#I only went on vacation for the first time since then last year and didn't even technically leave the country pls

[chaotic-mystery]

Code Red | Chapter Eleven: I Only See Daylight

Pairing: No outbreak AU dbf!Joel Miller x f!OC (told in 2nd POV)

Summary: You're back in Texas after going on vacation with Joel and needless to say, shit hits the fan.

Content Warnings: 18+ ONLY MDNI. Enemies to lovers, dads best friend Joel, age gap (readers in her twenties and Joel is in his forties), slow burn, written in 2nd POV, no use of y/n, broken father/daughter relationship, daddy issues, dd/lg relationship dynamic, serious conversations about kid(s), allusions to sex & taking photos during sex, swearing, mentions of drinking, reader smokes & sometimes Joel, A new song introduced to the universe!, hidden relationship, Joel wanting to fight your dad, the start of everything falling apart. Texts shared between reader & Joel.

Authors Note: Here we are. I know I haven't touched this story since May 14th and I'm not done with them quite yet. I plan to write ahead moving forward so I don't leave anyone on a cliffhanger. This is 100000% not beta'd (I didn't want to burden anybody) so the mistakes are all moi. There's little eggs hidden of when this was written and I hope you giggle when you catch them. Thank you if you're still reading their story, I don't plan on leaving again <3

|| wc: 4.8K || divider by @/anitalenia || previous chapter || series masterlist || main masterlist ||

It had been a few days since that night Sharon came by and woke you up at two in the morning, sticking her nose in your business about Joel. 

She was only worried about your dad finding out and how he would react, she said she didn’t tell your mom and nothing seemed different when you went over to her house to drive into town to shop, but it was eating away at you if she was actually putting on a show just like you had been. 

Sharon warned you to be safe and reminded you she was there if you needed anything but the way she was going about this worried you. She failed to mention how you should break it to  Sarah and you hadn’t even begun to think about how to have that conversation with her. Do you just…show up on the porch one day and tell her you’ve been seeing her dad for almost the past year?

 Scratch that, that’s a terrible idea. It was a conversation to be had with Joel and the last thing you wanted was to feel like you were replacing her as the number one woman in his life. All you ever dealt with as a kid was your dads girlfriends making it feel like a competition for who he loved the most and unfortunately you were never a first place winner. 

“Honey? Do you like this?” Your mom’s voice becomes clearer as you’re once again yanked from the seat inside your thoughts to the present time. 

The bright green hoodie she was holding up was so bright you damn near needed sunglasses just to lay eyes on it. Every muscle in your face fights to make a disgusted look but knowing your mom would be upset, you keep a straight face and quickly scan the metal racks surrounding you for a different option to counter it. Like a magnet, the pink hoodie with chunky writing on the back nearly jumps off the hanger and into your arms. 

“I think this one is a little more me, you think?” 

She nods her head and takes it from you, throwing it over her bent arm in front of her body. She told you to pick out something from the souvenir shop and she’d pay for it, also meaning to find something for Joel. What could he possibly want from here? He wasn’t really a hoodie kind of guy, especially not down in Texas when he was outside practically all the time. He had more than enough trucker hats to last him the rest of his life. 

“So tell me more about Joel, sweetheart, what’s his normal life like?” 

“Well, he’s my boss but that happened after we started dating. Umm, I mean he’s my neighbor which was also before we started dating, promise I didn’t move closer to him just because we’re together.”

Your mom nods with a small smile, her face relaxing as you soothe her mind in knowing she taught you well not to move so fast with someone you hardly know.

“He um, he’s got a kid..” you scratch your head and spin around to look at the clothes behind you, her eyes burning into the back of your skull. “..it’s really not that big of a deal, I don’t think. I haven’t really met her yet. I don’t want her to feel like I’m trying to replace her mom or take her dad from her.” The quiver in your voice surprises you both and your mom spins you back around, rubbing your arm caringly. 

You were terrified, truthfully. Telling Sarah about your relationship scared the shit out of you. Even thinking about Joel asking you to be responsible with Sarah scared the life from you. 

“Mommy, I’m so scared. What if she doesn’t like me and he breaks up with me? I mean, I wouldn’t want him to stay with me if she’s unhappy about it. I just…I love him.” Your voice was just above a whisper and the words felt as if they were slicing your throat on the way out. 

She says nothing as her lips pursed together into a frown and pulls you into her arms, hugging you tightly. Once more you felt like a little girl needing the comfort of your mother when things got tough. 

“You’ll be okay, I know it. Listen to me-” her hands grip your face to keep eye contact with you before she continues. “-you know better than anyone what that feels like and you’d do anything to protect that little girl, even if that means not seeing him anymore. You don’t have it in you to be that cruel. Just be yourself and she’ll see how happy you make him.”

Hearing testaments about your character always made you feel weird inside. It was never easy hearing how other people see you, especially when it’s positive. You look at her and she smiles assuringly before kissing the top of your forehead.

“Come on, let’s find something for Sarah.”

_

Holding onto the little beaded keychain in your hand, your mom pulls up to the quaint cabin you unfortunately had to say goodbye to tomorrow and she rubs your arm softly. 

“You’ll be okay, sweetheart. Just be honest with him about your feelings with this. It’s all valid.” 

You breathe in deeply and release the air out of your mouth, nodding at her. 

“I’ll be fine, I just need to go see him. I love you, I’ll stop by on the way to the airport.” 

You hated goodbyes. So it wasn’t saying goodbye to her, it was just telling her you’d see her later. You kiss her cheek and grab your bag of goodies from between your legs on the floor before getting out, standing out of the way so she could pull off. Jiggling the plastic bag in your hand nervously, you dig around in your purse until you feel the smooth carton of cigarettes and lighter clanking around inside.

The gray flint rubs against the pad of your thumb as you ignite the cigarette held between your lips, walking up to the small wooden porch to sit in the white rocking chair under the window. Too many thoughts about Sarah and all the ways she could react flood your thoughts again as you take a big drag to erase it all. Joel pushes the screen door open just enough to slip through and he nudges your knee gently. 

“Hungry? Made BLT sandwiches if you want one.” Joel presses a kiss to your cheek before taking the cigarette from between your fingers and taking a drag. 

“Tempting, maybe. I got you something from town, though!” You try to make it seem like you weren’t bothered by anything but he could read you like a goddamn book.

You were his favorite one.

His eyes fell to the bright blue shirt you were pulling out of the plastic bag, chuckling to himself before he even got to see the design. You finally get it out and flip it towards him so Joel could see what you picked out for him. 

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. This is awesome.” 

Joel’s fingers trace over the goofy design of the state drawn as an old fashioned cartoon with feet holding it up and bright yellow letters across the top. He stares at the piece of clothing for longer than normal, continuously rubbing over the painted letters. The thought of you buying it for him, spending the time to find something he would wear, it meant a lot to him and it was written all over his face. 

“Thank you, baby. I love it.”

Joel sets it in the chair next to you and places both hands on either side of your chair, leaning down until he’s eye level with you. 

“My pretty girl, what’re you thinkin’ about in here?” As he finishes saying his sentence he bumps his forehead into yours, resting them together comfortably. 

Joel turns his face to the side for a moment to take another drag of the shared cigarette and he blows the smoke quickly to return back in position. Your eyes close as you relax against his touch, the slight breeze rustling against the trees and drowning out the sound of your mind screaming at you. The dooming thoughts of Sarah knowing about this could wait, you were here with the man of your dreams, having the time of your life and it was the last night before you had to unfortunately return to Texas and go back to hiding something you were so proud of. 

“I just wish we could run away somewhere where we don't have to hide our relationship. Where I can walk into the grocery store with you and not worry about still holding your hand, wondering if someone who knows my dad is gonna turn the corner and see it. I just- I want to love you loudly like you deserve. You aren’t meant to be a secret.”

Joel’s right hand rests on your crossed leg, rubbing your calf to ease you. 

“I’ll give you everything you could ever want and more, I swear it. How much time do I have to give it to you, though?” 

“I’ve got enough time for you, Miller. Not too long though, I’m not a patient person, ya know.” 

The thought of waiting an eternity for Joel Miller didn’t sound so bad, at least not to you. 

Every now and then you would get this feeling in your stomach thinking about Joel and how much you really did care for him and love him. It wasn’t a feeling you could quite pinpoint. The depth of sadness would overcome you just at the idea of losing him, knowing one day his footsteps wouldn’t grace this earth anymore. It was always sitting in the back of your mind, poking at you to love whatever time you got with him, because one day there wasn’t going to be this. 

“I love you, you know that?” Joel asks and kisses your lips before you can answer. 

The kiss quickly turns passionate and he backs up with your lips still glued to his, your body carrying you with every step he takes into the house. Joel leads you to the bedroom and tosses you on the bed lovingly, admiring the way your beautiful eyes glowed in the golden ray of sunlight seeping through the flowy curtains. 

“Let’s enjoy our last night here, yeah?” 

You grab your camera from the pocket of your sundress and grin at Joel, the gears turning inside his mind as he catches on. 

“To our last night.” 

_

Running on a few hours of sleep and the coffee not doing its job in your body, you yawn again as your Uber pulls up to your moms house. This was the part you were dreading the most, seeing your mom torn up that you’re leaving again. 

“Cmon, Mom, I gotta get going!” The fake happy tone was so apparent but it was easier to keep her up in good spirits if you pretended to be okay. 

Your mom comes around the corner from the kitchen, her hand towel tossed over her shoulder as she always did when she was doing dishes. She wipes her hands dry and hugs you so tight it feels like your eyes are going to pop out. 

“I love you so much, mommy. I’ll call you when I get back to Texas and I’m home safe, I swear it.” Fuck, and just like that, the quiver in your voice makes you start to break and before you can collect yourself, tears slipping from your eyes.

“I love you more, my baby. Have a safe flight, okay? Who knows, maybe I’ll come see you for the holidays in a few months.” She laughs to keep herself from crying but it only goes so far before you can feel her body jolt with every sob. 

The tight grip of her arms around your neck makes you giggle between your tears and she squeezes you once more before letting you go, standing up straight to get a good look at you before letting you leave her again and go spread your wings back to your home. 

“Come on, you’ve got a plane to catch!” 

You take her hand in yours and walk to your Uber, Joel getting out immediately to give her a hug goodbye. As you circle around the back of the car to get inside, you can’t help but notice Joel and your mom having some sort of quiet conversation you weren’t privy to. Swallowing dryly and wanting so bad to know what they were talking about, you climbed into the backseat of the car to give them privacy. Though it bothered you enough to dig your fingernail into the side of your thumb, you knew deep down it wasn’t anything bad they were sharing back and forth. 

Joel opens the door before finishing his goodbye to your mom. 

“Bye, we’ll see you soon!” He grins and gets inside the car, buckling up before waving to her as your driver starts to pull off. There was no shot in hell you could look at her as you drove away, not if you wanted to get to the airport with minimal tears.

Joel intertwined his fingers in yours and kisses the top of your hand to console you, take your mind off the fact you just left your mom again. 

It felt different this time, leaving her house. When you first left almost a year ago, you were beside yourself and so confused about what to do with your life, thinking you’d be making the right choice to chase your dad for one last shot at something with him, anything.

But, here you were now, hand in hand with the asshole you didn’t mean to fall for, crying over the two weeks you spent with him and your mom, watching him get to know her and love her the way you do. 

“Here, take this.” Joel holds out his wired headphone and you place it in your right ear, waiting to hear the music start.

All of the anxiety, love, fearfulness, joy, everything starts to mix together as the lyrics come over the stringed instrument.

Woah, my love, my darling

I've hungered for your touch

A long, lonely time

And time goes by so slowly

And time can do so much

Your tears well in your eyes until you can feel them about to fall, causing you to turn your head to look out the window, not wanting Joel to know you were crying. 

You had to give it to him though, playing the Righteous Brothers was such a Joel move and yet, you never saw it coming. 

Your heartbeat speeds up and it’s like you could feel the blood coursing your veins, the impending doom of not knowing how anything was going to be once you returned to Texas was going to send your body into overdrive. 

-

It was close to seven by the time you and Joel got back home, the streetlights glowing that familiar orange light at the beginning of your block as the sun started to go down behind the trees ahead of you. His hand rests comfortably on your thigh, rubbing slow circles into the fabric of your sweatpants as you two softly sing along to the radio playing a song from Queen, another fitting song for the moment. 

Under Pressure. 

As Joel’s pulling in front of your houses, the sheer panic of seeing your dads vehicle in Joel’s driveway sends your anxiety through the roof, your legs instantly unfolding from the passenger seat to sit straight up, trying to make it not look like what it was. 

“Did you know he was going to be here? What the fuck is he doing here?” 

“Uhhh, I don’t know why he’s here, baby. Just stay calm, okay? I got this.” Joel winks at you and turns the truck off, getting out to see what your dad wants. You sit there for a moment and contemplate sitting still until he leaves but who knows how long that would be. Swallowing harshly, you get out and stretch before you make your way to where your dad and Joel were standing at the end of the driveway. 

“Hi, sweetheart. Where’ve you been?” 

“Michigan, I went to go see mom” you say bluntly as you take your suitcases out of Joel’s truck in a bit of a rush, trying not to let Joel’s bags be seen. Your dad takes a puff of his cigarette and you can hear the snicker from him as a response to your business in Michigan. 

“And Joel came to get you? What did you bribe him with?” The dig at the both of you causes your brows to knit together in confusion at what he was trying to get at. 

“She didn’t bribe me with anything, asshat. She’s a good girl, she just couldn’t get a reliable friend to come get her, that’s all.” 

What your dad couldn’t see was Joel’s fist behind his back, opening and closing slowly to to calm himself down and not stick your dad right in his mouth for speaking about you that way. One day he would make him see you as a person and not some doormat he can walk all over, but it wasn’t going to happen today. Joel was too exhausted and worn out to be arrested.  

Your dad’s face changes when Joel sticks up for you and he clears his throat before flicking his cigarette butt into the street and tucking his beefy hands in his front pockets. 

“I know, I’m just messin’.”

“Well, um…thanks for coming to get me Joel. I appreciate it.” You hold out your hand for a handshake just to see if he takes the bait. The corner of his mouth turns up just enough for you to notice and falls back into place as he holds out his hand, shaking yours firmly. 

He takes one last glance at you before you take your bags and walk to your house, your face warm to the touch with the mixture of embarrassment and the need to walk right back up to him and kiss him the exact way you had been in public for the last two weeks. 

But you couldn’t. 

He wasn’t yours until he wanted to go public. 

Once you get inside and drop the bags off your shoulders to the floor, you tug your phone out of the pocket on your purse. 

8:11 PM [you]: I Miss you :( Come over when he’s gone?

8:24 PM [Joel]: I miss you too sweetheart. He just needs some tools, guess he’s setting up for a pool party tomorrow? Leave your bedroom lamp on if you want me to come by when he’s done. 

8:30 PM [you]: Oh? Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get an invite from him ;)

8:31 PM [you]: Aye aye, sir. 

You set your phone down on the counter before you drag the luggage bags upstairs to the dimly lit bedroom you’ve missed so dearly. The piles of clothes you left on the floor pad your footsteps as you try to find the lightswitch on the wall, lighting up the room to see just how disastrous you left it. 

It needed a good clean and it was on your agenda for tomorrow, for now you’re too tired to do anything besides rot on your couch and get caught up on Love Island, seeing how you missed the first couple of episodes while you were away. 

Rubbing the back of your neck while you scan the room, the sadness starts to settle in that you miss Joel. 

You were independent, sure, but being so close the past two weeks without having to hide with stolen glances and tender brushes of your hands behind the backs of everyone was really starting to get to you. 

Why did he have to be your dad’s best friend?

-

The TV drowned out your thoughts long enough to cause you to fall asleep on the living room sofa, attempting to wait for Joel to return. You reach down and grab your phone off the floor that had fallen a little while ago, opening it up to the text thread between you and Joel. 

8:30 PM [you]: Oh? Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get an invite ;)

9:02 PM [you]: Are you almost done? I wanna cuddle.

9:44 PM [you]: You’re missing a really good episode of Love Island. Remind me to get you a pair of overalls. 

The last message you sent was a half hour ago and still response. You get up and walk into your kitchen, peeking out the window that faced Joel’s house. The lights downstairs were on, that was the most you could see. No shadows, nothing. Wondering where they were, you put on your shoes and walk out to your car, clutching the throw blanket draped over your shoulders as if it were a cape.

You just came outside to grab something from your car, at least that was the story you were sticking with if you got busted by anyone. Opening the driver's side door and looking around, you see Joel’s garage door open and the two of them sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of the room, a few beer cans at Joel’s feet. So this is where he’s been the last two hours? 

You grab a tube of lip balm from the cup holder and close the door firmly, going back inside the house before you were spotted. With your back against the front door, you slide off your shoes and contemplate leaving the door unlocked for him. He didn’t have a key and you wanted him to spend the night, but he’d be more upset if you left it unlocked and fell asleep. 

Grabbing the deadbolt latch and locking the door, you sigh and walk back to the living room to pick up the mess you made. You fold the blanket back up and lay it across the back of the couch, grab your phone, and start making your way upstairs again. 

Sleep. You wanted to sleep. 

The glow from your lamp in the corner by the window illuminated just enough to let you see a clear path to your bed. Stopping to dig out your camera from your bag, you grab it and walk over to your bed. The wind blows in your window and causes the lace curtain to touch your leg, making you turn around to look outside once more before turning off the lamp and crawling into your bed. 

You turn on your camera and look through the last two weeks of your life and the creeping melancholia comes over you. Photos of Joel in the ice cream parlor, the two of you playing cards with your mom, little moments you’ll have forever. He hated being in photos when you first met him, now he couldn’t resist smiling as big as he could when your camera was out. 

It was a little past ten when you heard your phone buzz on the nightstand behind you. Too tired to answer it or to even move, you settle down into your bed further until you fall asleep.

10:21 PM [Joel]: I’m sorry sweetheart. Didn’t know he’d be over that long. Sweet dreams. Proud you locked the front door. Love you. 

The message was the second thing you woke up to this morning. The first thing was Joel on your front porch with a bag from the grocery store with breakfast ingredients inside. He kissed your cheek after making his way to the kitchen. Hours after he made you two breakfast, you got dressed for the day. 

“Forgot to tell you, I did get invited to your dads pool party. He said he’d text you about it.” 

Joel wraps his arms around your waist from behind, pulling you against him gently while you adjust your necklace. His chin rests in the crook of your neck and looks at you through the mirror in front of you. 

“He won’t. I could just show up and crash the party though.” 

“It would make it so much better, I’ll tell you that right now, baby. We should probably go separately though. Best we lay low for a while.”

Lay low for a while. Right. 

Joel turns you around and cups your face. “Don’t give me that look, that’s not fair.” 

You stop pouting and groan loudly before putting your forehead on his chest. Joel kisses your head and stands you straight up, kissing your cheeks until you smile. You kiss his lips passionately and stand still as he starts to make his exit. 

“No pouting today. It’s a pout free day. Let’s get rollin’ baby. I love you, I’ll see you there okay?” 

Joel taps the door frame as you nod and he grins, walking downstairs and you don’t move until you hear the front door close. 

-

The music booms out of the speakers in your dads backyard and it overpowers your car radio as you pull into the driveway, parked right next to Joel’s truck. 

You walk in the front door and head to the kitchen where you hear voices echoing off the walls. A few of your dad’s colleagues stand there chatting away with small plates of finger food in their hands, colorful solo cups scattered along the countertop with various types of drinks. 

The kitchen looked amazing. You hadn’t seen it completed since Joel finished working on it. He was damn good at his job and you felt so proud of him, even if I was unfortunately at your dads house. 

“Look what the cat dragged in!” The hair on your arms raises at the annoying tone of Janet. 

“Kitchen looks nice, sure hope you paid him well” you snark back, a little cattier than you anticipated. 

She smiles sarcastically and walks towards the room behind you. Joel strolls in with your dad in tow, tugging on Joel’s white t-shirt as they laugh and you can barely make out what they’re talking about. 

“What’s up, kiddo?” Joel asks as he leans his hip against the counter and pours a drink for himself. 

You try to avoid looking him in the eyes as best as you can but you only last a few seconds. Right on cue Joel has that grin on his face, the one you only see when he’s with you. The one that holds back so many things he wishes to say. 

Janet walks back to the side of your dad like the good pet she prides herself to be, Joel standing next to you, not nearly as close as you’d like. 

“So, your dad tells me you went to Michigan? How’d you get so much time off already when you just started working?” Janet smirks and hides it with her cup, narrowing her eyes onto you. 

You ready up a loaded answer when Joel starts speaking before you. 

“I gave her the time off, no questions asked. I knew she missed her mom and felt she’d be more energized at work if she got some time from here. She does good work for me.” Dad and Janet couldn’t register his tone like you could. They were far too out of touch to see he was talking to them as if they were children. A subtle tone change was enough for you to notice his feelings on the question Janet had no business asking. 

“I stopped by your office the other day to give you the final check and Tommy said you were out of town?” 

Joel doesn’t shift his body once.

“Yeah, went to go get some wood out northeast.” His fake smile was enough to shut her up for now. It’s dancing too close for comfort and only she seems to notice the damning timelines. Your dad wasn’t putting the pieces fast enough like Janet was. 

“Can someone show me where the coolers are? I need a drink” you ask awkwardly, trying to remove yourself from this clusterfuck. 

Joel steps backwards and motions for you to go ahead in front of him. You set your bag down in the barstool right by the counter and walk outside trying to shake every bit of that conversation off of you. 

The lights were getting brighter as the sun continued to set, people mingling with you and Joel, talking about whatever. It was nice to hear other people’s life stories and how shitty their day-to-day life was. 

Janet comes out and makes a b-line towards you, your pink camera in her grubby hand. 

“You wanna explain this?” She asks in that smartass tone she always uses when she knows something you don’t. As she tosses the device to you, it lands screen faced up and on a photo of you and Joel on the beach your mom took. 

So much for laying low.

[marciliedonato]

I was going to Italy 5 years ago today and Amsterdam 4 years ago today... this sucks ass fuck my stupid baka life ://

[brucewaynehater101]

Tim Drake deserves a vacation from WE, honestly i have no idea about business, but i don't think 95% of the fandom has any idea of what a CEO does either so it's okay. after almost 2 years as the CEO of WE, Tim can finally say that the company is at a point where there's nothing he needs to do and it will still thrive, so he finally decides to take a vacation, and since Bruce still hasn't moved a single step to return as CEO no matter how many times Tim implied, if not outright told him to take back the position, he decides to kill two birds with one stone and make Bruce take the position back, by publicly spending the biggest amount possible in this vacation.

But that's where the first issue appears, despite being rich since he was born, Tim never spent that much money needlessly, Brucie used to spend money on the models he was dating before he became known as a single father, but there's no way that Tim could trust some random models, and he has a boyfriend, so that's out.

But he does have very handsome/beautiful friends that can and have followed him to hell, so surely they wouldn't mind fake dating him and his bf, and who doesn't like spending money, so he called Kon, Bart and Cass to meet with Bernard and he explained his plan, they accepted it way easier than Tim thought and so the vacation began, Tim doubted Bruce last more than a day before taking the company back once the whole world saw Tim Drake on a vacation spending thousands of dollars on his 'harem'.

Two months later the plan failed successfully.

first things first, the vacation was great and it only took Tim 3 weeks before he realized he never told the others that the polycule was fake so they went in this vacation thinking that Tim just decided they should all date and didn't even argue because they're used to Tim being right about pretty much anything, the hardest sell was Bernard and even then it was really fast for him to accept once he saw them and when he saw how much they loved Tim, so by the end Tim was well rested and gained two boyfriends and a girlfriend.

Second thing, all of Tim's partners have rock solid morals*, so when Tim said he wanted them to spend thousands of dollars they all assumed Tim was offering to donate for their charities of choice, so by the end of the vacation Tim donated millions to charities, founded at least 10 new charities, began a 5-year plan to end world hunger, and was awarded a nobel Peace prize.

Third thing, Bruce did indeed try to take over two days into Tim's vacation, the board all laughed as if Brucie had said a funny joke, he played it off but Lucius called Alfred later, Bruce then realized that Tim is too loved by Gotham and WE for him to justify taking the company from him, besides that Tim made sure that the company was safe from takeover and bribes, so even if he wanted to there's no way for Bruce to buy the board members, the final nail on his coffin was that Alfred grounded him once he heard from Lucius, Bruce tried to argue that he was too old to be grounded so he was grounded for twice as long.

In the end despite still being CEO, Tim was happy and well rested, even if he's surprised that Bruce genuinely didn't want to be CEO anymore, he thought for sure Bruce would ask him for the position back.

meanwhile Bruce spent the entire 2 months he was grounded for playing mental 3d chess to plan on how to get the company back, but he didn't even consider asking Tim to be CEO again, so he just brooded the whole time.

Absolutely fabulous. My favorite part is how YJ doesn't even question Tim being all like, "Yeah. We should all date for one of my plans."

They heard that and figured dating each other and Bernard is probably in their best interests since Tim declared it so. Obviously. This is Tim.

They are also not opposed to it either. Again. This is Tim. They may not yet be sold on Bernard, but Tim's reassured them it's fine (Tim was trying to tell them that Bernard is okay with the fake dating and he's sure they would get along great). [It also doesn't help that Tim's reasonings were: "You're all very attractive and I trust you"]

The best part is that Tim reassured them five separate times that they do not have to go through with it. YJ and Bernard thought he was just trying to make sure everyone was on board with trying to date each other. Tim just didn't want anyone to be uncomfortable fake dating.

I would absolutely love to see how this goes down.

Bart, Kon, Cassie, and Bernard are all flirting with each other and Tim. Tim, meanwhile, is sitting there all like, "Wow! They are acting so well! I'm so glad I can count on my friends (and boyfriend)!"

He's an idiot (affectionate).

He's also an idiot cause they've had many many discussions on boundaries and such with him (they also had a few without him due to Tim being the original tie between YJ and Bernard).

The best part would be if Bernard and the others figure it out before Tim. This thus turns into everyone else trying woo Tim into the concept. Bernard, as the official boyfriend, leads the charge. They are also very very careful to check what Tim thinks about polyamory and his comfort levels.

Anyways, let's cover the other sections (I got a bit distracted).

I have no clue what a CEO does but, in my biased opinion, Tim definitely does way more than he's required to. All he needs to do is go to a few meetings, review paperwork, and make decisions regarding the direction of the company/investors. He loves the R&D and charity (not sure the official name) departments too much, though.

He does get involved in other departments as well. It's not his favorite task, but Tim reviews employee contracts when they renew and employee benefits to ensure employees are getting well-above what's considered "fair" or "legal" (4 month parental leave, paid guaranteed lunch breaks, Rogue insurance coverage, double national requirements for sicktime [this is Gotham], medical bills assistance, daycare options, etc). This is why WE loves him.

Tim doesn't want to work as a CEO, but he does love seeing how much he can help others through his civilian work (and learning that he doesn't need to be Robin to save people).

Bruce was laughed out of the office, and Mr. Fox (I love him so much. He deserves all of my respect) was justified in ratting him out to Alfred.

Maybe when Tim returns the two of them start working together so Bruce is more involved with his company (behind the scenes but not in a way that steps on Tim's toes or undermines his authority).

[vikkirosko]

The last story was amazing, hope you can get this one in before the holdidays, and have a nice vacation. And just a great next few months on top of that! But I was wondering ( sorry this may be long ) if you could do a headcanon of alastor, lucifer, Angel Dust, lucifer, fizz + Ozzie, and Rosie? ( sorry if that's to many characters there all just great characters ) x a reader who has CIP ( the inablility ) to feel pain? Thank you! Also how have you been?

I'm all good. I haven't had much free time lately, so I'm a little behind schedule on writing requests, but I still don't lose hope that I'll be able to finish everything before the end of the year. And how are you doing?

Headcanons CIP

🕷 Angel Dust x Reader 💖

You and Angel have known each other for a long time. You knew that he often got into various scuffles and always reminded him to be careful. One of the times you knew for sure that he was going to get into trouble, you went with him. You were right and helped him cope and not get hurt, but there was something that caused him concern. You were hit by several bullets, but you didn't seem to pay any attention to it at all

Only when you noticed the blood on your clothes did you say with irritation that you had ruined your favorite sweater. Angel jumped up to you, worried about your wounds, but you didn't seem to feel the pain, which you soon informed him about. That's why Angel took you back to the hotel, where he treated your wounds. You told him that you had a CIP. You haven't felt pain since you were born, even when you were human, and even in Hell, the absence of pain has remained with you

Angel was surprised that for so long he didn't know that you don't feel pain at all. You had to pay attention to little things so as not to harm yourself, for example, be careful about hot dishes, because you might not notice how hot the soup could be or how hot the cup of coffee was. Angel listened attentively to you, surprised that he didn't notice it

Angel has become more attentive towards you. He didn't constantly take care of you, but sometimes he reminded you that the food or drink was hot, that you held the knife too close to your fingers, or that you were injured. Angel understood that even if you didn't feel pain, it didn't mean that the wounds didn't hurt you, which is why he tried to take care of you at least a little

📻 Alastor x Reader🎙

Alastor found out that you don't feel pain when he noticed that you returned to the hotel with an injured leg. You weren't even limping. You just went to your room like everything was completely normal. He didn't know any other reason for this. He went to your room with a first-aid kit and you did not hide from him either your own wound or the fact that you really did not feel pain

Alastor stayed in your room while you treated the wound on your leg. You told him that even when you were human, you didn't feel pain. You assumed that at least in Hell this would change, but it turned out not to be so. Because of this, you didn't notice the wounds you could get until you noticed the blood on your clothes

The origin of the scars on your skin was now clear. He understood that you probably got these scars in Hell. On your palms, hands, and obviously not only there. You really weren't very worried about your own health, and the lack of pain only made it harder for you to take care of yourself

Alastor understood that in Hell there was much less harm from this for you. Dying in Hell was much more difficult for a sinner than when you were alive, so Alastor didn't worry too much about you. He knew you'd be fine, but he still left a first-aid kit in your room in case you needed it

💀Rosie x Reader 🌹

You were a frequent guest at Rosie's and helped her with some problems at her store. You often stayed at her house for weeks at a time, but Rosie was only too happy to spend time with you. Sometimes you came in with wounds after fights, but Rosie was sure they weren't that serious, so you didn't pay attention to it. However, when you came in seriously injured but behaved as if everything was fine, she became worried

Rosie insistently asked you to sit down and brought a first aid kit. She was in no hurry to ask questions or jump to conclusions, primarily focusing on your wounds. You didn't make a sound when she was treating your wounds, which gave Rosie certain thoughts

You honestly told her that you didn't feel pain at all. Even before your death, you had CIP and you learned to live with it, but in Hell you became more relaxed and took much less care of your own health, which led to your injury. Rosie listened to you carefully, then gently stroked your hair and asked you to be careful

Rosie didn't want you to try. She knew that you tried to be more attentive to yourself and tried to avoid new wounds. You didn't want to upset Rosie and make her worry, which is why you tried not to put yourself in danger, not even realizing that Rosie was ready to show those who would harm you why she was overlord

🍎 Lucifer Morningstar x Reader 🐍

Lucifer knew perfectly well that you didn't feel pain. You've known each other for a long time and he often saw you after fights. You didn't pay attention to the wounds, just talked irritably about stained or torn clothes. You both knew that the lack of feeling pain had its own characteristics, so you made sure that the wounds were treated, and Lucifer made sure that no one dared to hurt you

Lucifer was much stronger than you, and when you were together, no one dared even try to look at you askance, but sometimes you got involved in fights, especially when it was the end of the year. You didn't want to hide, even though you knew you could have died. Every time Lucifer found out that you were fighting again, he watched, taking his time to intervene. It was only when he saw that you were seriously injured that he intervened

Lucifer sometimes offered to pick up personal guards for you, but you kept telling him that it wasn't necessary. Just because you didn't feel pain didn't mean you were reckless. You tried not to put yourself in excessive danger, realizing that even in Hell you could die

You didn't know how long you would be in Hell and whether it was possible to leave Hell at all, but while you were there you weren't going to let yourself die again, especially because you didn't notice any wound and Lucifer didn't mind helping you with it

🎪 Fizzarolli x Reader x Asmodeus 💕

In your relationship, Asmodeus has always tried to take care of Fizzarolli and you. He had sincere feelings for both of you, and you responded in kind, but if Fizzarolli really tried to be careful, then you got into trouble more often. They both saw the wounds healing on you, but you always said it was just a small accident and they had nothing to worry about. This went on until you returned with bloodstains on your clothes and serious wounds that you didn't pay attention to

They immediately rushed to you, both very worried. You convinced them that you were fine, but this time it was obviously not the case. Asmodeus treated your wounds, after which he seriously asked who did it. To his question, you smiled gently and said that they were much worse off than you, so you shouldn't have worried about it. However, there was something that did not escape their eyes. It's like you didn't feel the touch of your wounds

When Fizzarolli asked you if you were in pain, you were confused and said that you didn't feel any pain at all. You've had CIP and you've never felt pain in your entire life. There used to be problems because of this, but now you have learned to avoid serious problems, at least you tried

Asmodeus and Fizzarolli weren't going to leave you alone until your wounds were completely healed. They both surrounded you with care, worrying about you, to which you laughed softly and hugged them. Even in Hell, you were able to find those who gave you the warmth that warmed your heart and soul

[strawburry01]

Life in Technicolor

Ford Pines x Fem! Reader

Summary: After the two of you were stuck on opposite sides of the space time continuum for 30 years- how do you go back to normal?

