentions of past trauma, alcohol, sad!rafe and sad!bunny, luke (he deserves a warning)

(P1) (P2) (P3) (P4) (P5) (P6) (P7) (P8) (P9) (P10) (P11) (P12) (P13)

The house was quiet and peaceful in a way that felt rare lately. Steam still curled faintly from the cracked bathroom door as Y/N padded barefoot through the hallway, the cotton hem of her oversized t-shirt brushing the tops of her thighs. It clung slightly to the damp warmth of her skin, fresh from the shower, the scent of vanilla soap still lingering on her. The shirt, one of her oldest and most worn-in, read 'There’s no place like the OBX!' in faded, peeling letters. The image of a cartoon sunset beneath the text was barely visible now, rubbed off from years of wear, but it was still her comfort shirt.

The evening had been calm. A rare exhale. She knew it was the right choice, not going to the party, instead choosing to stay at home. No JJ, no Rafe, no tension. Just her alone in the stillness of the house. She yawned softly as she made her way into the kitchen, the tiles cool under her feet. Her hand reached for the cabinet, grabbing a glass, then filled it halfway from the tap, the sound of water the only thing cutting through the silence.

Buzz. Buzz.

Her phone, face-down on the counter buzzed again. She frowned a little, setting the glass down with a small clink and reaching for it. When she turned it over, the lock screen was full, message after message.

Rafe

Rafe : Y/N m s sorry

Rafe : It was a mistake I didn mean iit

Rafe : Im sosorry forgive me

Rafe : Please it was ana ccident

Rafe : drunk an angry it just slipedout

She just stood there, blinking, bare feet rooted to the floor. What? Her thumb hovered over the screen as she scrolled back through the weird messages littering her screen, heart creeping higher into her throat. He hadn’t replied to her at all yesterday left her on read after she asked him the question which had been hanging over both of them for a while now. He'd ignored every message she sent and now this? What the hell was he talking about, it made no sense. Her brows knit as she stared at the screen, glass forgotten on the counter as she held the phone in two hands her thumbs typing out; What are you talk-

BANG

The sound of the front door slamming open ricocheted through the house like a shotgun blast. The walls trembled and the floor vibrated slightly beneath her bare feet. Her whole body jolted—glass on the counter rattling dangerously. Her blood ran cold. She'd not seen her dad in a few days and the possibility of his presence was in her mind, whispered in fear, a lifetime of instinct kicking in. But before panic could really settle, the door slammed shut again, the echo bouncing off every wall like a threat. She turned sharply, heart hammering in her chest and then there he was-

JJ?

Standing in the doorway, chest heaving, shoulders tense and strung tight like he could burst. His face was a mess- nose bloodied, dried and smeared to one side, his lip split, a red flush blooming across his cheek. His blond hair was sticking up in every direction under his crooked cap, disheveled like he’d just been through a war. His clothes hung raggedly on his body almost as though his t-shirt had been stretched out, and he was breathing heavy like he ran the whole way here. His eyes locked onto hers furious, hurt.

Betrayed

He stood there, breath ragged in his chest, eyes locked on her like he didn’t recognise the girl in front of him. Y/N stared back at him, frozen for a moment in the quiet hum of the kitchen. Her phone, still glowing with Rafe’s frantic texts, slipped from her fingers and landed back onto the counter with a soft thud. The sound felt loud in the silence. This was JJ, her kid brother who used to cry when he scraped his knees and she'd bandage them up pressing soft kisses over the bandaids. The boy she taught how to sneak out of the house quietly, her best friend since they were in diapers. Now he looked like someone she didn’t know- bloodied, breathless, and storm-eyed. She took a step around the kitchen island, slow and cautious, like she was approaching a wounded animal. She asked gently, her voice threading with worry, hand outstretched, ready to go to him,

“Are you okay- ”

“-were you pregnant?”

But JJ’s voice sliced through the air before she could take another step and she stopped dead in her tracks. Silence crashed between them. Her hand, still halfway out, dropped to her side like a weight and her stomach churned at the words passing his lips.

“What?”

Her voice was almost inaudible. Caught between panic and confusion, her breath hitched. JJ’s face twisted, all disbelief and frustration, and he took a harsh step forward, his voice louder now.

"Did you fucking get pregnant?"

Y/N blinked, wide-eyed, her lips parting like the words might come—but nothing did. Her body language screamed shock, but inside she was cracking open. Splitting down the middle. Her heart was racing now, mouth suddenly dry. “N-no,” she stammered, voice too quick and certainly too fragile.

“What-? No!”

But JJ wasn’t buying it. He whipped his cap off his head as he raked a hand through his hair, exhaling hard as he turned in a quick, agitated circle, the movement jerky with disbelief. His fingers clenched in his hair before he let them drop and he barked out—

“Don’t LIE to me!”

The words exploded out of JJ like a gunshot, and with it, his hand came down hard crack against the edge of the kitchen table. The slap of skin on wood echoed through the house like a warning sound. Y/N jumped, her breath catching violently in her chest. Her whole body flinched, jerking backward instinctively. Eyes wide, pupils blown and her shoulders curled in slightly, like she'd just taken a hit without being touched. Her heart was pounding so loud in her ears it almost drowned everything else out. She felt cold suddenly, like the warmth of her post-shower calm had been ripped from her body in an instant. The oversized shirt clung to her damp skin, sticking uncomfortably as her breathing turned sharp and uneven “Pregnant?” she echoed, voice airy and brittle. It sounded wrong in the space between them. Like the word didn’t belong to her. Like she was trying to believe she didn’t understand- trying to sell a lie even she couldn’t swallow.

“Who told you this?”

And JJ- he looked like he could rip the whole room apart with his bare hands. She already knew the answer he was going to give her. But she needed to hear it. Needed to pray and cling onto the hope for some other name, any name not—

“Rafe Cameron”

JJ said, voice full of venom. His jaw was clenched so tight it trembled, eyes burning into hers. And then she froze, like a statue carved from ice. Her chest stilled and her hands hung at her sides. There wasn’t a flicker of movement. Rafe? She couldn’t even blink, couldn’t breathe at the sound his name.

