#I put it all under the readmore because I had too much to say

[peachybun-bun]

Actual footage of me racing to read this at 7 am.

I’ll put my spoilers under a read more cause damn baby, my beautiful V, you ate. I want more self indulgent content from you.

Just hope you heard the cheers from me in the air when you opened with Jeonghan. In my my head I knew where we were going without reading the warnings. I was so happy.

I LOVE each man having their own nickname for the reader too. It’s so cute. Then the pool scene?! I was squealing.

Her finally asking Joshua for the threesome! Not breathing anymore. Him watching Jeonghan fuck her? Deceased. Jeonghan not letting her touch?! Ahhhhh then the spanking. The evil twins are too much in bed. I want more. I crave it.

But then V!!!!! When she said it was just sex I almost choked. I literally had a no girl no moment. Then he got up! You better chase after him. I was Shua telling her to fix it lol. I can’t WAIT for the next series and to see what you bless us with.

My favorite New York Times bestseller

badsleeper | city lights series

✮ pairings: joshua hong x female reader x yoon jeonghan ✮ genre: a tiny bit of fluff and angst, smut (18+) ✮ aus: rock singer joshua, boyfriend joshua, best friend jeonghan, friends to fucking ✮ word count: 24.5k

🎧: step? – bibi | say nothing – yugyeom ft. leehi | nvrmnd – soulbysel ft i.m | bonnie & clyde – dean

→ previous chapters – read more – playlist

› nsfw warnings under the cut

✮ warnings: smut with plot, alcohol consumption (no dub con), threesome, no cheating, another obnoxiously long sex scene, dom joshua, dom jeonghan, brat reader, foul language, a bit of praise/degradation kink, dirty talk, voyeurism, oral sex (m, f), rough bj, cumeating, cumplay, unprotected p in v sex, jealousy, possessiveness, manhandling, tag teaming, rough sex, doggy style, dumbification, near religious experience during sex, crymaxing, use of butt plugs, anal sex, double penetration, aftercare. brat taming: spanking, light bondage. pet names: baby, princess, bunny (hers) babe, baby, baby boy, handsome (joshua's) ✮ a/n: hiii! to preface this i'd like to let you all know that this chapter is canon to the series. and also this is a little self indulgent thing i've been planning for months (literally this draft has been collecting dust since december 2023) so.... i hope y'all indulge with me ε('｡•᎑•`)っ💖 ✮ a/n ii: there's a weird time jump in the middle of the chapter but.... i hit text block limit again and didn't want to split this chapter ✮ disclaimer: minors dni this post is intended for 18+ readers. please have your age stated in your description and try not to look like a bot please 🙂.

part ix — finale

"It pains me to say this but, this is not going to work."

An elderly woman standing nearby glanced at you and the tall, handsome man before you. A surprised look on her face upon overhearing him announce such a thing in the middle of an airport.

Jeonghan broke in laughter before you could formulate a response. You rolled your eyes and pushed his shoulder with one hand.

"Very funny," you mumbled embarrassedly.

"Ah, come on, princess, have a little fun," he teased, a smile that only foretold his upcoming playfulness. "Aren't you going to miss me?"

"You'll be gone for a week. I'll survive," you rolled your eyes, arms crossing on your chest. "Maybe I'll miss you a little."

"Well, I won't," he laughed cheekily before continuing on his little act, raising his two hands, palms exposed to you in a gesture of finalization: "I am tired of babysitting you. You're awfully corny and overbearing all the time and I need a break. It's time that we saw different people."

You could tell he was acting, but something about him doing it with such ease made you pause. "Hannie, do you actually think that about me?" you asked, your voice dropping drastically.

Jeonghan's smile dropped, his lips pouting as he spoke: "Of course not, why would you believe that I'd think that?"

You instantly composed into a bright smile. "I'm playing with you," you chirped.

"Tsk, you little rascal," he scoffed, swiftly wrapping an arm around your head. "C'mere," he muttered as he ran his knuckles on the crown of your head.

"Stop it," you hissed, trying to get him to stop hugging your head to breathe.

"Okay, okay. I have to go now," he said, releasing his hold on you to take a look at his watch.

"Have fun on your trip, Jeonghan," you smiled at him, debating whether to hug him goodbye or not. You knew he wasn't big on hugs or gestures of affection, but you couldn't fight the impulse of opening your arms to him.

He paused for one second before taking you in for a quick hug, using his hand to ruffle your hair once again with. "Right," he muttered awkwardly and shifted the weight on the bag hanging on his shoulder.

Jeonghan began to turn away, and you almost wanted to let him walk further but you quickly called. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He stopped in his tracks, turned, and walked right back to you, fishing something out of the pockets of his black sweats. He grabbed the key to his car from the ring with his fingers, dangling them in front of your eyes.

You reached out to get the key, but he quickly snatched it away before getting it on your grasp.

"You get one scratch on it and it's over for you," he muttered dead serious, eyes locking with yours, he had to tilt his head forward to do so.

"What are you going to do?" you challenged, holding his gaze.

You could tell that he wasn't expecting that, a smirk appeared on his lips. "I'll make you pay for it in some way or form," he shrugged.

"Don't worry I'll take care of it," you said with ease.

"Are you sure, though?" he said, still holding the key to his car up in the air and out of your grasp, he teased nodding his head at you: "Let me see your permit again."

"Jeonghan, you need to go now or you're going to miss your flight," you rolled your eyes.

"Fine," he said, lowering his arm for you to grab the key, but quickly snatched it again. "No eating in my car. And don't have your boyfriend fuck you in there, trust me, I'll know."

"Jeonghan!" you squealed dramatically and looked around you to make sure no one overheard him.

However the man in front of you laughed at you with amusement, his nose wrinkling, mouth opened wide as he did so. But he finally handed you the key to his car.

"One scratch," he lifted one finger at you as a stern warning, but the smiling features of his face betrayed him. He patted your head one more time, turning away as he said. "Try not to miss me too much, princess."

Something deep within you twisted in nervousness, so hard that it robbed you of speech. You wished that you had recovered fast enough to tell him something, anything. But by then, Jeonghan had already disappeared in the sea of people, you couldn't even spot him by the yellow hoodie he was wearing. His favorite one.

With some reluctance, you turned to walk out and towards the spot Jeonghan had parked his flashy and elegant car. In some way the black BMW M3 screamed rich guy with a very expensive taste. At first glance even, anyone would think it's a car for someone serious, not the friend that has the comedic skill of a clown.

But as you slid yourself into the driver's seat, a deep sense of alarm and nervousness kicked right in. Releasing a shaky sigh, you gathered your hair in a ponytail, securing it with a pink scrunchie; somehow having your hair out of the way made you feel focused.

It had been a while since you drove a car. Reminiscing on the very old skill you acquired during your college days, you adjusted the seat so that your arms could reach the steering wheel without stretching your arms too much. Then you did the same for the mirrors, catching the anxious expression on your face.

But despite your self-consciousness, you arrived home safe. As a celebratory act you untied your hair, leaving your scrunchie behind, perhaps forgotten in Jeonghan's car with your many other lost scrunchies.

Deeply compelling, bloody, and sexy.

Those were the words swimming around most of the early reviews of your book. For better or worse, the popularity of your book had risen quite dramatically even days before its official release, so you kind of had to brace yourself for all kinds of chatter around it.

You had to refrain yourself from seeing reviews so early, since you didn't want to be influenced while working on the draft for the second book in the trilogy.

So needless to say, your book is doing fine.

Stepping out of the elevator and into the hallway that led into your apartment, you noticed quickly that the door next to yours was open. A tight, flashing pain crossed your heart when you understood that someone was viewing Joshua's old apartment.

It was inevitable that you would get new neighbors, and it seemed funny for a second to you that you were stuck with grief for the time when Joshua was just thirty seconds away from you.

Joshua was still away. He left the following day of your book release, only after pampering you with love, and anything that you requested. He would only be away for a few more days to finish recording Midnight Haze's first studio album, and then he'd be back, though for how long he didn't know yet.

Back in your apartment, you went directly to your bedroom, opened the drawers of your dresser and started to move your stuff to make space for Joshua's clothes. Subconsciously, you started threading on the intricate details that you needed to get done for the second book draft. Since there was nothing better you could occupy your mind with, that could actually put you to work.

But your thoughts inevitably drifted away as you cleared one of the drawers for your boyfriend's stuff. Then, you found yourself thinking of him, of the time he was here last; he made you breakfast before you woke up, you found him munching on some blueberries as he served you a plate of french toast.

Joshua had been keeping his promise, getting your texts back and calling you every night before he goes to bed; he does this last thing even though you might not share the same time zones—he knows that you'll be awake.

Sleeping alone resulted even more difficult, now that your body has had a taste of what it feels like sleeping in the warmth of your boyfriend's loving embrace. Even though you haven't shared that many nights with him as an actual couple, it was something you wished you had more of.

"All I'm saying is that food tastes better with a recently cleaned mouth."

"That's psycho behavior," you replied, rolling your eyes to the ceiling, while holding your phone to your ear.

"Oh, so you're saying that you never wash your mouth, got it," Jeonghan said jokingly, he had been going for what felt like hours.

"No, you're saying that orange juice tastes better after brushing your teeth!" you squealed, huffing loudly when you heard his mocking chuckle of his.

"I'm just teasing you," he mumbled.

"I know, I hate it," you said, but there was a smile on your face.