A bunch of little blurbs because people ate that up last time and it's fun-er to write rn :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 2.5

Part 3

Part 4

Meeting Mabel and Dipper was truly one of the best things that you'd ever experienced. You loved helping Mabel with her endless crafts and hearing all her boy problems (which was a shocking amount and also of shocking severity). You also loved helping Dipper with his research of Gravity Falls under Stan's nose of course. He'd kept your room of video tapes under lock, so when you finally convinced him to open it ("it is MY stuff Stan"), Dipper was on Cloud 9 going through all of your recordings. Most of them were trashed unfortunately after years of dust and sitting, but a few of them actually ran back and played, which excited you both.

One morning you went to the Gravity Falls farmers market only to feel the intense scrutiny of everyone's eyes on you until Susan, still the waitress at the pancake place questioned where you had been for the past couple decades. "Um, vacation?" you had sheepishly answered. It seemed to somehow work.

Mabel, Dipper, and Soos took it upon themselves to catch Ford and you up on all the worldwide events you'd missed. Ford was distraught over Princess Diana's death.

While Ford was often stuck in the basement working on his devices and journals, you liked to stay in the gift shop and help at the register, working on writing down all your time over the past years between customer checking out. Wendy thought you were pretty cool for doing it.

You caught Soos once trying to Sharpie on a similar heart under his own eye once. You slowly closed the door despite not breaking eye contact with him. Neither of you ever brought it up.

Ford and you went stargazing most nights on top of the shack. Stan did do a pretty good job installing a dubious, but stable-ish, balcony.

Stan and you were a little awkward at first, as he didn't know if you'd share his brother's attitude towards him or not. You couldn't handle it anymore and ended up buying him a 6 pack of shitty beer and driving the golf cart in donuts outside in the parking lot until you were both doubled over.

Ford and you held another wedding ceremony. A more proper one this time. Dipper was the ring bearer, with Mabel being the flower girl. She unfortunately picked some of a carnivorous variety that started biting their ankles soon after exchanging "I do's".

Mabel took you and Ford out to try and update your wardrobes since everything was stuck in the 80's. Ford blushed every time you stepped out of the dressing room.

Stan tripped you (accidentally) into the Bottomless Pit and Ford nearly killed him on the spot.

You got dragged into supervising the girls on their quest to get unicorn hair and nearly threw out your back while throwing punches at those bratty horses.

Being old in this world was the hardest thing, but you were glad Ford was there to commiserate with. When you had been here last as spry 30 something year olds and were flung back as 60 something year olds. Most night's you'd stare at yourself in the mirror after brushing your teeth until Ford would get up from bed and wrap his arms around your waist and look into the mirror with you. "Still beautiful" he'd mumble as he'd kiss your shoulder. It wasn't that though. Sometimes you just couldn't recognize yourself. You were supposed to have watched the both of you grow older in this house. Not blast back here after decades apart.

"Do you ever feel like we missed out on all those years?" you'd ask Ford one day. "Perhaps. But all we can do is focus on the future at this point, and at least we have that," he'd answer.

Taglist wooooo:

@valinbean

@sunniskyies

@fries11

@fluffymarshmalllows

[pnutbutter-n-j-elyy]

When You Need Me Most| Pt2

Jeongin x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Cheating, Mentions of Physical Violence, Cursing, Talks of Death

Pt1 Pt3

MASTERLIST

(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)

The clock clicked tirelessly, making you even more tired than you already were.

You were back home at your apartment after two days at the dorm, even if Chris had insisted you could stay as long as you needed. But you didn't want to seem a burden.

You were close with Chris, but you were closer with Hannah to begin with. So regardless of how much Chan assured you, you felt as if you were loading on problems to him, and he was helping you with them in respects of his sisters close confidant.

It was only 8 a.m. You had called off of work for the next two weeks, deciding that even though now was not the time to give yourself even more time to sit home alone; you didn't think you would be able to focus much at work which in the end would jeopardize your job. So, you found the rest of your shifts to be covered for the past five days you had been on the couch and submitted your vacation time for the weeks following.

You hadn't gotten much sleep considering how uncomfortably shaped your couch was -but refusing to sleep on the bed - and you hadn't eaten much. Overall you felt absolutely shitty.

Every hour or so your phone buzzed with a notification. Hannah had been informed of what had happened, and for the past few days was texting ever hour or so to make sure that your were getting up and eating. She knew you weren't the fondest of constant check ins during your darkest time, but she wanted to make sure her friend was okay.

Although you found it rather annoying that she kept texting even though you hadn't responded. Deep down you knew that you would look back and be appreciative of it, but right now in this moment it just seemed cumbersome to even acknowledge how great of a support you had.

So when she called, you answered in hopes to quell her worries long enough for you to just let go.

Let go.

"Hey, I know you probably don't feel like talking right now, but maybe it'll be good to get your mind off of things. I wanted to gauge your interest in a idea I had for my Blues."

You closed your eyes and listened to Hannah talk about everything under the sun minus the state of your distress.

And for a while it worked.

All throughout you last few of your high school years a first year of college, Hannah did this. She knew that the way you dealt with things was with distraction rather than direction.

She could give you the clinical ways of getting through and past things; but she knew you preferred to just have your mind preoccupied with other things while you worked on what you needed to work on by yourself.

If you needed help you'd ask for it. Thats how it had always been.

While Hannah was in the middle of talking about a slightly Adventure Time themed music video you spoke.

"I feel like dying Hannah."

The line went quiet on the other end and Hannah's voice came through softly.

"I don't blame you. This was your first big relationship. And by that I mean you truly loved him. Everything else you had before was puppy love, so I can understand why this breakup is the most difficult- especially considering it wasn't a clean one or for a neutral reason."

You heard her shift and her voice changed slightly, the clarity lessening and the echo and reverb growing slightly.

"But are you safe now Y/N. While I can validate your feelings, I don't want you to harm yourself in any way shape or form."

"I'm not going to do anything Hannah." You groan. "It slipped out I didn't mean it." You mumbled.

"Regardless Y/N-ie."

"I'm not. So please, stop worrying." You rubbed the patch of skin between your brows. You were starting to get a headache from this. "I'm gonna go now-"

"Ah! Wait Y/N my mom wants to talk to you! MOTHER!" You heard Hannah wail across her home. You mentally face palmed. It had been a minute since you talked to Mrs. Bahng and she was sure to use up that minute and double.

And you just weren't in the mood. But it's not like you had much choice because after a muffled conversation between Hannah and her mom you were subject to listening to her rant about something that had happened to her recently.

You zoned out slightly while she was talking, wanting to get back to your sulking. But you didn't have the heart to tell her that so you just listened.

You were praying for her rant to end just minutes after it started when you heard a loud knocking at your door.

"Oh! Mrs. Bahng, I am so sorry but someone is knocking at my door! I'll make sure to call you back! Much love!" You hung up and went to the door, not thinking much of anything other than going back to your couch, when you opened the door to a smiling Chris.

"Alright! Up, up, up!" He said flicking on the lights in every room while clapping loudly and picking up stray things off the floor. "Get up, get showered, get dressed, you're coming to work with me!"

You looked at Chris as if he had four heads and a tail.

"Chris I don't-"

"Ahhh tatatatata tsk tsk tsk. Don't wanna hear it. Hurry up since Jeongin is waiting. We have to be at the studio for 9:45. It is 9:04. 41 minutes get to it!" He said pushing you towards your bathroom.

"But what about makeup and-"

"Nope! No time!" He said closing the door. You groaned, and got in the shower, thankful that you had a spare change of clothes laying around, or else you would have had to ask Chan to grab them for you, and although you loved and trusted him you didn't really feel like letting him rifle through your drawers.

Soon enough you were outside, letting your body consume it's vitamin d.

Jeongin was standing outside of Chan's car, having walked from the dorm since Chan had left in a rush.

"Is everything okay, you rushed out quickly-" Jeongin said scrolling through his phone but pausing when he looked up and saw you.

"Hi, Y/N how are you?" He asked politely, looking at Chan.

"Y/N's coming with us to work." He said ruffling your hair.

"You can get front." Jeongin says almost immediately, but Bangchan shakes his head.

"I actually have a bunch of crap thrown up front- do you guys' mind sitting in the back?"

You shook your head, although you were quite irritated about having to get up and out of the house.

The ride to the company was quiet but Jeongin's mind was loud.

Chris's car seemed even smaller when sitting in the back, the taller boy struggling to fit nicely in the space- resulting in him having to sit in the middle seat for the slightest bit more leg room. Which meant he was squished up next to you.

You smelled like green apple shampoo and cucumbers, with the slightest hint of sea salt. He credited that to the exfoliating soap you had once mentioned you used when Hyunjin had commented on your fresh scent.

Your hair was slightly wet, and it made him shiver slightly when it fanned against him on a sharp turn.

Keep it together.

He thought to himself.

Multiple times by the end of the day.

Because everything you did- the way you smiled at Felix regardless of your mental state, the way you chewed thoughtfully on your kimbap, down to the way your tongue poked out slightly when you tied your shoes- made his heart do aerials.

Jeongin had been made aware of the situation as did the other boys.

And unbeknownst to you Chan was slowly building your ex's demise brick by brick along with his new interest.

You had been with the rest of the guys when the trainee girl's group had met with 3Racha for some production help.

And needless to say the boys treated the group with respect minus the trainee who had messed around with your boyfriend. The passiveness aggressiveness from Jisung and Chan and the complete lack off attention Changbin gave the specfic girl didn't go unnoticed by her, nor the group. But as her group had no clue of her actions, nor did the girl have a clue of Chris' relation to you; they were all at a loss.

As the girls had settled into the studio, Chan greeted them with his usual warm demeanor, but when his gaze landed on the trainee who had been involved with your ex, his expression subtly tightened.

"Let’s hear what you’ve got," Chan said, gesturing for the group to play their track. His voice was friendly as he addressed the other trainees, and they beamed at his encouragement.

The song began to play, and the first few verses flowed smoothly. Chan nodded along, occasionally glancing at the screen in front of him to follow the track. When it was time for the problematic trainee’s verse, the atmosphere in the room shifted. Chan’s expression grew hard as her part filled the studio.

As soon as her verse ended, Chan paused the track abruptly. The room went silent, the sudden stop causing the girls to exchange nervous glances.

"That part right there," Chan said, his voice calm but laced with an unmistakable edge, "is a complete mess. The flow is all over the place, and it’s missing any sort of cohesion with the rest of the song. It’s like it doesn’t even belong there."

The trainee's face paled, but before she could respond, Jisung chimed in. "Honestly, it’s pretty horrendous. It feels like you’re trying too hard to stand out, but instead, you’re just not fitting in." His words were blunt, his tone leaving no room for misinterpretation.

Changbin, who had been listening quietly, finally spoke. "There’s no emotion behind your rap. It’s flat, lifeless. If you can’t bring some genuine feeling into your performance, it’s going to drag the whole group down." He didn’t bother to look at her as he delivered his critique, his attention already shifting back to the other trainees.

The other girls sat in stunned silence, clearly uncomfortable with the harshness of the feedback directed at their group mate. But Chan, Jisung, and Changbin seemed entirely unfazed, moving on as if the criticism they’d just given was nothing out of the ordinary.

As they continued reviewing the track, Chan made sure to lavish praise on the other members of the group. "Great job with that harmony, really tight," he said to one of the other trainees, his smile genuine and encouraging. "And your timing is spot on," Jisung added to another, his voice warm and approving.

But when it came to the problematic trainee, it was like she wasn’t even in the room. The boys would skip over her entirely, asking the other members about their parts or offering advice, all while completely ignoring her presence.

At one point, the girl tried to ask a question, her voice small and hesitant. "Chan-oppa, do you think if I adjusted the rhythm a bit here, it would—"

Chan cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Honestly, there’s not much you can do to fix it," he said, not even bothering to look up from the console. "It’s not about tweaking one part. The whole thing just… doesn’t work. Also it isn't Chan-oppa to you, I would suggest you learn to rrspect your superiors or you'll make a bad image for JYPE. Although it seems like you might have already..." Changbin and Jisung gave sarcastic faces and chuckles as Chan turned back to the soundboard, leaving, the girls confused as to how one of their members had already been completely iced out by three of the best producers in the industry.

And it wasn't much better in the upcoming days, your ex boyfriend feeling the wrath of Lee Minho as he demeaned the leader's dancing ability and took his ego down a couple of notches.

"Your dancing is immaculate...for someone who is destined to be a backup dancer for JYP." When the boy stuttered, asking for help Lee Know just gave him a cold shoulder and turned his focus to the other members of the group, praising them for their skills.

And to top it off they were both met with swayed public opinion after Seungmin decided to make a few passive aggressive comments in one of his lives.

"Yeah, I've talked to all the new trainee groups. But the boy group? They're good but if I had a bias it wouldn't be their leader. And I like the new girl group, they remind me of a group like Blackpink, but their rapping isn't like Blackpink. The only similarity they have is they're both maknaes." He pinched his fingers gently. "Maybe this much progress. Being an idol is hard." He dismissed the skill of the rapper; that woman so easily and said it all so quickly fans were confused.

seungmins.untied.left.shoe: Why does Seungmin seem mad?

big.binn3e_jiddie.tiddi3s: What did he say someone translate?

lalalalalisa143: BLACKPINK MENTIONED RAHHHHHH

You spent your time off going to work with Chan. He wanted to make sure that you were okay, and not going to do anything to hurt yourself. And being around the boys did help you feel better.

But strangely it was Jeongin who helped the most.

Chris had yet to clean his front seat oddly, so every morning you were in the back with Jeongin. It was odd that something so simple brought you so much comfort. He had noticed you were skipping breakfast, so every morning he brought you a homemade yogurt and fresh fruit drink.

"Mmm! This is really sweet! You must have gotten fresh fruit!" You sipped happily, blissfully unaware that Jeongin would add in two extra scoops of sugar, and taste it every time to make sure it was sweet enough, even if it made his jaw hurt slightly.

Or how he would make sure to ask the staff to order you food at 3:45, since you were always hungry.

Or how he would purposefully leave out his jacket in the sound room, since he knew you always got cold in there.

Or most importantly how he made sure you would never have to run into either of the two people you diliked, by figuring out their schedules, and making sure you were no where near where they would be.

He was quietly loving a supporting you from afar, and while you may have been oblivious to the action, you weren't oblivious to the feeling; even if you hadn't pinpointed just where it was coming from.

But as your vacation time was winding down, Jeongin decided to treat you.

"Y/N, Channie-Hyung is working with the others right now, but I've already recorded my part. He gave us his card." He waved it and grew a mischievous grin. "Want to go get strawberry cheesecake?"

"I love strawberry cheesecake!" You exclaimed, jumping up on your toes twice.***

"I know that's why I suggested it pabo!" He laughed as you made your way to the cafe near the building.

Soon enough you were standing in line, waiting to order. Jeongin was behind you, wearing a mask and beanie that covered all of his hair minus the small tuffs of black hair at the nape of his neck.

He had an odd feeling, as if someone was watching him and you. But he shrugged it off, since he doubted anyone would recognize him. With what he was wearing. He looked like any normal person on a date.

Date...this couldn't be considered a date could it? He smiled under his mask as he moved forward in the line absentmindedly. Well, maybe it isn't a date but it sure does look like one to outsiders. Ha, they're probably so jealous that I'm with someone as beautiful as Y/n-

"Hey do you-" You let out a small "oop" since you hadn't realized how closely Jeongin was standing behind you, which in turn allowed you to fling your hair at him, getting a large strand tangles in a button miraculously.

"Ah.." You groaned, your ear to his chest slightly. You tried to pull away but the cashier called "next" and Jeongin moved up not realizing your hair was stuck and accidentally letting it get tangled more. He winced when he noticed but saw the growing population in the cafe and just moved his large hand up to cup your head gently.

"Sorry, Nabi." He whispered quietly, not even realizing the pet name slipped out. Your eyes widened and you stayed with your ear pressed against his chest, hearing the rumbles as he ordered for both of you.

His heart thumped with a steady rhythm, and you were more than sure that your heartbeat was far from that.

Rather it was erratic and loud and wild.

Nabi. He had called you so sweetly, so purely. With the gentleness of what he called you. Butterfly.

After he finished ordering and paid, he stepped aside with you to help get your hair unstuck.

His long and slender fingers worked as quickly and as gently as they could. He released the top button so he could get to the root of the problem.

"Almost...tell me if I'm pulling too hard, m'kay?" Only his eyes were visible above his mask, but they harbored something you couldn't pinpoint, something you weren't used to.

After the last piece of hair was untangled his eyes narrowed in happiness.

"All free!" The way his voice sounded made your stomach twirl in a good and warm way. But you didn't think much of it.

It must be since he's being kind...

After your order number was called out Jeongin and you chose a two-person table away from the people, so he could take of his mask and enjoy his dessert.

He set your cheesecake in front of you, and his pastry in front of himself, handing you a fork.

The moment he pulled down his mask he had an odd feeling once more. But ignored it once more in favor of watching your immense joy as you devoured your treat.

"Thank you." You said in between a bite. "It's been rought the past few weeks...but...I've found comfort in being around all of you guys. To be honest I kind of relied on Chris and my ex to be the closest to me but...we're really close too."

Your smile warmed his heart, and he opened his mouth to speak. "Y/N I have some-"

"It's nice to be able to go out to a cafe and not feel scared. There was always this one sasaeng who followed my ex around..." You hummed thoughtfully. "It's nice not to be on edge."

Jeongin paused. "Sasaeng?" He said quietly.

You nodded. "She was obsessed with him. I got a threat from her once...I didn't take anything from it because I knew she wouldn't act on it but still was a little nerve racking." You looked up and saw a worried expression on the boys face. "Inni-"

His eyes had connected with a phone that was sticking out of purse in a discreet manner.

"Y/N what did she look like."

Your eyes widened and trailed to where Jeongin was looking. She wasn't facing in your direction but you knew.

"We gotta go." He said pulling his mask up. "Don't move to quickly though just act normal." You got up and made you way out.

"I'm sorry- I'm sorry I didn't think she would follow me if I wasn't with him-"

"You're fine Nabi, it isn't your fault." He said as you made your way back through a back way.

He instinctively grabbed you your wrist to lead you, his grasp gentle but firm, his hand sliding down into yours as he pulled you along.

By the time you made it back to the building there was a slight buzz and while Jeongin immediately went to look for his Hyung, you went to go with Felix.

There was definitely and underlying issue going on, and you wondered if the sasaeng had already leaked photos or videos to the press.

Felix tried his best to quell your worries but nothing would do. You felt as if you just caused an issue that would ruin Stray Kid's reputation Jeongin's reputation.

You left Felix to go pace around, which proved to be the wrong idea. The minute you turned the corner you ran into the one man you didn't want to see, the one who has sparked a chain reaction of issues.

He sneered at you, getting close to you, causing you to flinch slightly.

"You happy Y/N, huh? You happy that you're going to ruin my fucking career?!" His voice rose and you slunk back even more. His hand immediately went to your chin and pushed your face up harshly.

He was angrier than on the night you caught him, and it scared you.

"You're trying to throw away my life's work!" He steeped even closer, his grip tightening. "I'm not going to let that happen you hear me?" He shoved you as you were stepping back, causing you to lose your balance completely and fall backwards, landing on the ground, your ankle twisting in an uncomfortable - but not entirely odd - fashion.

Before you could even look up you heard a sickening crunch and your ex stumbled back. Within seconds he was up again lunging at whoever punched him but just as quickly as all this happened you were be scooped up and Jeongin and your ex were both being restrained. Two of the Day6 members held back your ex while three NEXZ members held back Jeongin as he was yelling profanities at the one who had shoved you. Their arguing voices were loud enough to have those in the surrounding halls come rushing in and security on site. Both boys were trying to get at each other, and security had to break it up, the anger of your friend making it extremely hard for them to restrain him.

"YOU FUCKING COWARD! FIGHT ME LIKE A REAL MAN INSTEAD OF PUTTING YOUR HANDS ON A GIRL!" He shouted. You saw Chan, Minho and Changbin rushing over. Jeongin was still yelling insults, getting out of the grips of those pushing him back. So Changbin instead pushed through to wrap his arms around the baby of their group, easily lifting him as he flailed.

"Let me at him Hyung! Let me at him!" He reminded you of an angry chihuahua. But on a larger scale. He wasn't a fighter, but he had immediately turned to violence when you got involved.

The lobby area was filled with people now and Jeongin was crying inpure anger and overwhelming emotions.

"Let me at him!"

Changbin stood in front of the door of the room they brought Jeongin and and Christopher went to go scold him for his actions. Gentle but firm nonetheless.

"You can't hit people Jeongin, regardless of how much you want to. Trust me I want to hit that bastard everytime I see him."

"He hit Y/N! I'm tired of him. I'm tired of hearing talk shit about someone I love! I wasn't going to let him hit someone I love!"

Bangchan stiffened when Jeongin mentioned the word hit.

His jaw clenched and he wiped a few tears off of Jeongin's cheek before stepping out of the room. Minho sat next to Jeongin and patted his shoulder comfortingly.

Your mind was racing at a million thought a minute, but they were all tracing back to what Jeongin had said.

Love. Love. Love.

You sat down alongside the wall until staff came in and whisked Jeongin away, without as much as a word. You stood up abd tried to follow but Minho stopped you.

Love. Love. Love.

"Will he be fired?" You heard yourself ask. You didn't hear Minho's response as your mind became loud again.

If he gets fired...it's because he defended me. Out of love. Love.

You swallowed and followed Minho back to his and Jisung's dorm the latter asking questions about the situation he missed.

If he's fired its because of love. Love will ruin his career. It's my fault. What a stupid thing that makes people do stupid shit. Irrational.

Love.

What a horrendous thing.

@abovenyx @wolfs-archive @oddracha

@iyeeeverydee @parisanmorovati @seungmincenteric

@panbish-1209 @fxiry-vtt @sseawavee

@shuporanporang @amarecerasus @softkisshyunjin

@whoa-jo @meanergreener @rikibun

@ayyonoona @shinywombatcrusade @y4yayael

@skzstan12345 @mariteez @allys-reads

@jazziwritesthings @skzstannie @yongbokkiesworld

@kkkeopi @neverendingstay @moony-9

@minsungsthirdwheel @everlastingspring143 @joyofbebbanburg

@leezanetheofficial @yaniiiiism

[bruhnze]

Personal records - Lucy Bronze x Ona Batlle

This is for the pookie that asked. Thank you @okaybronze i had fun writing this, this one is dedicated to you!

Thank you to this, this, this, this and thisssss anon. (you guys sure know how to inspire me)

Summary: This is in an alternative universe where Ona and Lucy are not footballers. Lucy is a personal trainer, Ona is a buisnesswoman.

Wordcount: a bigggggg one 12k+, so i advise to get comfy

Warnings: Minors DNI, smut. It has a lottt of plot bcs i got carried away, but what's new :)

I hope you like it, and i hope i didn't make any mistakes while copy-pasting this thing to here, as this was quite the big one and i proofread in Word so.. if something doesn't make sense, you can ask me, i think i did it right tho :)

Personal Records.

The Batlle family was one of the richest families on the whole planet of earth. In the last years of his working life, Ona's grandfather had completely invested in the internet and technology. His eldest son, Ona's father, had taken over the business and helped it to even greater success. They dominated the tech industry, from hospital equipment to mobile phones and coffee machines.

With so much money and only two children, Ona and her brother Joan were doing anything but bad.

Yet, especially since she had that head start, Ona wanted to create a legacy of her own. Unlike Joan, who filled his time with vacations and his DJ career.

But Ona’s passion wasn’t tech, she liked using her iPhone, yes, but she had no special talent or interest in the subject.

No. Her passion was architecture. She had studied it in college and with her dad paying her tuition,  it gave her all the time in the world to go networking at business events. One thing led to another, and by the age of 20 she already owned 15 buildings.

Now, just after her 25th birthday, she had a portfolio of hundreds of buildings and apartments, and was a very well-known high-class real estate agent all over Europe.

She didn’t like the way her life was filled to the brim with meeting after meeting and the fact that she sometimes felt like she was living in airplanes more than in buildings, the thing she loved most in the world, but it was worth it if she could once again sell a characteristic old building to the right owner.

That was the most perfect thing about her profession in Ona’s opinion, sometimes a house was perfect for a certain type of person, she couldn't explain it, it was just a feeling, but when she closed such a deal, it was one of the few moments that Ona could feel a little bit of satisfaction and happiness flowing through her body.

This had been a problem for a long time, she had been through some difficult years, feeling lonely at times and working far too hard without having an outlet.

After talking to some professionals and trying a few things, Ona discovered what worked perfectly for her: so she hired a personal assistant and got on weekly exercise sessions.

Sophia was a perfect PA, she was a 33 year old woman who was dedicated to work just as much as Ona was and most of all she could speak English perfectly, as she was from the United Kingdom. That was exactly what Ona needed as she got most tired from answering all the endless calls that she received.

The exercising also worked out perfectly. Her PA always found a personal trainer for her, no matter what city they were staying in. The first few months Ona really had to get in shape, but now she always came back with a wonderfully empty head after sweating for those two hours and of course, the six-pack she ended up with was also a great bonus.

This summer she had to spend in London, it was not really her preferred place to be for the next month or two, as English summers were not really something to write home about, but with the deals she had waiting for her, she happily went.

What also helped was the beautiful apartment she had in the center of London, overlooking the bridge, it was one of her favorite houses.

But besides the deals she had to close, she also wanted to relax and exercise a bit. Maybe she would even have time to go shopping.

Wednesday – Ona’s penthouse, London

A week before the big deal, Sophia and Ona arrived in London.

"Miss Batlle," the doorman said, as they walked into the building where Ona ‘lived’, or at least she did for 1 or 2 months a year. She was surprised they guy remembered and greeted him happily.

‘’You sure you don’t want an hotel room?’’ Ona asked as they were standing in the elevator.

Sophia shook her head, ‘’for me it’s easier to be close to you, safes me travel time’’ she sincerely confirmed, ‘’oh gosh, do you want some privacy, I’m sorry I didn’t-

‘’No, no, está bien’’ Ona smiled, ‘’I admire your work ethic, I was just wondering if you didn’t miss privacy’’.

‘’Well your penthouse is very big’’ Sophia smiled, ‘’and it’s not like I have a husband to call or something’’.

‘’Yeah’’ Ona grinned, ‘’our love lives are doomed’’.

A careful smile tugged on Sophia’s mouth, ‘’well, it has been a while since I had to leave space for a date in your schedule’’.

Ona smiled internally at the way Sophia got more and more comfortable with her, she was usually very professional, something Ona admired, but sometimes she felt Sophia and her could be friends a bit more, as she suspected her PA was actually a pretty funny person.

‘’It has’’ Ona confirmed, ‘’i'm basically celibate at this point’’, she added chuckling.

‘’Ona!’’.

At the same time the elevator stopped at the top floor with a ding.

‘’It is true though’’, Ona said as she stepped out the elevator to open the door ‘’maybe I should add searching dating sites to your to do’s’’.

Sophia groaned as she followed her, ‘’I’ll do it if you would really want that, but I do want to show you my current to do list before’’.

‘’I’m joking Soph’’ Ona said as she took of her heels and dropped her handbag, ‘’I trust you a lot, but, I do think love is something that just needs to happen, I don’t believe in dating apps’’.

‘’Well I do think you need to go out to make that happen’’ Sophia chuckled, ‘’or are you hoping to have a really hot woman buying a house off of you?’’.

‘’Hmm’’, Ona said as she walked into the big living area and stared outside of the windows, ‘’that would be the best thing ever, and I’d know she got taste’’.

Laughing Sophia walked in behind her, pulling her suitcase along ‘’do I got the same room as last time?’’.

‘’Mhm’’.

Sophia laughed to herself as she walked to the familiar room she had slept in before, recognizing that Ona had entered her thoughtful mode, something that often happened in places with a good view, and when Ona was thinking it was best not to disturb her.

..

They had ordered dinner, a bit tired from the travel they had decided to eat in and discussing the details of their work trip and calling it an early night.

Sophia had already set up meetings with various clients in a rented meeting room, made a list with properties they needed to visit and when the viewings would be and had booked a personal trainer.

‘’Sadly she is only available once a week’’ Sophia had said, knowing Ona liked to exercise two times a week for two hours, ‘’but she was the only one available in this period, apparently most trainers have this thing called -summer break-‘’ she joked, ‘’but she is really good, I read a dozen of reviews and she also trains athletes when they’re in between seasons’’.

‘’She?’’ Ona asked after the PA was done talking.

Sophia stilled, ‘’oh is that not-

‘’It’s okay, just surprised’’.

‘’I read she can be quite the pusher, helping people break their personal records’’.

Ona laughed, ‘’well I hope she doesn’t expect such a level of me’’.

Sophia frowned, ‘’you’re well fit, I’ve seen you in the pool, you have a killer body’’.

‘’Aesthetics is different to performance’’ Ona decided, ‘’anyways, thanks for arranging that, you’re the best’’.

..

Friday morning – Ona’s penthouse

‘’Okay I’m heading out to the gym then’’ Ona called through the living space.

‘’Have fun’’ Sophia called back, ‘’don’t break too many personal records!’’.

..

Friday morning - Bronze Fitness Forge

It was a nice building, Ona was pleased as she walked inside to search for the gym owned by one ‘Lucy Bronze’.

Ona thought it was a perfect name for a business owner and she liked the way the nameplates that showed the way were also done in Bronze, it was chic.

The Catalan businesswoman got to the front desk and told the lady behind it her name.

"Ah for Bronze herself" the lady smiled, "you may use dressing room 2, you will recognize it by the number on the door, when you've changed you just go through the other door in the changing room and then you're in the gym".

"Great. Thank you." Ona said in her business voice. It just happened whenever she spoke to people that were working.

"You can leave your bag inside the changing room but we've also got lockers".

"It's okay" Ona said, "only have some clothes with me".

The changing room looked very nice, Ona appreciated the way that this whole place was set up, it was not clinical or characterless, but it was very neat.

After changing, Ona went into the gym.

A dark-haired woman, just a little taller than her stood with her back to the door, the silhouette was muscular built, broad shoulders protruding from the tank top she wore.

Ona cleared her throat, ´´hello´´.

 The woman turned around from what she was doing and met her with a smile, ´´oh hey´´ she said, ´´uhm´´, she strutted over to Ona and offered her hand, ´´Lucy´´.

´��Ona´´, Ona replied as she mirrored the smile Lucy was wearing. Ona was delighted to notice the woman infront of was rather hot, but she didn´t want to be objectifying and most of all, she was here to clear her head, not to drool over a woman. So she shook the thought from her head and focused back on what she was here for.

´´So´´ Lucy said as she retracted her hand.

Only then Ona realized she was shaking it for a little too long.