He promised

Her fingers curled slightly in toward her palms and she felt like someone had just reached into her chest and squeezed.JJ saw it happen- the way her entire body stiffened, how her lips parted but no sound came. The way her eyes went glassy for just a second.He saw it all and it broke something within him. His voice cracked, a bitter sound ripping from his throat, full of raw betrayal and heartbreak as he whispered,

“Oh my fucking god-”

“-no! No I didn’t get pregnant”

Y/N gasped out, voice cracking like thin glass. She shook her head rapidly, hands lifting uselessly in the air like she could physically push the truth away. But her voice was too high, too shaky. Her eyes were darting everywhere but his, and JJ saw right through her.

“I didn’t—JJ. I-"

“-why are you LYING to me!”

He shouted cutting her off, his voice thundering off the walls as his hands flew into the air in exasperation, then slammed back down at his sides. His eyes were wild, glassy with a cocktail of rage and betrayal.

“Why the are you lying to me?!”

“Jay, please just—”

She rushed, taking a few tentative steps toward him, palms out like she could soothe him with touch alone. Her voice wavered, desperate and pleading. But JJ backed up- away from her. “You didn’t even tell me,” he said bitterly, as if the words physically hurt to say. He let out a strangled scoff, pacing now, stumbling back a step.

“And I’m your brother. I’m your fucking brother Y/N.”

Her eyes welled. Her lips trembled because it was happening. Exactly what she’d feared- her worst nightmare made real in their own kitchen, beneath the harsh light, peeling tiles and abandoned glass of water. “Please,” she whispered again, voice breaking down completely now.

“JJ please—”

But he was already unraveling- crashing out. He paced along the kitchen, dragging a hand down his face, his cap was long abandoned on the kitchen island as he dug his fingers into his hair and tugging like he needed to physically hold himself together. His mouth was hidden behind his hand now, muffling a harsh, trembling breath. He was doing everything he could not to lose it. But then, his hand lashed out and swept everything off the corner of the kitchen island. Bills, letters, receipts, all of it went crashing to the floor in a loud flurry of paper and crumpled envelopes.

“You went to Rafe?”

He yelled, voice splintered and feral as he rounded on her again, pointing now— accusingly. His entire face contorted with disbelief, “You went to Rafe Cameron for help?! The same piece of shit who’s tormented us for years- who’s ruined our lives- what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

His finger stabbed the air in her direction, jaw clenched so tight his teeth could’ve cracked. His breathing was loud, heavy. He looked like he was barely staying inside his own skin and Y/N snapped suddenly,

“Don’t raise your voice at me”

She bit out, her voice cutting sharp and fast, almost instinctive. Her chest was heaving now, flushed with fury and panic. Her hands were curled into fists at her sides as her eyes locked with his, finally locked with his. “You have no fucking idea what I’ve been going through JJ. None of it,” she seethed, her voice shaking just beneath the surface, laced with pain that was months in the making.

“You don’t know how hard it’s been trying to make a decision I never asked for in the first place!”

And just like that, the kitchen went still. The broken silence crackled in the air between them like electricity after a lightning strike- both of them breathing hard, standing in the wreckage of papers, secrets, and everything they haven't said to each other in the past months. JJ’s voice cracked on the question,

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

It wasn’t loud anymore. It wasn’t angry. It just… broke. Like something inside him had split clean down the middle. His arms, once tensed at his sides, dropped uselessly as his shoulders sagged. Like all the fight had drained out of him in one breath. Y/N stood stiff on the other the island opposite him, the space between them feeling wider than the whole room. Her breath hitched as her eyes dropped to the floor, shoulders curling inward like she was bracing for impact.

“JJ, I don’t know, I just—”

“Do you not trust me?”

He asked, suddenly, voice low but guarded. She looked up fast, her eyes wide, lashes still wet. Her lips parted like she was about to speak but forgot how. Like she’d been caught somewhere between guilt and fear. She said, voice tight, chest rising with a shaky inhale,

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Yes. Yes, it is what this is about—”

“I DO trust you!”

She burst out, loud and raw, like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her hands shot out as if reaching for something she couldn’t quite grasp. She was breathing fast now, visibly trembling, like the admission had cost her something. JJ stepped forward a half-step, hands curling into frustrated fists at his sides. His jaw clenched hard, eyes narrowed, flickering with that familiar mix of hurt and fury.

“Well you don’t act like it”

He said, bitter, almost defeated. He threw his hands up like he was done trying to understand. “Jesus…” he breathed, taking two slow steps back. Y/N rubbed her face roughly, wiping away a tear with the heel of her palm, her fingers shaky. Her mouth opened- then shut again, her brows drawing together in a helpless knot. JJ let out a breath so heavy it sounded like it hurt. Then his hand dragged through his hair, gripping the back of his neck like he needed to ground himself. He looked her dead in the eye,

“Was it his?”

The question struck her like a slap. She went completely still. “...What?” she whispered, barely audible. The word trembled in her throat, her head jerking slightly like she couldn’t believe he’d actually said it. JJ’s eyes burned, his mouth twisted into something between a grimace and a sneer.

“Was it his, Y/N? Was it Rafe’s?”

Her mouth opened again, but no sound came out. Her legs carried her one step back, like the sheer weight of the question shoved her there. Her arms folded across her chest without her realising it, protective. Defensive.

“How can you even ask me that—”

“What else do you want me to think, huh?” JJ’s voice climbed again, every word sharper than the last, “You won’t fucking tell me anything! You kept this whole thing a secret from me like I’m just some... some nobody—”

“JJ—”

“Was it his?”

He snapped again, louder, like saying it might finally make the pain in his chest make sense. His chest rose and fell, his breathing heavy and erratic. He looked like he was burning up from the inside.