You heard the loud slurping noises as Jeonghan ate noodles. "Shouldn't you be asleep right now, by the way?" he asked and you could tell that his mouth was full.

"Can't sleep," you muttered as you scrolled through the draft to your second book. "I have a ton of work to do."

"Wait, you're working? Isn't it like... three in the morning right now?"

You hated that you could almost picture him raising his wrist to check out his smartwatch.

“Yeah, it is,” you mumbled aloofly as you skimmed through one of the monitors of your computer. 

“God, you are a workaholic,” he tutted. “Don’t you ever take a break?” 

“I do whenever I submit a draft,” you mused, smiling to the irony. 

“You should be resting,” he insisted. “You know, the hotel where I’m staying right now is very nice and it’s not as expensive as I thought it would be…”

Something caught your eye when you opened up your emails tab. “Oh,” you uttered when your eyes went over the mail. 

“What?” you heard Jeonghan reply. “I’m just saying that you and Joshua could come together, you know, you both deserve a break from work.”

You paused, focusing on the contents of the email that you received hours ago, but neglected since you were preoccupied with drafting the second book. “Oh,” you gasped. 

“Hello?” Jeonghan said after a few seconds. “Did I say something wrong?” 

“No, not at all,” you laughed in utter bewilderment. 

“I am very confused,” he confessed. “What’s going on?”

“I am being nominated for an award,” you gasped. “Well, not me, but my book.” 

“Same thing,” he replied. “That’s exciting news, princess. Did you find out just now?”

“Yeah! I’m just reading the email right now,” you laughed with incredulous joy. 

“See? That’s something to celebrate,” he insisted. “Another reason why you should take a break.”

“Or it is another reason to keep working so the second book meets the readers’ expectations,” you countered with a mad rush in your brain, pushing you to sit through more hours of typing. 

“You are so annoying,” Jeonghan said, but you knew by the tone in his voice that he was smiling. “Listen, I booked a tour and it’s just about to start so, call you later?” 

“Yeah, sure,” you blinked back to reality. “Enjoy your tour, Jeongjeong.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, wait!” you squealed. 

“Yeah?” he waited. 

“I forgot to ask you,” you sighed embarrassedly, bringing your palm to your forehead with a smack. “Joshua is arriving in a few hours and I wanted to ask you if I could borrow your car.” 

There was a pause, and you almost decided to take it back and tell him that you could take a taxi there. 

“Of course, princess,” he replied. “You don’t have to ask.”

“Sure?” 

“Just remember, no scratches and no fucking in my car,” he giggled deviously when you squealed out his name.

The line went dead after that. 

You took part of Jeonghan’s advice, shutting the computer off and deciding to go to bed and attempt to sleep again. 

The pink scrunchie was sitting around the rear mirror of Jeonghan's car when you slid yourself into the driver's seat. Letting out a big puff of air, you gathered your hair all in a ponytail, securing it with the scrunchie and then started the car. 

You were extremely nervous. And not because you were driving the most expensive thing you had ever touched in your life. But because Joshua was finally coming home from the tour. It felt like he had gone for so long it seemed ridiculous to you that only 4 weeks and a half had passed. 

It was the reason why you left your apartment with ample time to get to the airport on time and also to drive at a very slow pace, you were simply too nervous to go in the middle lane. 

Maybe you were, in fact, an old lady. At least in spirit, as Jeonghan would say.  

You remembered the fact that not only Jeonghan had called you that, but also Joshua called you something similar once, a long time ago it felt like. You thought about how similar your boyfriend and his best friend were in some aspects in relation to their personality. 

It seemed obvious that the similarities would make them friends. But sometimes, it felt too eerie to be just a coincidental case of telling the same jokes. 

When you got to the airport, you still had about half an hour to kill yet. And you were grateful that you had brought a book with your person. To kill time and to occupy your brain with something other than work. Or Joshua. Or Jeonghan. 

So you sat back comfortably on the driver's seat. Getting the faint smell of Jeonghan's cologne, and even if you dared to admit it, you got a vague smell of the flavor of vape that he really likes. The green apple one. 

You shook your head slightly, trying to regain focus on the words printed on the book you were holding against the steering wheel. 

You thought about the soft leather coating the steering wheel, how it was so new that it still had that brand new smell to it. Probably why Jeonghan is so overbearing about his car, is because it's so expensive and new that he wants absolutely nothing to taint it, such as eating on its leather seats. Or fucking.

You sighed in complete resignation, dropping your book back into your bag and opened the door. You stepped out of the black car, getting an odd look from a man that was passing by. 

"Huh," you huffed to yourself. Stepping out of a luxurious car really gave you a sense of dominance, and you found out you liked it. 

You locked the car and walked to the big doors of the vast airport. Being welcomed with buzzing noise and a ton of people walking around, some hurriedly, some laid back. 

You checked out your phone in the hopes of having a text from Joshua, but you knew it was nearly futile. He was still in the air, so that meant he was using that time to get some sleep. 

"Mmm," you hummed, pursing your lips and looking around to decide what to do in order to kill the time. And to think of something that wasn't fucking in a car. So you decided to get in line for an obnoxiously expensive cup of coffee and decided to get a cookie with it too. 

You knew that your lack of focus was partly due to your bad sleeping habits. But you were also so nervous about Joshua coming home that your brain struggled to put your thoughts in order. 

A quarter of an hour passed by at a slug's pace. Joshua texted you simply one word, "Landed." 

you: I'll meet you here 🙂  Josh ♡: you're here at the airport baby?  you: I am 

Joshua stopped texting and you assumed that he had to pick up his luggage. So you rose to your feet, keeping yourself on the lookout for the face you were dying to see. 

But the place was swarming with dozens of different faces, it was hard to keep up, and due to your lack of focus it was a bit more difficult to be fast and discern strangers. 

A tall man of ashy blond hair drew your attention instinctively, raising some alarm in your sluggish brain that you knew him. It took you seconds, seeing the guitar case on one hand, his duffel bag strapped to his shoulder to understand that Joshua was walking towards you, a shy bur fond smile painted on his face. 

He must have seen the surprise in your facial expression, because his eyes lit up. "Hi bunny," he muttered. 

You simply just threw your arms around his neck, standing on your tiptoes to clash your lips against his. "Josh…" 

"Baby," he giggled when you pressed your lips repeatedly against his lips, cheeks and the tip of his nose.

"Missed you," you mumbled, forgetting that you were in a very public space with tons of eyes watching you shower your boyfriend with kisses. 

"I missed you too, bunny," he sighed, the arm around you tightening its grip, bringing you closer to him. 

"Let's go home," your tone quivered slightly. 

"I love the sound of that," he said, his glinting eyes smiling at you. 

"Come on," you grabbed his hand and pulled him to the exit. 

"Hold on. Should we grab a taxi or…"

"Don't worry, I got it," you smiled anxiously, fishing out the keys to Jeonghan's car and displaying them in your hand. 

"What's this?" he asked and immediately added: "You got a car?"

"No, silly," you giggled sweetly. "It's Jeonghan's."

He sent you an bewildered look. "He left his car with you?" 

"Yeah, he lets me use it while he's not here," you shrugged with ease. "Come on, baby boy. I'm driving."

Joshua smiled with a fondness you recognized he expressed whenever he found you cute. But he fell in step with you, lacing your fingers with his as you walked out of the airport and to the parking lot. 

"This is exciting," he said once he closed the door to the passenger's seat.

"Put your seatbelt on," you told him, sending him a shameful glance. "Please."

Joshua let out a soft giggle. "Sure thing, ma'am." 

"Don't call me ma'am," you said with a whiny tone in frustration. 

"Okay," he whispered, and you saw his downturned smile, he was trying not to laugh. 

"And try your best not to distract me," you requested firmly as you gathered your hair in a ponytail. 

"How would I distract you?" he asked with genuine curiosity in his tone. 

"You just do," you mumbled, reaching out to brush his long hair with your fingers. 

"Do you like it?" he cocked his blond hair forward slightly, letting you thread the pads of your fingers through his new hair. 

"I do," you admitted. "Though I think I'd even like you bald."

Joshua chuckled sweetly, lifting his chin to you as he said. "Don't tempt me."

"Would you do it?" you asked, seeing the devious glint in his eyes. 

"Maybe time will do it for me, but yeah. If you wanted me," he said, but there was a hollow tone in his words, his gaze was focused on your eyes, and then it moved to your lips.

His long fingers cupped your chin gently and his eyes, briefly finding yours before he leaned forward to lock his lips with yours, his breath hitching audibly as you moaned when his tongue traced a line on your lower lip. 

"See, you're distracting," you mumbled, before diving in for a deeper kiss, demanding more, trying to make up for lost time. 

"Sorry, baby," he giggled and braced himself for a slap that you delivered on his shoulder. 

"Put your seatbelt on," you hissed, settling back to the seat and starting the car. 

"Yes, ma'am," Joshua breathed out, putting his seatbelt on as you drove out of the parking lot and into the highway.

Despite Joshua being on a short break, he still had a lot of things to tend to. Primarily, visiting his family, his mom and spending some quality time with them. Secondly, he gathered his stuff to bring into your apartment, thus finally moving in with you. Between the move, and him catching up with his life back home, he barely had time to spend with you.

Three days after Joshua arrived home, and deciding that a very long weekend's rest was sorely deserved, you and Joshua boarded a plane, also partly convinced by Jeonghan to go on vacation where he was located at the moment. 