´´Oh yes, I´m here for a two hour training session´´.

´´Yes´´ Lucy chuckled, Ona thought it made her look cute, ´´so what are we working with, you didn´t attach a schedule or any of your records or something, did you bring them?´´.

‘’What?’’ Ona said confused, ‘’records?’’.

‘’Yeah what field are you in?’’ Lucy tried, ‘’What do you need working on this summer?’’.

‘’Ohhh’’ Ona breathed out with a laugh, realizing what Lucy was thinking, ‘’I am not an athlete’’.

Lucy scrunched her nose and her head turned slightly in confusion, ‘’not?’’.

‘’No I’m town for business and I always train with a personal trainer, my PA booked you’’.

‘’Oh’’.

‘’Do you not train, uh, regular people?’’.

‘’Oh uh, yes’’, Lucy blushed.

‘’But?’’.

‘’Okay no offense’’ Lucy said carefully, ‘’but they’re usually.. a bit.. older’’.

Now it was Ona’s turn to be confused, ‘’why?’’.

‘’it’s expensive’’ Lucy said, hating herself for being so awkward.

‘’ohhh’’ Ona chuckled, ‘’well we better spend those expensive minutes good, shall we?’’.

‘’Yeah I’m sorry, I’m trying to work on that whole -not judging people by their cover- thing’’.

‘’It’s okay’’ Ona said cheerfully ‘’I come to clear my head before I have some important meetings next week’’.

‘’Great’’, Lucy said as she had called herself back to her senses ‘’and how can I help you with that’’.

‘’Well, I always go to a personal trainer because I don’t know anything about training, so I just - listen, do it and enjoy the muscle ache the day after’’.

‘’Hey’’ Lucy laughed, ‘’people always call me crazy when I say - I enjoy that’’.

Ona shrugged, ‘’one of the few things that make me feel alive’’.

“Okay, so you want to get completely worn out” Lucy chuckled, “we’ll make that happen”.

Ona gulped as Lucy took off, damn, this woman was cute.

They had been working out for almost 2 hours without much talking, Ona enjoyed it, Lucy respected the fact that she was doing this for relaxation, not for dumb chit chat, she hated when trainers were like that.

‘’Do you have a neck issue?’’ Lucy asked out of the blue.

Ona looked up, surprised but not in a negative sense ‘’yeah, how did you notice?’’.

‘’It’s stiff’’ Lucy stated, ‘’ I graduated as a sports physiotherapist’’ she offered as an explanation.

‘’Really?’’.

 ‘’Yes and right now I’m working on some injury research, stretching and massages are a great interventions for stiffness’’.

‘’So next time we start with neck stretches?’’ Ona joked.

Lucy nodded, ‘’best recipe is stretching – exercise – tissue massage’’.

''Well then, guess I'll do that next time, sometimes my neck really hurts, so I hope it will help''.

‘’Your neck hurts?’’.

‘’Yes, I always just assume it’s my stress traveling to my weak spot’’.

‘’Do you want me to massage that right now really quick? We’ve got-‘’ she looked at her watch, ‘’-10 minutes left’’.

‘’You?’’ Ona let out before she could stop herself.

Lucy crooked her head ‘’yeah?’’ she laughed, ‘’who else?’’.

‘’Ahh’’ Ona chuckled as she spotted the physio bench in the corner of the gym, ''that's where that thing is for''.

‘’Yup’’ Lucy said as she swayed on her feet, ‘’So cooling down? Or quick rub down of the neck?’’.

‘’Well if you’re offering..’’ Ona said as she looked at the big hands Lucy fiddled with, ‘’I do have to warn you that I’m a bit sweaty’’.

Lucy chuckled, ‘’if you weren’t I wouldn’t be good at my job’’.

...

Friday - Ona's penthouse

‘’Hello’’, Ona called out as she stepped back into her apartment. She felt amazing, Lucy was great with her hands and after the hot shower she took, she felt totally relaxed.

‘’How was it?’’, Sophia asked from behind her computer.

‘’fucking amazing’’ Ona said dreamily, before she stepped into the living room and snapped back to reality, ‘’uh yeah, it was good’’.

Sophia chuckled, ‘’whattt happeneddddd?’’.

‘’She’s hot’’ Ona said as she went through the fridge, ‘’and great with her hands’’.

‘’WHAT?’’ Sophia yelped, ‘’did you hook up with her?’’.

‘’Oh dios mío Soph! no, who do you think I am!’’ Ona shook her head amused, ‘’she gave me a sports massage’’.  

‘’Ohhh, hot and handy’’ Sophia chuckled.

‘’You sure you couldn’t book her for more than once a week?’’.

‘’I’ll try again for you’’ Sophia said with a grin, ‘’maybe I can book her for some nightly exercises’’.

‘’Soph!’’ Ona said sternly, ‘’no objectification!’’.

‘’Sorry miss Batlle’’ Sophia answered timidly, ‘’I’ll call them later’’.

‘’It’s okay’’ Ona smiled, ‘’thanks for getting groceries’’ she said as she took eggs from the fridge.

...

Tuesday evening - Bronze Fitness Forge, London

It was a couple of days later, Sophia had bribed Lucy Bronze’s secretary if she could at least ask the woman herself if she could do a couple of more lessons, ‘’Hello, yes, Miss Batlle’s PA, uhm, my boss, she wants to exercise two times a week and I was wondering if you had some more spaces available, she doesn’t mind if it’s outside of office hours, or if it costs extra’’.

Eventually she had persuaded the woman, one and a half times the rate for two hours in the evening, when Lucy actually exercised herself.

Sophia didn't mind making a little effort, she was just happy that Ona was okay with the trainer, that couldn’t always be said.

So this night, at a quarter to eight, Ona walked towards the building with the ‘Bronze Fitness Forge’ logo and headed in.

‘’Hey, miss Batlle’’ Lucy called out from a few meters behind and started jogging towards the door.

Ona held it open for her, ‘’you can call me Ona’’ she said as she let the woman pass.

‘’Oh right, hi Ona’’ Lucy smiled awkwardly, ‘’uhm, to the gym?’’.

‘’Mhmm’’.

Lucy unlocked the door and let Ona in, out of habit Ona walked to dressing room 2, the one she’d used earlier this week too.

Lucy hesitated about what to do, she cringed at herself, she wished she was a bit smoother, ''hey uhm, my stuff is also in 2'' she said as she stopped the door from closing.

''Oh'', Ona looked up, ''i can go to the other-

'''No i'll just take my bag'' Lucy rushed to say.

''Oh no'' Ona said, ''it doesn't bother me, you can change in here as far as I'm concerned''.

‘’O-Okay’’ Lucy said as she looked at the smaller woman, ‘’sure you don’t mind?’’.

Ona looked up with a smile, ‘’should I?’’.

Lucy looked startled ‘’No no, I was just --’’ she mumbled and swallowed the rest of the sentence.

Ona zipped her bag open and got her gym shoes out, she now stood with her back to Lucy, ‘’anyways, had a good dinner?’’ she asked, trying to start some conversation.

‘’Uh yeah’’ Lucy said, now also starting to get her things ‘’I cooked some chicken and vegetables’’.

‘’Nice’’ Ona said as she shimmied down her pants.

Lucy gaze fell on the Spaniards behind, she shook her head, she couldn’t be looking at a client like this, ‘’d-did you have a good dinner?’’ she asked, taking of her shirt.

Ona turned around and sat down on the bench to put her shorts on ‘’yeah I had-‘’  she lagged as she saw the shirtless woman infront of her, who was currently standing with her arms up, struggling to find her arm holes it seemed, she cleared her throat ‘’uhm, I had a business dinner, it was nice but sometimes I get a bit tired of it’’.

Lucy’s head popped up and they looked at eachother. Lucy smiled, ‘’is that why you needed more exercise?’’.

Ona didn’t feel the need to explain anything, frankly, there was not really anything to explain. She had settled for one time a week as she hadn’t known the woman was hot an amazing personal trainer, now that she knew, her assistant had booked her some more time, so she settled on just saying ‘’yes’’.

‘’What branch are you in anyways?’’ Lucy asked as she switched her pants.

‘’Uhm’’ Ona said as she took of her top, ‘’I am a real estate agent’’.

‘’Really’’ Lucy stared at her, partly because she was surprised, partly because the woman looked mesmerizing.

Ona sat up and digged through her bag, it was awkward that she still had to put on her sports bra ‘’yes, I have real estate in a few cities throughout Europe’’ she said and finally found the sports bra. She figured she just had to put no attention to it and quickly get it over with.

Bronze sat down to put her shoes on, ‘’oh.. real estate in a few cities throughout Europe’’ she repeated, ‘’impressive’’.

‘’Thanks’’ Ona said as she took her bra of, ‘’your business is too’’ she turned her head to Lucy ‘’how old are you anyways?’’.

Lucy looked up and blushed when she saw Ona’s bare back, ‘’uhm, I’m 32, and you?’’.

Ona smiled at her, ‘’25’’.

‘’Ah shit, we aren't past your bedtime, are we?’’ Lucy mocked and grinned.

Ona clutched her sports bra infront of her chest and turned around with narrowed eyes, ‘’don’t mock me’’ she said sternly, like how she’d put her workers in place. She had dealt with enough age discrimination, it annoyed her that Lucy did this.

Lucy apologized ‘’oh I’m sorry.. uhm.. I didn’t mean it like that’’. Ona turned around and quickly pulled the sports bra on,.

‘’Uhm, I will start to set up some things, see you in a bit’’ Lucy said before she quickly rushed out of the locker room.

Ona finished dressing up by putting her shoes on and followed her.

‘’Hey I’m sorry, it’s just-  Ona stopped as she saw Lucy carrying a weight plate to the matts.

Lucy smiled ‘’I’m sorry too, I am a bit stupid sometimes, you should take everything I say with a pinch of salt.. i suck at talking to people that’s why I chose sports’’.

‘’-sometimes people do not take me serious because of my age’’ Ona confessed, ‘’it’s a bit of a sensitive topic for me’’.

‘’I am sorry’’, Lucy said sincerely.

Ona shook her head, ‘’you’re aloud to make jokes, I should be able to deal with them’’.

‘’Noted, see if I can help you improve on that front too’’ Lucy grinned.

‘’too?’’.

‘’Oh yeah-‘’ Lucy said with renewed energy, ‘’I mean, I was going to ask you about it - but by the way you move, I think your neck feels better’’.

Ona smiled, ‘’oh soo much, I have had the best days honestly, how could I forget - I wanted to thank you for it, I feel so… loose, uh, supple’’.

Lucy held her hands up, ‘’magic hands’’ she said with a wink. Immediately cringing at herself.

Ona laughed, ‘’they seem to be’’.

‘’So’’ Lucy cleared her throat, ‘’stretching, than exercising, which I will leave you to do a bit more on your own than last time because I need to do mine as well, and then last 20 minutes another tissue massage’’.

‘’Sounds good’’.

The stretching went well, Ona learned a few exercises she had never done before, 'good for the back and neck' Lucy had said, and had followed them all before the real work started.

Lucy finished her warm up a bit earlier than she did, which made sense, as she had been warming up all day and she went to set up some weights for herself.

When Bronze started squatting weights with her back to Ona, she couldn´t help but have peek every once in a while.

After her lunges were done Ona asked what she was doing next.

Lucy proposed for Ona to do a bit of cardio on the stair-master, a machine she hated, but Ona agreed and went on it.

Lucy kept squatting, Ona saw her adding small, little plates to the bar each time she got it.

After a few minutes, the Spaniards thoughts got interrupted, the low grunts were swapped with a yelp, she was startled and almost fell of the stair-master, luckily enough she could jump of in one piece and put the machine off.

‘’What happened?’’ Ona said as she walked towards the English trainer.

Lucy looked up as she undid her waistbelt and wrist wraps, ‘’hm?’’.

Ona came closer, ‘’it sounded like you were in pain’’.

‘’Oh’’ Lucy said as she looked better at Ona, ‘’no I just broke my squatting record’’.

 Ona chuckled.

‘’Wait did it sound like was in pain?’’ Lucy laughed now too, ‘’I don’t know what to think of that’’.

‘’Well I’m glad you’re alive’’.

‘’and broke my PR’’.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’how much was it?’’.

‘’139,5 kg’’ (307.5 lbs) Lucy stated as she took out her phone, ‘’let me put it in my notes real quick and then I’m all yours again, I’m sorry for just directing you to the cardio machine, I had this on my agenda for tonight’’.

‘’You have a schedule for when you’re gonna break which record?’’ Ona laughed.

After Lucy had typed it in her phone she looked up, ‘’is that weird?’’.

‘’No’’ Ona shrugged, ‘’I like when people are driven’’.

‘’How much is your squatting PR’’.

Ona laughed, ‘’not even half of what you do, I think 50 kg, and that includes the bar’’.

Lucy chuckled, ‘’want to do 55?’’.

´´Let´s see if I can do 50 first maybe?’’.

Lucy first had her squat the bar alone and with 5kg increments she guided Ona to a 50kg squat.

At 50kg Ona had trouble getting up, her legs shaking as she did a rep for the 3rd time. She felt Lucy stepping a bit closer, ''you can do it'' Lucy said, ''and if not, I got you''.

Instead of feeling more at ease, Ona became more nervous. She felt Lucy's hands hovering just above her skin.

When she remained in her squatting position, with wobbly legs, Lucy held her sides, ''together then''.

With a little help, Ona stood up again, and immediately she racked the weight and stepped forward, shaking her legs.

‘’Legs tired from the stair machine?’’ Lucy asked.

Ona nodded ‘’think so, maybe next time we can try again’’.

‘’Oh we are’’ Lucy smiled, ‘’and now you’re doing 45, 3 sets of 4 reps’’ she said as she started changing weights.

‘’I don’t know if i-‘’

‘’-I believe in you’’ Lucy cut her off, ‘’and I’m spotting you so if you can’t I’ll help’’.

Ona looked at her with dark eyes, ‘’let’s just do something else’’.

Lucy’s head tilted, ‘’no, why?’’.

‘’I’m tired of squats’’ Ona said, mostly because she was and partly because she didn’t want to fail and have Lucy saving her, as she got way to distracted by the way she felt under their skin contact.

‘’Do your other trainers just accept that?’’ Lucy asked as she finished preparing the bar of weights, she stood infront of Ona now, ‘’in 5 sessions I’ll have you squat 55’’.

 Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’I don’t care about how much I can squat’’.

The English woman grinned, ‘’no but you did ask me to help you get sore muscles, If you just listen to me I can guarantee you will not be able to walk the stairs tomorrow, how does that sound?”.

Again Ona rolled her eyes, this time with a little smile ‘’fine’’ she said before quietly adding ‘’molest’’. (annoying person).

They took positions again, but Lucy stood a bit closer then last time. Ona was almost going to make a comment about needing room to breath when Lucy whispered something, ‘’think of your most annoying rival’’.

Ona took the weights on her shoulder, she figured to just ignore Lucy and started squatting, the first 4 went easy.

She racked the bar and stepped forward to shake her legs again.

‘’See, that helped’’, Lucy said ‘’come, another set’’.

‘’Your comment did nothing’’ Ona said, getting slightly annoyed at the woman.

‘’Oh’’ Lucy studied her face, ‘’sorry’’.

Ona took place under the weights again, ‘’okay, let’s get this over with’’.

With two squats her legs started quivering again.

Lucy let her figure it out by herself, she kept close, but didn’t say anything or touch her.

Ona took a deep breath and forced herself up with a deep breath out.

"Good job" Lucy said, but when Ona tried to hang the weight on the rack she was less pleased, "uh-huh, one more rep".

Ona groaned and kept standing there, doubtful about her abilities.

‘’Ona, one more’’ Lucy said sternly.

Ona was allergic to getting ordered around and almost wanted to stop but a fire lit inside her with Lucy’s next comment, ‘’what is it with youth and giving up’’.

She bit back a grumble and did one more squat easily before racking the bar again.

She shook her legs out while still being under the bar and after a few seconds she took it on her shoulders again, squatting with pure annoyance and anger, only at the last squat she had to do she struggled again.

‘’Is your anger already used up?’’ Lucy teased, ‘’I expected more spirit at such a young age’’.

With that she groaned and came up for a last time, angrily racking the weight.

‘’Good, shake it off and we’ll head to leg presses’’.

Ona turned around and looked at her instructor, ‘’more leg exercises’’ she grumbled.

Lucy grinned, ‘’I’ll talk to you on Friday, you’ll thank me’’.

Ona rolled her eyes and followed the English woman to the leg press.

After a long session it was finally time for the massage.

‘’You can take your shoes off, I’ll massage your lower body, back and neck’’ Lucy said.

Ona didn’t respond, ‘’sounds good?’’ Lucy tried.

‘’Oh yeah’’ Ona said tiredly, ‘’perfect’’ she said as she took off her shoes.

‘’Was I too harsh?’’.

Ona looked up at Lucy, ‘’hm, no’’.

‘’Sure?’’.

‘’Yeah I am, I’ll tell you if you go too far, I’m not shy about speaking my mind’’.

‘’Okay, good’’.

Lucy started massaging Ona’s leg and Ona couldn’t help but closer her eyes at how good it felt.

‘’Okay that was that, how do you feel?’’ Lucy said as she was done.

Ona smiled, ‘’great, thank you, I’m sorry if I came across as a bitch at one point’’.

Lucy grinned, ‘’at one point? Hmm..’’.

Ona slapped Lucy’s shoulder playfully, ‘’oh come on’’.

Lucy chuckled, ‘’I’m kidding, you don’t come across as a bitch’’ she looked at Ona with a mischievous grin, ‘’just a bit spoiled’’.

The Catalans mouth dropped open, ‘’I’m not spoiled!’’.

‘’I’m joking’’ Lucy said as she rested her hand on Ona’s forearm, ‘’I’m proud you finished those sets, that proves character’’.

‘’Oh’’ Ona furrowed her eyebrows, ‘’because I had a choice’’.

‘’Ofcourse’’ Lucy tilted her head, ‘’you just said you would speak your mind if you really didn’t want to do it’’.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’okay, maybe I did want to do it’’.

‘’Good’’ Lucy said with a smile as she withdrew her hand, ‘’well, you go shower, I have to clean up this place’’.

‘’I can help?’’.

‘’No’’ Lucy shook her head, ‘’I like to do it myself and I want to do a couple more exercises’’.

‘’You’re crazy’’.

‘’I’ll see you Friday’’ Lucy chuckled, ‘’and then I’ll make you do even more, because you shouldn’t be able to be this much of a smartass if those exercises really were that hard for you’’.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’yeah see you Friday’’.

In the dressing room Ona jumped straight under the shower, after quickly washing herself and rinsing her hair out, she walked to her bag wrapped in a towel.

As she dug for clean underwear her phone rang, it was Sophia, she had a couple of questions about a client.

‘’Why are you still working Soph?’’ Ona chuckled but as she looked at the time her smile faded, ‘’no way, 22.45 already?’’.

Now it was Sophia’s time to laugh, ‘’yeah got a bit carried away exercising huh?’’.

‘’So it seems’’ Ona said ‘’anyways, for mister Potter you-

-did you ask her number yet?’’ Sophia interrupted her.

‘’Soph! that would not be professional’’ Ona said.

‘’You think she’s hot, what’s wrong with asking a number’’.

‘’Yeah she attractive’’ Ona confessed, ‘’but I don’t even know if she’s a lesbian, maybe she’s just sporty’’.

‘’So ask’’ Sophia simply said.

‘’No I-

A knock on the door interrupted her.

Ona looked up to see Lucy standing in the doorway, ‘’You forgot your shoes’’ she smiled.

Ona’s face got redder than the 2,5 kg weight plates that Lucy’s gym owned, ‘’oh uh thanks’’.

‘’No worries’’, Lucy said as her eyes lingered on Ona’s body for a second before she redirected herself to face Ona and , ‘’see you Friday’’.

‘’Yeah’’ Ona smiled, ‘’see you Friday’’.

Lucy turned around.

‘’Oh and’’ Ona called out.

Lucy turned back around with a smile.

‘’uh, thanks for my shoes’’ Ona said.

Lucy’s smile faded a little but she nodded, ‘’ofcourse’’.

The dressing room door fell closed behind her.

‘’Aahhhhhhgggg’’ Sophia screamed in her ear, ‘’I felt the sexual tension through the phone’’.

‘’Sophia!’’.

‘’What, you fumbled so hard, you said thanks twice, for a second I thought you were going to ask her number’’.

‘’Yeah’’ Ona sighed as she thought about the fact that she was originally planning too, before remembering she had Sophia on the phone, ‘’and give you a listen in on my rejection, don't think so’’.

Sophia groaned, ‘’she likes you too, why are you so uncertain’’.

‘’Why are you so sure, anyways we’ll talk about that client when I’m home’’.

...

Wednesday morning – Ona’s penthouse

It was the next day, Ona woke up in her big bed as the curtain automatically opened and stretched.

As she was completely stretched out, she suddenly shrank, ‘’merda’’ she groaned as a cramp hit her left leg, she tried to hold the muscle but it took a while before the cramp went away.

After the pain had disappeared she got out of bed, walking to the bathroom, when she wanted to lower herself to take place on the toilet she cringed, she couldn’t just normally take a seat, so she held the wall and let herself plop down.

When she got back to her room after peeing, she grabbed her phone to Google what she could do best in this situation.

A protein-rich breakfast, a warm bath and some stretching exercises later, she felt a little better and started her workday.

...

Friday morning - Bronze Fitness Forge

‘’Good morning Property Princess’’ Lucy said as Ona stepped into the gym.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’allright Lucy Lift-a-Lot, what are the plans for today’’.

Lucy grinned, ‘’how were your legs Wednesday?’’.

‘’Terrible’’ Ona smiled, ‘’so perfect’’.

‘’Stairs?’’.

‘’Well, I don’t really take those, but the toilet was a pain’’.

Lucy laughed, ‘’good, I suggest more squatting today’’.

Ona scrunched her face, ‘’not to much please, I have this event tomorrow’’.

‘’Work on Saturday?’’.

‘’Well no, it’s like networking event’’.

‘’Oh, is that one of those thing were you have a stand and promote your business’’.

 Ona chuckled, ‘’yeah, but i’m not there with a stand’’.

Lucy tilted her head.

‘’I got invited to look at peoples stands’’ Ona clarified.

‘’Isn’t that like..’’ Lucy didn’t finish her sentence.

‘’What?’’.

‘’Boring?’’.

‘’Yeah’’ Ona laughed, ‘’but its good for my image to show up, and the event payed me to show up’’.

‘’Really’’ Lucy said with disbelieve, ‘’so you’re actually a big name in the real estate world?’’.

‘’I guess’’ Ona shook her head as she laughed, anyways I’ll be bored out of my mind because Soph is taking this weekend off to see her family’’.

‘’Soph?’’.

‘’’Sophia, my PA’’ Ona clarified.

‘’Oh right’’ Lucy nodded, ‘’she was on the phone bribing me’’.

‘’Bribing?’’.

‘’Yeah, you wanted two sessions a week’’.

‘’Oh that’’ Ona nodded slowly, ‘’yeah, I hope she was sensible about it?’’.

‘’Oh yeah yeah, it was not actually bribing, she asked nicely’’.

‘’Good, but anyways, I will be walking around all day, so I need some power left in these legs’’.

Lucy nodded and explained some stretches they were starting with.

..

After the session, where they went a little less extreme as the last time, Lucy gave Ona a massage again. Whilst working her back she broke the silence, ‘’do you not know anyone else in London?’’.

Ona looked at her confused, ‘’what?’’.

‘’For the event, you said you have to go alone, do you not know someone you could take?’’.

Ona shrugged ‘’everyone is on holiday, it’s very last-minute anyways and I wouldn’t drag someone with, I wasn’t kidding when I said it was boring’’ she said into the table.

‘’I think it would be entertaining to see how you talk to everyone professionally’’ Lucy chuckled and acted out a conversation she imagined Ona would have with another realtor. She mockingly acted out the situation, putting on different voices.

Ona’s shoulders shook from her laughter, ‘’I think you will greatly disappointed’’ she laughed.

‘’Yeah?’’ Lucy sad as she put on a pouty face, ‘’is it not like that?’’.

‘’No not at all’’ Ona chuckled, ‘’way more boring’’.

‘’I don’t believe you’’ Lucy challenged.

‘’Well you’re free to join at your own risk’’.

Lucy’s face twisted up in a weird mischievous way, ‘’are you asking me out Batlle?’’.

Ona grinned, ‘’no, I offer you the position to be my plus one to a very boring event so you can entertain me’’.

‘’Well I am free tomorrow’’ Lucy contemplated, ‘’would you like me as your companion?’’.

‘’As long as you don’t publicly mock me’’ Ona rolled her eyes.

Lucy grinned, ‘’I’ll try to keep that for when were alone then’’.

Ona sat up and narrowed her eyes at the taller woman ‘’or like, not do it at all’’.

‘’I’ll see about that’’ Lucy grinned, ‘’what’s the dress code?’’.

‘’uhm, I think you’re best to wear a suit, a light color’’ Ona said as she studied Lucy, ‘’ if you have that’’.

‘’I don’t know’’ Lucy scrunched up her nose, ‘’I’ll have to dig through my closet’’.

‘’Send me a pic, if it’s not good I’ll send some things you could try on’’.

‘’are you going to judge if I look good enough to join your side’’ Lucy laughed, ‘’wow’’.

Ona shrugged, ‘’it’s a cruel world’’.

‘’fine’’ Lucy smiled, ‘’can I get your number?’’.

Ona looked at her with big eyes.

‘’Or do you want me to send Sophia that mirror pic?’’ Lucy grinned.

‘’Oh right, no we’ll exchange numbers, it’s more convenient for tomorrow too’’.

‘’How late is it anyways?’’.

They spoke about the details until Lucy noted that her new appointment would arrive in two minutes. With that Ona went to the changing room and got under the showers, she couldn’t hide the fact that the thought of spending tomorrow with Lucy made her feel giddy.

..

Friday afternoon – Ona’s penthouse

‘’Okay, I’ll see you Monday morning’’ Sophia said as she embraced Ona, ‘’have fun with your hot date’’.

Ona rolled her eyes but didn’t deny her PA’s words, ‘’you have fun at your parents’ house’’ she wished Soph.

‘’Mhm, I will’’ Sophia said as she walked towards the door with her suitcase, ‘’see you Monday!’’.

‘’Bye Soph’’ Ona called out as she got distracted by her phone buzzing.

An unsaved number had sent her texts, she opened her phone curiously.

@ Bronze Fitness Forge: hey, this is Lucy, hereby my outfit, hope you approve 😅

@ Bronze Fitness Forge: *mirror selfie of Lucy in a mint green suit with a white blouse*

@ Bronze Fitness Forge: ignore my bare feet, sorry, I’ll wear shoes tomorrow I promise

Ona changed the contact name to Lucy and texted back.

@ Ona Batlle: Looks good, what shoes do you plan on wearing?.

@ Lucy: sneakers?

@ Ona Batlle: no.

@ Lucy: i don’t have much else

@ Ona Batlle: what size are you?

@ Lucy: a UK size 7

Ona asked her for her address and ordered her a few shoes and a few white blouses, from a store she had great relations with, making them deliver the products before 10 o’clock tonight.

...

Friday night – Ona’s penthouse

@ Lucy: why did I just receive 4 pairs of shoes and 3 white blouses

@ Ona Batlle: fit them, see which you like best

@ Lucy: I have blouses

@ Ona Batlle: your suit is nice, can’t ruin it with a cheap blouse

@ Lucy: how can you recognize that from a picture

@ Ona Batlle: I got taste

@ Lucy: spoiled

@ Ona Batlle: do you want to come still?

@ Lucy: *3 pictures in the different blouses*

Ona admired the way Lucy’s arms looked in the blouses, the woman was well fit, with one particular blouse she swore she could even recognize the outline of abs.

She chuckled when she noticed the shorts Lucy was wearing, Barcelona football shorts.

@ Ona Batlle: nice shorts 😉

@ Lucy: shut up, which blouse.

@ Ona Batlle: deffo the one with the green buttons

@ Lucy: that one feels a bit tight

@ Ona Batlle: it looks good, but if you feel like it will rip, I’ll go for the one with the collar that’s got leaves on the inside.

@ Lucy: what shoe do you like best, they all fit

@ Ona Batlle: blouse got brown buttons so maybe the brown Loafers

@ Lucy: great, they were the comfiest

@ Ona Batlle: pic of the complete fit?

@ Lucy: tomorrow, I don’t want to put everything on again

@ Ona Batlle: lazy

@ Lucy: demanding

@ Ona Batlle: you know me so well

@ Lucy: you send a pic of your outfit then

@ Ona Batlle: no.

@ Lucy: then you’ll just see tomorrow

@ Ona Batlle: fine

Lucy was disappointed Ona didn’t ask her to send a full outfit picture more, she would’ve done it with a bit more insistence, but she guessed Ona wasn’t someone who lowered herself to such things, she was sure Ona would never beg for anything.

...

Saturday afternoon – London, network event.

The event went great, Lucy had been the perfect acquaintance. Making jokes in quiet, boring moments, but shutting up when Ona was talking to people she needed to talk to.

Lucy had on her part also enjoyed the event, there had been going around servers with appetizers and drinks, although they tasted amazing, Lucy tried to stay modest and allowed herself to accept something once in every three time she got offered something.

It was also fun to be around Ona, the woman was classy, she looked beautiful in the emerald colored dress she wore. She wore white heels and had a white bag with her, Lucy didn’t know if she had seen anyone walk as comfortable and elegant in heels as Ona did.

The event had gone by quite quickly, it was already passed eight o'clock.

‘’Oh fuck’’ Ona whispered, pulling Lucy from her thoughts.

They were standing together after Ona had just finished another conversation with an old guy, Lucy had introduced herself too and Ona had told the man they were working on a project together, it was not true but Lucy didn’t mind, and the guy didn’t ask any questions about it anyways.

‘’What?’’ Lucy asked, turning towards Ona.

‘’Don’t look’’ Ona said discretely, ‘’my ex is there, I didn’t know she’d be here’’.

Lucy suppressed her curiosity and kept looking at Ona, ‘’didn’t end well?’’.

‘’No she cheated’’ Ona grimaced, ‘’she’s the worst, she plays unfair both in business and in her private life’’.

‘’That sucks, how long ago-

-oh my god’’ Ona interrupted her, ‘’she’s coming over’’.

As Lucy stood straight again to prepare for an uncomfortable encounter, Ona leaned in and whispered something to her ‘’It was a year ago, if you like you could act like my girlfriend, that would be funny’’.

Lucy grinned and looked at Ona’s face ‘’ofcourse babe’’.

Ona chuckled at the way Lucy took on the role immediately, ‘’if she questions us we answer one after the other’’ she quickly whispered when the women almost had reached them.

‘’Ona!’’ the woman said as she looked at the pair, ‘’nice to see you again’’.

‘’Evelyn’’ Ona said coldly, ‘’how are you’’ she said as the woman forced a greeting with two kisses on her.

‘’I’m good’’ Evelyn said as she directed her gaze to Lucy and eyed the woman, ‘’you to it seems’’.

Lucy extended her hand to the woman who was also wearing a suit, Lucy giggled a little inside at the fact that it was a dark colored suit, since Ona had asked her to wear a light colored suit, ''Lucy, Lucy Bronze'' she introduced herself.

‘’Evelyn Thomas, Thomas real estate’’ the woman said, ‘’what do you do’’.

Lucy smiled, ‘’I am a sports physio, I help injured athletes with their recovery, I am currently also doing research into knee injuries''.

‘’Charity work?’’ Evelyn rudely asked.

Lucy replied with a smile, ‘’well the research doesn’t really bring in money, but that’s a passion of mine, no, I earn my money with my gym, but I get if you’ve never heard of it, it is an quite expensive membership’’.

Evelyn huffed, ‘’sure’’ she turned to Ona.

Lucy stepped closer to Ona rubbed the small of her back before she let her hand rest there.

‘’How long have you two been together?’’.

Ona smiled ‘’about half a year, right Luce?’’. She asked sweetly as she turned to Lucy, who already had her eyes on her.

‘’Best half year of my life’’ Lucy smiled, ‘’It feels like last week that we met’’.