“Was it his, and that’s why you ran to him, why you told him before you told me?”

“Stop-stop it— how dare you even think that—”

“Well you’re sure as hell not giving me a lot of reasons not to!”

The shout ripped from him like a gut punch. He slammed the heel of his palm down on the counter once more as the last word left his mouth, she flinched hard at the sound, instinctively taking a step back like it could steady her pulse.

BANG

The front door slammed against the wall with a hard thud, rattling the frame in its hinges as Luke stumbled inside, the scent of cheap bourbon clinging to him like a second skin. Both their heads whipped toward the entrance to the house, eyes wide. The air in the kitchen turned thick with silence, frozen with tension as JJ's chest heaved and Y/N didn’t move. He blinked blearily at the two of them from the hallway, swaying just slightly, his jaw working unevenly as he tried to focus.

“What’s all this fuckin’ yelling?”

His voice was slurred, low and accusatory, slicing through the thick silence like a rusted blade. Y/N’s body stiffened immediately. She stood there, frozen for half a second, then straightened up like someone had yanked her upright by a string. “Nothing,” she said quickly, her jaw clenched so tight it ached. JJ didn’t say a word. His arms were rigid at his sides, chest still heaving, that same fury boiling behind his eyes.

“Nothing is going on”

Y/N repeated, sharper this time. She wasn’t even fully looking at Luke anymore- her gaze was fixed on JJ, like her words were meant for him just as much, like she was pleading with him. Her voice dropped slightly, nearly trembling:

“Right, JJ? Nothing’s happening here.”

There was a long pause. JJ looked at her- really looked at her- and her eyes silently begged, he knew exactly what she was saying in her mind. Don’t say it- don’t let him find out. JJ’s nostrils flared, his whole body rigid, but his face hardened into stone. Then, slowly, almost in disbelief, he shook his head. His hand dragged over his mouth once more as he took a step back.

He didn’t say a single word.

He just turned, snatching his cap of the kitchen counter and walked toward the door and left- slamming it shut behind him with a bang that made the windows shudder in their frames. Y/N flinched. Her chest caved as she dropped down into one of the wooden kitchen chairs like all the strength had just drained out of her. Her elbows hit the edge of the table, head falling into her hands, shoulders hunched. Behind her, Luke mumbled something unintelligible and stumbled down the hallway. The second he was gone, the dam broke, silent tears dripped through her fingers, landing in dark, wet splotches on the old wooden table beneath her.

bzzz bzzz bzzz

Her phone vibrated on the counter, loud in the quiet house. She turned around slowly, reaching for it her hand trembling as the screen lit up.

Rafe

She stared at it, heartbeat thudding in her throat. Her chest rose and fell unevenly. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long moment and then a soft, broken sound left her lips. She placed the phone face down on the table, letting it buzz until the sound faded.

Until the silence was all that was left in the four walls of the house.

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

The soft clatter of cutlery was the only sound in the back of the restaurant. Y/N stood at the long metal counter, back hunched slightly as she polished a fork with slow, repetitive movements. Her shoulders were pulled up tight- and the faded name tag on her polo was barely clinging on by its safety pin. The white cloth in her hand dragged in steady circles, silver catching the dim light overhead. By the doorway, Sofia leaned one shoulder against the frame. She didn’t say anything at first- just watched her best friend, lips pressed into a thin, uncertain line. Y/N looked like she hadn’t slept a wink. There were shadows under her eyes and a drained stillness in her face. Sofia quietly stepped into the room, picked up another cloth from the drawer, and reached for a fork. Y/N didn’t look up, didn’t say anything, just kept working, kept silent like she had for the past few days. Sofia offered gently,

“Hey”

“Hey”

Y/N murmured back, voice soft but distant, her eyes locked on the fork in her hand like it was the only thing tethering her. Sofia hesitated, cloth in one hand fork in the other, debating how to say what she needed to. Her fingers tightened slightly on the metal.

“I um heard what happened to JJ”

Y/N’s hand paused, just for a second. Just long enough for the silence to crack a little but then she kept polishing.

“Mmhmm”

It was a quiet hum, the kind that meant I heard you, but please don’t ask me to talk about it. Sofia exhaled slowly. She put her fork down, the soft clink echoing in the small room. “Y/N… I haven't seen you for days,” she said, voice quieter now.

“Please talk to me.”

The cloth slipped from Y/N’s fingers. She gently set the fork down beside it, like even letting go of that was too much. Her hand lifted, trembling as she brushed it across her brow- trying to collect herself, to stay composed.

“I don’t know what to do Sof...”

She said, voice breaking mid-sentence. The words hit the air like a wound. Her eyes welled up instantly, lashes soaked before she could even blink. Sofia was already there, wrapping her arms around her in a heartbeat, tugging her in close. Y/N’s chin dropped to her shoulder, her breath hitching in her chest as she pressed her face against Sofia’s polo shirt.

“It’s okay,” Sofia whispered, “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

But it wasn’t okay.

It wasn’t okay.

Because Y/N felt like she was standing at the centre of a storm, everything torn apart. JJ wouldn’t even look at her. Wouldn’t speak to her. Her baby brother- her heart- had walked out and she hasn't seen him since then. And Rafe? Rafe had broken the one promise he swore to keep. He’d hurt her in a way she didn’t know how to come back from.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Sofia’s arms stayed tight around her for a long moment, like she could shield her from the weight of it all- from the ache, from the choices, from the fear. Then, gently, she pulled back and brushed a tear from Y/N’s cheek with the bottom of her polo which she'd tugged up. She said softly, tugging at her friend’s hand,

“Come here”

Y/N let herself be led, her limbs sluggish and almost reluctant. Sofia guided her to a small wooden stool tucked beneath one of the prep counters in the back room. She sat her down with careful hands, like setting a glass sculpture onto stone. Then she crouched in front of her, folding herself down so they were eye to eye. Her expression was open, gentle, patient. Sofia asked her voice low and kind,

“Can you tell me what’s going on... ?”