One thing led to another and you were now resting on a beautiful suite, after a long night of traveling with your boyfriend, boarding planes and getting little to no sleep during the flight.

So you were slowly awakened by the gentle sound of waves crashing against the distant shore outside the hotel windows. When you opened your eyes, you were greeted by the brightness of the white room, the curtains opened to let in the pale morning light.

As you lay face down in the large bed covered with white sheets, plush pillows, and duvet, you blindly reached out one arm to find both sides cold. So you turned your head to try to get a view of the room around you.

"Josh?" you called, even though you were aware that you weren't getting a response.

Your phone was left abandoned on the bedside table, but the bed was so large and you were slotted right in the center of it, and being so that you were still drowsy from the very long sleep, you didn't feel like moving yet. So you closed your eyes again, letting yourself drift back into a dream with a deep sigh. 

When you woke up again, feeling ready to roll out of bed, you realized that you wouldn't be able to reach Joshua on his phone, since he had left it beside yours, much as if he had preemptively left it behind so he wouldn't have to worry about getting more calls, more messages.

Fighting your way out of the tucked bed sheets, you decided to get a shower to wash away the last slivers of drowsiness that still wanted to cling onto your body.

So you were returning to the bedroom, drying your hair absentmindedly while checking your phone when you heard Joshua return to the suite quietly, probably assuming that he would find you asleep.

But upon seeing you sitting at the foot of the bed, he paused for a second.

"Morning," you muttered dryly.

"Hi baby," he replied with a puffy sigh.

Joshua was covered in sweat, making his ashy blond hair stick to the sides of his face and forehead. He was breathing tiredly, tongue hanging in a gesture of exhaustion.

"Went for a run," he commented in passing, kicking his trainers off. "The weather is nice, it's really hot."

His arms arched back to grab at the hem of his sleeveless tee, yanking it off his body with one move to toss it. Your boyfriend continued to peel his sweaty clothes off, revealing his body as he tossed more clothes on the armchair in the corner of the room.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" you asked slowly as you watched him walk off to the bathroom.

"Have to meet up with a potential manager," he called loudly as he started a shower. "Apparently he's taken an interest in us from a while back. And he's here so I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet up."

You nodded, pursing your lips in contempt as he walked back to toss his boxers with the rest of his dirty clothes.

"I'd ask you to join me in the shower but," he nodded at you.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," you raised from the bed to remove the bathrobe and start dressing up.

If Joshua noticed you were in a bad mood then, he made no comment about it. He just turned around, closing the door of the bathroom to continue with his shower.

You decided to busy yourself, dressing up extra slowly, pulling out from your luggage a lingerie set that you brought in the hopes of it being complimented, and a beautiful summer dress in a color that accentuated your body prettily.

Your boyfriend came back shortly, the lower half of his body after draped in a towel, skin glistening wet now but all clean. His ashy blond hair was pulled back now, dripping onto his neck.

"We could do something tonight," he muttered with some caution as he removed the towel from his body and started to get ready for his appointment.

"Yeah, I'd like that," you pressed your lips into a smile, but even as you did so, you felt unconvincing.

You were suddenly torn with your own reproach at him for barely even spending time with you and at the same time, you couldn't believe that what it took for you to be distracted away from that state of scorn was seeing him naked.

However, Joshua knew what he was playing at, he had you completely figured out. He opened one door to the closet, grabbing the first pair of briefs he found, using his body's motion as he turned to sneak a look at you, finding your gaze trained on his body.

"You're not mad at me anymore?" he asked, a slow smirk curving his pillowy lips.

"I was not mad," you replied with a small voice, sitting back on the foot of the bed.

"Mm, okay," he nodded with his head once, putting on the stretchy boxers with a swift move.

Then one of his knees sank on the edge of the bed, leaning his body forward, motioning your body back on the mattress. A low grunt escaped you as he was now pinning you with his own weight, your pretty sundress being pulled back on your thighs by a large hand.

"You are terrible at lying," he mused with a half smile, the studded eyebrow twitching up briefly. "Even moreso, you're terrible at keeping promises."

You let out a muffle whine when Joshua pressed his hips against yours, making you feel his growing bulge on your core.

"What are you talking about," you muttered, torn between paying attention to what his body was doing and his accusatory words.

"You promised you would tell me everything," he said darkly, but leaned his head sideways to reach your neck with his mouth, muttering against your skin: "You're mad at me, I can tell."

"Am not," you replied, fidgeting under his weight, hands clutching at his bare and stocky shoulders.

"Try again," he chuckled, pressing his lips and tongue on the sweet spot below your earlobe, sucking in a love bite, having a flash of arousal cross your body straight to your core.

"Fuck," your legs tensed up when he started to suck on your skin harsher. "Gentle, Joshua."

"Answer the question," he immediately retorted, nudging his nose on your jawline to lean your head back, so he could run the tip of his tongue on neck, littering it with kisses.

It was hard to focus now. But with a low gasp, you replied. "You are bad at keeping promises too," you stated weakly.

A hand snaked on top of your chest, fingers raking on your skin as he yanked the side part of the sundress to prop another merciless lovebite in a collarbone.

"You-you told me you would make time for me," you stammered, feeling stupid over your sudden loss of boldness.

"And I did," he said sharply, moving his head to look you in the eyes. "Baby, I've cleared my schedule for us tonight."

You pouted briefly, bringing up a finger to caress his beautiful lips.

"Now you, on the other hand, haven't replied to my question," he muttered, his words partly muffled by the fingers on his lips. He shifted his weight, propping one elbow beside you so he could grab your hand.

You dared to roll your eyes hard at him, but that in turn made him smile broadly at you.

"You're still mad at me, but that doesn't stop you from eyefucking me," a wolfish grin appeared on his beautiful face. "Are you wet right now, baby?"

Joshua pressed his lips against the pads of your fingers as his eyes looked at you fondly, amused by your torn behavior. You nodded with your head in affirmation, unable to bring yourself to speak the words.

"You've been neglecting me a little," you whispered, shifting your gaze to his collarbones to avoid his.

"How does it feel, baby?" Joshua asked, releasing your hand to stroke the side of your head, gently threading his long fingers through your wet hair.

"Is this some kind of punishment, then?" you snapped, feeling something click inside your brain.

"No, of course not," he leaned his head closer, pressing his lips flush against yours, slowly at first, repeatedly as he said. "But you told me, you promised me you would talk to me. I have to search for ways for you to do it."

"I just haven't had the chance to, we've both been busy," you retorted with a pained smile, trying to hold his gaze.

"You don't have any issues telling Jeonghan stuff."

"That's hurtful, Joshua," you muttered with a tiny voice, shrinking under his weight.

"Am I lying?"

"Joshua, he is my friend, friends tell each other things, is that bad?" you were applying pressure on his shoulders now, trying to make him budge.

"And I am your boyfriend," he blinked, as equally offended as you. "It's also hurtful that you trust him more than me."

"Is this because I didn't tell you about the award?" you finally caught on. 

Maybe you didn't care about the award, maybe you did. But the truth was, you simply forgot about telling your boyfriend about it and in passing, Jeonghan mentioned it in front of Joshua, in a manner of congratulating you for the milestone. 

Joshua retreated his body, rising up from the bed with an irked air around him, you saw the features of his face harden and he turned away. It was clear to you now that he was jealous and you almost felt stupid for not realizing it sooner.

"No," he replied nonchalantly as he fetched a denim shirt from the closet, putting it on and as he buttoned it up, he rasped: "Yes."

You shrugged slowly. "I found out when I was on the phone with him," you explained, though the feeling of guilt started to set in.

"Still, you didn't mention it to me."

You scrunched up your face in shame and guilt. He was right. You found out about the award days ago, and you failed to tell him about it, all because of your stupid lack of focus lately.

"I'm sorry," you said as you sat up on the bed again, fixing your dress. "I should've said something."

Joshua turned to find his jeans, putting on the ripped black denim in one go. He kept pensively quiet as he slipped on his chelsea boots and rose to his feet.

"I'll call you when I get off," he said, stepping closer to the foot of the bed to cup the back of your head with one hand, leaning down to kiss your forehead.

"Joshua..." you started, trying to reach for his hand to stop him leaving abruptly.

"It's okay," his gaze softened before his lips captured your own with a light kiss. "I'm not mad. I just wished you'd talked to me."

"And I wish that you could actually make time for me," you whispered, feeling your heart race under the stress of fighting with him.

"I know," he replied in the same fashion as you. "I know baby, I don't enjoy this either... I'm sorry too."

You nodded with your head, choking up on words that you thought of telling him as you waited before he got back to the hotel room. With a frustrated sob, you reached to cup the back of his head too, bringing him closer for a deep kiss.

"I love you," you whispered.

"I love you too, baby. I'll meet you later," he replied, pressing one final kiss to your lips and then your forehead before slipping from your grasp and walking out the room, thus leaving you alone again.

For what could amount to years, you have been really good at taking yourself out to dates. It had been so long since you dated that you were accustomed to being on your own, and you found out that you liked it. You relished in solitude.

You made yourself a mini trip. First you went to grab yourself some breakfast in a lovely restaurant with an outdoors table set with a nice view to the ocean. Then, you walked down the streets, sightseeing in the pretty places, going inside the stores that looked appealing until you reached a museum.