‘’Right babe?’’ Ona sighed out and reached to pet Lucy’s face and kept looking at her, hoping Evelyn would just take the hint and leave.

‘’Allright’’ the woman said, but the pair didn’t look up.

‘’Well, great saying you again Ona’’, she tried.

Ona let her hand glide from Lucy’s face and turned back to Evelyn ‘’oh yeah, I’ll see you around’’.

Lucy smiled, ‘’nice meeting you Evelyn’’ she said in an overly sweet voice.

Lucy took two glasses of champagne from a server that passed them, ‘’here you go darling’’ she joked as she handed Ona one.

‘’Thank you’’ Ona sight as she looked around, ‘’wow, this bitch is still looking at us’’ she whispered in Lucy’s ear.

‘’Behind us?’’ Lucy asked quietly, getting a bit more into Ona’s personal space.

‘’Yeah, don’t look’’.

‘’No I was curious if I could get your consent’’.

‘’For what’’ Ona chuckled.

‘’Touch your butt, I bet she would eat herself up, she is so hung up on you still’’.

Ona grinned and leaned in to kiss Lucy’s neck softly, ‘’do it’’.

The Catalan peeked from Lucy’s neck at the woman a few meters behind them, she saw the woman had her gaze already fixed on Lucy’s hand, the hand that had rested on her lower back until now, smoothly Lucy let her hand travel south and squeezed Ona’s bum. Ona looked back at Lucy’s neck, she didn’t feel the need to watch Evelyn’s face a second longer then necessary.

Ona chuckled as she felt a shiver run down her spine from the way Lucy’s strong hand dug into her clothed flesh.

Lucy rubbed the place she had just squeezed gently and let her hand rest on the small of Ona’s back again, just a bit lower then she had been before.

‘’Thank you’’ Ona quietly said.

Lucy looked at her with a wicked grin, ‘’it was a pleasure’’.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’not that, for playing along’’.

‘’I was talking about that’’, Lucy said with raised eyebrows, trying to come across honest, ‘’okay squeezing your butt was fun too I guess’’ she sighed.

Ona’s mouth hang open to act as if she felt offended, ‘’liar’’.

‘’No I feel a bit like a cheap whore’’.

Ona chuckled, ‘’a cheap whore?’’.

‘’You buy me clothes in exchange for physical services’’.

‘’You make it sound like I’ll make you sleep with me’’.

‘’are you not?’’ Lucy said acting disappointed.

‘’Lucy!’’ Ona said in disbelieve, ‘’are you proposing to come home with me’’.

‘’I mean, the house of the best realtor is probably very impressive, maybe you can give me a tour’’.

‘’I thought you joined me to distract me from work, not give me more’’.

Lucy shrugged, ‘’okay, worth a try’’.

Ona grumbled on the inside, she wanted Lucy to come with her, but she wasn’t about to beg, ‘’fine’’ she stated, ‘’let’s go then, this event is dead anyways’’.

..

They were stood in the elevator of Ona’s building, ‘’how are you so bold all of a sudden?’’ Ona asked.

Lucy smirked, ‘’bold, how?’’.

‘’You straight up asked me to sleep with you’’ Ona said as she studied Lucy.

Lucy held her hands up, ‘’I’m confident in my abilities to break personal records with you in several areas, the bedroom being one of them’’.

Ona’s jaw dropped, ‘’does that work on all the girls you hit on’’.

‘’No just the one that are attracted to me’’ she answered with a smug smile.

‘’I’m not- i- how do you-

Lucy grinned, ‘’the dressing rooms are not call-proof, or at least, if it’s a private call, you should probably choose another place from now on’’.

Ona blushed and groaned, ‘’you heard that?’’ she said with a scrunched up nose and palmed her face.

The elevator stopped and with an elegant tone it indicated the arrival to the top floor.

Lucy smiled as the smaller woman walked away with cutely blushed cheeks and opened the door, Lucy followed Ona who stepped in to her appartement.

When she took of her shoes Lucy did the same.

‘’wow’’ Lucy gasped as she walked over to the windows, ‘’this is amazing’’.

‘’Thanks’’ Ona said, ‘’do you want something to drink?’’.

Lucy turned around with a smile, ‘’maybe after the tour? I had some drinks there already’’.

‘’Okay’’ Ona said as she got herself a sparkling water ‘’Okay this is the kitchen, that is the living-

‘’nooo’’ Lucy pouted and walked back to Ona, ‘’the fun way, make me want to buy this place’’ she said as she discarded her jacket on one of the bar stools.

‘’You already would’’.

Lucy rolled her eyes ‘’Like how you-

‘’don’t roll your eyes at me’’ Ona blurted out before she knew it was happening.

Lucy’s mouth fell open, ‘’says you! You roll your eyes every once 10 minutes’’.

Ona walked around the counter and stepped into Lucy’s personal space, ‘’shut up, I can do what I want’’ she said with a grin.

Lucy looked her, quiet from the sudden closeness, ‘’you shut up’’ she said, coming out clumsier than she wanted.

Ona chuckled, ‘’make me shut up then’’ she said as she traced her hand along the row of buttons from Lucy’s blouse.

‘’If you don’t stop me I’ll kiss you’’ Lucy said as she leaned in.

Ona smiled against her lips, ‘’if you don’t kiss me I’ll book you a cab home’’.

Their lips crashed in a hungry, exciting kiss, Lucy was the first to introduce tongue in their facade and Ona cupped the back of her neck as she gladly accepted it in.

Lucy’s hands travelled to the hips she had been eyeing all afternoon, the smaller woman looking delicious at the way the dress hugged her figure just right.

The English pressed herself closer against the Catalan.

Ona broke the kiss.

They both panted as Lucy tilted her head in confusion, ‘’not okay?’’.

‘’How about a quick tour of the bedroom?’’ Ona answered instead.

Lucy gulped, ‘’please’’.

Ona grinned as she took Lucy’s hand and guided her to her bedroom, ‘’wow’’ she gasped for a second time this evening.

‘’Is this enough light for you?’’ Ona asked, ‘’if you want more light we have to close the curtains’’.

Lucy quickly turned to face the woman, ‘’yes, lights on and curtains closed please, I’m not about to be on display for everyone in London to see’’.

‘’that’s why you keep the light off’’ Ona chuckled, ‘’and it can be fun you know, exciting’’.

Lucy shook her head, ‘’nah, as much as I like the view, I bet the view in here will be way better’’.

‘’Oh quite the charmer’’ Ona said as she pushed the button and the curtains started closing, ‘’ let's see if you can live up to all that big talk’’.

Lucy walked over to her and went in for another kiss, much shorter this time, ‘’just give me the green light and I’ll make you experience things you have never before’’.

‘’sure Bronze’’, Ona said as she started to undo to buttons from her blouse, ‘’you have permission do what you want, just stop if I say so’’.

Lucy grinned, ‘’always princess, your wish is my command’’ with that she attached their lips again.

While they were kissing Lucy shook her blouse off, figuring Ona wanted that as she had been tugging on the ting for minutes now. She walked with Ona towards the bed, making her walk backwards. When they were almost there Ona broke the kiss ‘’take my dress off’’ she said breathlessly.

Lucy grinned, ‘’not yet, you look so pretty in it’’ she said before planting her tongue back in Ona’s mouth, a few small sounds escaped the smaller woman as Lucy deepened the kiss and reached to pull up Ona’s dress.

She pushed Ona on the edge of the bed and started kissing her neck, ‘’do you want this’’ she asked between kisses ‘’want me to make you feel so good’’ she asked before licking and sucking the sensitive spots on Ona’s neck.

Ona whimpered, ‘’yes’’.

‘’Allright pretty girl’’ Lucy said she dropped to her knees, she looked up to meet Ona’s eyes as she started to kiss the insides of her thighs, ‘’I bet you taste so good’’ Lucy said as her hands travelled along the skin of Ona’s legs, giving her goose bumps.

‘’Can I taste you?’’ Lucy said as she latched her mouth to Ona’s other leg, she saw the Catalan fighting to keep composure, ‘’y-yes’’ she said with a breathy voice.

‘’Are you so worked up already?’’ Lucy playfully asked as she redirected her gaze to Ona’s thong, a dark-green piece of lace, with an even darker green spot right between the Spaniards legs.

Lucy kissed closer and closer towards the woman’s heat, until she could smell her wetness. Lucy groaned and sat back, ‘’up’’ she ordered as she hooked her fingers in the underwear.

Ona quickly cooperated.

Lucy dropped the thongs on the floor and went back to kissing Ona’s bare legs.

‘’Fuck Lucy, get your mouth on me’’ Ona said jaded.

With a smug face Lucy looked at her, ‘’you still think you’re calling the shots here?’’ she said as she let two fingers glide along Ona’s slick.

‘’Please’’ Ona whimpered.

This was all Lucy needed to hear, the rest of the begging could be done later, now she needed to get a taste.

She spread Ona’s leg wide with her hands as she dove in, letting her tongue glide softly along Ona’s core to make her get used to it.

She reached out for Ona’s hand and placed it in her hair as she kept up the gentle exploration.

When she had found a spot that she felt made Ona quiver, she grinned and kept Ona’s legs apart more strongly before diving in completely.

Ona’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, she head never experienced head like this before.

The skilled tongue rippling against her clit, the strong hands, making her spread out for the English woman on the edge of her bed.

With the hand that was guided to Lucy’s hair she gripped the woman’s dark brown hair, pushing her deeper against her, Ona felt the orgasm building up already. If it didn’t feel this good she would surely have been embarrassed about it.

‘’merda, se sent molt bé’’ (feels so fucking good) Ona moaned before she bit her lips as she struggled to keep herself up, leaning with one hand on the mattress.

Lucy didn’t know what the woman above her was muttering about, but she figured the words were positive. With two fingers of her right hand she teased Ona’s entrance, at this her legs shocked. Lucy looked up.

Ona groaned at the loss of stimulation and looked down at Lucy, ‘’fuck, you can use your fingers’’.

Lucy smirked as she put the fingers inside Ona’s mouth, as Ona sucked at them, covering them in her saliva. Lucy returned to what she was doing, she let her tongue dance along Ona’s clit.

When Ona opened her mouth and moaned, Lucy pulled her hand away and with very little preparation she plunged them inside of the dripping hole between Ona’s legs, deserving a loud guttural moan.

Lucy curled her fingers and searched for Ona’s weak spot, when she’d found it she started thrusting her fingers in a steady but provokingly slow pace.

The difference in paces from Lucy’s tongue and her fingers drove Ona mad, she couldn’t keep her eyes open as her eyes kept rolling back and the arm where she was leaning on was shaking.

After a few second she dropped on her, the leg that Lucy wasn’t keeping open with a hand almost crashed into Lucy but she didn’t budge.

Lucy sat up a bit more and kept working her tongue and hand as she felt Ona’s walls convulsing around her fingers.

She groaned as she felt a new gush of wetness covering her fingers, and dripping on her hand.

With a loud moan and a tight fist in Lucy’s hair, the woman below her orgasmed.

Lucy smiled as she slowly came to a stop and sat back when the hand left her head.

Ona's legs came back together and she stretched with her arms above her, "that was…" she breathed out.

Lucy grinned, ‘’quick?’’ she offered.

Ona sat up and rolled her eyes, ‘’I was going to say good’’.

‘’Both can be true’’ Lucy with a smug face.

..

After a few hours well spent, Lucy and Ona were standing under her rain shower.

‘’Do you want to sleep here?’’ Ona asked as she was lathering herself up with soap.

Lucy grinned ‘’are you asking out of politeness?’’.

‘’Maybe’’ Ona grinned back, ‘’don’t want you to feel like a cheap whore’’.

Lucy laughed, ‘’no I’ll book my own cab home, thanks’’.

‘’I had fun’’ Ona said sincerely, ‘’thanks for coming along’’.

‘’Me too’’ Lucy returned, ‘’and I’m happy for it to be a one time thing’’.

‘’Mhm’’ Ona said, ‘’perfect’’. She was amazed with Lucy’s maturity about the matter, some woman could get very offended.

‘’What do you want me to do with the shoes and shirts?’’ Lucy asked as they were drying off.

Ona smiled, ‘’keep ‘em, give ‘em away, I don’t care, it costs me more to make effort returning them, then what I would get for it’’.

Lucy shook her head in disbelieve but thought it was very kind she had bought her the things, ‘’thank you’’.

Ona nodded, ‘’it was my pleasure’’.

As Lucy walked back to the bedroom to put her suit back on, Ona just put her robe on, she was home alone anyways, she couldn’t help but look at Lucy’s back and ass, looking perfectly toned.

She bended to pick her clothes up and turned around to lay it on the bed, she looked at the clothes before looking at Ona.

Lucy caught the Catalan staring at her abs and grinned, ‘’could I borrow a pair of briefs?’’ she asked, ‘’I can’t put this back on’’, she said as she held her underwear up.

Ona gaze traveled form Lucy’s muscles to the piece of cloth and she smiled, ‘’ofcourse’’ she said before going into her walk-in wardrobe.

She came back and handed Lucy the underwear, ‘’and you can keep this too’’ she winked.

After that, Ona left Lucy to get dressed and went to the kitchen, she downed the glass of sparkling water that was still on the counter and went to her table, opening the laptop that laid there.

In a few minutes she was completely indulged with the things on her screen and hadn’t noticed Lucy been done with getting dressed, now standing infront of her.

‘’Bye Ona’’ Lucy said as she walked closer to the woman.

Ona jumped at the voice breaking the silence, but quickly got her composure back and smiled, ‘’sorry, I was reading something’’ she stood up, ‘’I’ll see you Tuesday Lucy, thanks again’’.

‘’I had fun’’ Lucy smiled, ‘’I’ll see myself out, see you Tuesday’’.

..

Tuesday night –  Bronze Fitness Forge, London

Ona and Lucy had another session. They both thought back at their one nightstand as a perfect encounter, the sex had been good and they were both on the same terms as far as relationships are concerned.

Lucy didn't think Ona was the type of girl she’d ever date, but she could say that she was absolutely perfect in terms of appearance. The fact that she was shorter, the freckles, her slightly defined muscles and most of all her perfect butt. Ona’s ass might be her favorite thing about the woman.

Ona was happy Lucy had been on the same page as her about at sleeping over, she didn’t like waking up next to people, they often looked and smelt bad and Ona didn’t like anyone in the world enough to deal with that. Ona was happy to go to the woman’s gym again this day, she felt like her sexual frustration had been cleared up and was ready to maybe even break that squatting PR.

Lucy was a little bit nervous about seeing the woman again, hoping it wouldn’t be awkward, she had gotten in a bit earlier than last time, to make sure they could at least get dressed separately. Even though she would be lying if she’d say she wasn’t at least a little bit curious if the hickey’s she had left were still there.

She shook her head, she shouldn’t be thinking about this. Ona had been perfectly clear, heck she had wanted it herself, this was a one time thing and in a month they’d maybe never see eachother again.

Ona came walking in to the gym, disrupting Lucy’s string of thoughts.

‘’Hey Ona’’ she cheerfully said, but she couldn’t help but notice the fact Ona was wearing a shirt and shorts now, rather then the sports bra she had worked out in until now.

‘’Lucy’’ Ona smiled, ‘’ready to break some records?’’.

‘’I sure am’’ Lucy said, ‘’do we go squatting straight after warm up?’’.

‘’Yes’’ Ona replied, ‘’I hope I can do more then 50 today’’.

‘’Enthusiastic, i love it’’

‘’Oh you know me’’ Ona joked.

‘’Always enthusiastic to break records’’ Lucy said, after which she cringed at herself.

They warmed up and went to the weight rack, ‘’hey have you already set it up?’’ Ona asked, smiling.

‘’Ofcourse’’ Lucy said smugly, ‘’six sessions left until you’re doing 55’’.

Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’if you weren’t hot I would’ve hired another personal trainer six sessions ago’’.

Lucy chuckled, ‘’well first off all thanks, second off all, what do you think a good personal trainer does then’’.

The Spaniard shrugged, ‘’not being annoying’’.

‘’I am not annoying’’ Lucy said as she quirked her eyebrows.

‘’How would you describe a person using insults as motivation’’ Ona challenged her.

‘’motivational’’

‘’annoying’’

‘’did you do those reps or not’’

‘’yes’’

‘’so, motivational’’ Lucy stated as if it was settled.

Ona shook her head and walked over to take place under the bar, ‘’please keep from your motivations until really really can’t go anymore’’ she stood up and took the bar on her shoulders, ‘’until then, you spot me quietly’’.

‘’yes ma’am’’ Lucy joked as she took position behind Ona, ‘’I kidding, I’ll shut up’’.

Surprisingly, Ona squatted the 50kg the first 8 reps perfectly, without any problem.

‘’I’m impressed’’ Lucy said as Ona was shaking her legs to get ready for the last set, ‘’you finally found your right mindset’’.

Ona smiled but kept quiet, she couldn’t get distracted now.

She took place under the bar again and accidentally walked into Lucy with her butt.

‘’Oh sorry’’ Lucy chuckled as she took a step back, ‘’okay last 4, let’s go’’.

Ona blushed at the way heat traveled to her core from the brief touch.

She took the weight on her shoulders for the third time and for some reason they felt twice as heavy.

Ona didn’t squat but kept standing there with the weights in her neck.

‘’Come on Ona, you can do it’’ she felt Lucy’s hot breath in her neck.

‘’I don’t know if I-

‘’You can do it Ona’’ Lucy pressed up against Ona, and put her hand under her arms, ‘’we’ll do it together’’.

Ona gulped as she felt Lucy front pushed against her.

She squatted and easily came back up with Lucy’s strength supporting her, she wanted to rack the weights as she stood straight again.

‘’3 more Ona’’ Lucy said in her ear.

Ona groaned as she did another.

‘’Good job Ona’’ Lucy said, in a voice close to a whisper. Ona couldn’t help but think the woman was doing this on purpose, she was so close, Ona could feel her abs in her back, and her thighs against her own, no other trainer had ever spotted her like this.

After the four squats Ona racked the bar and turned around, Lucy stepped back.

She studied the woman’s face, Lucy casted her eyes to the ground.

Ona ducked under the bar and stepped into Lucy’s personal space, she noticed a slight blush on the English woman her cheeks, but then again that could be from warming up.

Ona shook her head, thinking it was her mind playing tricks with her, ‘’so what next’’ she asked.

Lucy looked up at her with surprise but quickly put on a neutral face again, ‘’have you ever bench pressed?’’.

‘’Ofcourse’’ Ona chuckled.

Lucy insisted on showing Ona the best technique and did a few quick sets with the weights she had grabbed for Ona.

However, when Ona did the sets with those weights it went a lot less smoothly.

After the set Ona set up and set the weights down on the ground.

Lucy took place on the bench next to her, ‘’have you ever heard about the mind-muscle connection?’’.

‘’no’’ Ona said as she shook her head.

‘’Okay, so during an exercise touching the muscle is a great way to help increase the mind-muscle connection. When you physically touch the muscle, it provides tactile feedback that can be used to better understand which muscles are being targeted and how they should feel during an exercise’’. Lucy explained.

‘’Look’’ she said as she did a bicep curl, ‘’I am working my bicep right now, so then I’ll tap or touch the muscle and that will eventually help with increasing strength in that muscle’’.

Ona sighed, ‘’okay, so you are going to be poking my biceps as I bench press’’.

‘’With a bench press we target arms, shoulders and chest’’ Lucy said, ‘’one of the most useful exercise to work on your mind-muscle connection with, as you automatically start to use the muscles that are touched more then when you just do it, it helps with knowing from where you need to provide strength into the push’’.

‘’Okay lets do it professora’’ Ona chuckled.

While she was benching the weights Lucy poked the concerning muscles, but Ona couldn´t really take it serious, she was getting distracted with the way Lucy´s hands were resting on her chest now, just above her boobs.

´´don´t be so distracted Ona, focus´´ Lucy said, as she noticed Ona slowing her pace.

´´Allright´´ she said, and Lucy retracted her hands at her sudden harsh voice, the effect she hoped it would have, she dropped the weights besides her, ´´you sit here´´ she said as she stood up.

Lucy looked at her confused, ´´what?’’.

‘’Go sit here and do bench presses’’.

Lucy was confused but went to do what Ona ordered, as she had took the weights in her hands she started, ‘’just like this’’ she carefully said.

‘’Yes’’ Ona said as she took place on Lucy’s lap, ‘’go on, keep going’’ she said as she let her hands travel along Lucy’s arms, shoulders, chest and ended at her abs, as Lucy stopped and looked confused at her she repeated what the English woman had told her earlier, ´´don´t be so distracted Lucy, focus´´.

Lucy chuckled, ‘’I wasn’t sitting on your lap’’.

‘’I wasn’t grinding into your ass’’ Ona bit back.

Lucy set the weights besides her, ´´I’m sorry.. I couldn´t..

´´couldn´t what Lucy?’’ Ona sat as she leaned closer towards Lucy’s face, ‘’couldn’t help but wanting to feel my ass?’’.

The English woman swallowed hard, she knew it wasn’t professional of her.

Ona bit her lip as she looked at the woman squirming below her.

She leant to whisper something in Lucy’s ear, ‘’I am going to take a shower’’ she said before softly laying a single kiss in Lucy neck and getting up.

Without turning around she walked towards the changing room, hoping Lucy would follow her.

Lucy scrambled to sit up and wondered what the fuck just happened, she was very confused, a part of screamed that she should follow the woman, another part said to stay in the gym, as she had done more then enough.

-I am going to take a shower-, the words repeated over and over in her head, if Ona really wouldn’t have wanted her to follow her she would’ve surely said something else right, and not give her a kiss.

Without more contemplation Lucy jumped up, she hurried to the changing room and got in, the shower was already running, Lucy spotted Ona’s clothing on the bench.

‘’Uhm’’ Lucy cleared her throat, ‘’sorry’’.

‘’I can’t here you’’ Ona called from under the water, ‘’what did you say?’’.

Lucy  stepped closer to the shower, the shower was just an extension of the dressing room, separated by a tiled wall and a corner, in there were 4 showerheads, which turned out to be the stupidest setup ever, as only one person showered here at a time, but they hadn’t thought about it like that when she helped designing the place.

‘’Sorry’’ she tried again.

Ona chuckled, ‘’Luce come here’’.

Lucy stepped along the wall and was met with a very wet, very naked Ona.

Ona grinned and walked towards Lucy, ‘’it’s okay’’ she said before pressing the taller woman against the wall, ‘’but now you've triggered something in me’’.

‘’w-what’’.

‘’Strip’’ Ona said coldly.

Lucy did as told and stepped out of her shoes before she threw her clothes in to the dressing room, in the same undressed state as the Spaniard she walked back to her.

‘’Good’’ Ona said as she pulled Lucy by her wrist to join her under the weak beam of warm water.

Lucy closed her arms around Ona and pulled her in for a deep kiss.

Ona groaned and broke the kiss, ‘’I don’t know what it is but I feel a weirdly big amount of attraction towards you’’.

Lucy narrowed her eyes, ‘’thanks I guess, I think you’re very hot too’’.

‘’No’’ Ona rolled her eyes, ‘’I mean, I have never not been able to suppress the urge to fuck someone’’.

Lucy smirked, ‘’it’s hard when it’s that good’’.

Ona rolled her eyes again, ‘’shut up, your dumb words turn me off’’ she said before kissing Lucy again.

The English woman grinned against Ona’s lips as her hand roamed Ona’s body until they settled between her legs, ‘’Do you get wet when you’re turned off?’’ she asked with an annoying smirk on her face, ‘’or where you lying’’.

‘’I am not lying’’ Ona said as turned them around, ‘’you’re the hottest when your mouth is closed’’.

Lucy chuckled as Ona dropped to her knees and kissed along her upper thighs. ‘’Or when you are cumming’’ Ona added before tugging one of Lucy’s legs on to her shoulder.

She made sure Lucy’s other leg was planted firmly on the ground before she buried her head in between the woman’s legs. Lucy closed her eyes as the shorter woman hungrily started eating her out. Ona reached around Lucy to grab her ass and guided her to grind down on her face. The muscular woman let out a groan and gripped Ona’s hair. The groans of Lucy and humming of Ona echoed in the tiled room.

 With a hand coming down on the Catalans shoulder, pressing into her, she almost lost balance for a second, but she recovered and gripped tighter into the flesh of Lucy’s ass while she kept fucking with her tongue in and out of her entrance.

The leg that was hanging over her shoulder started jolting as Ona heard the breath of the woman above her get more and more unsteady. Lucy felt she was about to come undone and braced herself on Ona and the shower wall, grabbing the rod where the shower was connected to.

She bit her lips as she looked down at the beautiful woman bobbing her head between her own legs, she grabbed the hair she was holding and pulled at the roots as she pushed the head deeper into her core. Ona moaned at the act, a shiver traveled along Lucy’s spine at the vibration.

‘’Fuck’’ she breathed, ‘’I’m cumming’’.

At that last word her voice went up her voice went up an octave and her eyes rolled back while an electric pulse travelled through her body. Ona kept lapping at Lucy, dirty sounds filling the room, only when Lucy’s hips started jerking from sensitivity, she stopped. Only now she realized how hard she had been holding onto Lucy and she caressed the skin gently before pulling her hands back. She sat back and stood up to look at Lucy.

The English woman wore a dopey grin, with hooded eyes she smiled at Ona, ‘’that was amazing’’ she said as if she was under the influence of drugs.

‘’Good’’ Ona said, ‘’because I need this to be our last time’’.

At those words Lucy seemed to get sobered up immediately, ‘’I’m not done’’ she said.

Ona rolled her eyes but couldn’t ignore the way she felt her core pulsing at Lucy’s hungry gaze. Lucy stepped closer and kissed her. Lucy grinned as she felt the Catalan pushing herself against her, almost searching for some kind of relieve with the way her core searches for one of Lucy’s thighs.

‘’Not here’’ Lucy said as she broke the kiss, ‘’come home with me’’.

PART 2

[fuzzybirdie]

This work was fully inspired by the following prompt/post and @freedomanddisorder 's amazing art, please! Check out both!

~~~

Ch.1 A Vacation To Gotham! What Could Go Wrong? (Pt1)

It had been 1 year scince Danny's accident, and 1 year since his parent's masterpiece miraculously started working. In celebration, danny's parents decided to take a holiday to gotham. Mostly to look at the bats, who were obviously ghosts. Just look at signal! Litterally creating ghost orbs. But, as the bats only come out at night (excluding signal) there nothing to do during the day. Nothing exept the mundane things like amusement parks and fast food restraunts.

Danny could tell that his parents were bored and upset that they couldn't interview any bats, (and boy, was danny glad that they'd chilled out after a year of actually interacting with ghosts) but they were still trying to make things fun for themselves too.

The Fentons had split up near the enterance, agreeing to meet up at the food stalls arround 1 for lunch. His parents went to the haunted house - ever reasearching, Jazz would wonder arround for a bit before deciding on her rides, while Danny went right for the roller coasters.

On the way, Danny had an idea; his parents were on the other side of the park, so they wouldn't question him if his hair and eyes suddenly changed colour, and he had been meaning to experiment with looking more alive in ghost form...Ducking into a bathroom, he started transforming. Slowly, Carefully, not touching the clothes, there. Finished, he looked at the miror to find- "I look like a ghost in a tee and jeans."-his skin still had the green tint from the ectoplasam in his veins, and his hair was steaming like dry ice.

The hair was more obviously inhuman, so he tackled that first. It would need to be solid, condensed, thicker and thicker, -too thick!

What once was steam now looked like a plain old block of ice. Maybe, his hair being made of ice would be fine if he seperated it a bit? If he peeled each layer into tiny little strings luke normal hair. Little by little, piece by piece, perfect. The ice string hair was curlier than he'd thought, waves of snow tickling his ears, eyebrows and the back of his neck.

The next problem was the green tint. This would take some thinking. He couldn't just pretend to be cosplaying a Vulcan from star trek. Could he turn his ectoplasam back into blood? Probably not, either he'd end up 'suffocating' (if that was even the right word) as a ghost or just turn back into a human and need to do this all over again.

Veto'd, too dangerous.

Thinking back, didn't frostbite say there was something odd with his ectoplasam and blood? Thats right! There were slight ammounts of ectoplasam in his blood and vice versa. If he could manipulate his remaining blood into the capillaries along the surface of his skin, it'd look like he still had a beating heart!...

Ok, that sounded bad even in his mind.

Shaking off that thought, he pushed his blood to his skin and checked the mirror one last time. Normal teen with white hair? Check. Now, Roller Coaster!

~~~

This is the first! || next

Thanks for reading! Unfortunately, I had to cut this in half. (Curse the word limit!) When I have time to post part 2 I'll link it down here. If the links work... Anyways! Please tell me if there's anything I can improve! Last time I posted something was back in... 2016? So i'm very out of practice

[darcytaylor]

Are people mad that Luke Newton has a girlfriend? Or is it something more? A deep dive. Part 1 of 3.

I want to start out by saying, I have been following the Bridgerton train since the season one release on Christmas day. It was a show that I knew nothing about and I became enamoured.

I have followed along with the show and the actors since the release. I find looking at human behaviour fascinating, as I work in a very customer service based industry. It is so interesting to me to see how the actors have conducted themselves, especially Luke Newton.

This post will be about why I think people are truly upset by his behaviour.

(some of which I agree with and some I don't)

Luke Newton has been quite the monogamous dater. He dated his fellow co-star from The Lodge, Sophie Simnett. They were both very young at the time, it seemed like a sweet relationship, but young love normally never lasts.

Then he got into a relationship with Jade Davies. She is very active in the Theatre world and it seemed like this was a very good pairing. I think they complimented each other well. You could tell they loved each other. Ultimately they broke up at the beginning of 2023, because they 'grew apart', or so the tabloids have stated.

I do know that Jade did receive some hate (which is fairly common in the industry that Luke is in). I personally don't think that it was as bad as people made it out to be. A lot of people loved seeing Luke in love and proud of his girlfriend. They supported them as a couple. They supported it because there really wasn't anything to not support.

After the breakup is where Luke Newton went off the rails (in my opinion). He decided to become the typical fuck boy and didn't keep it secret. But he was just getting out of a long term relationship, it's not an abnormal things to do.

This is where he made his first mistake - he made his dating life public and it definitely looked questionable. (and yes he made it public by following certain people and posting about all of his vacations). He had a 'type' going into this time in his life (young dancers). But ultimately fans were forgiving because he just got out of a long term relationship. He was hurting and it's okay to spiral a little at a time like that. Fans supported him because they wanted him to have a 'hot boy summer'.

At some point he meets his confirmed/unconfirmed girlfriend Antonia. She seems to get a long with his close friends and people took notice of them spending time together. But I think fans thought he was still spiralling, so he wouldn't actually get into a relationship, he was only having fun.

Then the New Years kiss video was released. Fans did not like this. But ultimately I don't think that was what caused the biggest issue, I think his second mistake was befriending her on Instagram. This is what sealed them as an unconfirmed relationship. Had they decided to not make this decision, I think people could/would have left them/her be. It could have been summed up with 'it was just a New Years' kiss.

I think it's possible that Luke had the intention to make this relationship public. I think that could have been his goal that day. But because of the press tour coming up, he was told not to (maybe). I also think that made Luke spiral even more, he was upset that he couldn't show off his girlfriend (and when you like or love someone you do want to do that) and decided to take some of his issues out on his career and fans (by liking everyone of her photos, letting her post photos with his clothing, letting her post photos with his arms and legs). (I want to add that he should have the right to do that, but in the world of celebrities, they have to do things like this with care or it will backfire).

His third mistake was mentioning that he was the most like his character on Bridgerton (he has said this multiple times) and his cast-mates also say the same thing. Hear me out on this one -

It can be easy to separate the art from the artist. That is simple enough for people to do (I have seen it happen on many occasions). But there were multiple times that he would say he is the most like his character (saying this made the task of separating difficult) - and lets be real Colin was made for the female gaze. He is charming, attractive, loving and isn't superficial. He fell in love with the 'outcast', the one that isn't the 'typical' beauty. Fans held onto this, because Colin as a character made them feel seen. They couldn't separate Luke from Colin because he kept saying he was like Colin.