Y/N’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. Her eyes dropped to her lap where her hands were clenched into fists on top of her apron. For a moment, the silence between them stretched. Then Y/N gave a slow, exhaled surrender- and she told her.

Everything

She told Sofia about the second job — how she’d been dancing at the strip club for months just to make ends meet. How the money had been good, but the shame had clung to her skin like an old perfume. She told her about Rafe, about the way he’d taunted her, messed with her head, haunted her space like a ghost that never left her alone. And then how that twisted thing between them had shifted after what happened to her in the parking lot. About the parking lot. How she’d gotten pregnant, how she hadn’t meant to involve him but had nowhere else to go. And how, when it counted, Rafe had helped her and it had turned into more. Secret late nights, quiet promises in dark corners, a fragile, forbidden thing which they nurtured in silence. And as a result it had all blown up. JJ had found out, the one person she'd always protected now looked at her like she was someone he didn’t recognise. But even through the storm the rift between her and JJ had brought, all she could think about was Rafe.

Rafe, who said he wouldn’t tell anyone.

Rafe, who would hold her in his car on late nights and whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

Rafe, who promised.

And he broke it.

Sofia didn’t interrupt once. She stayed crouched there, one arm resting on her bent knee, nodding gently as each piece fell from Y/N like shattered glass. Her face remained steady and calm, but her eyes were soft with understanding. With heartbreak for her friend. When the story was done, Y/N swallowed thickly and glanced up at her with wet eyes.

“Please don’t judge me”

She whispered, barely audible. Sofia’s reaction was immediate — a sharp shake of the head. She said, gently but firmly.

“Why would I judge you?”

“I don’t know, I just…” Y/N’s voice cracked. She looked away again, blinking hard. Sofia leaned in a little closer, her brows furrowing with affection.

“Why didn’t you say something, mi corazón?”

“I was just… embarrassed.”

Y/N’s lips wobbled as she gave the smallest shrug and whispered. Without a word, Sofia reached out and laid a steadying hand on Y/N’s knee, grounding her. She spoke her voice laced with quiet conviction.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of”

Y/N’s throat tightened instantly. Her chin dipped, tears slipping down once again. But when Sofia leaned forward and wrapped her into another hug, she folded into it without hesitation- burying her face in her friend’s shoulder, arms clutching around her tightly like she might disappear. “We’ll figure it out, okay?” Sofia whispered against her hair.

“We’ll figure it out together.”

“I love you Sof”

Y/N’s eyes fluttered shut. Her body sagged in relief at the promise — not that anything was fixed, but that she wasn’t alone. Sofia just hugged her tighter.

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

Y/N threw back the swinging door to the main bar with her hip, a full tray of used glasses balanced effortlessly in her hand. The low hum of muffled chatter greeted her like a familiar blanket, warm and a little suffocating. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the bar's lights as she stepped back behind the counter, dumping the tray beside the industrial sink with a heavy exhale. She hadn’t realised how much she needed that talk with Sofia until now. Something about finally saying it out loud- all of it- had loosened the tightness in her chest. The weight of silence had been unbearable, and now, while the ache still lingered, she could breathe again. Just a little. But there wasn’t time to dwell in her thoughts anyways, not tonight.

The bar was packed, voices raised, chairs scraping against floorboards, orders being placed and the occasional whistle. She adjusted the apron which was tied snug around her waist, as a guy asked from the far end of the bar, adding on the name of his tab.

“Two shots of tequila, lime and salt on the side”

“Of course”

She replied without missing a beat, already grabbing the bottle and reaching for shot glasses. Her hands moved fast- pouring, shaking, stirring. She restocked bottles of liquor without thinking, cracked open a fresh case of beer, wiped condensation from the metal counter and replaced a handful of clean napkins. Someone ordered a mojito and she went to work muddling the mint, crushing ice with a practiced rhythm. It was muscle memory by now- she didn’t have to think, which was exactly what she needed.

No room for thoughts, no room for Rafe, or JJ, or anything else eating her alive from the inside out.

The more she moved, the more she disappeared into the chaos. Her skin gleamed under the bar lights, sweat beading along the back of her neck as she reached overhead to tuck fresh tumblers onto the glass shelf. She barely heard the quiet jazz music anymore, just the beat of urgency thudding in her chest.

“Another whiskey sour”

Someone asked and she reached for the shaker, wipe, pour, shake, serve, repeat, but then something made her glance up and her hand stilled on the bottle. Across the bar, nestled deep into the shadows of the corner lounge area, sat Rafe. Not drinking, not talking.

Just watching her.

He was slouched back in a leather chair like he owned that corner of the room, legs spread comfortably, one arm draped over the armrest. The light barely caught his face, but she didn’t need clarity to know the exact look he was wearing- that familiar unreadable expression, cold eyes fixed solely on her like she was something distant he couldn’t quite reach. Her jaw clenched tight.

The nerve

The audacity?

Y/N quickly looked away, her lips thinning as she focused on the drink in her hands, finishing the sour and passing it across the bar without a second glance. She moved faster now, snatching empty glasses off tables as she passed, ducking into the back cooler for a new bottle of gin, keeping her head down. But every time she looked up- every time- he was still there, still watching. Like a storm cloud on the edge of the horizon, just waiting to roll in, god it made her blood boil.

Her shoulders tensed as she scrubbed a sticky ring off the bar top with more force than necessary. She refused to give him the satisfaction of looking back, refused to let him drag her under again, not tonight. Not while she was trying to hold it together with thin threads and old tape. She poured a round of rum and cokes for a rowdy group at table four, barely registering the guy who tried to flirt with her as she served them. All she could feel was the burn of Rafe’s stare pressing into the side of her face like a brand. The bar area was still pulsing around her, dim lights flickering like fireflies in the low haze, glasses clinking, a muffled jazz beat vibrating through the floorboards but Y/N had started to move on autopilot. Hands quick and precise, wiping down the counters, collecting empty tumblers, taking orders and mixing drinks. She’d just handed off a margarita, salted rim, top-shelf tequila, extra lime, 'the usual', to a woman with long red nails and a tipsy grin when something in her peripheral made her pause.