It had been within your plans to maybe go there with Joshua for a little date. Perhaps even, go to the beach together. But you swiftly put those ideas aside, realizing that due to the time crunch he was in it was probable that you weren't meeting him until sundown.

So you were strolling around the different pieces of art on display, fanning yourself with the brochure you were given upon entering the place. The hair on the back of your neck was sticking to your skin due to the sweat that trickled down your head during your walk there.

"I should've known I'd find you here."

You instantly spun on your feet to look back. Jeonghan was closing the distance between you, hands deep in the pockets of his shorts. Despite the weather outside, he was wearing a beanie, probably to cover up his messy long hair.

"What are you doing here?" you inquired with a shaky tone from the surprise of seeing him there. Of all the places, this is one you didn't think you would meet.

"I like museums," he shrugged, but then added: "They make up for great instagram photos."

He pressed his lips in the tiniest of smiles when you rolled your eyes, smirking at him as he finally walked up to you.

"Are you alone?" he asked, looking around the large room. "Where is your boyfriend?"

You saw it in his eyes that he already knew, but nodded when you only muttered. "Working."

"Trouble in paradise, again?" he mused, tilting his head to one side, reading your facial features expertly.

"It's nothing," you averted your gaze from him and onto the display you had in front of you.

But the deep feeling of remorse parking on the pit of your stomach was eating you up. You hated that you felt guilty about telling Jeonghan stuff about your relationship, you hated the fact that Joshua had brought it up.

"I don't know if this will work, Jeonghan," you whispered despite the tears threatening to break you.

"This?"

When you could finally look back at him, there was a frown on his face, the soft lines between his eyebrows deepening as he tried to figure you out.

Then you saw it when he connected your words together, he released the tension on his brow.

"Oh, don't be silly," he tried to smile, to see if you replied with one of your own but when you didn't, and you couldn't stop your lip from quivering, he sighed. "You're only saying that because you're scared. Talk it out with him."

"But we don't actually see each other, and when we do, we don't... talk much," you muttered shamefully, driving your gaze elsewhere and resumed your walk around the gallery.

"What are you actually worried about, then?" he fell into step closely behind you. "From my point of view, you seem like you're only mad that you're not spending time together like you used to."

"But," you blurted, turning around to face him again, making him stop in his walk abruptly before bumping into you. "Sorry."

"Don't be," he whispered, but there was something in his mannerism that made you pause. "But...?"

"It's nothing."

You flicked your hair off your sweaty neck, to keep fanning yourself with the brochure.

Jeonghan's eyes followed your movements with his eyes, inevitably spotting the red hickey below your earlobe that your boyfriend made before leaving the hotel room and a hot wave of embarrassment washed over your face, making you drop your gaze to the ground.

"Tell you what," he muttered, seemingly unaffected by the very toxic display of possessiveness. "Let's go grab a beer and something to eat. Forget about all of this, maybe that's what you really need."

You gathered the strength to look at his face again. Jeonghan pressed his lips in a cute smile, making tiny dimples show on his chin.

"Yeah, okay, I'd like that," you decided with a nod of your head.

"Let's go," he cocked his head in the direction of the museum's entrance and started to walk.

You followed him in silence, feeling uneasy still by Jeonghan seeing your hickeys for some reason you couldn't explain.

Your fingers dragged a large fry on a puddle of ketchup on your plate, you were conscious that your stomach was full, but you were in a mood in which you preferred to keep eating instead of talking about your feelings.

"Are you ordering more?" Jeonghan eyed the lonely fry sitting on the plate, and then your face as you munched silently.

"I don't think I can eat more," you admitted with a slurred speech.

"Tsk," he clicked his tongue with an amused smile.

Jeonghan raised his wrist, pulling his sleeve to uncover his smartwatch.

"D'you think Joshua is still in that meeting?" he asked with some caution to the look he sent you.

It had been hours since your last interaction with your boyfriend, his last text five hours ago read that his impromptu meeting was extending and that it was too important for his band to just cut it short or postpone.

"I think that he forgot about me," you replied bitterly, lifting the large jar which was half full of beer. "And I don't care if he did, I don't wanna think about him."

Worry flashed across Jeonghan's face but he quickly composed himself to ask for the bill and then he turned to you.

"What?" you blurted.

"Do you know how to play pool?"

"Nope," you replied in the same manner.

"Come on, I'll teach you," he pulled out a bill that would cover both of your meals and stood from the booth.

"What, wait," you stammered before grabbing your things and following him out the restaurant.

"Careful," he muttered when you caught up with him, drunk enough that you nearly stumbled against his frame. His hands came to your arms behind you to help you stabilize.

"Thank you, Jeongjeong," you muttered with a chuckle. "And for the food too. Next one's on me, alright?"

The weather had dropped dramatically, the skirt of your pretty summer dress rippled against the breeze that swept down the street.

"Don't worry about it," he said, the hair that wasn't secured by his beanie ruffled against his neck.

"Oh," you uttered when your phone suddenly started buzzing in your handbag.

But just as you were about to see what it was, Jeonghan was tugging your arm with his hand, pulling you aside on the sidewalk before you stomped against a lightpost. You yelped and staggered against his frame, a drunken laugh erupting out of you.

"Watch where you're going, princess," he chuckled, grabbing your arms to keep you on your feet.

"Sorry, sorry," you mumbled, raising your chin to meet his gaze.

You realized with a start just how close his face was with yours, your breath hitched audibly and you pulled back from him.

"Don't be," he said and turned to the door behind him, which you realized was the entrance to a bar. "After you."

You breathed out in utter embarrassment, thinking of saying something to him, maybe cut the outing and leave to the hotel room.

But Jeonghan smiled cutely at you, cocking his head towards the door, motioning you inside.

You walked into the buzzing of the bar, instantly being swept by the dark mood of its interior. Exposed brick walls, checkered sticky floors, dimly lit tables, the distant sounds of the pool tables in the back of the place.

"Come," Jeonghan muttered on your side, and you followed him closely through the wooden chairs and tables until you reached the rows of pool tables and found one that was vacant for you two.

Jeonghan ordered two beers and paid in advance. Turning to you with a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Hope you brought cash," he smirked, holding a bill between his pointer and middle finger to you as he set it on the bartop mounted on the wall behind you.

"My wallet cries every time I'm with you," you joked, settling your bag on the bartop and pulling out a bill to stamp it on top of his.

"Don't act like you don't enjoy this," he grabbed one of the cue sticks and handed it to you. "Ladies first."

"Don't you think it's unfair to place bets when I don't know how to play?" you inquired, tilting your head to one side.

Jeonghan grabbed the recently brought beer bottles, handed you one and then he raised his to you. "I'll go easy on you."

You clinked the neck of your beer with his. "I'll take your word for it, Yoon Jeonghan."

Jeonghan tipped the bottle between his smiling lips, drinking in with you.

"But first," he mused, pointing at your face with the top of his bottle. "You need to answer your phone."

You blinked in surprise and turned to the bartop to find your phone buzzing and Joshua's picture being displayed on the screen.

"Oh," you scrambled to get your phone and pressed on the green button. "Yes?"

"Baby? Where are you?" Joshua replied immediately. "I've been trying to reach you."

"I'm sorry, Josh, I... am at a bar," you frowned at your own wording, but tried to get it out as sober as possible.

"At a bar?" he inquired and you could almost see the bewildered expression on his face as his voice sounded. "By yourself?"

"I am wi-with Jeonghan," you rubbed your fingers on the bridge of your nose so hard your eyes watered. "I can send you the location so you can come join us."

"I thought tonight was just going to be me and you," he muttered but you could tell in his tone that he wasn't angry, just confused.

"And I thought that you had cleared your schedule for me," you bit back, however, anger flaring in your body, accelerating your heartbeat.

"I'm sorry, baby," he muttered, his voice dropping into a low rasp. "I thought it would be a short meeting but we got into contracting and planning and time just flew out of my hands."

You rolled your eyes, which were stinging with tears. "I'll send you the location, okay."

"Okay," he whispered.

And then you hung up.

"Is he coming?" Jeonghan called as he removed the pool rack gathering the balls.

"Yeah," you replied as you sent your location into the chat you shared with your boyfriend.

"Nice," he smiled briefly. "Come here, I'll teach you the rules."

You grabbed your cue pick and walked around the pool table where your best friend stood, hands busy holding his beer and pick. Jeonghan took a sip from his beer bottle, smacking his lips as he swallowed happily.

"Pay attention," he advised before starting to tell you the rules to playing pool.

It was a fairly simple game, though you couldn't help but feel your mind slipping away, from thoughts pertaining to your boyfriend, to the way that Jeonghan drank from the beer bottle, back to your boyfriend, to the way that Jeonghan grabbed the cue pick–

"Okay?" Jeonghan asked, his brown eyes roaming on your face, noticing without much effort that you had spaced out through the whole thing.

"Okay," you nodded with your head, cheeks blazing hot in utter shame.

"Okay, then," he decided with a nod of his head. "You do the break, princess."

Your breath hitched as you placed the cue pick awkwardly, avoiding Jeonghan's gaze but once you did look at him, he was biting his lip to avoid smiling at your clumsiness.

"Okay, another thing," he said, setting aside his cue pic and beer bottle and shuffling towards you. Jeonghan bent over beside you, his hands grabbing yours to set it on the pool table. "This is how you place your hand, see?" he turned his head to look at you.