When they look at Antonia they don't see the outcast, they don't see the girl that looks like them, they don't see a 'regular' woman. She is the opposite of who Colin would end up with, so that would mean that Luke wouldn't go for her. Antonia looks like the girl who made fun of you in high school, the girl who on the outside looks like she hasn't had a trouble in her life, a girl who's social media is all about vacationing and looks staged, she doesn't seem real.

(I want to note that I have no idea who she is as a person, she could be the nicest person).

So now that Luke has made a bunch of people mad they will go on a deep dive. The first thing that people will look into is the age. And she is quite young. Too young in fact. I am on the side that someone his age shouldn't be dating someone who's brain isn't fully developed (this is a scientific fact), ESPECIALLY since there is also a power dynamic. (It's okay if you do not feel the same way).

Luke's fourth mistake was letting his friends post things about himself on social media. Yes, I know that you can't control everybody in your life. But they are his BEST FRIENDS, Luke could have asked them to not post anything about himself. That would have been the smart more.

Luke's fifth mistake was not having Nicola and the Bridgerton Instagram posts with notifications on. He should have liked every single god damn post that they posted. This would have appeased the fans, the fans love that shit. But instead he would like every single one of Antonia's photos and forget about his job. This decision further bothered fans because he stated that he was moving his social media to be work related. I will be honest - his social media is kinda a mess. His social media presence is definitely a mistake he has made.

He goes on the Bridgerton press tour with Nicola (who is amazing at her job), and all of the imperfections of his life are even more exaggerated, because Nicola is fucking great. Even though Luke and Nicola are a pair when it comes to Bridgerton, people will still compare them.

When looking at this whole situation I think that Luke is continuing to spiral. I think that he can be a bit stubborn and he is doubling down. He has to know the mistakes he has made. He has to realize that he could have dated Antonia and not made it a whole situation/scene. If a celebrity doesn't want you to know something about their personal lives, you won't know.

Final thoughts - I think that Luke didn't think about how some of his actions would/could have been perceived, I think he was ill prepared in some of his actions, I think that he is still learning to be in the spotlight, I think he is somewhat immature, I think that he is being destructive to his career.

I'm convinced Luke wanted to come forward with his relationship months ago. I believe he was told not to and he didn't like that answer. He has shown some spite because of it. There are also other mistakes that I didn't get into, if you want a part 2 let me know? haha

Have I lost some respect for Luke during the past year? Yes.

Do I realize that it must be hard to be in the spotlight? Yes.

Do I think that if Luke continues on this destructive path he will regret it? Yes.

Should we also give him a bit of grace? Yes.

Do I think he is talented? Yes.

Do I think this will ultimately effect him? No.

If you have gotten this far, congratulations and thank you for reading! It's been a fascinating deep dive!

[averydayss]

Every Summertime𓇼

>>contents: in which you try to make Jay jealous by persuading his bestfriend, Sunghoon

>>warnings: fluff, angst

>>now playing: Every Summertime - NIKI

You and Jay are inseparable, the both of you always had been together since the earliest of moments. This started when both of your moms are close friends, which means you two often meet during their hangout.

Jay's mom has a vacation house that they use every summer, and every year your invited to stay during the summer break. And of course you did, so y/n and jay would stay in the vacation house together

At the age of 10, you started to realize that you had developed some feelings for jay. The reason being obvious, Jay was anything a girl could ever wish for. Handsome, kind, smart, sporty, rich, he is a heartthrob in school

Jay didn't liked you that way though, in his eyes you were a little sister to him since he was an only child. Although both did had a situationship for a couple of months, nothing happened though

That didn't really bother you though, after all you both still spent time almost everyday together.

Jay had his fair share of crushes, you did too. But they never really went as far as being more than that, until at the age of 16 Jay had his first real girlfriend, Yujin.

Yujin and Jay met at one of his basketball games and eventually their relationship bloomed into something romantic

"y/n i have some good news for you" Jay said excitedly. "Really? What is it?" Y/n asked curiously.

"Me and Yujin are officially dating" Jay said

Y/ns heart shattered at the new couple. At first Jay and y/n still was close and Jay even told y/n a lot of stories and things he liked about yujin, which you didn't really want to hear but you did anyway for Jay

One day, you were with Danielle. You both were shopping for clothes and bags, and you suddenly saw Yujin kissing a stranger who doesn't look like Jay at all

Isn't that Yujin?" asked Winter. "Yes i think so"

"You should take a picture so you have proof to tell Jay" said winter. You listened to her and took a picture at the sight

After you were done shopping, you went straight to Jay's house. "Jay, i need to tell you something" said y/n while pulling out her phone and showing the picture. "Your lying, its edited. Yujin would never do that, just be happy for me y/n" said Jay

As time went on though, you noticed that Jay was starting to act quite differently. When you would tag along ur mom to go to his house, he would usually invite you to his room to watch movies and play games. But now he would lock himself in his room until you left.

You wanted to confront him at school, but he would always be with yujin. Yujin always had this evil smirk everytime she sees you. You can tell she didn't want you to be close with Jay anymore

Finally, the chance came when both you and Jay's mom decided to have a small gathering at your place, and Jay was forced to tag along. You took this opertunity to approach him and try to strike up a conversation

"Hey we haven't talked much lately, are you good?" Y/n said. "I'm fine" Jay said shortly, not even looking at you but his phone.

"it's going to be summer break soon you know, are you excited to go to your vacation house together?" You emphasized the last word

"Of course, but this year Yujin asked to come along with us. Is that good with you? You can bring someone too if you want" Jay asked. You were shocked, you wanted to refuse. But after all this is Jay's vacation house. "Why not" you said and excused yourself to find someone else to talk to

By the end of the day when the party is over you rushed to your room to call your friends about it. You told them the problem

"Really? That's so inconsiderate of him" said Chaewon on the phone while painting her nails

"If i were you i wouldn't let that slide" Said Danielle. "I know right!, you should bring some man to make him jealous or smth" said Hanni. "You think i should do that?" Y/n asked. "Yeah, if only you 3 would be in the vacation house then you would obviously be the 3rd wheeler" said Danielle

At first you were against the idea, but the more you think about it the more you started to feel like it would work. But a problem is that who would you pick?

You'd pick Soobin, but he already has a girlfriend. You simply can't do that to someones man. A bright idea came into danielles mind though, Sunghoon. He was a perfect candidate

To start off, he was Jay's best friend, he was also single. But you two never really talked to eachother, sure Jay introduced you both a couple of times but you weren't close to him. Still you wanted to try

Y/n: Hey sunghoon! can we meet up? I want to talk to you about something xx

Sunghoon: Sure, why not

Y/n: Lets meet tomorrow at EnCafe at 2pm?

Sunghoon: of course, see you there

You were surprised on how quickly the man agreed, but this was a good thing,

The next day came by, and when you entered the cafe you found Sunghoon. "Hey, how have you been?" Sunghoon had always liked of y/n since they first met. But he never approached y/n since she was always with Jay

"Hey sunghoon, I've been good what about you?" Y/n asked. "Ive been good, what is it that you wanted to talk about?" Asked Sunghoon

"Well Jay has a girlfriend and you know how me and him usually go to his vacation house every summer? Well he is bringing his girlfriend too this year, i was wondering if you'd come along with me this year so i don't feel like a third wheeler?" Y/n asked with pleadingly

"Sure, are you sure Jay is good with this though?" Sunghoon asked excitedly. "He told me i can bring someone so im sure he is good with you invited, besides you two are close" said y/n. "Well then see you soon" Sunghoon asked while trying to contain his smile wider. And with that you found someone

And with that, summer break came in a flash. Now you were currently packing your suitcase to stay at Jay's vacation house for the summer. You were glad that sunghoon came along so you would still have fun after all.

Sunghoons contact name appeared on your phone, he texted you that he would be picking you up with his new car. You smiled at the message and answered.

When the two of you arrived at the vacation house, Jay was cooking beef at the kitchen while Yujin was busy taking photos to post on her socials.

You and Sunghoon went to unpack. The vacation has about 4 bedrooms, perfect for all 4 of you. Jay texted you that he planned a pool party at his vacation house tonight and told you to join.

When u appeared outside of your room, you saw that Yujin's friends are also staying at the vacation house. Great. You were about to ask Jay about it, of course you were. Jay didn't say anything prior to this

Though the first thing you saw was Jay and Yujin making out by the pool. Gross, you thought. You didn't want to admit it but a part did break in you.

At the same time, Sunghoon saw the commotion and saw your helpless face and decided to approach you

"the others are having a bbq grill thingy, care to join" asked Sunghoon

"No im good, ill just go back to my room"

"U like him right?" Asked Sunghoon suspiciously. Y/n was shocked but tried to keep a straight face. "What makes you think that?" Asked y/n

"Its obvious, you always give Jay love eyes everytime you see him" shrugged sunghoon. "I really dont think its any of your concern" said y/n

"Are you kidding me? Ofcouse it is. First you invited me to the stupid vacation house and now your completely distracted with Jay and his GIRLFRIEND" said Sunghoon angrily

"I didn't mean it that way, i just have a lot on my mind right now" said y/n while massaging her temple

"of course you don't" said Sunghoon sarcastically while storming off

The next day you both avoided eachother, you wanted to apologize but you didn't know how to

"So, you and Sunghoon? That's certainly a surprise" asked Jay while leaning on to the fridge after taking his sprite. "Yeah, i guess so"

"Sunghoon has been kinda off these past few days, did anything happen?" Asked Jay. "We just got in a little fight, nothing serious" said y/n

"do you like him?" Asked Jay. "Why does it matter? I don't think its ur business" asked y/n rudely

"Calm down, i was just curious. Why are you so angry?" Said jay. "Of course i am, i wasn't informed that your girlfriend and her minions will be staying at the vacation house" said y/n angrily

"Princess you know i would have informed you, i was just busy with school" you winced at the old nickname. "Sure you are, im gonna find sunghoon" said y/n

Y/n walked through the hallways and approached sunghoon who was busy reading a book. Sunghoon saw y/n at the door frame and raised one of his eyebrow.

"I wanted to apologize for the things i said a few days ago, im sorry I didn't mean it that way" y/n apologized. "You know I've always liked you, but you were to focused on a guy that already had a girlfriend

"I know, i can't help it that i love him Sunghoon" said y/n bitterly. "You know i can help you with that right? Just be with me and ill make your time worth" said Sunghoon

"Sunghoon, i really don't want to make you a rebound" said y/n. "Just give me a month to prove your time worth it" said Sunghoon pleadingly

"Its fine, you don't have too" said y/n trying to hide her smile. Sunghoon smiled and kissed her temple

A few months went by and Sunghoon kept his promise, he was the best boyfriend you could ever asked for. Caring, sweet, and much more. You couldn't have asked for anything more.

During that one month you weren't as close to Jay than before, he tried to contact you but you would always make excuses

Then one day Jay asked to meet at a cafe, you wanted to refuse but he kept begging until you said yes

"Its been a while" Jay said while sipping his coffee. "What do you want to talk about Jay?" Asked y/n

"Me and Yujin broke up, i found out her real intentions of dating me. Im sorry" said Jay. "You didn't do anything wrong, you don't have to apologize" said y/n while fidgeting her fingers

"I was wondering if you want to be my partner for prom? I've known you for so long and if im gonna be honest you looked prettier than you've ever been this past months

"Thanks Jay, but i already said yes to sunghoon's invitation to prom" said y/n

"I don't get it? I thought you liked me? Why are you now close to sunghoon?"

"Sunghoon's nice, incase you didn't know we are dating" said y/n and stood up from her seat and left the cafe

Since that day y/n blocked Jay and lived a happy life with Sunghoon

💳: divider: @snoozebin Other pictures are from pinterest, credits to all the owners

A/N: Send an ask to be moots

[stayconnecteed]

❪⠀🪐. hot chocolate⠀𓏔⠀bangchan⠀❫

☆ㅤbarista!bangchan x afab!reader ( i wanna be yours oneshots )⠀★⠀9.1k words

( i'm sorry if this sucks, i know it's long. have a nice day cuties ♡ )

synopsys: every time you tell someone that you don't like coffee, the reaction is total incomprehension, even indignation. but when your university classmates leave you standing at the café where your crush works, you decide to order a coffee to try to avoid looking bad and end up making a fool of yourself. warnings: i think fluff bangchan needs a warning by itself because woah you can become addicted. but a part from that, there's a brief mention of death while talking about korean mithology, reader is a very introverted and insecure person ーexpect a lot of sad thoughts :(( but felix is here to save the day and hopefully the rest of the story is a little bit of idiots who have a crush on each other.

You were stressed because the first semester was about to end, you had Christmas vacations around the corner, exams approaching at an overwhelming speed, and yet one of your teachers had given you two last-minute projects, one practical and one theoretical. Luckily it was in groups, and your best friend, Hyunjin, had included you in his after a quick pleading glance, assuring you some peace of mind. Not that he was very good at the academic aspect ーnotes, exams, homework and studying in generalー, but he made up for it with a great sense of aesthetic, and managed to make all your projects really visually appealing. Also, your other two friends were very nice and very good at the subject, so whenever you didn't understand something they would always offer to explain it to you with a big smile and kind words.

If they had a flaw, unfortunately, it was being late absolutely everywhere. And perhaps an unhealthy addiction to coffee, although that was not so much a flaw as a general characteristic of the vast majority of students. Sadly, neither of the two suited you at the moment, when you found yourself in front of the most famous coffee shop on the entire campus, all by yourself, after you had been forced to walk more meters than you were willing to do on a normal day, as they didn't show up at the appointed time. Having to enter without his company was not what worried you, but what you would have to face once inside.

To say you hated coffee would be an exaggeration. In fact, during exam week you would have a couple of cups to avoid falling asleep over your notes on those endless nights of studying, or in the middle of class, but it just wasn't your favorite flavor. You hated the taste. Too bitter, the unpleasant aftertaste instantly drying your mouth and lingering on your tongue as an annoying reminder of the beverage you had just tasted. You always grimaced terribly when you took your first sip, something that anyone watching you found absurdly funny, and then, as you swallowed, even with your eyes closed, a shiver would run through your spine, as if your body recognized the drink and reacted to it.

The problem was that 5STAR was a coffee shop that specialized in coffee. They had scones, and cookies, and brownies to go with it, but they didn't make smoothies or juices. And you usually only went there with Hyunjin, who had been responsible for asking if they could make hot chocolate that first afternoon you had met to study there, a couple of years ago, before he had even started working in the establishment. You had been so embarrassed that it had taken you quite a while to return, and since then you had always left it up to him to order for you, after you had made sure that the barista who was serving was either him or Felix, the blond, freckle-faced Australian you went to class with, because you had never felt judged by his smile upon discovering that the chocolate was for you.

But now you were alone, on the sidewalk, and the time you had spent looking inside the place was starting to look weird. Your options were simple: go in, order a hot chocolate, sit down to prepare the subject and pretend it was the most normal thing in the world, or go in, order the first coffee you saw on the menu hanging on the wall, sit down to prepare the subject and wait for Hyunjin to come through the door to ask him to drink it. Obviously, you chose the second option, too tempted at the thought that someone might judge you, so you closed your eyes, took a breath of air, and pushed open the heavy glass door, praying that the barista who was serving at that moment wasn't the cute guy who, you had to admit, you had a little crush on.

But there he was, behind the counter, with a friendly smile plastered on his face, his dimples appearing and disappearing as he moved his lips to talk to the customer in front of him. He had decided not to put on the beanie he usually wore almost every day, and his thick curls spilled over his head, giving him a more relaxed look, in contrast to the serious outfit that was the café's uniform, with black pants and T-shirt and beige apron. You knew relatively little about him, such as that his name was Chris and he had been at the same college you went to, but shooting him quick glances whenever you went and he was there was your favorite hobby.

You cleared your throat, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear in a nervous gesture and stood in line, fiddling with your phone case, pulling out a corner and putting it back to pretend your hands weren't shaking. You didn't normally get so nervous about social interactions, but it was true that your natural shyness and introverted nature have given you more than one bad experience. And the fact that you were going to talk to Chris for the first time only made your anxiety skyrocket, because you know you weren't able to control what you say. Your mind went on autopilot, and all you' were left with was remembering for weeks the nonsense you had blurted out, unable to change a single word. You tried to formulate in your head the phrase you're going to use as the queue slowly moved forward, your gaze locked on the way you move your feet as you walked.

"Hello?" you heard, lifting your head so fast you feared you'd hurt your neck. Great, you were so distracted you didn't notice when it was your turn.

"Hi" you replied, forcing your eyes to fix on his and stopping them from roaming over every feature of his face. Fixing on his but blinking normally, you reminded yourself, clearing your throat again.

"Good afternoon" he repeated, his voice soft and gentle, one of his hands already over the screen to take down your order. "What will you have?"

"Oh..." you murmured, trying to rescue from your memory the phrase you had prepared. Don't say hot chocolate, don't say hot chocolate, don't say... "Hot chocolate."

"Huh?" he asked, his lips parted and his eyebrows furrowing in adorable confusion. You realized your tone was too low and he probably hadn't heard you correctly, though it was clear you had said something, denying you the chance to make up another answer to cover your mistake.

"Hot chocolate" you whispered again, glancing at the three people behind you, trying not to let them hear. You noticed the heat flushing your cheeks as you spoke, "Can you, uh, can you say it's something else?"

"Excuse me?" you couldn't help but watch his frown deepen even more, and you made a panicked face, trying to find a convincing excuse that didn't expose your null extroverted abilities or how poorly you had approached the conversation. Chris realized almost instantly how it was affecting you, and reached a hand over the counter to caress yours, relaxing his features. "Hey, hey, I just don't understand what you mean."

You heard the hammering of your heartbeat all over the place, drowning out the background noise as it rumbled in your ears, or in the muscles of your hand that were in contact with the barista's skin, but mostly in your chest, at such a volume that for a moment you feared all the café would be able to hear it. You swallowed saliva with difficulty, your mouth suddenly completely dry, and tried to formulate something that made a minimal amount of sense, "I'd rather not drink coffee, but I don't want those in the back to know that I ordered hot chocolate."

And then you saw him flash that smile you loved so much, trying to stifle a laugh, and he nodded, withdrawing his hand from above yours to write it down.

"Don't worry, I'll personally take care of your order" he assured you, his eyes glinting at the screen, biting his lip unconsciously in a gesture of concentration. "A mocca coffee, then, right?" he said, raising his tone a little.

"Yes" you replied, avoiding his gaze, shyly, when he shifted it slightly towards you to ask for your name. You set your phone down on the marbled surface of the counter to rummage through your totebag for your wallet. "It's to take here, not to go."

"Oh, then I'll bring it to you at the table when it's ready," he announced, leaning on his forearms to look down at you.

"But..., how much is it?" you asked, confused, the wallet open in your hands, a few coins on your palm.

"It's on the house" he answered you, his dimples accentuating.

The warmth in your cheeks spread across your face, and you made a little bow, knowing that you must have been flushed to your ears. You didn't bother struggling to hide your smile, and hurriedly put away your wallet, grabbing your phone and mumbling some kind of nervous thank you. When you turned around, your face out of Chris's gaze, you sighed, placing your hands on your cheeks to calm down a bit, and looked around for some table to sit at. The one you normally occupied was being used by a girl, but there were few people at that time, so you chose a nearby one, assuming Hyunjin wouldn't mind, and once everything was ready you started to take out the material.

You had brought your laptop, of course, and had printed out some ideas you'd had, sketching in the margins how you intended to cover the visual part 一although that was taken care of by Hyunjin. But you knew he was a bit chaotic, so having a base for what the presentation would look like always came in handy. That day you were going to prepare the theoretical part, in which you were to choose a song and a theme, write a long document stating your reasons, and then prepare a performance in which you would narrate some typical legend of the country through dance. As if you had the mental capacity to create a choreography from scratch at this point of the semester.

You knew it was going to be a relatively short meeting, because you were all out of time, so you entertained yourself looking for songs that would inspire you for the theme you had chosen, the Jeosung Saja. To tell the truth you had no idea about Korean mythology, but you had spent the whole afternoon looking for ideas on the internet and that was the most likely to present a good dance. They were messengers from the afterlife, those who guided the dead to the afterlife. You had read that they were usually represented with a black hanbok, and they also appeared in some dorama that had become famous, so you could develop a dark aesthetic, as Hyunjin liked so much.

You were so engrossed in rereading what you had written on your laptop screen, and in the list of songs recommended by the teacher, that you didn't notice that Chris had left the cup of chocolate on the table. You had to contain the pout you wanted to make, because you were sure he hadn't said anything to avoid disturbing you. It smelled wonderful, and he had left you a plate with a buttery croissant next to the hot chocolate, with a folded paper napkin that read "a mocha for the lovely girl at table 8 :))". Your lips began to curl into a smile as you took the napkin and carefully tucked it away in your planner, unable to stay focused on the music anymore.

Just as you had taken the cup in your hands, the temperature of the porcelain fighting the coldness of your skin, and warming your throat as you tasted it, Hyunjin and Felix entered the room, a chaos of laughter and exclamations, Sunwoo following closely behind, engaged in their conversation. You pretended to wince angrily, frowning and hastily putting the cup down on the table to cross your arms over your chest, giving Hyunjin a dirty look. When the boy noticed your state he hurried to sit next to you, his chin resting on your shoulder, mumbling various apologies about his delay.

"It was my fault, Ynnie," stated Sunwoo, setting his backpack on the table and sitting down across from you. "We were practicing the dance in Professor Park's class and there was a sequence of steps that kept going wrong for me."

"Don't worry, Woo" you replied, snuggling up next to Hyunjin, like always when you were together. "I'm doing it to annoy him."

"And what are you going to complain about if you got your chocolate?" you heard him mutter, picking up the cup to steal a sip from you.

"No thanks to you" you whispered back, taking it from his hands to drink yourself.

"Oooh, come on, don't be like that" he protested, his head resting on your shoulder, rolling his eyes, which managed to snatch some laughter from Felix. At your silence he turned just enough so he could make eye contact with you. "Are you really mad?"

"No."

"But?" he asked, knowing from the way you were that you weren't going to let on how much it had upset you if that had been the case.

"I had a hard time" you muttered, hiding behind your cup. "Neither Felix nor you were here to save me from having to ask for it myself."

"Whose turn was it today?" Sunwoo spoke up, turning to Hyunjin as he pulled out his own laptop.

"Chris" you replied, your cheeks reddening again.

"Oh" Felix said, before cracking a smile that hid how much he was dying to let out a squeal of excitement, "oooh."

"Oh, what?" asked Hyunjin, peeling slightly away from you and frowning in confusion.

"Nothing" you ended the conversation with a warning gesture to Felix, who pretended to run a zipper over his lips, and handed out the printed sheets of paper with the information you had found the previous afternoon, trying to get started on the project. "Well, I had thought about..."

"No, oh, what?" repeated Hyune, completely ignoring the written words and dividing his attention between the freckled boy in front of him and you, "what does he know that I don't?"

"Dude, if you don't know it's because you're just blind" Sunwoo stated, focused on the information, with a gesture of disbelief on his face.

"Guys, please" you requested, avoiding looking at Hyunjin and glancing back down at the sheet. "As I was saying, I had thought of basing our dance on the legend of the Jeosung Saja. You have a summary there, but I'll comment quickly: we can create a story from scratch about someone's death, and have two of us act as the Korean messengers, who let him say goodbye to the love of his life before guiding him to the afterlife, or something like that. I don't have the music yet, but it sounds like a good plan."

"It says here that we'd have to look for some black hanbok" Sunwoo pointed out, as you nodded, and shared a look with you, implying that he approved of the idea, already looking for ways to carry it out.

"Actually, I had thought of something else" Felix muttered, his fingers fiddling with the paper nervously. "Ehm, I read an article yesterday about these... Korean ghosts. They're called Gwisin, and there are four types, like us, there are four of us. There's Cheonyeo, which is the virgin ghost, Mul is the water ghost, Chonggak is the single man ghost, and Dalgyal is the egg ghost. There's only one girl, so it seemed perfect to me. It still has dark aesthetics, because they are wandering spirits of humans who have died with unfinished business, and also to record the dance we can talk to my friend Jake, who is doing a degree in photography and is good with cameras."

"I was going to propose Han or Chris to help us with the music" Sunwoo added, "because with all the time they spend glued to their laptops they're sure to have some track we can use, and we don't even need lyrics."

"Oh, it's actually much better than my idea, Felix" you agreed, closing the tab with the information you had searched for and starting to research about the Gwisin. As you read, you brainstormed, rambling outloud. "We can connect the lives of the four characters, do four solos that blend together, and add minutes of duets until, at the end, all four spirits end up accomplishing the unfinished business they had and do a final scene together"

"Yes!" exclaimed Felix, excited. "Just what I had thought. They've made scary movies about the Gwisin, but we can give it a dramatic twist. The virgin girl was an unrequited love of the water ghost, for example. We're going to have to get a pool to shoot the moment when he dances, you know, when he drowns and dies."

"That can be the start of the dance" proposed Sunwoo.

"I offer it to be me, if you want" said Felix, "I don't mind getting in the pool in December. I have enough experience in cold water, from when I was in Australia."

"Perfect" you affirmed, glad that you had gotten the job on track so well in such a short time. "I think we can go straight back to the studio to prepare the music, what do you think, Hyune?"

He had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout your talk, head resting on the back of the seat and gazing blankly, taking small sips from the cup of hot chocolate, with absent-minded gestures. You could almost see the gears turning in his mind, as he slowly nibbled at the croissant Chris had left for you. There was something that had been bothering him.

"I need a coffee," he muttered, leaving your empty cup on the table and ignoring your question, "would you like another chocolate?"

"Hyune..." you mumbled, confused at his attitude.

"I'll order it to go, don't worry" he added, grabbing his backpack. "I think Han is at home and has the 3racha equipment."

You shrugged as he stood up, and you then began to pick up your laptop and notebook, shoving them into your bag in a hurry to keep up with Felix and Sunwoo, who had hardly had to put anything away. Sunwoo had his own laptop already in the case, and Felix was folding the paper you had printed out, carefully, to tuck it between his notebooks, into his backpack. The three of you headed outside, to wait for Hyunjin, while Felix ran a hand around your waist, trying to coax information out of you.

"So..., Chris, huh?"

"Can we talk about how Hyunjin is mad for talking about it in front of him when he doesn't know anything?" you replied, giving him a loving punch on the arm. "Drop the topic."

"But it's the first time you've talked to him!" he protested, pouting, "I want to know everything!"

"YN is right, Lix," Sunwoo supported you, to which you shot him a grateful look. "Hyunjin is our creative soul and he hasn't blurted out a single word, that says a lot about the situation."

"I'm going to have to tell him about the crush, anyway" you stated, making the decision on the spot, leaning against Felix, "because it's not fair that he doesn't know."

"I don't understand why you haven't told him yet" he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Hyunjin and Chris work together" you explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "and besides, they're close friends."

"So does Felix" Sunwoo reproached, frowning.

"Felix keeps my secrets" you confessed, resting your head on his shoulder with a smile. "Hyune is too much of a gossip to keep that sort of thing to himself."

"If you tell him it's a secret he sure won't let it out" Felix muttered, defending his friend.

You glanced inside the shop, where Hyunjin was leaning against the counter, throwing his head back every time he let out a laugh, while Chris was talking to him, moving fluidly between the machines, preparing the order with expert hands. You couldn't help but feel a pang of envy at his familiarity. You weren't used to feeling this way about your friends, but the way Hyunjin's eyes twinkled at the jokes the barista would drop with a serious gesture and then burst into adorable laughter made you wonder if you hadn't been a little blind to their interactions. You tried not to think too much about it, but you had always had very bad luck with your crushes, something that had only increased your insecurities, and had forced you to keep a low profile on such matters.

"YN?" murmured Felix, one hand caressing your shoulder in an affectionate gesture. "You know he wouldn't say anything, right?"

"I know, it's just..." you lost the thread of your words, absorbed in the scene unfolding behind the glass, Chris reaching for a black marker to write something down on one of the take away cups, Hyunjin too busy searching for his wallet in his backpack to notice.

"Whatever you're overthinking right now isn't true" you heard the freckled blond say, drawing your attention back to him. "It's not the first time you've broken your own heart by heeding unrealistic assumptions you've got stuck in your head. Trust Hyunjin, he would never hurt you on purpose."

"I know," you repeated, turning to face away from the café, but avoiding making eye contact with him, "but I don't... I know and I repeat it to myself, but sometimes I just don't listen, even if it's true."

When you looked up, your eyes beginning to fill with tears you didn't intend to shed, Felix was giving you a look full of understanding. You had few friends as close to your heart as he and Hyunjin, but between Lix and you there had always been a kind of connection built on a common bond, as had been the constant insecurities that only you were able to keep from escalating.

"Let me know when it's like this," he asked, his hand leaving your shoulder and running down your arm until it came to fidget with your fingers, "give me a sign, or look at me. I'll remind you."

You nodded, resting your forehead in the crook of his neck, letting yourself be comforted by his touch, and managed to muster a smile as he tried to give you a hug but your totebag blocked his way. You saw him pout, and you let out a laugh, being interrupted by a shy cough from Sunwoo, who had taken a couple of steps away to give you privacy.

"I'm talking to Han and he asked me what kind of music we're looking for" he explained, pointing to his phone, "in case he can go looking through the songs they have already done or half done, so we don't have to start something new."

"Oh, sure" you said, frowning in a thoughtful gesture. "I'd say something dark, wouldn't you?"

"No doubt" Felix seconded, nodding at your words.

"And since the main choreographer is Hyune, add elegant and heart-wrenching as well" you straightened your figure, watching as Sunwoo typed hurriedly, his fingers speeding over the screen, "if what we're going to narrate is a story of unrequited love, and death, we'd better do something dramatic."

"A hot chocolate!" exclaimed Hyunjin, pushing the door open with his hip, both hands busy with the take away cups. "A hot chocolate for you, and coffee for me."

"Thank you, Hyune" you whispered, leaving a kiss on his cheek as he handed you the cup, again grateful for the warmth emanating from it.

"Looks to me like it has a message, Ynnie" Felix said to you, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, pointing to the letters you could guess under your fingers. You noticed how your cheeks flushed again, moving your hands so you could read all the words, and recognizing Chris's neat handwriting.

"What the hell are you talking about?" exclaimed Hyunjin, rushing over to you to try to read it first. "What does it say?"

"Thought you were really cute, leave my number here" you murmured, starting to crack a big smile, savoring the words as you said them, your heart skipping a beat when you saw that he had drawn a smiley face again and you imagined him, showing his dimples.

Hyunjin had repeated it again aloud, and you heard Felix stifle a gasp, holding his hands to his mouth, his face the vivid image of surprise. Sunwoo had merely let out a laugh and shook his head, as if he didn't believe what had just happened, still holding his phone in his hand. When you looked up, you found disbelief tinting Hyunjin's eyes, one of his hands still holding your arm from when he had rushed to read message over your shoulder.

"Oh," you breathed, causing Felix to snort.

"That's all you're going to say?"

"What do you expect me to say?" you replied, a soft chuckle bubbling up inside you.

"At least say hello to him through the glass," Sunwoo suggested to you, tilting his head in the direction of the café, which was at your back, "the poor guy looks like he wants to turn into a giraffe, from how much he's stretching his neck this way."

You turned your head as soon as you processed what Woo had just said, listening to Hyunjin complaining if that had anything to do with what Felix had said when you had confessed that the barista who had served you was Chris. Just as your friend had said, Chris was resting his hands on the counter, his body almost hovering completely over the surface, trying to figure out what your reaction had been. The moment you made eye contact, and gave him a shy smile, he couldn't help but turn with a jerk, suddenly suddenly busy with a non-existent order.

"Ynnie has a cruush" Felix crooned, causing Hyunjin to open his mouth in a gesture of exaggerated drama that you totally deserved.

"And you weren't planning on telling me anything!" he exclaimed, indignantly.

"She was literally going to tell you now" Sunwoo interjected, helping you balance the tragedy, "but Chris beat you to it."

"I have to tell Changbin" commented Felix, picking up his phone, "now he owes me money."