She looked over and there he was.

Standing just to her left now, not lounging anymore, but leaning forward against the bar- both arms resting casually on the glossy wooden top, the sleeves of his shirt pushed back to his elbows. His expression wasn’t smug, wasn’t cocky like usual. There was no lazy smirk or self-satisfied gleam in his eye. He looked tired, and she could see a faint bruise on his cheekbone. His voice was quieter than normal when he spoke — missing that usual confident drawl.

“Can I get a whiskey on ice?”

Y/N didn’t respond. Not with words anyway, she turned, wordless, and reached for the bottle behind her. Her movements were mechanical and efficient. She pulled out a glass, dropped in the ice, and started pouring slow and steady, never once letting herself really look at him. But she couldn't help it and her eyes flickered up once. Just once. He was already watching her. His gaze was steady, fixed on her with a weight that made her skin prickle. Like he was searching for something in her face, something he couldn’t quite reach, something he knew he might not be allowed to see anymore. Still, she didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask why he was here. Didn’t ask what the hell he thought he was doing. Because truthfully? She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. There was too much in her mind and it was too loud- much too messy.

Her hand moved on instinct, finishing the pour, and he slid the glass across the bar on a coaster her fingers brushing the condensation as she pushed it toward him. Rafe took it, fingers curling around the glass, but he didn’t drink. He just looked at her, lips pressing into a thin line like he was forcing himself not to say something he might regret. Finally, his voice broke the beat of the music again, soft but edged with something uncertain.

“…are you mad at me?”

Y/N didn’t blink, is he fucking dumb? She didn’t lift her eyes as she answered, her voice flat. Cold. Soaked in disappointment that ran deeper than fury.

“Mad doesn’t even cover it.”

And then she turned, already moving toward the next customer, leaving Rafe standing there, his untouched drink in hand. He didn’t leave, not after that first drink, not after her next round of orders rolled in. Rafe stayed perched on a stool by the bar, watching her every move.

All night.

Eventually he returned to the same leather chair tucked into the farthest corner of the lounge, a space covered just enough in shadow that most people wouldn’t notice him if they were looking. But Y/N did. Every time she turned around, every time she restocked the vodka, every time she handed someone a beer, she felt his eyes.

Waiting.

For what?—she wasn’t sure. A chance to speak to her? Forgiveness? Maybe just a single glance from her in his direction. She didn’t give him that- not once. Not even when her arms began to ache from shaking drinks. Not even when her lower back pinched from bending to stock crates under the bar. She kept moving, kept working, pushing through the ache in her chest and the hot buzz behind her eyes because looking at him, acknowledging him, might just undo her right there behind the bar.

He didn’t make it easy, he stayed there, that untouched whiskey glass still in front of him like he didn’t even have the stomach to drink it. His elbows rested on the armrests of the chair, posture not lazy like usual was but tense. Stiff. Even Sofia noticed. The first time she passed by his corner delivering a round of beers, she glanced his way—and didn’t hide the icy look she shot him. Her brows furrowed in sharp judgment, eyes narrowing as she walked by without breaking her stride. The second time, she muttered something under her breath in Spanish that sounded suspiciously like a curse. The third time, Rafe shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable now. He rubbed the back of his neck, avoided looking at her directly. His fingers tapped restlessly against the side of his glass, but he didn’t leave.

Y/N clocked it all from across the room.

How he didn’t even try to defend himself under Sofia’s glare. How he just sat there, letting himself stew in whatever guilt had driven him here in the first place. Despite every ounce of anger boiling in her chest, some part of her- a stupid, bruised part- still wondered why. Why he was there. Why he hadn’t left. Why he did what he did in the first place.

But she didn’t ask, she couldn't.

She just kept pretending she didn’t feel his stare burning a hole through her ribs.

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

Y/N shoved her apron deep into her bag, the fabric still damp from the shift. Her locker door clanged shut harder than necessary, echoing through the quiet staff room. Her fingers trembled slightly as she pulled the worn bag closed. Sofia leaned against the frame of the doorway, arms crossed, watching her closely.

“You sure you don’t want me to walk you to your car?” her voice soft, gentle, hesitant, "why don't you just come and stay with me for the night? You know my parents really won’t mi—”

“I’m fine”

Y/N cut her off with a half-hearted smile, already slinging her bag over her shoulder,

“Really- I'll be ok”

Sofia didn’t push. She just nodded, a quiet understanding behind her brown eyes, and reached out to give her friend’s arm a warm rub, reassuring and grounding.

“Text me when you get home”

She spoke out with a soft smile, and then turned returning back to serving, leaving Y/N alone with the dim hum of the locker room lights. Y/N let out a breath as the door swung shut behind her, then turned on her heel and started out, walking the familiar halls of the country club in silence. The floors echoed under her shoes, the once-buzzing energy now dulled down to a few scattered patrons still nursing their drinks at the bar. Her path was straight and certain; out the lobby, across the lot, into her car, and then home to her bedroom where she could finally fall apart all over again but that plan cracked the moment she heard his voice,

“I can’t stand not talking to you”

It stopped her mid-step. She turned, eyes narrowing as her gaze landed on him, standing just a few feet away near the archway that separated the main area from the corridor. His posture was rigid, jaw tight, eyes desperately locked on her like the sight of her physically hurt him.

“Cornering me at work Rafe?” Her voice was sharp, cutting.

“Seriously?”

“Please,” he said quickly, “it was a mistake”

Her laugh was dry and humourless as she took a step back, putting more space between them as she spoke out to him,

“Well I don’t want to fucking see you. Okay?”