You weren't looking at his hands on yours, however. You were completely absorbed by how close his body was to yours, how on edge the warmth of his body seemed to be putting you in.

"Yeah," you whispered when his eyes dropped to find your mouth.

"You need to keep it firm so your stroke doesn't waver," he explained, but the tone of his voice had dropped. "Understood?"

"Understood," you replied.

"And your arm back here will do all the work," he said, his hand coming up to touch your elbow. "I don't want you moving other parts of your body, got it?"

"I got it."

"Okay, now. Go," he stood up straight to go around the table on the opposite side to yours, coughing loudly as he always did to clear his throat.

"Ok," you whispered to yourself, your lip tucked behind your front teeth in concentration as you pulled your hand holding the cue pick back and motioned it forward with a thrust.

The stroke wasn't as half-bad as you had expected it to be. You stood back and watched the balls break their formation and roam on the pool table.

"Nice," Jeonghan praised with a nod of his head, tipping the beer bottle on his mouth briefly. "You got one ball in a pocket here," he pointed with his cue pick to one corner of the pool table.

"Oh, did I?" you perked up. "Which is it?"

"Solid. So I go for the stripes," he said, pulling his sleeves up, thus revealing his watch on one wrist, and on the other, something you immediately spotted as something familiar.

"Hey! That's my scrunchie!" you jumped and ran to the other side of the table to where he stood. "Give it back!"

Jeonghan raised his wrist in the air, stepping back. "It was in my car," he said with a low chuckle of his.

"It's mine!" you squealed, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Founders keepers, princess," he said in a mocking tone. "It's mine now."

"Jeonghan!" you jumped to reach his wrist, but he simply just stepped back.

"Back off," he muttered with a grin, and then he casted a look above your head. "Ah, Joshuji, you're here!"

Your breath caught in your throat and you twirled on your feet, Joshua walked through the rows of occupied tables, his frame obscured by the lack of lighting as opposed to the very bright lamp on top of the pool table you were standing by.

But upon seeing him, you couldn't help but feel your face being taken over by a big smile. You could tell that seeing you smiling at him had an effect on him, he replied with a smile on his own, leaning down to press his lips against yours. "Hi handsome," you mused.

"Hi beautiful," he replied warmly and turned to greet his best friend.

"We were just starting," Jeonghan said. "I'll go grab you a beer, hold on."

And without any preamble, he left straight to the bar, thus leaving you alone with your boyfriend. So you reluctantly moved your gaze to meet his, finding an apologetic expression on his face.

"Baby, I–,"

"How was your meeting?" you asked in a sweet tone, cutting off the sentence you knew he would say.

Joshua blinked. "Fine, it was fine," he frowned slightly. "We have a new manager."

"That's great!" you smiled at him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm glad. I'm also glad you're here."

"You're not mad at me?" he inquired, seemingly thrown off by your attitude.

You sighed in resignation. "I'm not mad," you decided. "I just want us to have some fun tonight, okay?"

"Okay," he replied, pressing his lips into a tight smile. "Thank you, baby."

"Don't mention it," you stood on your tiptoes to reach his lips, giving him a brief kiss.

Jeonghan came back, offering Joshua a new bottle of beer. “Thanks, man,” Joshua smiled at him and then turned to you. “I didn’t know you liked to play.”

“This is my first time,” you grinned. “Jeongjeong was just teaching me how to play.”

“Wanna team up with her?” Jeonghan asked Joshua, a devious smile appearing on his lips. “Price of entry is five.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense,” you interjected, acting scandalized. “If he’s with me we count as one person.” 

“Fair enough,” Jeonghan shrugged. “You should know Joshua is terrible at this, by the way.”

You turned to look at your boyfriend, who just rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, baby,” he said, placing a hand on your lower back as he looked at the pool table. “What are you?” 

“Stripes,” you mumbled. 

“Solid,” Jeonghan corrected. 

Joshua giggled, tipping his head back. “Oh, baby. You should stop betting against this guy.”

“It’s fun,” you shrugged, watching Jeonghan lean down on the table, his eyes set on his game as he calculated the direction, pointing the cue stick with a firm hand on the green surface of the table. 

And with a hard thrust, the point of the cue stick hit the white ball, sending two stripe balls to the edge of the table, one falling into a pocket. 

“Nice,” Jeonghan hissed with a satisfied smile, looking at the ball that almost made it to a pocket, thus possibly securing an easy game. 

“My turn,” you mumbled with a sigh, feeling shy now that you were being watched by your boyfriend. 

You analyzed the balls spread around on the table for a second. 

“Remember, the striped ones are mine,” Jeonghan said with a slight amusement to his tone. 

“I know!” you replied. 

So you bent over the table, taking your time to be certain that your hand was placed correctly on the table and the other secured the cue stick with firmness before you thrusted your arm forth, sending the white ball towards your target ball. 

“Oof, close, princess!” Jeonghan watched and his body swayed to the side as he put one arm around his cue and hugged it.

“Umn,” you pouted and looked over your shoulder to find Joshua. He was leaning back against the bar top, looking over you with a small smile on his beautiful face. 

“Want help?” he offered, pushing his body off the bar top and stepping closely behind you. 

“Yeah,” you breathed out some of your embarrassment. “I’m terrible at this.” 

“You’re learning, baby,” he offered you a kind smile. “Nobody is good at this at first try.”

"I was," Jeonghan protested, bent over the table, and smashed the end of his cue against the white ball, pushing the ball that was already on the edge. 

"No, you weren't," Joshua bit back at him, shaking his head, a hint of annoyance in his tone. But his gaze softened when he found your face again. "You need to add more impulse to your stroke, moving your hip forward."

You nodded slowly before bending over on the pool table, gripping your cue firmly on one hand and setting the end on the other. Joshua's hands came to aid the position of your body, the touch on your body sent a shot of arousal through your body, as though a bolt of lightning.

 Joshua leaned over on your side, his body really close to yours, his hands shifting your body. "When you move the cue to hit, make sure you put some weight on this side," he said, his hand clenching your hip over your pretty dress and moving it forward slightly. "Keep your aiming arm firm and your elbow straight, okay?" 

"Okay," you whispered, looking at his rosy and puffy lips.

Joshua noticed immediately, the shadow of a smile twitching on his lips before pulling his body back. "Go."

You wished you could say what happened in that moment, but it definitely aroused something deeply taunting within you. Bending over the pool table, you felt two sets of eyes on you.

Jeonghan stood at the other end of the table, his eyes trained on you. And you suddenly realized that his eyes were not on the game. He was looking at you. 

Casting a look over your shoulder. Joshua was also looking at you, his ashy blond head tilted to one side, his dark beautiful eyes wandering over your body, stopping to read your face, understanding what he saw in your warm cheeks, in your flustered face. 

A slow, knowing smile stretched on his lips. "Eyes on the table," he muttered before the moment stretched any longer. 

The game ended a moment later with Jeonghan collecting your money, a sly grin as he said: "We should do this again sometime." 

Despite having lost against him, you nodded. "I'd like that." 

You had enjoyed some part of playing pool, that being the times where you actually hit the balls into pockets and not when you were being sorely and evidently distracted by your boyfriend's hands and lips. 

Joshua laced his fingers with yours as you walked back to the hotel room together. Jeonghan was drawing from his vape pen deeply, going on for what felt like half a minute and letting out the puffy flavored air in your face. 

"Jeonghan!" you pushed his shoulder, making him cackle. 

"Well, tonight was fun," Jeonghan said as he stepped out of the elevator on his floor. "Have a nice night."

"You too, Hannie," Joshua said, encircling his arms behind you to press your body flush to his front as the elevator doors closed and you were alone. 

"Josh…" you carefully called when he pressed his lips on your shoulder over your dress, moving up to kiss the crook of your neck, and then under your earlobe. 

"Mmn?" he muttered, tightening his grip around you.

You bit your lower lip hard as you considered how to word out your next question. 

"Do you…" you asked but then he planted an open kiss on the red hickey on the curve of your neck, making you jump slightly and blurt out: "Have you ever had a threesome?" 

Joshua paused his kisses, he removed his arms from around your waist and made you turn to him. "Why?" he asked, his brow furrowing in intrigue. 

"Answer the question." 

The elevator arrived to the floor and you were left with the question in the air as your boyfriend practically dragged you into the hotel room, swiftly closing the door behind you. Joshua Hong had you figured out when he turned to you, taking to steps so that he was looking at your face, reading your reaction as he said:

"What are you suggesting, baby?" 

"Nothing," you breathed but a tiny smile betrayed you. 

"Tell me," he insisted, his voice dropping to a gentle mumble.

"I… was just thinking that," you started, but you realized that you didn't plan your words this far. So in a string of fast stammers you blurted: "You know, you've told me that you would accept to do it if I wanted to do it and I want to. Do it."

Joshua smiled, it was a downturned smile. "Do you want to have a threesome, bunny?" he mumbled, raising a hand to brush the back of his fingers down your cheek. 

"Yeah," you whispered, shuddering slightly when his fingers tangled on your hair on the back of your hair. You felt the hard muscle of his chiseled chest as you rubbed your hands up and down his torso. 

"What made you want it so suddenly?" he mused, but he knew you. He got you figured out the minute you posed the question. "Bending over the pool table got you horny? You saw how we were looking at you and you liked it. Is that right, baby?"

"Mm-huh," you breathed as his lips grazed yours with a feathery kiss. "I-it got me thinking."