"You were keeping a bet on them?" asked Hyunjin, pouting. "Did everyone know but me?"

"Hyune, YN doesn't know how to pretend" explained Felix, resting a hand on his shoulder as he reached for Changbin's contact, "Changbin only needed to spend a few minutes with her at the café to figure it out."

While they started a new argument on the topic, you brought the glass to your lips, wanting to taste that drink that you liked so much, and that now that you knew that Chris had prepared it with so much love, it had become your favorite. But as soon as you took a sip and the bitter taste of coffee settled in your mouth, you pushed the glass away, trying to avoid looking into the coffee shop with a confused gesture, and taking the cap off, as if you wanted to make sure that what you had just drunk was definitely not chocolate. But when you breathed in the unmistakable smell of coffee, you noticed how your chest contracted. And suddenly you saw, as if in slow motion, the interaction Chris had had with Hyunjin while you waited, the adoration with which the barista had watched your friend laugh. How he had taken advantage of just when Hyunjin wasn't looking to write the note in his coffee, all those times you had caught them talking and they had fallen silent in your presence. How, yet again, the guy you'd fallen for chose someone else over you, another crush that ended badly, and it pained you to look back and only see a trail of stories in which the only heart that had ended up breaking was yours.

"Hey, let's get going, shall we?" proposed Sunwoo, getting your attention.

You listened as Felix and Hyunjin agreed with him with small nods, but without letting go of their playful bickering, taking off walking towards the apartment where the latter lived with Han Jisung. You had heard them, but all your enthusiasm for the project had vanished, leaving in its place a constant stinging in your eyes, which struggled not to tear up in the middle of the street.

"YN, aren't you coming?" asked Hyunjin, stopping everyone when he realized you weren't with them, that you had stayed behind.

You managed to shake your head, a small movement that was enough to make your friend frown, taking a couple of steps towards you. You tried to compose yourself, ignoring your feelings 一at least for the moment一 and swallowed before formulating the first excuse that came to mind:

"I'm... not feeling too well, guys" you stammered, intensifying your gaze towards Sunwoo, who was the most likely to let you go without asking too many questions.

"But a moment ago you were perfectly fine" Felix muttered, and you noticed his eyes on you, trying to unravel the hidden reasons for your departure.

"I'd rather go home" you said, in a whimper, the warmth of the glass that had comforted you so much a few seconds ago suddenly burning your skin, "you guys can choose the music. It's Lix's idea anyway, it's only fair that he gets to decide."

"Are you sure?" asked Hyunjin, coming up to you, putting the back of his hand on your forehead, like a worried mother would do with her baby.

"Mm-hm" you held out the coffee cup, unable to hold it for much longer, for him to take, and made the mistake of looking at Felix before blurting out a "this is yours" directed at Hyunjin.

You cleared your throat, placing the straps of your totebag more comfortably over your shoulder, and muttered some sort of goodbye before turning and running away, not quite witnessing the way Felix had snatched the cup from Hyunjin to check its contents, and letting out a frustration-laden sigh as he realized what your train of thought had been.

The rest of the afternoon had not been very relevant. You had work to do, like everyone else, and you were also one of those people who wanted to get all your notes done before the Christmas vacations, so you used to spend all December writing again with better caligraphy all the topics you've learned throught the semester. You didn't want to collapse yet, you preferred to keep your head busy, trying to pretend that nothing had happened until you couldn't take any more. In any case, you had already entered that stage where you began to belittle your own thoughts, doubting that your response to the situation had been the right one.

Or, if you stopped to think about it long enough, you could almost see your insecurities swirling around your heart, suffocating you from inside your own chest. That's why you had immersed yourself in the most difficult subjects, praying that filling your head with information would empty it of stupid reasonings. And you had succeeded in your purpose, at least for as many hours as possible, until you heard your phone ring between the couch cushions and snapped out of your self-absorption to answer it.

"Yeah?" you mumbled, your mouth dry from having gone so long without speaking, not paying attention to who was calling you at that hour.

"Ynnie" you heard Felix say, his deep voice sending a shiver down your spine. "How are you?"

"How am I?" you repeated, clearing your throat and straightening your posture, as if he could see you and you had to play the role of carefree teenager. "Fine. Well, stressed about finals, but like everyone else, I guess, right?"

The laugh that escaped your lips without permission sounded too fake, and you closed your eyes, wincing, because you knew it wouldn't be believable. You obviously knew Felix wasn't an idiot. He'd probably realized you'd left for a compelling reason, and not exactly because you'd suddenly been struck by a migraine or a tummy ache. You considered lying and saying that you'd had your period the day before; he knew perfectly well that you had a really bad time the first few days. But it wasn't going to be worth it.

"You know that coffee..." he started to explain, his tone totally serious, as if he was telling you off.

"Stop" you interrupted him, standing up, your notebooks and papers strewn across the table, being ignored, as you paced around the room like a caged lion. "I don't want to talk about it, don't bring it up, please."

On the other end of the line, Felix made eye contact with Hyunjin, who was sitting next to him, listening to the whole conversation, and let out a long sigh, "Okay" he agreed, unable to force the conversation, "but remember what I told you, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever" you whispered, trying to avoid having to give an answer. "Did you call me to talk about that?"

"No, actually" he stated, and your lips curved into a sad smile at the emptiness you felt when you realized he had dropped the subject, just as you had asked. You didn't know if it was relief at not having to deal with the situation, or if you were hurt at how quickly he had given up, "It's about the music for the project."

"Do you guys have the song yet?"

"We need you to choose it," you had spoken practically at the same time, the silence that followed the cacophony of voices heavy on your shoulders, and Felix held his breath, waiting for an answer he didn't know if it would come.

"You can send me an audio of the options Jisung has, can't you?" you asked, hoping your friend wasn't asking what you knew he was going to ask.

"He has them on his laptop" he added, without actually explaining what he intended for you to do.

"Aren't you with him?" you frowned in a confused gesture, not understanding what was going through his head, "can't you ask him to put them on?"

"I'm at my place" he confessed, and you heard the movement of clothes as they brushed against each other, you guessed he had gotten up from wherever he was sitting, "Hyune and I came over after talking to Han because he had to meet his group from his AV Tech class. But he's going to stop by later, in case you wanted to come."

"Ah," you breathed, suddenly understanding. Probably what he wanted was for you to get out of your apartment, perhaps intending that you wouldn't be able to resist the pout on Hyunjin's face when you were told that the coffee scene had been a misunderstanding. You could agree to the former... The latter was more complicated.

"We can order your favorite pizza, and then you can stay over," he proposed, taking the risk that such insistence would push you away, "what do you say?"

You contemplated your options. You could use Seungmin, your roommate, as an excuse, but Felix was capable of texting him to confirm your alibi, and no one could resist Felix. Deep down, you knew you were going to end up going, but for a few seconds you allowed yourself to imagine what you could say to him to get him to leave you alone. You took a breath of air, leaning against the hallway wall, and closed your eyes tightly, trying not to think about how much you could come to regret your decision.

"But you have to promise me one thing," you announced, hearing Hyunjin's celebratory whispers on the other end of the line, "we don't talk about what happened this afternoon. Not today, not ever."

Felix snorted, against the idea, considering another way to approach the conversation to get you to stop thinking about it, but since he had shared with Hyunjin the plan he had developed while Han was showing them his music, and the boy was completely lacking in any kind of censure, he couldn't stop himself from exclaiming, "Okay! But you come!"

Felix heard you mutter a farewell before hanging up, and he stared at his friend with annoyance written all over his face. He knew that, although the way he had said it had sounded suspicious, Hyunjin had done it for everyone's sake, but he couldn't help but give him a murderous glare for not letting him have his way. The boy shrugged, unfazed by his antics, and rose from the bed, arching his eyebrow in his direction, ready to have the last word:

"I hope you time it right and this goes well."

When you arrived, fifteen minutes later, wrapped in a thick coat and one of your colorful scarves, but with your pajamas underneath, the pizzas had already arrived. You saw them on the kitchen counter, filling everything with a delicious aroma of bacon and cheese, when Felix opened the door with a smile. You lifted your backpack with a condescending grimace, implying that you had brought a change of clothes and your overnight kit, agreeing to spend the night in his apartment, and he let out a chuckle that almost managed to break the imperturbable facade with which you had decided to wear.

"Hyune is choosing film" he informed you, helping you take off your coat to hang it in the closet.

You tried to ignore the sting you felt in your chest at the memory of the circumstances under which you had said goodbye to Hyunjin, and promised yourself to make it up to him somehow. He didn't deserve to deal with your feelings like that, not when it wasn't his fault that your crush was onto him. So you headed straight for the small living room, where your friend took up the entire length of the couch thanks to his height, and you threw yourself on top him gently, letting him give you a hug as he chuckled awkwardly, his lungs taking in less air than they let out thanks to the extra weight of your body on top of his.

"What do you have in mind?" you asked him, looking at the television screen, and the endless possibilities the audiovisual platform offered.

"I haven't really chosen between Alice in Wonderland and Nightmare Before Christmas" he acknowledged, following your gaze, locating the second one he had mentioned in the bottom corner.

"Mmm, which of the Alice versions are we talking about?" 

"The first one" he told you, "the live action one."

"Oh, put that one on, please" you asked, trying to adopt your best pleading face, pouting in the same way you had seen Felix do so many times. You watched as he erased what he had written on the browser and followed your instructions, while you basked in the warmth of the fabric of his hoodie against your cheek, and his arm across your back. You could have stayed there, half asleep, for the rest of the semester, for the rest of the year even, if it hadn't been for how loud the bell had been when it rang, Hyunjin straining underneath you.

"That must be Jisung" you surmised, getting up much to your dismay, "I'll go open the door."

Felix was too busy in the kitchen, hands full of brownie batter, so you walked down the hallway back to the front door, peeking through the peephole to make sure it was Han on the other side. But your breath caught as you recognized the features of the barista you'd seen just hours earlier at 5STAR. You opened your eyes wide, not knowing how to react, and peeked into the kitchen to ask Felix. To your surprise, he was already watching, confirming to you, as soon as you saw his apologetic smile, that this was all his doing.

You decided not to say a single word, and focus on calming your racing heart before facing an interaction with Chris again. The doorbell rang again, jolting you out of your self-absorption with a scare, and you hurried to unlock the door, opening it with a smile that you liked to think it was normal.

"Hello" you said to him, proud that your voice sounded more confident than you felt.

"Oh" he breathed, his surprised eyes roaming over your features, "hi." You saw him flash a beautiful smile, and raise his hand to wave at you, as if he were a little boy excited to meet a new friend. "The lovely girl from table 8."

"That's me" you replied, opening the door wider so he could come in, "thank you for inviting me to the chocolate, I don't know if the croissant was tasty or not because Hyunjin ate it, but I bet it was."

Mentioning your friend's name just to see how he reacted had been a pathetic move, but you hadn't been able to stop yourself. If you could turn back time you would have bitten your tongue, though, after watching his ears blush at your words, proving you right. You swallowed the knot in your throat when you heard his giggles, and he walked into the apartment, taking off his coat.

"I wouldn't say it's my best recipe, but thanks for the confidence" he commented to you, and you took his coat, just as Felix had done with you, to hang it in the closet. You tried not to make it too obvious the way you checked that he was still wearing his café uniform, the sleeves of the black t-shirt tracing his arms. "I'll have to let you try it on another time, then, so you can give me your opinion."

You gave him a strained smile, standing there in the middle of the hallway, and when you saw Hyunjin poke his head out the living room door to see what was going on, you indicated to Chris that Felix was in the kitchen by pointing him to the room, and seizing the opportunity when he went to greet his friend to return to Hyunjin, sitting with your back straight against the backrest, pulling your legs up until your knees were pulled up to your chest.

"You guys are a bunch of assholes" you whispered, staring at the TV screen, not really seeing anything.

"You know how Felix is" Hyunjin answered you, resting his head on your shoulder in an affectionate gesture.

"How am I going to...?"

"YN!" exclaimed Felix going to his room, "Take care of putting the brownies in the oven, please!"

"Oh, my God, I'm going to kill him" you muttered, closing your eyes tightly and dropping your head against the couch.

"Fighting" your friend said to you, giving you a sad smile and a small kiss on your cheek.

You let out a long sigh before getting up, and started to look for Felix around the part of the apartment where you thought his voice had come from, to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. You guessed he was in the bathroom, the sound of running water audible from outside, and knocked on the door.

"Yes?"

"Lixie, you know I love you very much" you began, taking a breath to start to tell him off all the decisions he had made so far in his face.

"I know I'm not your favorite person right now, Ynnie," you heard him speak, his voice muffled by the water, so you assumed he was taking a shower, "but there was an incident with the chocolate and I stained everything. Chris is trying to fix it, but I needed to take a shower."

"How much time do I have to set the brownies for?" you asked, surrendering, your shoulders tensing at the thought. The sooner you accepted that you weren't going to get out of interacting with your crush and Hyunjin at the same time, the sooner the night would pass and the sooner you could get back to your normal life.

"I've already left the temperature on! It's only twenty minutes!" he exclaimed, "You're the best!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever" you muttered, retracing your path to the kitchen, only to find Chris rummaging through the cupboards. "What... what are you doing?"

The boy startled, jumping a little on the spot, and banging his forehead against the corner of the door, which made you choke back a scream and run to him, your hand pressing down over his in the area of the bump and you reacted with a startled "Are you okay? Oh, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" to his whine.

"It's okay, really" he answered you, fully flushed, suddenly aware of how close you were to him.

"No, no, it's not okay at all" you affirmed, taking a couple of steps backwards looking for the fridge with your eyes, only to bend down to grab some ice cubes from the freezer and wrap them in a clean cloth, approaching him again. You grabbed his wrist gently and removed his hand from his forehead, assessing the damage before resting the wrapped ices carefully over the bump. "You sure have a terrible impression of me."

"That's not true" he whispered, cracking a small smile, avoiding your gaze out of embarrassment.

"I'm terribly sorry, really" you repeated, unable to say anything else.

"It could have happened to anyone, don't worry."

"What were you doing, anyway?" you asked, your hands still busy, one with the ice and the other one with your fingers closed around his wrist. When you noticed, you tried to direct him to take the cloth himself.

"From what Felix explained to me, he was so nervous he must have mixed something wrong, and then I don't know how he did it but he ended up with half the batter all over his shirt and arms," he explained to you, leaning on the counter, "I was trying to find chocolate to make it better. I'm not the best pastry chef, but working in the café has taught me something."

You looked over to where the bowl Felix had used was, and saw next to it the mixer you had bought him for his birthday, a few drops of mixture on the surface and more on the floor.

"It was his first time using that mixer" you assumed, trying to stifle a chuckle, "I'm sure he miscalculated the power and it blew all over."

The laughter Chris let out was music to your ears, and when you turned to look at him you realized how close you were to him. There were barely inches between you, and your legs were practically intertwined. You cleared your throat, parting slightly, and made eye contact with him, letting yourself be absorbed by his tiny brown eyes, which matched his dimples, narrowed into two crescent moons.

"There's no more chocolate, by the way" he told you, remembering why you were in that situation.

"I can go out and buy more" you solved, fully intending to go grab your wallet and leave, realizing how whipped you were for him.

"No way, it's my thing, I should go" he rebutted, massaging his forehead from time to time.

"You're hurt" you pointed out, looking for more reasonings, "you're not going to beat me if you pick a fight with me over this".

"Oh, believe me I am" he replied, leaving the ice cubes on the counter and heading for the hallway, "you do what you want but I'm going to get dessert somewhere."

"Then you're not going alone."

You left him looking for his coat in the closet as you went to tell Hyunjin what you were going to do, your friend still lying on the couch scrolling through his phone, probably on TikTok. His face was the mirror of pure surprise and disbelief, before he grinned mischievously. You rolled your eyes and turned your back on him, leaving him there and grabbing your own phone on the way, meeting Chris in front of the door. He had your coat in his hands, and helped you put it on. You then made sure you had your spare keys in your pocket and walked out of the apartment.

"Not to put you down, but... you are aware that you're in your pajamas, right?" asked Chris, his ears blushing as he realized it, slyly tracing the curves of your hips.

"Yeah, it's okay," you said, oblivious, making a nonchalant gesture, "it's not the first time I've done this."

"Where do you plan to go?" you heard him coming down the stairs behind you.

"There's a bakery a couple of blocks from here that closes pretty late, so we'll get there on time" you explained, leading him out of the building.

"So it really isn't the first time you do this" he confirmed, a soft giggle escaping his lips.

"Yeah, it's pretty fun" you said, remembering all the times you'd done it, more than once with your friends, rain or shine, "it's closer to Hyunjin's house, so we usually go from there, but yeah."

"Oh, you guys seem pretty close" he commented.

You tried not to let your wince show, not understanding why you always ended up mentioning the dancer in your conversations with Chris. The time was approaching when he would start asking you questions about Hyunjin to find out more about him, and you didn't know if you would be able to handle it.

"Yes, we have been together for a long time" you confirmed, trying to reveal as little information as possible, "he is someone very dear to me".

"Whenever I see you you're with him" he continued, his shoulder brushing next to yours, "at the café, I mean".

"He's the one in charge of ordering the chocolate for me" you confessed, changing the subject. "You make great chocolate, by the way. I couldn't tell you today, you dropped it off and left."

"You were so focused I didn't want to disturb you" he acknowledged, letting out a soft laugh.

"I guessed as much" you affirmed, noticing the streets you were passing instead of glancing sideways at him, as you were dying to do, "I also noticed the napkin."

"The nap...? Oh!"

"Yeah, oh," you repeated, your laughter awakening butterflies in his stomach, "people don't usually flirt with me like that."

"Fli- ehem, flirt?" he stammered, his face suddenly red with shyness. He hadn't expected you to be so direct with the subject.

"Well, not flirting," you corrected yourself, realizing your mistake, "but you have a lot of rizz."

"You're not the first one to tell me that" he nodded, clearing his throat, "my sister calls me Chrizztopher to mess with me."

"I like your sister, then" you acknowledged, reordering your thoughts to figure out how to phrase your question, and find out finally if you were going crazy or you were just insecure, "but... well, not that I'm complaining, but you still shouldn't waste it on me."

"Waste it? On you?" the conversation was losing all meaning to him, his brow furrowing more and more in confusion.

"Yeah, you know" you tried to explain, trying not sounding as bad as you felt, "focus it all on the person you like, instead of random girls."

"But... I'm already doing that" he protested, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, halting your walk, "the chocolate...".

"The hot chocolate was nice of you, but I'm talking about Hyunjin."

"What the hell does Hyunjin have to do with you?" he exclaimed, incredulous.

"With me?" you asked, your heart stopping at the possibility his words were offering you. "But... the message in the coffee, wasn't it for Hyunjin?"

"What message?" you were looking into each other's eyes, for the first time without any shyness on either side, both trying to understand each other.

"The message on the coffee cup that said you thought Hyunjin was cute" you replied, shoving your hands in your coat pockets, fiddling with your phone case to calm your nerves. "The one with you phone number".

"Did I write the message on the wrong cup?" he lamented, unable to believe his bad luck.

"The wrong cup?" you repeated, unable to process what was happening.

"I've had a crush on you since you first walked into the café" he stated, deciding to tell his biggest secret just so he could make it clear what was going on.

"What?"

"I... Yeah, there's not much more to say" his nervous laugh snapped you out of your shock, blinking to look at him again, this time with a clearer mind. "There's not a thing about you I don't like."

The silence that settled between you, you running your eyes over his features, your heart pounding, him not knowing if it would be a good idea to approach you, or if you needed space at that moment, waiting with his breath caught in his throat, not knowing if his feelings were reciprocated or not. You raised one of your hands, rubbing your forehead, unsure of how to interact after his confession. You decided to clear your throat and let the words flow, after all, even if you made a fool of yourself, it couldn't get any worse.

"Me too" you paused, still hearing your heart thudding in your chest, and then continued, "I have a crush, I mean. On you, yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah" you confirmed, more at ease, moving closer to him.

Chris took the initiative and intertwined one of his hands with one of yours, looking at you softly and warmly, his smile provoking the same reactions from you as before, but now with the reassurance of knowing you weren't the only one who felt this way.

"What do you recommend from the bakery then?" he asked, taking you by the waist to continue walking beside you, both of you embracing each other.

And before you even answered you knew you would buy anything he asked for, even if you didn't like it, even if he didn't verbalize his desire to buy it. Only because you were as head over heels for him, as he was for you.

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[roosterforme]

Adult Education Part 22 | Hangman x OC

Summary: After visiting Jessica's family in Massachusetts and his family in Texas, it's time to officially finish moving in together. It's also time for Jake to take his girlfriend on a little adventure she has always dreamed about.

Warnings: Fluff, sex in public, language, 18+

Length: 2000 words

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Female OC

This story is part of the Beer Boy and Sugar universe but can be read on its own! Adult Education masterlist

Seriously, who let Jake on my masterlist!? Banner by @mak-32

Epilogue Part One

Three months later...

The airport in San Diego was absolutely overrun with business travelers and families on summer vacation. It seemed like there were people rushing in every direction, trying to catch connecting flights or grab their luggage and go. But Jake was in no hurry at all. He'd just left the laidback state of Texas. Tomorrow was Saturday. His girlfriend was on term break.

In fact, he missed his luggage going around the baggage carousel twice because Jessica had her lips pressed to his. "You know," he murmured after the second time, "we would already be home by now if you weren't so damn distracting."

She shook her head. "We have to stop by my apartment on the way and pick up the last few boxes."

Jake smiled. "I know. Then it's official, Baby." Her lease was ending on Monday, and they left those boxes of old textbooks and scientific journals so they could still claim she was going to be moving in, not that she essentially already had. Jake didn't want to make a poor impression on her family, but it turned out he didn't have anything to worry about. And neither did she.

"So Thanksgiving back in Massachusetts and Christmas in Texas," she murmured against his neck as she let her head rest on his shoulder. "We're going to be very busy this year."

"There's no escaping my mom now," he told her. "She's probably already crocheting a Christmas stocking with your name on it. I think she almost evaporated into thin air when she hugged you. Physical proof that her son is dating someone with a PhD who looks like a supermodel nearly took her out."

"Jake," she whined with a laugh. "Supermodels don't wear glasses or read the science joke of the day emails."

"Mine does," he insisted. "There's my bag again. Now can we please go home?"

"Absolutely," she replied as he grabbed his luggage before it could sneak by a third time. "I'm determined to cook an edible dinner one night while I'm off. Plus, I really wanted to spend this week while you're at work organizing all of my stuff at the condo."

He grinned as they exited the airport holding hands. "Actually, you're coming to work with me on Monday."

"I am? For what?"

"Well... that's a bit of a surprise."

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

Jessica watched Jake stack the three remaining boxes of her things in his arms and carry them out to his truck. She could have only managed to take them one at a time, but he even humored her barrage of questions while he went.

"When are you going to tell me what the surprise is? Will you tell me now? How will I know what to wear to base with you on Monday if you don't tell me what it's for?"

He was silent for the first part of the ride from her old neighborhood as they made their way toward the pacific coast and his condo, and she looked out the window while she tapped her foot anxiously. When he took an unexpected right turn instead of a left, she turned to look at him.

"You really want to know?" he asked, his face just gorgeous in the orange and purple light as the sun finished setting.

"Yes!"

He chuckled. "Well, I thought this would be a fun little celebration of sorts since you found out Brian isn't coming back in the fall. And I think it's something you've been wanting to experience." 

Jessica tipped her head back against the headrest and smiled. Advanced Calculus had texted her when they were at the airport in Boston about to fly to Texas, letting her know Brian took a position at the local community college. She wouldn't even have to look at him when her classes started up again next month. She had been so excited, she and Jake had very awkward but enthusiastic sex in the airplane lavatory as they flew over Pennsylvania. 

When he pulled his truck off the main road and along the bay, Jessica had to hang on as he drove down an unpaved street as the sky darkened. "Where are we going?" she asked, as they bumped along, driving parallel to a tall fence with barbed wire across the top of it.

"I want to show you something," he muttered, coming to a stop between the rocky bay beach and the fence. "There's the hangar, and there's my jet."

Jessica looked to where he was pointing, and she could barely make out HANGMAN printed across the side of one of the aircrafts. "Oh!" she gasped, realizing she'd never even visited him on base before. 

"Come here, and I'll tell you the surprise," he crooned, killing the engine and unbuckling her seatbelt. He coaxed her to his lap and said, "If you want to fly with me on Monday, I got special permission to take you up since you're a physics professor."

"What?!" Jessica's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"

His smile was soft and genuine as he nodded. "Does that mean you still want to do it?"

"Jake!" She pushed his shoulders back against the seat and shook him slightly as he laughed. "I wrote my PhD thesis on jet propulsion in military aircrafts! Of course I want to fly with you!"

"I know," he drawled as he smirked. "I read your thesis, remember? Barely understood a word, but I did read it."

"Smart Boy," she moaned as she kissed him. "I can't wait for Monday." As she raked her fingers back through his hair, his hands came to rest on her hips. She kissed and nipped at him, pausing to say, "I'm so excited."

When Jessica's tongue slipped between his lips, she rolled her hips against him. He groaned and cupped her butt, guiding her to do it again. He was so obviously hard in his jeans now, and she didn't want to wait until they got home. "Feels like you're excited, too," she said with a grin before she licked his lip.

"Fuck, Jessica. If you're like this today, you'll be a mess on Monday after we actually fly together."

She gasped and nodded. "Oh my god. You're right."

"I know I am, Baby. You'll be dripping wet for me by then."

When she clenched around nothing as his hand snaked up the front of her shirt, she admitted, "I already am." She ground down against his cock and whispered, "You know how we had that quickie the other day way out on your parents property?"

Jake moaned and said, "I'll remember that for the rest of my life. Bending you over the tailgate of my dad's old truck."

"Well," she murmured, licking a stripe from his chin slowly back to his ear. "It's pretty dark now. You could bend me over your own tailgate."

Jake's hand was opening his door before she finished her sentence, and he hauled her back behind his truck. He was a little rough, pulling her against him and making her stumble as he dropped the tailgate down. He kissed her lips and rubbed the front of his jeans against hers before he said, "It'll have to be quick again. Before any of the guards drive by."

"Okay," she agreed, and then Jake had her pinned down from behind as she made a surprised noise. She let her head rest on her folded arms as she turned toward the fence. It was now too dark to see the hangar or any of the jets as Jake reached around and undid the front of her jeans. He yanked them down along with her sage green thong before unzipping his own pants and letting his cock rest against her butt.

"You weren't kidding, Smart Girl," he whispered, teasing her clit and running his finger through her slit. "You're soaked."

The evening air was cool on her bare skin, and when he separated her with his long fingers, she shivered for so many reasons. Then he connected them together, plunging inside her as she cried out.

"Shhh," he warned, and she bit her lip. "Be a good girl. I'll make it fast."

"Oh god," she groaned softly, her whole body bouncing against the tailgate with each of his rapid thrusts. She couldn't stop the little grunts and needy sounds she made for him every time his hips slammed into her butt, but he was moaning her name softly too as he fucked her. 

He just went harder and harder, and Jessica had to hold onto the tailgate with quivering fingers as he hit the spot that made her shake for him. "Jake," she whispered as he leaned down over her back as she came. But he wasn't done yet.

His voice was rough like the gravel beneath her feet. "I love you. I love fucking you. I can't wait to take you home. I can't wait to fly with you." He grabbed her hips and drove himself deep as she continued to clench softly around him, and then he came too. And this time she had to remind him to be quiet.

"Jake, you're so loud," she warned as his thrusting grew shallow. "And I see headlights," she hissed.

"Fuck," he growled, pulling out of her and sending his cum dribbling down the insides of her thighs as she yanked up her underwear and jeans. There was definitely a security vehicle headed past the hangar on some sort of patrol route. "Let's get out of here," he said, pulling her toward the driver's side door. 

Jessica scampered inside, barely making it to the passenger seat before Jake had the engine roaring to life and the truck shifted into reverse. Deftly and with a smile on his face, he reversed back down the bumpy road like it was nothing. "That was a little close," he said as he slowed down before making it back to the pavement.

She bit her lip and said, "What if I said I kind of love tailgate quickies?"

He glanced at her as he slowed at a stop sign. "Well then I would say I'll come up with a list of places we can sneak off to."

Her hand stroked his thigh as she said, "Get to work on that."

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

The fact that Jake managed to pull this off after weeks and weeks of planning left a smile on his face. On Monday, he watched as Phoenix helped Jessica into a flight suit in the hangar, and then he handed her a helmet. She was grinning at him as she slipped it onto her head. "You look like you're ready to go, Dr. Reed," he said as he fastened it into place for her. 

"I'm so ready, Lieutenant Seresin," she replied, bouncing slightly on her booted feet as she ran her fingers along the HANGMAN patch on his own flight suit. "How many Gs do you think we'll hit? Can we roll upside down?"

"Jesus," he laughed. "Next thing you'll be leaving me in the fall to go to flight school."

She pouted and said, "My eyesight is too poor."

He kissed the tip of her nose before picking up his own helmet. "Not to be a WSO."

"Oh my god, Jake! You're right!"

She asked him a million questions in a row as she followed him across the tarmac, and he could only answer about half of them for her. "Why don't you tell me, Reedy," he finally said as she climbed the first rung of the ladder. "You're way smarter than me."

She turned back and looked at him. "Maybe just a little bit. But you know how to do the one thing I'll never get to do. Actually fly this thing!"

He placed a hand on her waist, giving her a squeeze through the rough fabric. "I just want you to relax and enjoy yourself. I'll try to answer any questions you have when we're in bed later. How does that sound?"

She nodded at him as her eyes went wide. "That actually sounds great. Let's go." She then climbed the ladder in record time, leaving Jake laughing on the tarmac before he followed after her. 

He would be happy to follow her as long as she would let him.

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

Jessica Reed is just winning so hard now. Fuck off, Brian. One more filthy part of this story to come. Thanks for reading! And thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 23

@blahehblah

@sotalife

@desert-fern

@furiouspiespytaco

@rosiahills22

@daggerspare-standingby

@je-suis-prest-rachel

@callsign-joyride

@theharddeck

@withakindheartx

@roosterscockpit

@whatislovevavy

@hangmanbrainrot

@neferpatra

@sehnsuchts-trunken

@averyhotchner

@thedroneranger

@cherrycola27

@mygyn

@gennyanydots

@callsign-magnolia

@whisperofsong

@seriouslyseresin

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@katiebby04

@supernaturaldawning

@chassy21

@tylerjones98

@captainjaspenor

@gigisimsonmars

@fanboyswhore9

@angel-w0nderland

@abaker74

@idontcare-11

@isaebellaa

@bringnattolife

@xoxabs88xox

@djs8891

@hufflepufftruffle

@cottagecori

[mrsparrasblog]

Makarov x Price daughter pt.4

This chapter is just to explain what Price did in the whole year since his daughter is gone. Its different then the other ones I still hope you like it. I'll try to set myself a goal to publish the next chapter tomorrow.

Previous Part. next part

Four months he was away from his home, from his wife Tina, and you. God, he missed you and couldn’t wait to see you again. He planned the whole month how he would apologize to you for saying you were a disappointment. Of course, you weren't a disappointment; he just didn't know how to show it to you. You weren't his little girl anymore, so grown and independent. Tina needed him more than you, or at least he thought so. Tina was a spitfire, always getting in danger, disrespecting teachers, while you were a perfectly behaved little girl. Never once in his life occurred the thought that you could do anything wrong. So he neglected you, and he knew that was a mistake now.

During this time off, he would give you all the attention you needed and finally be the dad you deserved. If only you'd accept his apology. He finally arrived in Cardiff, his clothes still dirty from the long flight, his beard overgrown, and he looked a bit like a Neanderthal, but this time he couldn't wait. He rang the bell, Tina and his wife already running into his arms.

"Where is she?" he asked curiously, eager to find out where you were. You mostly took the day off when he came back from deployment. Maybe you couldn’t or did overtime again because a birth took longer than planned.

"Dunno," his wife said bluntly, not mentioning the fact that you hadn’t been home for three months. She saw you making out with an older guy again the day you went "missing". In her mind, you were a spoiled brat who didn't appreciate everything she gave you. She wasn’t your mother and still tolerated you. Shouldn’t you be grateful for that?