She turned sharply on her heel, her shoes hitting against the polished floor as she headed for the door to get as far away as she possibly could from him. He took a step after her calling out her name,

“Y/N—”

“I said I’m done”

She snapped without looking back as her hand moved forward to press against the cool glass of the door but that’s when his hand caught her wrist. Not hard- not even rough. Just a desperate, instinctual reach to stop her from walking away from him but it didn’t matter.

She flinched- visibly.

Her body jolted back, her breath catching in her throat like someone had shoved her against a wall, and she harshly snatched her hand away from him. His hand was off her in an instant, eyes wide with horror.

“Shit- I'm sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

His voice was genuinely shaken, like he'd just realised something too late... it didn't take a genius for him to figure out why she'd reacted that way. They stood there, the air heavy and still. Her chest rising and falling in quiet breaths. Him, frozen in place like if he moved too fast he’d shatter the last piece of her that was still standing in front of him. Y/N finally looked up at him, her voice cracked,

“I trusted you.”

Rafe’s lips parted like he wanted to speak, but the words never came. Just the ache of guilt, swelling like a lump in his throat preventing him from speaking out to her. “Out of everyone on this island,” she said, each syllable slow, deliberate, trembling,

“I trusted you.”

And God, that look in her eyes when she looked away- betrayal, hurt- it gutted him. Because no one had ever trusted him like that before- and he’d thrown it away in a moment of reckless anger which was worthless to him now. She didn’t need to see the look on his face to know it would upset her, but when she looked up to him again it almost stopped her in her tracks. Rafe was still standing there, just a few steps behind where she left him, eyes damp with unshed tears, his lower lip trembling like he was fighting it- like he was barely holding himself together. For a moment, she felt like she couldn’t breathe- but she didn’t have the space to carry his pain on top of hers. So she shook her head, a tiny, bitter movement- more to herself than to him- and turned away. She didn’t wait to see if he’d call out again, she didn’t want to hear anything else come out of his mouth. Y/N pushed through the exit doors into the still, quiet night.

The staff parking lot was nearly empty now. Sofia’s little beat-up car was a few spots over from her own, the manager’s black SUV on the far side but that was it. Empty asphalt, dim overhead lights, and the sound of her own footsteps echoing with every step toward her car. She half-expected him to follow, but he didn’t. Good, she thought to herself he didn’t deserve to. As she approached her car, something caught her eye- a small, white rectangle tucked neatly beneath the wiper blade of her windshield. Her stomach twisted. She glanced around the lot on instinct, but saw no one. Carefully, she plucked the paper from under the wiper. It was a folded-up note card. And when she opened it, two crisp hundred-dollar bills fluttered to the pavement at her feet.

Her heart dropped as her eyes scanned the message.

" Sorry baby x "

She scoffed out loud, bitter and disbelieving, the sound catching in her throat like a laugh soaked in gasoline. She bent down slowly, picked up the bills, her fingers trembling. Was this a joke? Was this what he thought would make things better? Footsteps echoed behind her and she didn’t even need to turn because she knew it was him. Hot rage snapped through her chest like a rubber band and before she could think twice, she whirled around and stormed back toward him, shoes slamming against the pavement. Her fist clutched the note and the cash tightly, nails biting into her palm. He was just a few yards away, hands stuffed in his pockets, walking slowly like he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing- but when she closed the distance between them, he stopped dead in his tracks. Without hesitation, she shoved the paper and bills into his chest shoving him back, her voice shaking from fury.

“I don’t want your fucking money Rafe!”

The bills nearly slipped from his hands as he reached up, fumbling to catch them. His brows furrowed, panicked and hurt.

“I’m just trying to help you—”

“I’m not a FUCKING CHARITY CASE!”

She snapped yelling out at him, voice rising, eyes glinting under the parking lot lights. The words hung between them like a slap and he stared at her like she’d just knocked the wind out of him. She could see it now- the way his mouth opened, then shut again, how he couldn’t look her in the eye, how the words on his tongue died before they ever reached his lips. Because he knew. Deep down, he knew this wasn’t something a couple hundred bucks and a sorry would fix. But still… he reached for her. Not to touch, but to speak- his voice cracked, low.

“Y/N…”

She stepped back.

"Don’t."

Her breath hitched, and she swallowed it down with every ounce of strength she had left. She looked at him, really looked at him- messy hair, tired eyes meeting that wounded expression on his face like he was the one who got hurt- and it made her sick. "You don't get to be upset," she whispered, voice trembling but sharp as glass.

"This is your fault."

She spoke out through gritted teeth and he just shook his head in response and he sighed out, his hand coming out and running over his hair before he could say another word to her, she turned and walked away she refused to listen to hi-

“I love you”

His voice cuts through the space between them- soft and low, but it stopped her in her tracks like a bullet. Y/N froze, completely, her back still to him. Her hand comes up over her face, trembling as she tries to breathe through it, tries to swallow down everything rising in her throat. She feels like her knees are about to give out underneath her, chest heaving with the kind of pressure that builds until it becomes unbearable, the kind that threatens to spill out in hot, angry tears. What the fuck was he doing? Her hand drops slowly to her side, fingers twitching, keys clinking in her grip. She turns, slow and tired and sharp all at once, and lifts her chin just enough to meet his gaze. Her voice is tight, quiet, venom-laced and barely hanging on.

“Don’t say shit like that.”

She takes a step back like his presence burns. He tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing in confusion.

“Why not?”

“Because—” she starts, then bites the word off, jaw clenching as she shakes her head, like she can just shake him out of her mind.

“Just don’t.”

But Rafe- he stays rooted to the pavement, watching her like she’s sand slipping through his fingers and he's desperate enough to fall to the floor and start picking up each grain individually. “Please,” he says, voice rough with a pleading edge she’s never heard from him.