"Oh, you insatiable little thing," he said, sighing a smile. "Do you want me to ask Jeonghan? Do you want him in bed with us?"

The question was so brutally crude that it had your breath catching on your throat, quite loudly. "Yeah," you breathed. "I… want you both to take turns with me." 

"Mmnn," he hummed as he kissed your lips repeatedly and you wished you could see his face, to get in insight as to what he was pondering between kisses.

But he just bent down, lifting you from the ground with his strong arms holding your legs to prop you on the bathroom marble sink with a low squeal in surprise from your part. Joshua's hands cradled the back of your head, fingers tangling on your hair as he pulled on it, making you angle your head back and give him access to kiss your neck.

Joshua moaned when your hands roamed all over his body, circling his shoulders and then to his back, feeling over his shirt the lines between the muscles of his toned back until you reached the hem of his black denim jeans. A smile breaking on his lips as he pressed kisses on your face when you dipped your hands beneath his clothes to feel his round butt. 

"What else?" he muttered breathily on your neck. "What do you want, baby?" 

A moan coiled in your throat when his lips reached your throat, and you were almost amazed that your boyfriend appeared to be considering your crazy proposition.  "I want you to watch him fuck me," you blurted breathily. "I want you both inside me too."

Joshua sighed and you knew he was smiling on your neck. "Baby, are you serious?" he asked, pulling his head back to read your face.

There was a fascinated glint in his eyes, the small smile crowning his lips, Joshua was amused. "Yeah, I'm serious," you smiled with embarrassment. "I want this."

Your boyfriend considered your words for a brief moment, but to you it felt like forever. Your heartbeat strummed hard against your chest as he leaned over, pressing a kiss on your cheek. "Do you remember how to prep yourself, baby?" he asked, his voice barely above a mutter.

Your hands were still holding onto his shoulders, fists clenching on the fabric of his denim shirt when you understood what those words meant. "Yeah," you replied after swallowing hard.

Joshua pulled away from your neck, his lips traveling to your cheek, pressing tender kisses. "I'll talk to him, meanwhile you go get cleaned up," he said, breath fanning against your ear, making you shudder slightly.

"Okay," you nodded, turning your face to press your lips against his own.

Your boyfriend paused, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as his big brown eyes scanned your face. "Are you nervous?" he asked, his voice still strained and you, when you nodded with your head, understood that he was nervous too.

"I am," you admitted with a small giggle that made Joshua show you a smile, crushing your heart over the beauty of his face. You encircled your arms around his neck. "But I want to do this."

"I know," he replied, the studded eyebrow twitching up. "Don't think I've forgotten about the filthy porn you wrote in your book."

Joshua's smile only widened when your laugh echoed on the tiled walls of the bathroom. "Shuddup," you gasped embarrassedly

"If it makes you feel better, I'm nervous too," he admitted, his gaze softening and the smile reducing into a mere small curve of his pretty lips.

"Why? You've done this before," you frowned in confusion.

His hand cupped your chin, looking at you with so much love in his eyes that you felt your heart quiver. "Yeah, but this is the first time it's with someone I love," he confessed, the weight of his words so heavy that his voice was merely a whisper.

"Do you want to do this, Joshua?" you asked, reading the features of his face to pick up any signs of reluctance. "If you don't want to do this, it's okay, baby. I won't mind."

"I do. I want to do this," he replied not a second later. "It's just that... this is new to me too."

You could've sworn that the love and adoration blooming in your heart showed in your face, his dark eyes lit up and the corners of his mouth twitched up slightly.

"What?" he asked.

"You're cute," you giggled, pressing your forehead against his. "And I love you so much."

The tiniest of groans left his mouth before you met his lips with yours. "I love you too, baby," he replied with a smile that you felt in your mouth. "So much."

With a brief open kiss, he peeled his body off of yours and turned to start the shower for you. He flashed you a smile and pressed his lips to yours before heading out of the bathroom, leaving you in privacy to get on with preparing yourself.

You threw a quick glance around as you came back to the bedroom, your body wrapped in a hotel bathrobe. You were deciding on what to wear as you heard the click to the door, your stomach dropped and you twisted to see that it was only Joshua coming in.

"You startled me," you breathed out with a sheepish smile as you watched him walk to you.

"Sorry, baby," he pressed his lips in a smile before grabbing you, wrapping an arm around your waist. "Jeonghan will be joining us shortly."

"Oh," you sighed, your body suddenly burning with anticipation.

"Are you ready?" he looked at your body, and smiled upon seeing the bathrobe. "I thought you'd be wearing something else."

"I just came out of the shower," you mumbled awkwardly. "I honestly don't know what to wear."

"Wear nothing," he showed you a downturned smile but when he saw your expression again he shrugged. "Wear something comfortable. I will."

Joshua turned away to get undressed himself, sending you meaningful glances when you discarded the bathrobe, the corners of his beautiful lips curving slightly as he watched you rummage in your bag for clean panties to wear.

"What did you tell him?" you inquired as you gathered what you wanted to wear for the occasion.

"Just that we wanted to have a threesome, and that I told you that he would be up for it," he replied, still looking at you with half-lidded eyes. "I'll text him when you're ready."

"I need to know how the conversation happened," you said with a shaky tone, and you smiled embarrassedly at your own jumpiness.

"I told him just that, baby," he chuckled, his eyes turning into half moons.

"Did you tell him about..." you looked upwards in embarrassment. "About what I want?"

"That," he started, sending you a look with a smirk. "Is something I'll leave to you."

"Josh!" you squealed, and he giggled sweetly. "I thought you would tell him!"

"I think that is something that you should tell him, baby. There's nothing wrong with voicing out your wants and needs," he said with the most natural air about him.

You groaned in frustration, only making him giggle again.

"Baby, Jeonghan and I have done this before," he explained with seriousness now. "You don't have to worry, he'll probably accept whatever you want us to do."

"Mmph," you stood there, clothes folded in your arms as you kept your thoughts to yourself.

"Ready, bunny?" he asked, driving you away from your train of thought. He had lost his black denim jeans and the shirt, now wearing a black tank top and gray shorts.

In his hand, you saw that he had brought out from his luggage two things, the training plugs that he got for you and a bottle of lube, you nodded.

"Yeah," you breathed out, placing your clothes at the foot of the bed. "How do you want me?" you asked, overly conscious of how lewd you sounded.

"Sit on the bed first," he instructed, biting his lower lip, a darkened gaze roaming all over you as you sat in front of him. A hand came to cup your chin, his long fingers grazing your jawline. "Come here," he whispered before he leaned down to kiss you, his wet lips capturing your own with a low grunt from him.

You raised your arms to encircle his neck, your fingers reaching his ashy blond hair as you kissed him back. "You're so hot," you whispered.

Joshua hummed in your lips, and you felt how the corners lifted in a smile. "Ditto," he said with a low grunt as he kissed you again. "So fucking hot, everyone had their eyes on you."

"Oh, don't lie," you chuckled.

"I'm serious," he mumbled, the tip of his tongue sliding on top of your lower lip. "That dress you wore tonight..."

"What about it?" you breathed as his lips continued to press on yours, his hands coming down to sink in the duvet, leaning forward so that you could lie down, his body hovering on top of yours.

"It was... you looked so hot in it," he replied almost aloofly, kissing your chin, then trailing down to your neck until he reached your breasts. "You sexy little thing, you don't know the effect you have on people. On me."

That made you laugh, the sweet sound making him raise his eyes to meet yours.

"It's just a dress," you mumbled meekly. "But I can wear it again some time, just for you."

Joshua smirked before leaning closer to wrap his lips around your nipple, teasing it with his tongue. "I'd love that, baby," he replied.

A moan coiled in your throat when he moved his mouth to tease your other nipple. It was short-lived though, sitting back on his knees, he patted you with his hand.

"Turn over, bunny," he instructed.

You rolled over, feeling the bed shift at your sides. You lifted your head to find him leaning over to prop a kiss in your shoulder blade, knowing how sensitive you were in that area.

"Remember how to do this?" he whispered, his lips trailing on the line of your back, making you squirm slightly.

"Ye-yeah I do," you stammered, fist clenching on the white duvet.

"Ass up, baby," he patted one of your buttcheeks with his hand and you immediately pushed yourself onto your knees, elbows flatly on the bed.

"Good girl."

You licked your lips before sinking your teeth down on your lower, focusing on relaxing. The noise behind you was distracting, turning your head to see what it was you saw him spreading lube on his fingers.

He sent you a look as he rubbed his fingers together briefly, setting the bottle aside to plant his hand on your lower back. The pads of his lubed fingers pushed on your hole, and you immediately turned your face on the duvet.

"You're okay?" he asked upon seeing your reaction.

"Keep going," you muttered, closing your eyes to focus on his fingers pushing on you, spreading them open ever so slightly, making you moan deliriously. It was kind of insane to you that you could get aroused with so little.

"So wet," he whispered, probably seeing your juices gathering in your pussy. His fingers spread a little more, causing your body to contort and a little more when the hard tip of the plug pushed in your hole. "How does it feel?"

"Alright," you replied, flinching dramatically when Joshua pushed the butt plug more, toying with it inside you.

He laughed breathily and patted you again. "That's my baby," he murmured. "Get ready, I'm telling Jeonghan to come over."

As you turned to fetch your panties, reality seemed to sink in: you were about to do something you haven't done before. And you were about to do it with your boyfriend and your best friend.