After 10 hours at home, your dad grew anxious. He always had a great gut feeling, and something felt off, so he needed to investigate this situation, making sure you were okay. You were his little girl, after all. Telling his wife a white lie, he went to the hospital where you worked.

The delivery station looked weird to him. Everyone was smiling brightly, as if there wasn’t any pain or war in the world. The midwives walked around in pink scrubs, and everywhere were damn cupcakes. It was the first time he visited you at work, and he felt guilty about how he reacted the day you told him you wanted to become a midwife. He should have been proud of you.

After looking around and not finding you, he asked one of the midwives, explaining that he was your dad and had returned from deployment. He got more confused when the midwife told him to sit down and your supervisor came out, taking him into her office.

"Look, your daughter was our best midwife apprentice, but she hasn’t been at work for the last three months without any notice," she explained.

"What do you mean three months? She loves her work," he said.

"We know that. If she ever gets out of her phase, she can come back to work. But for now, could you please gather her stuff from the locker?"

"Phase? What phase?"

"Her stepmom told us she had psychological issues, Mr. Price."

He never heard of it. Why didn’t his wife tell him before? He would have tried to be there for you. The midwife guided him to your locker, opening it for him so he could take your stuff out. His lips curved into a smile when he saw the pictures in the locker: one of your best friend and you at graduation (he missed it), a picture of you on your first day at work with pink scrubs, and a picture of him barely 20, holding you in his arms. You were so precious, such a little thing looking up to him. Dozens of pink scrubs, a calendar marked with vacation NYC and Taylor Swift concert. This didn’t look like a locker from someone who lost it.

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

"Where is my daughter? Don’t bullshit me."

"I don’t know."

"Her boss said you told her she is mental."

"Well, she certainly is. She sleeps around with men your age."

"Do you know where the fuck she is or not? When was she last here?"

"Three months ago."

"Fuck it! My daughter is missing, and you only told me about it now?"

"She isn’t missing, John. She probably married some old fart and ran off."

"Shut the fuck up." He never screamed at his wife. His captain demeanor was always something he left at home, but you were missing, and no one told him. What if something happened? After three months, the traces were hard to find. "Fucking hell."

He walked away to the only place he could think you were. But when your best friend called him a deadbeat dad for only searching for his daughter after three months, he knew something must have happened to you.

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

"Kate, please, anything will help."

"John, there is no trace of her. I'm sorry."

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

"We searched through every man she interacted with, Cap. She isn’t anywhere."

"She is there somewhere outside, Ghost."

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

"How many more innocent people will you kill, John? She is gone."

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

"We should hold a wake for her."

"She is still alive, Kate."

"John, it’s been a year. You know the statistics."

"I won’t stop until I see her corpse."

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

"Makarov will marry, holding a big public celebration and everything, invited us somehow."

"Why should I care if that bastard marries, Nick?"

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

"We found your daughter, Captain."

"Where, Kyle?" He asked desperately. He never lost hope after searching for you for a whole year. He wasn’t the man he was before. He was rougher, he didn’t care about anything anymore. He divorced his wife, killed just to have you back.

"You won’t like it." Please don’t be dead. His eyes started to tear.

"Where?" He needed to take his little girl home, bury you properly, a thing he never thought he needed to do, bury his own daughter, but the world was cruel for people like him.

"Alive"Kyle placed some articles of a Russian gossip journal on his desk.

"'Princess of Russia'," John read aloud. "Vladimir Makarov's longtime love was seen shopping for her wedding dress suspiciously holding her belly. Already pregnant?"

"We can't wait for the wedding of the century," Kyle continued, pointing at the article. "From worker to billionaire spouse, she is living the Cinderella dream."

John's heart sank. He knew what this meant. His daughter, his little girl, was about to become a pawn in Makarov's twisted game. And he would do anything to stop it.

Tag list: @multifand0midi07 , @whos-fran , @cassiecasluciluce , @the-faceless-bride

[peachhcs]

mint rocky road

hughes!sister x will smith au (samy + will)

will decides he wants to try and reconcile with samy during the family vacation

2.7k words

i'm trying to sort of post these in order of the timeline, but i like to jump around a little so it's a bit more fun :) this was like lowkey sad at first, but then it got somewhat happier 🤗

au masterlist

it only took will three days before deciding he should try talking to samy. the two had been avoiding one another since his family got to the lakehouse because obviously what else were they supposed to say to one another? avoiding each just seemed like the next best option. although, the boy kept thinking about what his mom and sister said a few weeks ago. it wouldn’t hurt to try and talk. 

if it went horribly then at least they were pretty good at dodging one another. the big lakehouse finally had its perks. 

everyone was wiped out from the long day in town. there was someone in every room either asleep or close to it, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to talk. will wandered the house in search of the brunette knowing she liked to hide herself in rooms no one ever looked in, but when he searched in all the hiding spots he could remember, he didn’t find any trace of the youngest hughes. it wasn’t until will wandered outside when he saw a faint figure all the way down on the dock. bingo. 

the walk down the yard had will running through every way this conversation could go. she could walk away before he even got there. she’d start bitching at him. she’d tell him she doesn’t want to talk to him ever again. the possibilities were looking a little endless, but the hockey player couldn’t be afraid. 

once upon a time, samy knew him like the back of her hand and vice versa. she was his best friend, so somewhere in there, will knew she wanted to at least hear him out. 

he would hear her out if it were the other way around, so will took his chances. the closer he got, the harder his heart beat against his chest in a rapid rhythm similar to the panic attack he had back at the combine. everything in will wanted to turn around and just continue avoiding samy, but the small part in him that included ryan and gabe’s nagging words kept his feet moving towards the girl now just inches away. 

words weren’t coming to him right now, so the hockey player slowly sat down beside her in an open spot almost as if she knew he was coming out here, so she left the space there. samy didn’t look his way, but she knew he was there. her own heart was now beating a bruise against her chest with will’s close proximity. 

the silence quickly filled in around them with both of their eyes glued to the lake. it was almost funny how they didn’t know what to say because if it were any other circumstance, the two could never shut up around one another. as soon as the smith’s were in the driveway, samy would pounce on the siblings with excitement in her bones to tell them about everything they missed since last summer. none of that happened this year which made this summer already feel a lot different than the previous ones. and maybe it was also a mix of growing up and childhood excitement escaping everyone now that they were all adults. 

“hey stranger,” samy finally broke their deafening silence. her gaze found will’s whose eyes were already on hers as soon as her mouth opened. a crinkle of a smile found its way to her lips sending a little buzz through the blonde. 

“hey,” will whispered like he was too afraid to speak any louder. 

“i didn't think you were coming this year,” the girl hummed, removing her gaze from will’s. the little frown replacing the smile on her lips hurt will more than he liked to admit. 

“i’d never miss the family vacation,” the boy said, but the brunette shrugged. 

“i just thought you’d skip because..you know,” she didn’t need to say it for will to know what she was talking about. her frown deepened along with his at her words. 

“i was actually hoping we could um..um talk about that. this. us,” he stumbled over his words making his cheeks flush in embarrassment. 

“i don’t really know if there’s much to talk about,” samy said all she could to will a month ago and he just pushed her away, so she didn’t know what else could really be said. 

will’s silence made her look back over at him. his gaze wasn’t on hers, but she could see the way his brain was turning, running through all the things he could say to her. his face was set, eyes sunken in as the sadness clouded over him and eventually her too. 

but god, did he look good. despite avoiding him, samy caught glimpses of him with her brothers in the last few days. his curls were grown back out around his ears and whatever he was doing in the offseason was really paying off. he’d grown a lot—arms and legs muscling up and his abs showing a lot more than usual. will was always fit, but for some reason he looked extra good and samy couldn’t really stop staring. 

“will you at least hear me out?” the blonde spoke again and samy snapped out of her little daze of him. 

his look was a bit pleading making it hard to say no, but she wouldn’t ever say no anyway, “i’m giving you five minutes to say something good.” 

“ten?” will negotiated knowing he wouldn’t be able to explain everything in just five minutes. 

his little pleading look continued and shit, he was hard to say no to even when they weren’t on speaking terms. “okay, fine. ten minutes, start talking.” 

“i know i really fucked up and i know i should’ve talked to you more. i-i don’t really know why i didn’t. there was a lot going on in my mind which i know isn’t an excuse, but i thought i could just figure everything out myself which was another dumb mistake. when we got back from worlds everything was going to happen so fast, it kind of freaked me out and i started making stupid decisions,” will began, eyes on anything but samy as he talked. 

“you pushed me away,” the girl stated. 

“i know and i shouldn’t have done that. i thought i was making the right choice by doing that and i realize now that it was the very, very wrong choice,” the blonde shook his head. 

“why didn’t you just talk to me? you know you can always talk to me,” samy’s tone softened at the last part creating this pinch in will’s heart hearing her talk to him like that. 

he finally met her eyes and it took everything in him to not break down. her expression was a mix of hurt and betrayal which was something will never wanted to see, especially when he was the cause of it all,. 

“i know. i-i got scared, i guess. i was scared i was going to lose you or something once i went to california. it was so hard for us to talk during the school year, i started imagining the worse if i was in california. i mean, come on, samy. you’re this amazing, popular person who’s awesome at soccer. you know you have guys at your feet lined up to talk to you. i thought letting you go would be better so i wasn’t holding you back and you could find someone who could actually be there for you. i thought i couldn’t be the boyfriend you wanted all the way across the country,” the tears couldn’t be stopped as will continued talking. his eyes glossed over, desperately trying to hold them in and samy didn’t look any better. 

she looked away hoping he wouldn’t see her own tears, but they both knew she was crying if he was crying. “you weren’t ever gonna lose me, will. i told you, i’m with you wherever you go. i don’t care about those other guys who are in my dms because you’re the one i chose,” her voice broke, sending will’s tears down his cheeks. 

“i know that now. i’m really, really sorry i didn’t get that until now. i never should’ve pushed you away. i got in my own head and i thought i was helping both of us,” the blonde frowned, quickly wiping the tears away. 

“you really hurt me, will. like a lot.” 

“i know,” the boy squeaked out. 

“i don’t really know if things can ever really be the same between us,” the admission hurt, but will knew it was coming. 

“can we at least try? at least the friends part?” not being together was fine, but will couldn’t not be her friend. 

“i don’t know..maybe it would be best for us to just..keep things how they are?” samy sighed, breaking will’s heart even further even though he deserved most of this. 

the silence engulfed them again, but neither of them moved from their spot on the dock. will’s gaze drifted down to where samy toyed with her charm bracelet. he noticed all the charms still there, even the ones he got her, so he took that as his comfort in knowing that somewhere in the back of samy’s mind, he was still there. 

not knowing what else could be said, will finally pushed himself to his feet. he watched the brunette for a moment, wondering if she’d turn around and tell him to stay or something, but she didn’t even move a muscle. 

that pinch in will’s heart grew larger as he forced himself to walk away back to the house. at least he tried. 

samy listened to his retreating footsteps, waiting until he was out of earshot to fully break down. her head sunk into her hands where the sobs quickly escaped her lips in little bursts between the pants. 

she wanted to take him back so bad. just looking at his broken expression made her wanna lunge at him, but she needed to hold some self-respect for herself. words alone weren’t going to fix all the broken things between them. she feared their relationship would never be the same anymore and that was scary because will was all samy’s ever known. 

a few minutes passed when the younger girl heard another pair of footsteps on the dock behind her. she expected it to be her mom or one of her brothers, so when long locks of blonde hair appeared beside her and a gentle hand belonging to grace, samy was very surprised. 

she hadn’t spoken to the oldest smith sibling since the breakup. she didn’t know if grace hated her now, so she sort of avoided her too, but the gentle look on the older girl’s face told samy that was far from the case. 

“are you okay?” grace wondered, taking the spot her brother was just in. 

“i don’t really know,” samy admitted because her heart and head kept telling her two very different things. 

“sorry, that was a bad question. i-i know we haven’t really talked a lot since…but i’m here to talk if you want. i thought my brother was really stupid for doing what he did. we all thought so. i just came down to check on you because i saw him come in,” the older girl continued a bit shyly. 

“we were just talking. he-he was..apologizing,” the younger brunette explained briefly. 

“he was?” 

“yeah. i didn’t really..forgive him. i just don’t know if i can…or if i even should. it’s so confusing in my mind right now,” samy frowned. 

“that’s okay. you don’t have to know all the answers right now. he hurt you and you’re hesitant. that’s perfectly okay,” grace reassured, rubbing her hand across samy’s arm. 

“he was my best friend and i don’t know anything but him.” 

“well, do you want him back in your life in any way?” grace hummed. 

“like a small part of me does, but i don’t even know where i’d start with that,” obviously, her and will wouldn’t just jump back into another like nothing happened. 

“you don’t have to know. starting back as friends is easy if that’s something you want. relearn him as friends and if your heart is still pulling you to him, then i’d say that’s your sign that you want him back as something more than that,” the older blonde gave her best advice based on what she’s learned when it came to this kind of thing. 

“i’m just scared i’ll get hurt again and i can’t do that.” 

“i get that, trust me, i do. it’s really scary, but i know my brother is really sorry and he really wants to be your friend again if you’ll have him. that’s not to excuse what happened and what he did, but i don’t think he could ever dream of hurting you again based on how much he’s hurt.” 

grace’s words sat in samy’s head for the entire rest of the time they were outside until they went back in. it was late. grace retreated to bed, but the younger brunette needed some sort of sweet treat, so she ventured into the kitchen before stopping in her tracks when she saw will sitting at the counter. 

his back was to her and samy considered turning around so she didn’t have to talk to him again, but something in her put one foot in front of the other until she was right beside him, 

“late night snack?” the girl spoke quietly because she didn’t want to wake up the sleeping house. 

her voice startled the boy as he jumped, quickly whipping his head in her direction. “oh, yeah. i couldn’t really sleep,” the blonde flushed. 

“we think alike,” samy mumbled as she walked around to dig through the freezer for any ice cream. 

will watched her from where he sat, heart racing still. being in her presence so close after not seeing one another for a month set his body on fire because if only she knew how much he missed her and hoped that a small part of her missed him too. 

“want any?” samy turned around once she found the carton she wanted. it was mint rocky road which was one of their favorites they always shared together. will wondered if she did that on purpose or not. 

“sure,” the boy said, so samy handed him his own spoon and popped the cover off. 

they took turns awkwardly digging their spoons into the ice cream without speaking. the only sound was someone’s snores in one of the rooms downstairs that was most definitely mr. smith because he snored loud. 

“i-i’m sorry for being kind of harsh earlier. i-i..there’s been a lot on my mind. it’s been weird seeing you after..everything..” the brunette began while will’s eyes glued to her own. “i’m still trying to figure out how i feel because honestly, i don’t really know. i’m really hurt still, yet i can’t ever be mad at you because you’re..you were my best friend and you’re family.” samy shook her head. 

will stayed silent, not sure where she was going with all of this. 

“i do want to try and be friends with you again. we were..inseparable once upon a time and as much as i don’t want to believe it, history is hard to forget about. you’re still someone i think about a lot and i don’t think that’s something that can be thrown away just like that,” her gaze found will’s. 

everything in his system practically exploded hearing her say that because god, he hoped she would. 

“really?” was all he could manage. 

“yeah, really. if..if we ever wanted to go back to..i think we need to start at the beginning first, you know?” samy’s eyes dropped from his back to the ice cream. 

“right, i totally agree. i’m really glad you said that,” a little smile found its way to his lips and so did samy’s. 

“we watched each other throw up everywhere, break bones, face plant on the ice..i think it would be impossible if we stopped being friends,” samy giggled, something will hadn't heard in a long time. 

“plus, i don’t think we could avoid one another forever with our parents being best friends,” will added and the girl nodded in agreement. 

“i still am hurt by everything, but i’m willing to start back as friends.” 

the two exchanged a smile and they spent the rest of the night eating all of the mint rocky road as if they were kids 

[faghubby]

Family help

"Paul, Judy tells me you wear panties" Kelly giggled. Kelly was my sister in law. I had been married to Judy for 15 years. For the last 5 Judy has controlled our marriage and cuckold me for most of it. I didn't answer Kelly I just stared at my shoes.

"Don't worry it can be our secret, just like how John's truck got detailed. She handed me a bucket full of car cleaning material. I just took it and went to clean my brother in laws truck. I wondered what else Judy had told her sister. As I cleaned the truck. I was at it for about 2 hours when Kelly came out with a glass of tea.

"Judy was right you do nice work. Is it true you did her boyfriends car wearing only a thong" Kelly asked. I just nodded. "Well I am sure my neighbors would complain about that" she laughed taking my glass she went back inside.

"Judy called says she is spending the night with Malcolm?" Kelly smiled. "Since John won't be home till Monday. I have some things you can do around here for me" Kelly smiled. "First I am curious. I want to see" she smiled and motioned for me to strip. I knew if I argued she would tell Judy. So I stripped quickly I stood before my sister in law. Wearing only a pink lace thong. The tannins from a bikini where obvious on my chest. Having returned from vacation only a week ago. Kelly wore a sundress and sat on a stool she spread her legs and lifted her dress to reveal she wore no panties. Her well trimmed red bush glistening she was already excited.

"Show me what Judy brags about" she said.

" I shouldn't not without Judy permission " I told her. She showed me her text messages from Judy. Judy had given her permission to use me however she liked. I knelt and buried my head between my sister in-laws thighs she went wild riding my face. I soon found myself on my back as Kelly rode my face. She came over and over loudly.

"I forgot how much I love oral" Kelly laughed catching her breath.

"John doesn't do that" she told me. With a huge smile. She pulled my thong toward and giggled.

"That's why the tounge is so good" she patted my 4 inch erection.

"Get dressed you have work to do" Kelly told me. I did as she took me upstairs to my nephews room. It was a disaster. It even smelled bad.

"Kelly assures me you deep clean. I want this room perfect" She told me. And left me alone. I set to work stripping the bed, curtains and all dirty clothes. I started the laundry and went to work. As I started got to the closet I discovered several old penthouse magazines. I set them on the bed not sure what Kelly wanted me to do with them. As soon as I did Kelly came to check on me. She picked one up,

"Did you have girlie magazines under your bed at 15? Or from what I hear where they more playgirl?"Kelly teased.

"Moms lingerie catalogs" I responded.

"These are old must be John's" Kelly commented. She then stopped.

"Are you allowed to look at these dirty magazines?" Kelly asked.

"Judy doesn't approve of them" I responded.

"Are you allowed to look at naked woman at all?" Kelly asked.

"No" I responded.

"Bur you saw my pussy earlier" Kelly said. I just looked at the floor.

"What would happen if I told my sister" she asked.

"Any number of punishment" I told her.

"Really? Does she spank you?" She asked.

"Sometimes" I told her.

"When you're done I have another chore for you" Kelly left me. I found Kelly in her room. She spread her legs again on the bed.

"I got so excited thinking about you being spanked" she told me like she needed a reason for me to go down on her again, she saw quieter this time but spuurted all over my face when I surprised her by sticking two fingers in her as I sucked her clit.

"I have never" she was embarrassed looking at my face covered in her juices. Then said "Does Stacy?" She asked. I just nodded. And she smiled. I did a few more chores before Stacy came and picked me up. Kelly wanted to talk but she could tell Stacy was in a hurry. As soon as we where in the car.

"I am leaking" Stacy told me. She put on cruise control and I parted her legs and licked at least her lovers cum that was leaking out. When we got home I did a though job of cleaning her up.

The next morning I was informed I was spending the day at my mother in laws house. As Stacy dropped me off again. Diane had figured out my submissive nature early on.

"Mom, Paul is very skilled at all types of housework. No need to just make him clean the garage" she told me. But that's exactly what Diane had me do. She set me to work. Clean out all her husband's things. Donate, sell, or just throw away. I went to work. And was making lots of progress. I moved an old box out to the driveway. When Diane opened it find my father in-laws old porn stash. Videos and magazines most very tame by today's standards.

"I don't want this " Diane said " well you can have it Paul" she told me.

"Stacy would never allow that" I told her.

"Of course but even man has his stash I guess you call it" she laughed

"No, Stacy would go ballistic" I informed her. Diane stopped me.

"Stacy controls alot of what you do doesn't she?" Diane asked.

"I think you should talk to her about this" I said feeling uncomfortable.

"Paul, I know she has had lovers. But you seem to have worked thru it" Diane said making me sit and talk.

"Tell me, just between us if you like" Diane told me. Holding my hand.

"We have a different type of marriage is all. It makes us both very happy" I told her.

"Are you saying she knows you wear her underwear, I don't mean to embarrass you I just well you bent over" Diane was the one blushing. To make her feel better I explained how Stacy cuckolds me and I serve her. Diane was fascinated and we talked for over an hour.

Then she made a comment

"It's been years since I have had any pleasure that way" she mumbled I don't think she meant to say it out loud.

"Would you like me to help you?" I offered sincerely. I loved this woman. I reached over and kissed her. She didn't pull away.

"I can't I mean, you can't see me naked it's too wierd" she blushed like a schoolgirl. I got up went out to one of the boxes in the garage it had a hand massage thing some one had given her she never opened. I ripped it open and changed the batteries.

"Trust me" I asked I parted her legs and held the muscle massage against her crotch

"Ohhh" she giggled. "Wait she stood and drooped her shorts. She wore cotton granny panties. And already a wet spot appeared I used the massager to tease her. And rather quickly she bit her lio and wimpered as an orgasm hit her. She pulled at my shorts and again saw my pink panties.

"OH I didn't realize, it's not very big is it" she tried to say it gently. I didn't answer. But Diane took the massager and held it against my panties. I came very quickly. Making a mess in my panties.

"I am glad you and Stacy are happy. Even if you are a little girlie boi." Diane told me. I helped her by a vibrator online. Then after we cleaned our selves up. We finished in the garage. Stacy picked me up. Diane showed her the box of old porn from her dad.

"Seems Paul finds everyone's dirty secrets." Stacy laughed.

"Well at least he doesn't need this" Diane flashed me a smile.

"Can't help finding smut where ever you go can you" Stacy laughed at me when we got in the car.

Having neglected our house for two days. I spent the next few days getting it to Stacy's standards.

Stacy continued to expose me to family and friends by loaning me out, or little comments. Soon it seemed everyone knew something if not everything. I spent a day every two weeks at Kelly's house. Cleaning but also making her scream. Diane and I became more like friends. But we discussed everything from sex to recipes over tea. Or as I washed her windows.

Some of our friends disappeared from our life. And some got closer. The couple next door invited Stacy over for an evening she returned in the morning, While I spent the night scrubbing the basement floor.

The more she exposed me the more I was denied any attention from her. If I wasn't man enough to stop her. Then certainly I wasn't man enough for her. She told me. Offering to let me start wearing a dress.

"I am sure there are lots of men that will love fuckingthat ass of yours" Stacy told me.

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Chapter 7: School's Out For Summer

Summary: Even though it's your first day of summer vacation, you're up early with a very worthwhile way to wake Javi up before he goes into work. While you enjoy your first day of freedom after the school year has ended, Javi runs in to trouble at the Peña ranch that could prevent him from seeing you.

Word Count: 9.1K (This was another one that was supposed to only be one chapter, but if I didn't break it up this chapter would have been 20K words long, yikes)

Warnings: SMUT (18+), unprotected p in v sex (do better that these two), oral (m and f receiving), vaginal fingering, creampie, praise, teasing (if you squint), mentions of food/eating (Javi being the hungriest man alive), allusions to some tense family dynamics, Javi in a suit AND Javi being a hot sweaty man working on the Peña ranch, Chucho being the GOAT once again, Javi and reader being so head over heels for each other it makes me sick (literally because I wrote the majority of this while I had COVID)

A/N: I seriously cannot tell you how much it means to me that so many of you have liked, reblogged, commented, and are invested in this story 🥺 UGH, thank you so much! Okay, anyways, Osita (reader) was supposed to meet Chucho and visit the ranch this chapter, but these two idiots are so in love that I blinked and I was almost at 10K words writing about how cute they are.

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Sunlight spilled through the crack of your window’s curtains. No matter how hard you tried, you had always been terrible at sleeping in. As a kid, you were always the first one up, never wanting to miss out on whatever was going on. As an adult, sleeping in made you feel like you were missing out on things that were more important than sleep. Today, you had woken up this morning excited, almost giddy over the broad figure in your bed next to you. Javi’s muscular arms outstretched over his head, sheets covering his waist, his stomach pressed into the bed, brown curls messy and untamed from his slumber. While it wasn’t the first time you had slept in the same bed together, it was the first time you had woken up next to him, taking in all of his beautiful features as he snored softly into his pillow. Javi had told you not to worry about waking up before he went into work, but there were two things you did know for sure- First, you absolutely were going to, not wanting to miss out on a single moment spent with him, and second, you wanted to wake him up in a way you had a feeling both of you would very much enjoy.

Nestling in closer to him, Javi, half asleep, turned over on his side, reaching his arm around you and pulling you in tighter. Laying chest to chest, you ran your fingertips up and down his arms, making your way up to his head, gently running your hands through his thick locks. You kissed his chest as Javi began rubbing his hands along your back, slowly becoming more conscious, waking from his slumber. 

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” You whispered playfully over Javi’s tired grumbles. 

“Good morning.” His voice still low and raspy from sleep. “It’s early baby, you don’t have to be up, I’m the one that has to go into work, remember?” 

“I know. But I wanted to make sure I was up when you were.” You said, slowly kissing your way up his neck and around his jaw. “Wanted to make sure that I could say good morning properly since I didn’t get to the last time you slept over.” Your kisses now making their way back down his body, your hand sliding down his bare chest. You could already feel him half hard against your leg as he turned over on his back, shifting you to straddle his lap. Leaning over him, you kissed around the V of his stomach, your hands running up and down his thighs, getting closer and closer to cock. 

“Fuck, baby.” He horsley whispered, tilting his head back against the pillow. You planted kisses up his length before wrapping your lips around his tip, swirling your tongue around it. Slowly, you lowered your mouth down around the rest of him, hollowing out your cheeks, before pulling your head back up and letting your spit drip down onto his dick, pumping your hand along his length. 

“You still mad that I didn’t sleep in?” Smirking at Javi’s blissed out face, his jaw hanging open as he tilted his head up to look at you. 

“Fuck, Hermosa, I-" A low moan cut off the end of his sentence as you lowered your head back down, hands wrapping around his base. Your head bobbed up and down, hands twisting over the parts your mouth couldn’t reach. You began to increase your pace, Javi gently grabbing your hair from the base of your head, slightly tugging it with each movement of your head, a mix of Spanish and English expletives flowing from his mouth. 

“Baby, fuckkkk.” He groaned, his eyes fixated on you as he watched as you skillfully worked your way up and down his shaft, taking him deeper and deeper down your throat. 

Fuck, did he taste good, but with his size, you needed to take your mouth off him for a moment, using your tongue to lick from his base to tip, your hands still rubbing up and down him. You did this a few more times, making him audibly whine. You now understood why Javi enjoyed getting you off so much, the high that you were riding knowing how good you were making him feel was unmatched. 

“Osita, baby, fuck.” You could tell from the way his body was shifting under you, that he was desperate for your mouth to be back on him. With roles reversed, you felt it was only fair to tease him a little. 

“What? Use your words, handsome.” You winked at him, only making him moan louder. 

“Jesus Christ, dirty fuckin’ girl. Fuck baby, you suck my dick so fucking well. Wanna come in down your throat, fill you full of me.” 

You bent back over him, your lips sucking over his tip before you released with a pop. “What’s the magic word, Javi?” You couldn’t lie, you were absolutely enjoying how Javi was absolutely melting under you. 

“Please, baby.” He was practically panting at this point. 

With that, you took him down your throat again, moving faster and sloppier with each stroke. You were so turned on, you could feel the slick between your thighs, rubbing them together to try and ease the ache between your legs. You looked up at him, wrecked as you sucked his length over and over. 

“Fuck, baby. Fuck, I’m almost there. God, you’re so fucking perfect sucking my dick like that, fuck me, I’m-“

You felt his release hit your tongue as he tugged tighter on your hair, groaning deeply as he came in your mouth. You felt his cock pulse, feeling his sweet and salty spend hit the back of your throat, as you waited for him to finish. Once you knew he was done, you slowly let him slip out of your mouth, swallowing his release, as the Adam’s Apple of his throat bobbed watching you.

“You awake now?” You giggled at Javi, his jaw still slack as his hands ran over his face. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Osita. Fuck me, you’re too fucking good at that.” His breath still heavy and shaky. 

“Makes it easier when you’re sucking the world’s most gorgeous dick.” You smirked as you shrugged your shoulders. 

“Come here.” He grabbed your hips and pulled you off of his lap back down next to him in the bed, peppering you with ticklish kisses across your body, making you giggle and squirm. You playfully swatted at him before he cupped your face, pulling you in for a long, deep kiss. “Couldn’t have asked for a better way to wake up.” He grinned at you. He ran his hands up and down your thigh, grazing their way closer and closer to your heat, already dripping from just a few minutes ago. “My turn now.” He winked as his hands gripped into the meat of your legs. 

“No, I cannot be the reason you’re late for work, Agent Peña. Plus, I still need to make you breakfast, and you still need to shower. I’m allowed to get you off without needing anything in return.” 

“Fuck that. I know something that I can eat for breakfast right now.” 

“You are not making this any easier on me!” You jokingly shoved him. “You and I both know that if you don’t eat, the rumbling in your stomach is loud enough to set off seismic wave detectors for an earthquake, and while I am flattered by your offer, I don’t think my pussy has enough nutritional value to get you through lunch time without eating.” 

He chuckled and shook his head. “Fine. If I shower and eat fast enough and still have time, then can I take care of you?” 

“Well as long as you’re not gonna give yourself a cramp from trying to eat too fast, then I’m not gonna say no. What do you want for breakfast? I have eggs, cereal, oatmeal, waffles-“ 

“Eggs would be great.” 

“Perfect. Now go get your sexy butt in the shower so you can make good on your offer.” You pecked him on the lips as you shuffled yourself out of the covers. Still naked from the night before, you went over to your dresser to pull out a t-shirt to slip on, when you realized several unfamiliar items in your drawer. 

“What’s this?” You said, trying to contain your smile as you held up a large, heather gray shirt with a worn Texas A&M logo in the upper right hand corner. 

“I uh, I brought some shirts over for you to wear, um, if you want to. Figured they were probably more comfortable than my button down ones.” Javi ran his hand over the back of his neck, hoping putting some of his old shirts in your drawer last night after he brought up his bag wasn’t too forward. 

You lifted up your arms to shimmy it over you, laughing as you turned to look at yourself in the mirror, drowning in his shirt. The soft, worn fabric and Javi’s scent hugged your body, a pink flush filling your cheeks as you turned back around to look at him. “Thank you. It is very comfy.” You bit down on your lip to try and not look like a total fool with how excited you were to have his shirts in your drawer. 

Javi took a long exhale out, trying to keep his jaw from hanging open. It didn’t take long for him to recognize that seeing you in his clothes was one of his new favorite sights, especially when you first put them on after wearing nothing. “Of course. They look a lot better on you than they do on me anyways.” 

“I find that hard to believe. Okay, ugh, stop being all cute and go shower so I can make you breakfast!” Javi threw the covers off him, stepping towards you and wrapping his hands around your waist as he leaned in to kiss you. 

“Fine. I’ll shower fast, okay?” His sweet brown eyes had you melting like a popsicle on a hot day. 

“Okay. I mean, take as much time as you need, but if you end up being fast enough, I’m not gonna be mad about it.” He freed a hand from around your waist to give you a quick smack on your ass before kissing you on the head and making his way into the bathroom. After you heard the door click shut behind him, you held your hands in your face, letting out a little silent squeal, your face grinning from ear to ear. Just when you thought you couldn’t have it worse for Javier Peña, he’d found a way to outdo himself again. 