“Just listen to what I have to say”

She shakes her head again, more frantic this time, her thumb jabbing the car key until she hears a beep, the headlights flashing like a warning. She storms toward the door, her breath hitching in her throat. “Well then talk to me,” Rafe tries again, following her now, steps echoing hers. Desperation claws into his voice.

“Please Y/N- talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you, okay?”

She whirls around so fast he almost walks right into her, and with a sharpness that nearly cuts the air and she snaps, voice cracking in the middle, hand shaking around the keys.

“I don’t want to talk to you- my whole life is crumbling around me, and funnily enough, you seem to be the core of my problems.”

“No, I’m not—”

“Yes you are!”

Y/N yells as she raises her hands in defeat, voice ringing out across the empty parking lot, echoing off metal and asphalt and silence. She’s standing there, chest rising and falling so hard it looks like she might collapse under the weight of it all. Her lip trembles as she stares at him- like he’s the storm and she’s the goddamn wreckage.

“I seem to only be thinking about you!”

She chokes out, the words ragged. Real. They're out of her mouth before she can stop them and when they land, when the truth hangs heavy and cruel between them, her entire expression shifts. Like the world’s been ripped from beneath her feet and she’s the one who did it. Her lips press together, her shoulders sag, and her eyes flicker down like she’s already trying to take it back.

But it’s too late.

Rafe just stares at her, a flicker of pain surging behind his eyes. No smirk, no cocky retort, no smug line like always. Just... stunned- like he’s been punched in the chest. She exhales shakily and reaches for the car door handle, gripping it so tight her knuckles go white. She tries to anchor herself to the cold metal but then his voice cuts through the silence, earnest.

“...I think about you too.”

She squeezes her eyes shut as though to block his voice out.

“All the time I'm thinking about yo-”

“No.” 

Her voice is barely a whisper now fractured and frightened.

“Stop.”

“Why?” Rafe asks, his tone is softer this time.

“What are you so afraid of?”

Her fingers tremble where they rest against the door, and she swallows hard, the lump in her throat too big to ignore now. “I can’t-” she croaks, shaking her head like it physically hurts her to speak.

“I can’t do this with you, Rafe. I just can’t.”

“Why?”

His voice is gentle- almost pleading- just a thread of sound in the night air. He steps closer, careful not to touch her, but close enough that she can feel the heat of him lingering like a ghost, like he’s haunting her just like everything else she’s tried to bury. “Y/N,” he says, his tone catching at the edges,

“you know you want to. So why are you running away?”

She doesn’t answer. She just stands there, shaking her head slowly, lips pressed tight like she’s trying to hold herself together with sheer will alone. Because how is she supposed to explain it? How does she say out loud that love feels like a noose around her throat- that she's only ever known the kind that hurts. She hates it- hates that he’s asking the very question she keeps asking herself.

Why is she running?

The answer lodges in her chest, sharp and bitter: because she’s scared. Scared of how much this means, scared of what it could take from her, scared of how much it already has. She’s never really been loved. Not the way people are supposed to be. Not by her father, who only ever saw her as a mirror of everything he hated. Not even- if she’s being honest- by JJ, because JJ has the Pogues he has John B and the others and she… she’s always felt like second place- like an afterthought, even when they swore they were all each other had. So yeah- she’s scared. Because this? What she feels when Rafe looks at her, what stirs deep in her gut when he says her name like a prayer he’s never gonna stop saying, it’s terrifying.

Because she loves him.

She loves him.

More than she even knew she could and that’s what terrifies her the most. Rafe sees the shift. The tear rolling down her cheek and his hands twitch at his sides- because he wants to reach out. Wants to tell her it's okay to be scared. That he’s scared too. But his voice breaks around the weight of it.

“Y/N I lov-”

“Please”

She whispers, eyes glossy as the salt water drips down the skin of her face, her voice raw and strained.

“Just let me go home.”

His jaw tenses hard enough it clicks, the muscle there jumping. His mind screams at him to keep her here, to talk it out until she's in his arm again but instead, he nods, jaw locked tight like he’s holding back something that might rip him in half if he lets it loose. He steps back and she can't meet his eyes. She just slips into her car like she’s done a thousand times, hands shaking as she fumbles with the key, breath stuttering through her chest. The door shuts with a quiet thud that sounds final.

And then- she’s gone. Taillights disappear down the dark road, red glow vanishing into the night. Rafe stands there for a second, not moving, just staring at where her car used to be. His chest rises and falls like he’s been running, but he hasn’t moved at all. His hands lift to his hair, a groan tearing from his throat, guttural and helpless. He paces once, twice in rage and heartbreak and desperation tangling all over each other until he doesn’t even know what to feel anymore.

Because fuck.

He knows that she loves him but he’s scared he’s already lost her anyway.

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

The drive home is silent, except for the low hum of the engine and the occasional crunch of gravel beneath her tires. Her hands are loose on the wheel now, posture slumped like all the weight of the night has finally caught up to her. The headlights sweep over the front of her house as she pulls in, illuminating the weather-worn porch, the chipped paint on the steps.

She parks and cuts the engine.

For a moment, she doesn’t move. Just rests her forehead gently against the steering wheel and closes her eyes quiet sniffles filling the car. She lets herself sink into the kind of stillness that feels like sinking into water- quiet, numbing, heavy. She sits there and thinks for a moment, she thinks how she wishes she could just start over. Somewhere far away, somewhere no one knows her name and no one knows what she’s done. Somewhere she could exist without always feeling like she's on the edge of ruin. Like she's constantly holding everything together with nothing but her fingertips and good intentions. Her chest tightens as she breathes out a shaky sigh finally reaching for the door handle.

She steps out into the cool night, her shoes landing softly on the dried grass. The sky is thick and clouded, swallowing the stars whole, no moonlight shining through. As she approaches the porch, she notices just a faint flicker of light through the drawn shutter blinds. Her steps quiet as she doesn’t want to make a sound. Y/N slides her keys into the lock carefully, twisting them with a gentle hand.