Joshua paced around the bedroom as he typed on his phone. You laid back on the pillows, deciding it was best to calm your jumpiness if you relaxed on the bed.

You had decided to wear one of his wide t-shirts, which was proving to be very comfortable pyjamas, and tried your best to calm your frantic heartbeat.

"He's here," Joshua said a moment later, walking over to open the door.

You sank down on the pillows, watching your boyfriend pace back to the bed, sitting down beside you to plan a kiss in your brow, probably seeing that you were still nervous about this.

Jeonghan walked into your view shortly after, hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie, almost as if he was carrying himself with a heaviness that only allowed him to move slowly, cautiously.

Oh, god. What do you say in situations like this? You wondered. What is Jeonghan thinking? Is he wondering, like you, how wildly your night changed for all of you?

"I'm here," he muttered, shrugging slightly.

Jeonghan was wary. You noticed that with a drop to your stomach. He was probably nervous about how your friendship would look like after this, just as you were.

So you sat on the bed slowly and crawled over to the foot of the king size bed, eyes set on the man that you had learned to confide in and trust. He was standing before the bed, frozen, mind reeling—you saw it in his eyes when you stood on your knees and his heavy gaze set on yours.

"Jeonghan," you called his name softly. "There's this... thing, a fantasy of sorts that I've been wanting to try out, and... there is no one else I'd rather try it out but you."

Confusion crossed his features ever so slightly, furrowing his brow, but his eyes never deterred from yours.

"Do you want to do this?" you mumbled to him. "You can walk away right now, and it'll be okay."

His lower lip parted a little and then his gaze shifted, eyes darkening. You got to know each other so well that you could see that he had his mind resolved in that moment. And it almost robbed the air out of your lungs to know with certainty—Yoon Jeonghan wanted you.

Jeonghan didn't ask for permission from the man behind you, and neither did you. A hand snaked to your waist, at the same time you pulled him by the collar of his hoodie, bringing him closer, his sweet eyes capturing yours, then your lips, then back to your eyes.

There was nothing to be said, just the exchange of glances before his lips touched yours. You held in a breath, tasting his in the process, just before his lips locked yours in the slowest, tenderest kiss.

His tongue caressed your lower lip slowly, pushing past it and played with your tongue briefly, your wet lips making a soft smacking sound when your friend pulled away.

In that moment, something clicked in your brain. Jeonghan had been burning to do this. He'd been burning to get a taste, a touch, to scratch the itch off his brain.

And you did too.

"Do you have a safeword, princess?" Jeonghan muttered in your mouth.

Your entire body became alight with anticipation and you breathed out your safeword.

"Before we do this," Jeonghan muttered, now sending a look to your boyfriend. "Is there anything I should know?"

You turned your gaze to Joshua, who was still lying in the same position. It made your stomach clench that he seemed almost unfazed, amused and... turned on.

"Like what?" Joshua asked, his studded eyebrow twitched. "We're both tested and clean, if that's what you're referring to."

His eyes locked on yours. "Is there anything off limits?"

You took a moment to breathe in, experiencing a very intense feeling of déjà vu. "Nothing is off limits, Jeonghan," you mumbled, using the hand still gripping his hoodie to bring him closer.

The last thing you saw was his half smile as you clashed your mouth against his, feeling his soft lips again, the warmth of his tongue on yours, making you moan in his mouth desperately needy. A burning wave rushed from your knees to your face, embarrassment coursing through you as you were now vulnerable at the eyes of your best friend.

But Jeonghan's hands slid beneath your oversized t-shirt and got to business without skipping a beat, almost as if he were in a rush or under time to get you under his touch.

With his thin fingers he caressed the line of your back, bundling up the t-shirt up to your armpits. You broke away from his lips to give him ample space to get rid of the oversized t-shirt, uncovering your bare breasts to his full view.

"Are you just gonna watch?"

Jeonghan blurted out the words without tearing his eyes from your body, much as if he were unable to, or as if he didn't want to look at your boyfriend.

"For now, yeah," Joshua emphasized.

"Why?" Jeonghan mumbled as his lips returned to your own, kissing you deeply this time. A hand came up to your side, tracing lines between your ribs with the pads of his fingers, making you squirm a little.

"I want princess to know what she's up for first," Joshua said with a slight tinge of amusement to his tone.

Jeonghan groaned when your hands slid under his hoodie, discovering that he wore nothing beneath it with a satisfied moan of your own.

Your fingers felt the muscles of his abdomen twitch upon your touch. And relishing at your discovery, your hands traveled from his tummy and up his chest, fingertips dancing on his soft skin.

His hands flew to seize your own and pulled back his head. "Umn, you're touchy," he grunted. "Tsk, we can't have that, princess."

You heard a soft sigh behind you. And you didn't need to look to know your boyfriend was smiling, probably enjoying the show of you discovering that your boyfriend's best friend is just as dominant as himself.

You tried to free your wrists from his grasp, but he didn't budge. Jeonghan bit his lower lip, a weak attempt to mask the smile that crept on his face.

"I want to see you, Hannie," you mumbled sheepishly. "It's only fair, right?"

Jeonghan pulled your hands out of his hoodie, shaking you a little when he used the control he had over you when he pulled you to his chest, planting a hard kiss on your mouth.

"Get on the table," he murmured in your mouth.

You gulped your nervousness down and nodded.

Climbing down from the high bed and walking over to the small table that served as a desk and turning to first sit your butt down and propped yourself up using your hands for support.

Now, you had a fuller view of the two men staring at you. Your eyes fell on Joshua first, he had moved to the armchair in one corner of the room beside the bed. Presumably to get a better view of what your best friend would do now.

"Baby, why don't you tell him about your fantasy?" he asked, noticing your eyes on him with a lazy smile at you.

"Lie down," Jeonghan commanded quietly, but waiting for you to start talking about the fantasy that has brought you this far.

You leaned back on the wooden table of the hotel room, only big enough to support half of your body so you instinctively pushed your knees back, planting the soles of your feet on it too.

A shudder crossed your spine when his lithe fingers tugged at the band of your panties and pulled them down your thighs. You extended your legs out for him to slide your panties down, tossing them to the floor.

"Move your legs up, baby," he said softly, grabbing you by the knees and pushing them up so the soles of your feet were flat against the desk, legs parted for him.

This way Jeonghan could have a view of your body. And you realized by then that he wanted you the farthest he could get you from Joshua.

"What's this fantasy about?" he inquired softly, as he continued to busy himself, propping down his arms at your sides, hovering over you as he leaned down to litter your skin with feathery kisses.

You ran a hand on his scalp, pulling his long dark hair back. "I want you to fuck me, Jeonghan," you stated boldly at your best friend. "I want you and Joshua to take turns with me, use me."

Jeonghan had the exact reaction you thought he would. At first he looked at you in complete bewilderment, his big brown eyes reading the honesty in the features of your face. And then, as you had expected, his eyes lit up dauntingly, smiling slightly at you.

"Is there anything in particular you want to do?" he asked, though you felt like whatever you asked of him, he'd do it but he would want to do so much more.

The truth is, you just wanted him. You wanted to feel him, to taste him, to hear him share this with you. Nothing more.

"Just do whatever you want to me, Jeongjeong," you mewled sweetly, your hand sliding from his nape and onto his cheek.

He appeared to be enjoying your touch for a second, before he grabbed your hand and placed it back on the table, his fingers encircling your wrist as he leaned down to drop kisses on your lips.

"Anything, baby?" he whispered as his lips littered your jawline, neck and collarbones with kisses.

You thought about it for a second, you thought about how comfortable he spilled that pet name for you in front of your boyfriend. "Of course. Whatever you want."

"Okay," he replied in a hollow tone, his mouth reaching your chest, his fingers moving from your wrist, pressing the palm of his hand against yours, slowly interlacing his fingers with yours as his mouth wrapped around one of your nipples.

"God, Hannie..." you instantly mewled, his tongue pressed on your pebbled nipple, moving back his lips, suckling the nub, humming along his teasing before he moved to your other breast.

His tongue pressed on the center of your boob, circling around your nipple, leaving a tingling trail of drool as he darted a look up at you.

"Th-that feels good," you muttered, using the hand that wasn't held by his own to caress his hair.

"Will you do anything I want?" he asked abruptly, throwing a glance at you, your eyes met and you found a fiery need upon them, making your stomach clench nervously.

"O-of course, Jeonghan," you replied, your voice quivering a little.

His pretty lips stretched in a sweet smile. "I knew you'd be a good girl."

Your whole body burned, limbs tingling in arousal and anticipation as you understood that your best friend was just as dominating in bed as your boyfriend.

"Do you think about me much, Jeonghan?" you ventured to ask, daring to bat your eyelashes at him.

"You have no idea," he whispered, the confession robbing him of voice it seemed, his eyes roaming on the features of your face, absorbing your reaction with the ghost of a smile.

The shudder that shook you had you blinking rapidly and uncontrollably for a second, it elicited the tiniest of groans from you, from the exhilaration, the fascination over this.

"What do you think about?" you asked, your voice sounded sweet, almost distant as he leaned down, pressing his lips on yours slowly.

"I thought of you," he breathed, you realized he was smiling then his lips pressed on yours again. "Of doing this, kissing you."

"Just kissing me, Hannie?" you pressed, feeling your heart almost leap out of your chest from how bold you sounded.