With Javi in the shower, you made your way to the kitchen, collecting all of your ingredients and starting a pot of coffee. While you waited for your pan to heat up, you headed over to the shelf under your TV, looking for music to put on while you cooked. Not finding any albums you liked, you shuffled through your CD mixes, pulling out one titled “Chill Out, Bear Cub” lovingly scribbled on the shiny surface of the disc by one of your brothers. Thankful for their love of music and computer new enough to make you mixes before you left Chicago, you put the CD into your stereo, turning up the volume just loud enough for you to hear in the kitchen. The CD started off Blackbird by the Beatles, you singing along softly as you began cracking the eggs into your pan and popping slices of bread into the toaster. You couldn’t hear the water in the shower turn off over the sound of breakfast sizzling and your voice singing along to the next song on the mix. As Javi opened the door, he peeked his head down the hallway, hearing the faint sound of music travel to the bathroom. Quickly running his towel over his damp curls and smiling to himself, Javi made his way back to the bedroom to change before joining you for breakfast. 

With breakfast done and waiting for the two of you on the kitchen table, you took a few more swigs of your coffee as you began throwing your dishes into the sink to clean them as you waited for Javi. As the next track on the CD changed to Rocket Man by Elton John, you were lost in your own world, swaying your hips and beginning to scrub the remains of your breakfast off the pans and plates you were using. Your kitchen sink faced the wall with a small window above it, the sunlight beaming in through the glass. With your back to the hallway Javi was now walking down, you were completely oblivious to his presence behind you in the kitchen. Crossing his hands over his chest, he leaned into the wall across from you, taking in every inch of you. Your bare feet tapping on your worn kitchen mat, hips rocking back and forth under his shirt as you belted out the chorus of the song. 

“And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time, until touch down brings me ‘round again to find. I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no, no, noooooo. I’m a rocket mannnnnn, burning out his fuse up here alone.” 

Javi stood there silently, tears welling behind his eyes as he listened to you sing each word. For so long, Javi had come to accept he was just like the  rocket man in the song. He was alone, unwilling to come to grips with the man he had become after he had returned home from Colombia. He was burnt out. Tired. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t the man everyone had made him out to be. And then, he met you. You brought him back down to earth, your warmth and kindness filling the empty space he so desperately craved. You wanted him for the man that he was. He wanted you forever, for you to always be the one who pulled him back into orbit. He wasn’t alone out in space anymore. 

He quickly tried to wipe the tears from his eyes as he snuck up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist and kissing your shoulder. You let out a little gasp and jumped, so distracted by your singing and cleaning, you hadn’t even heard Javi behind you. You felt your face turn blush, realizing you probably had gotten a little carried away with your singing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be that loud, probably was a little much.” You huffed as you leaned your head into Javi’s back. 

“Not at all, Osita. I love hearing you sing. My mom used to sing around the house all the time. It was one of my favorite things to listen to as a kid. It makes me happy hearing you.” Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of his comparison. It made you so happy to know he was comfortable talking about his mom around you, knowing all too well how painful it could be to bring up memories of someone you had lost. 

“I’m guessing your mom had a much better voice than I do. My guess is that she probably wasn’t serenading you with Elton John at 7:00 AM either.” 

“You have a very pretty voice, but no, she did not. It is a good song, though.” He chuckled, giving you a squeeze. 

You paused before letting the next sentence slip out of your mouth. “The song reminds me of my brother, Patrick.” 

Javi had heard you talk about your other two brothers, Charlie and David but he had never heard you talk about Patrick. He could immediately sense the change in your demeanor compared to when you spoke about your other siblings. 

Before he could ask anything else, you immediately shifted around to face him, easily changing topics based on Javi’s post-shower appearance. 

“Well that isn’t very fair.” Your mouth agape at how ridiculously attractive Javi looked done up for work. He had on a dark gray suit with a white dress shirt underneath and a blue and yellow striped tie around his neck. The way his suit jacket stretched around his back and shoulders made you want to scream at how broad he looked. The scent of his sweet and spicy cologne was fresh, the smell dancing around your nose as you pulled yourself closer to him. You had just convinced Javi that he needed to go get ready for work, but with the way he looked, you were ready to undress him and make him late. 

“What’s not fair, Osita?” 

“That you are literally the most handsome man on the face of the Earth. Do you realize how hot you are? Like seriously. Wow. Well if you didn’t, then this is me telling you that you are fucking hot.” 

He laughed as you gushed over him. “I don’t know about that, but thank you, hermosa.” 

“How do you say my boyfriend is the most beautiful man in the whole world in Spanish?” 

“Mi novio es el hombre mas guapo en el todo mundo.” He laughed. 

“Perfect. Then mi novio es el hombre mas guapo in el todo mundo.” You reached up on your tiptoes to kiss him, pressing your hands against his chest. “Tús huevos are ready, mi novio guapo. You ready to eat?” 

“You’re very sweet, Osita. Yes, I am.” 

Even if Javi wasn’t on a mission to get you off before he left for work, you were convinced this man was the fastest eater you had ever met. From the way you had watched him eat every meal, including an impressive amount of popcorn, you would have thought every meal was the first he’d had in days. 

“I’m not going to resuscitate you if you choke on your eggs from eating so fast. Have you even breathed once?” You laughed at Javi’s almost clear plate. 

“Baby, those eggs were so good. You are a really good cook.” 

“Well considering your practically clear plate, I kind of assumed they were okay. All I did was make breakfast. I can cook more than eggs and Mac and cheese, but I appreciate the compliment.” You smiled as you took a bite of your toast. “I packed you a lunch, too. You obviously don’t have to eat it if you don’t want it, but I figured I’d make you one, just in case.” 

“I wake up to getting my dick sucked, you making me breakfast and packing my lunch? Jesus, I’m a fucking lucky man. Thank you, Osita.” 

You blushed, taking a few more bites of your eggs as music softly played in the background, the sunrise now seeping through the windows of your apartment. Coffee in hand and plates picked clean, you couldn’t help but relish in the sweet and simple domesticity of the moment. Spending your morning together, eating breakfast, helping him get ready for work- all things that most people would consider mundane on a day to day basis, and truth be told, it was. And that’s what made it so beautiful. Something so ordinary was so perfect. Something deep inside you that made you yearn for a million more days of perfectly ordinary mornings with him. 

“I could say the same. Do you need help with anything else before you go to work?” You leaned back against your chair.

“Nope.” 

“You sure?” 

“Mmhhmm.” 

“How much longer do you have until you have to leave?” You both smirked at each other. 

“I don’t know, it depends.” 

“Depends on what, Javi?” You crossed your arms and raised an eyebrow at him. 

Scootching back out of his spot and making his way around the table, he rested his arms on the back of your chair, hovering over your body. “Depends on how many times you want me to make you come before I go.” 

He pulled you up to stand, your hands grasping at the lapels of his suit jacket as your mouths clashed together, moans escaping from both of your mouths. You walked your way over to your couch, your bodies intertwined with each other as Javi had you sit on the cushion as he knelt down in front of you. He slowly parted your legs, his hands running up and down them, revealing the slick pooling between your legs and covering your thighs from the lack of underwear you put on this morning. His fingers spread open your sex, collecting your arousal before tracing around your clit. 

“You’re fucking perfect, Osita. Everything about you. Fuck, I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” You moaned as he bent down, his face meeting your heat, taking a long, broad lick before his eyes met yours. “Such a good fucking girl for me. If I didn’t have to go into work, I swear to god, I’d spend all day in between your legs eating this sweet fucking pussy.” 

You’d never met a man so willing to go down on you, let alone blow your fucking mind every time he did. Not that you were complaining. 

He dipped his head back in, the width of his tongue pressing against your sensitive bundle of nerves, licking up and down your heat.  Your bottom half squirmed, desperately craving his fingers inside you. You could feel the light huff of his laughter breath against your pussy, already reading you like a book, knowing exactly what you needed. He sunk one, then both fingers in, making you whimper as his mouth continued to suck and twirl against your clit. One of your hands gripped around the fabric of the couch, the other gripping the dark locks of Javi’s hair, tugging on the ends with each pulse of his fingers. 

“Fuck Javi, you make me feel so good, holy shit.” You whined over the wet sounds of his sucking and fingers pumping in and out of your pussy. The way he curved up into you had your hips bucking into his face, making his free arm drape over your hips, pressing you back down into the couch. You could feel yourself begin to clench tighter and tighter around his hand, the feeling of him close to sending you over the edge. He popped his head up to smirk at your wrecked face, his digits speeding up their thrusts inside you. 

“I know you’re close, hermosa. So tight around my fingers. Let go baby. Dámelo.” (Give it to me). His sweet brown eyes met yours before he dipped his head back down, sucking over your clit with intensity as you threw your head back, moaning in pleasure. 

“Javi, Javi, fuck, oh my god. I’m gonna come, I’m gonnaahhhhh-“ 

You could feel yourself gush around his fingers as your orgasm ran through your body, making your legs shake and leaving you speechless. Javi slowed his pace as you came down from your release, shaking his head in satisfaction from your blissed out high. “My good girl. Always so fucking pretty when you come.” He cooed as he came up to kiss you, his face still covered in your slick. “You think you can give me another one before I go?” 

You frantically nodded your head, breathing still labored. “Holy shit, yes.” 

He let his fingers rest inside you a few more moments, feeling the clench of your cunt release around him. He began to kiss his way down your body, admiring how his shirt fell around your curves. He traveled further down your body before pausing for a moment, pulling out his fingers, you whimpering at the loss. 

“Then you choose, baby. One more time with my mouth or one more time with my dick.” 

“Fuck, Javi. I want you to put it in me, I want you to fuck me so bad.” 

He leaned down to kiss you with a smirk. “I had a feeling, Osita. Turn around, baby.” With that, he helped to lift your hips, turning you around so your elbows were on the couch, ass in the air. As he stood behind you, he took his foot to slowly spread your legs a little wider, your pussy practically dripping at this point. Behind you, you heard the clinking of his belt buckle and the sound of his pants dropping around his ankles, followed by his low groan as he ran his length through your folds, collecting your slick. He slowly lined himself up with your entrance. “You ready for me, pretty girl?” 

“Mmmhhmmm. Please baby, I need you so bad.” You whined. 

With that, he slipped himself in you, taking a few seconds to let you adjust to him before bottoming out. The stretch of him inside you felt so sweet every time, like he was made to be in you. It didn’t take long for him to begin increasing his pace, his cock filling every inch of you so deliciously with each thrust. His fingertips dug into your hips, pulling you deeper on him with each stroke, while your fingers dug deeper into the fabric of the couch cushions. 

Javi was shocked at himself to feel how close he already was to finishing. Was it the image of seeing you, bent over with his shirt draping down the sides of your body? The mental picture of you from earlier this morning, waking him up by giving him the best blowjob he’d ever had? The fact that you woke up early on your first day of summer vacation to make him breakfast and lunch and simply just to spend time with him? That you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and there was no one else he could ever imagine spending his mornings like this with if it wasn’t you? It was taking every ounce of strength for him to not bust right then and there. 

“Touch yourself, Osita. Not gonna last much longer. So wet and tight for me baby, fuck. Feels so fucking good.” He gritted through his teeth, gripping tighter into your hips with each thrust. 

Propping yourself up on one arm, the other reached between your legs, rubbing your clit as Javi continued to snap into you, hitting the sweet spot inside of you that had you closer and closer to your end. “Come on, hermosa. Gonna be a good girl and give me one more? Soak my dick before I fuck you full of me?” 

You were unable to answer as you felt the coil in your belly snap, your legs shaking as pleasure flowed through your body. The sounds of his name falling from your mouth as you came had him chasing his own end, each stroke becoming more frantic and loose. 

“Come inside me Javi. Fuck, I want you to fill me up.” Your words barely coherent as you rode your pleasure filled high. 

He was convinced those words would never get old. With only a few more pumps, Javi groaned as felt himself spill inside of you, his cock pulsing with his release. Breathing heavily, he slumped his body over yours before coming to. He pulled himself out of you, gasping at the emptiness, the mix of you and him trailing down your thighs. You could feel Javi’s fingers slide their way up your legs, collecting the slick before circling around your entrance and pushing the remains back into you and placing a kiss on one of your ass cheeks. 

“Fuck, Osita. So fucking good, I swear I’ll never get over this.” He helped pull you up to stand before grabbing both sides of your face to pull you into a deep, long kiss. 

“Eh, I don’t know, it’s fine, I guess, could take it or leave it.” You remarked sarcastically, laughing as Javi rolled his eyes. 

“Pendejo.” 

“I know what that one means, jerk.” You giggled. “You know you love it.” You tried to convince yourself you hadn’t used that word on purpose, but there was no use in lying to yourself. 

He did love it. He loved all of it. All of you. His heart wanted to scream it, and his brain gripped on to those 4 letters so tightly to keep them from falling off his lips. The best he could do was to cup your face, tenderly kissing you, his lips lingering on yours for as long as they could. 

“Fuck, I don’t want to go to work.” 

“I don’t want you to either, but I don’t think your office accepts I’m not coming in today because I wanna hangout with my girlfriend as a valid excuse. And as much as I don’t want you to, they probably also want you to put your pants back on before going into the workplace.” You laughed at his slacks and boxers still draped over his ankles. 

“Fair enough.” He chuckled, pulling his pants back up, fastening the belt buckle and tucking in his shirt. 

“Once I see you again this weekend, you can keep your pants off all you want and I won’t complain one bit.” You winked at him before giving him a peck on the lips and walking over to the kitchen to grab his lunch and hand it off to him. 

“Thanks, Osita.” 

“Of course. Have a good day at work today, okay? I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.” You both began to reluctantly make your way to the door. 

“Me either. You have a good day too, enjoy your first day of summer break.” 

“Oh believe me, I will. I am not jealous of you at all today.” You both laughed as you leaned up against your doorway, savoring every second before you said goodbye, trying to think of ways to get him to stay just a little longer. “Well... I know last time you were here I said there was a 3 kiss minimum to obtain your pants, there’s actually now a 4 kiss minimum to leave my apartment if I’m not going with you.” 

“Oh really? Well in that case…” he reached his arm around your hip, pulling him close to his chest. 

“One.” He kissed the top of your head 

“Two.” He leaned down lower to kiss your cheek. 

“Three.” Now even lower, he planted a long, wet kiss on your neck, a mix of moans and laughter as his mustache scratched beneath your chin. 

“Four.” His lips meeting yours, his free hand now making its way behind your head to pull you in closer as you placed your hands on his chest, grasping at his tie. 

“You know what, on second thought I don’t think your office will care if you show up today.” You whispered playfully, you both letting out small huffs of laughter. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” 

“Okay. Bye Javi.” 

“Bye Osita.” With one last peck on the lips, he twisted open the knob, opening the door and grabbing his lunch off the entryway shelf. As he made his way through the door, you watched as his broad figure strolled down your hallway, his shoulders stretching the width of his suit jacket. Before the door closed, you caught one last glimpse, Javi’s sweet brown eyes meeting yours as he had turned around to see you one last time. With a soft smile and wave, the door came to a close, followed by a soft click of your lock. Although you couldn’t say it out loud, you knew that you wanted every morning for the rest of your life to start just like this. 

As Javi pulled up to the Sheriff’s Department, Queen still playing in the background from last night’s music choice, he let out a deep sigh before twisting the keys in his ignition, turning off his truck’s engine. Looking over at his passenger seat, he wished you were there, sitting next to him, smiling, hair blowing in the wind while you sang along to whatever song was on the radio. Instead, he’d have to settle for the brown paper lunch bag sitting in your place, still making him grin as he read the front labeled “Javi :)”. Gathering the rest of his things from his car, Javi strutted into the office, pace slightly quickened realizing he was close to 20 minutes late from his normal arrival time. He would have loved nothing more than to quietly slip past his co-workers with a few polite smiles, uninterrupted as he went to work at his desk for the day. Knowing the two buffoons stationed right outside his doorway, he braced himself for the inevitable, coming to grips with the fact the latter thought was definitely not a choice. 

“Heyyyy, look Carter, there he is!” Detective Miller grinned leaning back in his chair, slapping his partner on the shoulder to get his attention. “We were worried about you, Peña. Thought the date went so well you tried to play hooky today.” The two snickered at each other. 

Javi fucking wished he had. 

“Soooooo… How’d it go?” Carter pried, his voice sweet and sing-songy. 

Javi sighed, resting his hand on his hip. He didn’t want to give into their antics, but figured it was easier than facing their questioning the rest of the day. “It went really well.” 

“That’s all you're gonna give us?” Miller whined, desperate for more information. “C’mon man, you gotta give us at least a little more than that.” 

“We went to dinner and a movie. Saw that new dinosaur one that just came out.” 

“Oh shit, was it good? I’ve been wanting to see that one, all my buddies said that-” 

“Carter, you idiot. We’re not here to learn about the fucking dinosaur movie.” Miller groaned, shaking his head. “Where’d you go out to eat?” 

Fuck, Javi knew they were going to love this. 

“We were supposed to go to Andiamaos on Main.” He huffed, hoping the two in front of him would miss the first part of his sentence. 

“Damn, Peña, that place is nice! Wait. Whadda mean, supposed to?” Carter’s brow scrunched. 

Running his hand over his face, more than embarrassed, Javi replied. “I fucked up and made reservations on the wrong day. Restaurant was booked so we ended up going out to eat at a diner close by.” 

“She didn’t care?” 

“No.” 

“She wasn’t mad? Not even a little?” 

Javi shook his head no, still shocked by the fact that you weren’t. 

“Shit. She must really like you, Peña.” Miller smirked before peering to the side of his desk to see the crinkled paper lunch bag Javi was gripping. “You labeling your lunches now? Cute.” He joked, noticing the neat handwriting and smiley face written on the bag, clearly knowing Javi wasn’t the one who wrote it. 

“Fuck off, Miller.” Javi rolled his eyes before making his way towards his office. “Report better be on Morris’s desk before I go talk to him this morning.” He remarked, not even turning his head as he shut the door behind him. 

“Fuck me.” Miller whispered under his breath, scrambling to gather handfuls of papers and shoving them in a manilla folder. 

“Wait, why was Peña labeling his lunch?” Carter asked, oblivious to Miller’s sarcastic jab. 

“He didn’t write it, his girl did, dumbass. Now help me finish this report and get it on Morris’s desk before Peña finds out and has another reason to kick our teeth in.” 

Despite the lack of Javi’s presence, you couldn’t have been more ready for your first day of summer break. After he had left, you had spent the morning doing some chores around the house, making a shopping list for some errands you had to run, and taking a long, very hot shower, not having to worry about accommodating Javi’s temperature preferences. As you got ready for the day, you sorted through the other t-shirts Javi had left behind for you in your drawer, including a navy blue one with a yellow DEA logo imprinted on the corner, an army green one, and another Texas A&M one, this one maroon with white block letters printed across the front. You slid on the red shirt, the soft cotton shimmying down your skin as you inhaled the sweet scent of him left behind on the fabric. You matched the shirt with a pair of denim shorts, throwing your hair up into a clip before heading out the door. 

One of your favorite perks of being on break was being able to run your errands on weekdays, not having to fight the crowd of usual weekend shoppers. You were able to avoid a long line at the post office to wrap and mail your niece Olivia’s birthday gift, stop at Macy’s to make some returns you had been putting off, as well as buying two extra sets of sheets to keep in your now frequently washed rotation, and finish your grocery shopping in a practically empty store. You laughed to yourself as you walked through the produce section, hoping that Javi would get a kick out of the bag of baby carrots you had purposely packed for his lunch, knowing just how much he hated them. 

As hard as it was for you to sit around and do nothing, after unpacking your groceries and letting yourself sit down on the couch, you figured it wouldn’t hurt to let yourself have one day of lounging and watching TV guilt free to celebrate the start of your summer. Curling up in your favorite blanket, nestled yourself into the couch to watch the start of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a first day of summer tradition your mom had started for you and your brothers as kids after she had read the book to you. A melancholy feeling flooded over you as the opening credits began to play. While it hadn’t been the first time you had watched the movie without your brothers, it was the first time you had watched it, halfway across the country, thousands of miles away from your family. You loved Texas. You were happy with your move, and didn’t regret your decision. Yet, there was still a twinge of sadness every time you thought of Chicago, missing your family and regretting the terms you had left on before you packed up your things and drove about as far away as you physically could. 

Sure, you had left Chicago because of Paul. He was an asshole. He broke your heart and couldn’t have given a shit about it. But the cheating felt like nothing compared to how he handled what happened between you and your brother, Patrick. That- that was the real straw that broke the camel’s back. Patrick had been lingering in the back of your mind all day, especially after that stupid song came on your CD mix this morning. You hadn’t even wanted to bring him up to Javi, the words honestly had just slipped out of your mouth as Rocket Man played in the background. Patrick was the reason that stupid “Chicago” box sat in the corner of your living room, because you couldn’t bear to face the reality of what it meant to unpack it. It was also something you had no need to unpack on Javi any time in the near future, kicking yourself for even bringing him up this morning. You sniffled as you felt the tears well in your eyes, wishing right now, you could just forget. Wishing you could hug your parents and your brothers and tell them how much you missed them, tell them how sorry you were that when it mattered the most, you ran away. Wishing that Javi was there to wrap you in his arms and just let you cry, telling you that it would be okay, his presence grounding you back down to earth. But right now, those were all just wishes, and wishing wasn’t going to change anything. 

For the sake of tradition, you let the film play in the background as you got up from the couch to find anything to distract yourself from letting a stupid movie about a chocolate bar completely ruin your night. Rummaging through the kitchen, you collected ingredients to bake chocolate chip cookies.  Honestly more than anything you made them so you could eat spoonfuls of cookie dough as a substitute for dinner, but also because you had a very strong feeling given Javi’s appetite, he would definitely eat some when you saw him tomorrow. The baking made you feel a little better, smiling to yourself, thinking of how Javi would tell you he only wanted one cookie, to soon find the majority of them disappeared. After the movie had finished, you found some more joy in watching the Stanley Cup finals, even though it pained you to watch the Red Wings absolutely destroy the Flyers. 

As the game came to an end and things had been cleaned up in the kitchen, you got yourself ready for bed, curling yourself into your comforter. The smell of Javi still lingered on your pillow as you nestled your face against it, desperately wishing his body was there, next to you. Slowly drifting off to sleep, you imagined being wrapped up against him, your back to his chest, arms draped around you, comforting you into a deep and peaceful slumber. 

 

When Javi arrived home after work, he was a man on a mission. This weekend, he, his dad and some of the ranch hands on the farm needed to build a new fence before the Peña ranch obtained new lambs to add to their flock of sheep on Monday. As much as he would have loved to have gone right back to your apartment after work, he had promised his dad he would help with the task, knowing it was a big project on a tight schedule. Javi was no stranger to farm chores, and from the time he was very little, he had learned that work always came before play. As a kid, finishing a task quickly would have meant more time to ride his bike or play with toys, but now, he knew the sooner he finished, the sooner he saw you.  

As soon as he was through the door, Javi was stripping himself of his suit and replacing it with his work clothes and shoving half a leftover cold taco into his mouth before heading out to the pasture to start moving the new fencing to its rightful position. Javi was so focused that he hadn’t even heard his dad sneak up behind him as he was moving one of the fencing posts. 

“Someone’s excited to build a fence, huh Hijo?” Chucho chuckled at Javi’s pace hauling the wooden beams back and forth, watching him scramble to grasp the post he was holding before his dad had scared him. 

“Jesus Christ, Pops, scared the shit out of me.” Javi breathed heavily before setting down the beam and wiping his brow, now covered in sweat. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you work so fast, Javier. Not even when you were un niñito (little boy) and I promised you el helado (ice cream) after we were done.” He laughed again to himself as Javi rolled his eyes, trying to fight off any impending embarrassment. “The sun is almost down, no use in trying to build a fence in the dark. I promise we’ll be done in enough time for you to see her again before the weekend is over.” 

“Oh um, well, I, uh-” Javi stumbled over his words, flustered how he hadn’t even mentioned anything about you, and somehow his dad knew the exact reason for your late night project prep. 

“It’s okay, Hijo. I remember being the same way when I first met your mamá. I’d finish chores so fast to see her, it made your Abuelo (grandfather) wish I had found a novia (girlfriend) sooner. Except for the one time I promised him I would fix a hole in one of the fences and didn’t so we could go on a date, and spent the next 3 days wrangling loose cows. I know I am not as exciting as her, but I am thankful you are around to help out your old man.” Chucho reached over to place a hand on Javi’s shoulder, softly smiling at him. 

“Of course, Pops. Thanks.” Javi sheepishly grinned back at his father. 

The next morning, Chucho was up before the sunrise, ready to make his mandatory cup of coffee before heading out for his morning rounds and starting up on his fencing project. The old man could have sworn he was still half asleep and dreaming when he went to turn on the coffee pot, because it was already hot and hissing with the sounds of the bitter brown liquids brewing inside. As he turned on the kitchen light, he noticed one of his bright yellow post-it notes stuck to the front of the machine. 

Coffee’s ready if you want it. Animals are already fed, out in the field working on the fence. 

-Javi 

He smiled and shook his head at the note, as he poured himself a full mug, leaning against the kitchen counter. He tried to recall the times his son had ever been up so early voluntarily, let alone up before him, and that number was a big fat zero. But if there was one thing that Chucho knew about Javier, it was that if he wanted something, he would find a way to figure out how to get it. If Chucho Peña wasn’t sure before, he sure as hell was then. His son was head over heels in love with you. 

Taking advantage of Javi’s early morning labor, Chucho cooked the pair some breakfast before meeting Javi out in the pasture, the red and orange sunrise slowly peeking over the lush green fields of the property. “Buenos días, early bird.” Chucho chuckled, handing an already very sweaty Javi a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. Javi nodded as a thanks, out of breath and already tired from dragging the heavy wooden posts across the grass. “Off to early start this morning, eh mijo?” Javi raised his eyebrows with a small shake of his head as he funneled the breakfast into his mouth, quickly downing the food. 

“Thanks, Pops.” He replied, mouth still chewing as he motioned at the now empty plate, passing it back over to his dad. 

“De nada. I was worried if I didn’t bring food out to you, you wouldn’t have taken a break until you were done with the whole fence.” 

“I was already up, figured I’d get started and do as much as I could.” Javi had more than his fair share of sleepless nights since returning home from Colombia, some being much more restless and painful than others. He was thankful that his early rising this morning was pure adrenaline, excitement even, of finishing this stupid fence as soon as possible to see you. 

“Well, let me just finish some of this breakfast and I’ll get to work.” 

Javi made sure the pair wasted no time on the task at hand, splitting up the duties to start building as quickly as possible. By the time the posts were positioned and ready to be set in the ground, the morning sun was already sweltering down, sweat dripping down Javi’s back as his shirt clung to his shoulders. Around 10:00 AM, the two paused on their progress, Chucho concerned that the rest of the ranch help hadn’t arrived, even though they were supposed to be there an hour and a half ago. Even though Javi had his cell phone on him, Chucho had refused to use it to call the tardy crew, claiming the technology was “too advanced” for him, no matter how many times Javi had explained it was just like using the house phone. As Chucho made his way back to the house to call, Javi allowed himself to sit down and rest in the grass, shaded by the tractor nearby, blocking the sunlight. As he closed his eyes, he could only picture you. Your sweet, soft smile, your delicious scent, the way your body felt so soft and gentle, intertwined with his. He couldn’t help but grin, thinking of how perfect you were in every way, desperate to see you again. 

As he opened his eyes, he saw Chucho return with water and a dismayed look spread across his face. “Qué pasa? (What’s going on?)” Javi asked, concerned by his dad’s demeanor. 

“Ricardo’s truck broke down on the highway. They can’t get someone out there to fix it for a few hours, he said at best, he and the boys won’t be here until 4 or 5 tonight.” 

Fuck. Javi’s heart just about sank down to his stomach. With the 4 people they were waiting on in the truck, Javi had hoped the fence would be finished around the time they were now supposed to be arriving. With just him and his dad, there was no way they would be even close to half way done by then. 

“Lo siento, mijo. (I’m sorry, son.) Any other time I wouldn’t care but this has to get done before the sheep come Monday.” 

“No, it’s um, it’s fine.” Javi replied, trying to hide his disappointment. “Can I just, can I just call her and let her know I’m not gonna be able to see her tonight?” 

“Of course, Javier. Take your time.” 

“Thanks.” He took a few deep breaths as he tried to compose himself as his fingers punched the keys of his cell phone to dial your number, slowly pacing through the grass with each dial tone. 

“Hi Javi!” Your sweet voice at least brought him a little relief from the shitty news he was about to deliver to you. 

“Hi, Osita.” 

“You guys are already done? That was fast!” The optimism in your voice only made it harder for Javi to spit out his next sentence. 

“Well um, shit, um that’s actually why I called. A bunch of the guys who were supposed to help us are stuck on the highway because their truck broke down, probably won’t be here for at least a few more hours. It’s gonna take way longer than I thought, I probably won’t be able to see you tonight. I’m so sorry, Osita.” 

“Oh.” You already could tell you were doing a terrible job at masking your disappointment. “No uh, no, it’s okay. I’m really sorry, that sucks. It’s okay Javi, not your fault, I totally understand.” 

There was a long pause on the line as Javi ran his hands through his damp curls, trying to think of what to say. Before he could think of anything, you spoke again. 

“What if I came over to help?” 

“Wha- Come over to help? Osita, what do you mean?” 

“You know, help. As in like, provide my time and labor to assist someone in need?” 

“Yes, hermosa, I know what the definition of help is.” He let out a small huff before he continued. “Baby, I’m not gonna ask you to come over and help with this, shit’s heavy and it’s hot-” You cut him off before he could finish. 

“Javi, I think you are constantly forgetting the fact that I am the youngest of 3 brothers and the daughter of a dad who refused to pay anyone to do anything around the house, because he had a small army of child laborers he could exploit for free. I didn’t get the free pass on any chores around the house just because I was the only girl. I’m sure there has to be something I can do to help. At the very least, let me bring you and your dad lunch while you’re working. Please.” 

Javi thought for a moment. He already felt awful that he wasn’t going to be able to do whatever you had planned for tonight, let alone to have you drive all the way over here and bring him food.  

“Osita, it’s okay, really-“ 

“Javier Jesús Peña. Please. Don’t think I won’t call Maria and ask for your address so I can at least bring you lunch, you know I will.” He laughed, known damn well you would. 

“Fine. Thank you, Osita.” 

“You’re welcome. I just have to get ready and make lunches and I should be over around noon. Does that work?” He could almost hear you grinning through the phone, knowing your persistence had won him over. 

“Noon works great. You have something to write down directions on?” 

“Yes sir. Whenever you’re ready.” 

As Javi explained the route, Chucho looked over at his son with a growing curiosity, wondering why in the world his conversation to explain why he couldn’t see you tonight had now turned into a geography lesson of the greater Laredo area. 

“Okay, easy enough, I think I got it.” You responded as you looked down over the directions you had scribbled in front of you. 

“Okay. Listen, if you change your mind, don’t feel like you have to-”

“I will see you at noon, no ifs ands or buts. Well, no butts except for your cute one.” A grin stretched across his face as he listened to your giggle on the other end of the line.  “And don’t tell me whatever it is you’re working on is too heavy, because you absolutely know I will find a way to pick it up just to prove a point.” 

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see. I’ll see you soon. Thank you again.” 

“Yeah, you will see. Of course. I’ll see you soon. Bye.” 

“Bye, Osita.” 

As the line disconnected, he found Chucho smirking at the lovestruck look on Javi’s face, waiting for him to explain the conversation. 

“I told her she didn’t have to, but she uh, she wanted to know if she could come over to bring us lunch. She offered to help with the fence too, but I’m obviously not gonna make her do that, but knowing how stubborn she is, I wouldn’t be surprised if she figured out a way to do that too.” 

“Sounds like she’s just about as stubborn as you, mijo.” Javi ran his hand over the back of his neck as he smirked at the green grass around his boots. “She really offered to bring us lunch? And to help?” 

“Yeah, she did.” Javi shifted his gaze up to his dad, grin still on his face, cheeks pink and flushed. Chucho laughed and shook his head as he passed Javi, patting him on the shoulder as he mumbled to himself, just loud enough for Javi to hear.

“Dios la bendiga. Ella te ama, Javier.” (God bless her. She loves you, Javier.) 

Javi stood quietly for a moment, smiling to himself. Javi hoped his dad was right, because he sure as hell loved you.