Click

The door eases open and she slips inside and shuts it behind her—softly, gently, like maybe if she moves quiet enough, nothing will break but as she turns around and stops cold. Dead in her tracks. Her breath catches in her throat, and her eyes lock onto the living room just a few feet ahead.

Her father is sitting on the couch.

Half his face lit by the dim glow of the table lamp beside him. The other half shrouded in darkness. His shoulders are hunched forward, one hand dangling off his knee, a glass of something clutched loose in his fingers. Whiskey maybe, or vodka, or whatever was cheapest this week. His eyes are open and staring straight at her. It’s like the air’s been sucked out of the house. His expression unreadable beneath the haze of alcohol—and maybe something stronger. She’s still frozen there, heart pounding so loud she can feel it in her throat, her ears, her ribs. Like it’s trying to crawl out of her. But it’s not him that makes her stomach twist into knots and her lungs forget how to breathe. It’s what’s sitting on the table in front of him, laid out neatly on the small coffee table like some sort of offering.

A pair of her stripper heels.

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[bogleech]

Scanning electron microscopy is awesome and I personally think the images it produces are gorgeous but objectively speaking I feel like it doesn't do any favors at all for the "scary" cultural image of insects, because I mean, here's a closeup of a carpet beetle in its true colors:

And here's an SEM image that comes up for carpet beetles on google:

And the thing about SEM images is that they aren't "photographs;" they are computer scans. They're 3-d digital models generated by scanning an object at the molecular level. Color is not preserved by this process, and if it were all the specimens would look like metal anyway (I'll explain this is in a moment), so images like this had to be colored artificially. This isn't done to recreate the true colors, but to make different body parts more visible as study material, resulting in scientific images of wacky blueberry fleas:

The subtly varying transparency levels of living tissues are completely lost as well, which is why the fine hairs of insects stand out more like cactus thorns in SEM imagery, and tardigrades look like opaque leathery things with no eyes:

...Even though a tardigrade actually has eyes, they're just under the surface of a crystal clear exoskeleton:

Another thing that probably contributes to the uncanniness of SEM images is also the fact that they can only show us embalmed corpses encased in liquid metal.

It's not possible to do this fine level of scanning "instantaneously" enough for it to work on anything that's still moving, so even when you see scanning electron images of animals in various lifelike poses, it's because they're preserved specimens that were carefully positioned, or they were live specimens basically "flash frozen" by a sudden dehydration process, mummified so fast they never knew it. Many specimens are then "sputter coated," meaning they're sprayed with a thin (like microns thin) layer of liquid gold, platinum or other fine metal in order for the electrons to perfectly bounce off of every subatomic detail and produce that perfect scan. So this is a live fruit fly:

And this is a fruit fly mummy with probably some sort of chrome plating:

[poisonousivy616]

I Manifested My Dream Apartment FOR FREE In 3 Days!!! (Law of Assumption Success Story)

  ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ.       🐍🖤     ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆ Backstory ⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆

Hi babes!!!

A few months ago, I was literally homeless, no sugarcoating it. I was crashing at different people's places just to have somewhere to sleep. No stability. No peace. Constantly anxious. Constantly in survival mode. I was sick of it - of feeling like I had no control over my own life.

So one day, I made the decision. I'm done living like this. I deserve to feel safe, to have a home. And I'm not going to wait on the 3D to catch up. I decided I have my dream apartment already. I didn't know how. I didn't care how. I just knew it was done.

⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆ Method ⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆

The first thing I did was make a Pinterest board filled with dreamy apartment aesthetics. Think: floor-to ceiling windows, soft lightning, cozy corners, neutral tones, minimalist but luxurious vibes. I soaked in those images like it was already mine.

Then I tackled my self concept. Because let's be real: the world mirrors YOU.

I started robotically affirming the same core truths over and over:

༺♰༻I am a master at manifesting.

༺♰༻I'm GOD of my reality.

༺♰༻The world revolves around me.

༺♰༻I always get what I want exactly when I want it.

I also started listening to the "program your mind to think like GOD" affirmation tape by High Frequency Guru (literally obsessed with her. She is that girl) I played it every morning and night - when my subconscious was wide open.

I also let it loop in the background while I was cleaning, walking, scrolling, watching TV, passive, non-stop affirming like it was my job

Here's the twist tho:

I still felt delusional. I still felt like a fraud. My 3D said "you barely have a place to sleep"

But I didn't care.

I ignored the 3D. I reminded myself that my assumptions create my reality - not the other way around. I kept affirming. I refused to spiral. I refused to doubt. I made it law in my mind.

⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆ Results ⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆

3. Days. Later.

Within 72 hours, I was literally handed my dream apartment.

I'm not exaggerating. The EXACT apartment from my Pinterest board - same vibe, layout, same color scheme, fully furnished, even down to the little aesthetic decor touches I had on my vision board.

But wait! It gets better!!!!

I didn't have to pay anything.

Not for the move-in, not for the furniture, not for rent.

The rent is already paid for the ENTIRE year!!!

And it wasn't mommy or daddy's money. It wasn't even some long-lost rich relative. It came from a source I never even imagined.

Someone I didn't even know. Someone who just wanted to help.

The "how" didn't matter - it unfolded perfectly. And all I did was shift my mind.

⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆ Final words ⋆༺𓆩⚔️𓆪༻⋆

If you're reading this - know that you can do this too.

You don't need to take physical action.

You don't need to stress over the how.

You don't need to be perfect or feel high vibe all the time.

You just need to do the one thing that actually matters:

༺♰༻Decide it's yours

༺♰༻Assume it's done

༺♰༻Persist in the new story, no matter what your 3D says

Your reality is your mirror: your thoughts are the script. Your mind is the only power. There's no one outside of you calling the shots.

You are God of your reality. The main character. The writer. The director. The producer.

And don't ever let this world make you forget that.

Love, Ivy 💚🖤