You wondered if Joshua was able to hear this, to hear the way your voice dropped, to hear you let out a mewling sound as Jeonghan's hand came up to grab your face by your jawline and move you slightly so that he could litter kisses on the underside of your jaw.

Jeonghan shook his head, "No," he mouthed, licking his lips thoughtfully and he backed off, just so he could take a view of your body on the small table.

His hand left your jaw, the pads of his fingers trailed down your collarbones, raking your skin between your breasts, making you squirm over the tingling sensation.

"You are so beautiful," Jeonghan said quietly, almost as if he didn't intend for you to hear.

The hand finally parked on the middle of your tummy, a fingertip slightly dipping in your belly button, sending a delirious shiver throughout your body. The expression on his face was of fascination, you assumed, from seeing you naked for the first time, from having his hands on you like this.

"Thank you, Hannie," you gave him a sheepish smile, aching to sneak a look to the corner of the room, where you knew you would find the man watching this whole exchange.

Jeonghan released the hand that he had laced with his to keep you from touching him. "Stay still, princess," he commanded, though his sweet voice made it seem like it was mere advice.

You sucked in a breath, immediately rendered immobile when the hand that was on your tummy moved further down, caressing your skin in the process of falling down between your parted thighs.

His eyes darted to yours when his pointer finger swiped a line from the top of your mound, then down between your pussy lips, slowly feeling your soft folds covered in your arousal already.

"Hannie..." you sighed when his middle finger joined, both fingers dipping in your entrance to get your wetness in his fingertips, his eyes locking on yours.

"Try not to move, baby," he responded when you winced quite dramatically on the table as his slick covered fingers found your clit, pressing it before starting to trace circles around it.

Jeonghan leaned over you, you tasted his breath before he kissed you again, his lips moving tenderly in between yours, the tip of his tongue sliding inside your mouth meeting your own.

The kiss was so gentle that you had to force the rapid beating of your body to focus on the prickling sensation on the skin surrounding your mouth, down to your neck. Reaching out instinctively, you felt his fluffy long hair.

But that made him stop, detaching his mouth from yours but not far enough, so you felt his lips move: "No touching, princess," he whispered.

"Would you like to tie me up?" you suggested, feeling brazen enough with your best friend.

"I won't need to," he said, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face. "Because you're a good girl, aren't you? You're going to do as I say."

The sound of his words sent you into a mad desire to prove him right. You nodded, swallowing hard as the movement of his fingers on your clit switched, pinching the already swollen bud, making you moan as the swirling of his fingers trapping your clit became faster.

Your arms fell languidly on the table at your sides, letting yourself close your eyes, sinking into sweet pleasure, his lips returned to your own, placing featherlight kisses on the bottom lip.

"There we go, baby. Relax," Jeonghan whispered. "Focus on what you're feeling. Focus on me."

At that his lips left yours and you didn't dare to open your eyes again. Instead you felt them again on the spot below your earlobe, his kiss featherlight, moving down your neck, leaving a trail of a tingling sensation that made you squirm.

"Do you like that?" he asked with his soft voice, his mouth so close to your neck that you could hear his breathing.

"Yes, Hannie," you replied with a tiny voice.

The tips of his fingers slid down from your clit, leaving it swollen and aching for more contact, but soon you moaned when his pointer and middle fingers slid inside you to his knuckles.

You squeezed your eyelids when he retreated his hand a bit, and you felt the drag of his knuckles inside your gummy walls to then slide his fingers back inside, repeating the same motion over and over, creating a squelching sound of your sopping cunt against the palm of his hand.

The sound of your breath catching in your throat made you feel even more embarrassed over the wet sounds coming from your pussy. But you still itched to grab his face, or to hold onto his shoulders.

So you did just that, not caring about trying to be good for him anymore. You needed to feel him. Slipping the palms of your hands on his shoulders, hating the fact that he was still completely dressed. As though his plan were to fuck you with his fingers and then just leave.

"Can I take this off for you?" you asked with a meek tone, knowing that you were stepping over one of his no touching rules.

He looked at you with a glint of mischief in his eyes, but nodded with his head. "Go ahead," he whispered.

You eagerly grabbed the oversized hoodie by the sides, making him remove his hand from your pussy, helping you pull the piece of clothing over his head to reveal his creamy white skin.

And then, his movement was faster than you could even grasp, his hands were seizing your wrists, encircling them perfectly with his left hand and pulling them over your head on the table.

"No touching, princess."

You let out a sharp exhale. "But–," you started, but then you had to bite your tongue when you understood; he gave you a piece of his clothing for you to obey one of his commands.

"But...?" he mused, his eyebrows pushing up slightly.

"Nothing," you mumbled, relaxing your arms, framing your head on the table.

"Pull your knees up," he instructed, nodding his head at your legs as you drew your knees in, thighs open for him as he continued to fuck you with his fingers, deeper this time thanks to the new position you were in.

"Fuck," you blurted when you felt his fingers press on your front walls, exploring every inch of you with the pads of his fingers, his eyes trained on your face, capturing your reactions.

"You sound so pretty," he said entrancingly, getting lost in the faces and the sounds you made.

"Right there, Hannie," you mewled when his fingers curved inside you, pressing on a very sensitive spot in your front walls that had you seeing colors behind your eyelids.

You instinctively clenched your fingers into fists, unable to move under his grasp. Jeonghan chuckled softly when you writhed on the table.

"If I let your hands go, will you continue being good?" he asked and you blinked to find him inches away from your face.

"Yeah," you gulped, feeling obfuscated about the no touching rule, somehow being reminded of the familiarity that it carried.

His hand released your wrists, but it was quick to find your cheek to hold for him to press his lips against yours. "I want you to come on my fingers first," he said into your mouth.

The words elicited a violent shudder from you, angling your hips for his hand to fuck your cunt harder, being met with more kisses and a almost inaudible, "Good girl," from his end.

"Hannie..." you sighed, shutting your eyes when the thrusts of his fingers inside you gained force and speed, his fingers teasing that glorious spot he found after exploring your walls, the squelching sounds becoming louder. "Please, please, please."

You were reduced to mere lewd sounds, trembling on the table as the sweet pleasure inside you built up. Eyes shut so you only felt his hot mouth travel from yours and kiss the swell of your breasts, capturing one of your nipples, teasing it with his tongue as your moans only egged him on.

"Hannie," you called, hands clutching at the ends of the small table, unable to move anymore. "I'm there, god. Hannie..."

With a strangled sob, you sank into waves of pleasure, your orgasm flooded your body, sizzling under your skin and making you let out a whining moan. You felt your body be overpowered by soft spasms, your walls clamping around his fingers, as well as the plug in your hole.

"Fuck," you heard Jeonghan whisper as your walls squeeze his fingers tightly, but then he said in a louder tone: "Good girl."

You flinched slightly when his lips returned to yours, grazing softly before kissing you heatedly.

"Felt good, princess?"

"Yeah," you breathed out with a smirk. "I needed that."

The statement made you snap your eyes open, stomach twisting violently, leaving you cold on the table for a fraction of a second.

Jeonghan read you well, his head inclined to one side slightly. "Mmn, someone has been neglecting you a lot lately, isn't that right?"

You saw his lips move as he spoke those words openly, only worsening the chilling shudder.

You didn't dare to look at Joshua. You couldn't.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to give you more, baby?" Jeonghan asked, which in his tone sounded more like a soothing purr.

"Please?" you breathed shamefully.

Your eyelids fluttered with a shudder when he pulled his fingers out of your sopping pussy and without skipping a beat he took them into his mouth, licking your arousal off with a low grunt.

"Stay still," he whispered his next command, lowering himself onto his knees, his face at the perfect height to lean his mouth close to your inner thighs, propping kisses, not giving you much preamble before he pressed his tongue between your pussy lips.

"God!" you gasped.

A low chuckle made you turn your gaze to the corner of the room. There Joshua sat on the armchair, leaning his head on a fist as he watched you trying not to move, thighs wide open as his best friend ate you out.

Slowly, you propped yourself onto your elbows, keeping your eyes trained on your boyfriend, understanding on the features of his face that he was aroused by this but you wanted to know more, you wanted to taunt him, to elicit a bigger reaction from him.

Something about his lust-lidded eyes, the dark look he kept on you as he leaned his head on his fist, taking a deep breath which you recognized instantly as one of his methods to resist his own pleasure.

Running a hand on Jeonghan's head, threading your fingers through his fluffy dark hair to elicit a low grunt, sending a brief vibrating feeling between your pussy lips. You caressed his long hair as he sloppily ran his tongue across your folds, figuring you out, tasting you, exploring you fully.

The big and generous strokes of his tongue stopped, his eyes lifting to find yours as he moved his tongue, the pointed tip circling your clit slowly, watching your expression as your mouth parted and you let out a sharp breath.

"Hannie..." you mewled when the swirling of his tongue shifted into figure eight motions around your clit, gaining some speed as he kept his eyes on your face.

He groaned when your grip on his hair tightened in response to the pleasure blooming inside you again. No touching, he appeared to be telling you as his hand grabbed yours, removing it from his hair and lacing his fingers with yours, keeping your hand laced with his on top of your tummy.

"Fuck, Hannie, keep doing that please," you mumbled, sighing a moan at the same time you tried to keep yourself focused on the relentless motion of the pointed tip of his tongue.

Jeonghan released your hand when your thighs framing his head started to shake slightly, your moans increasing, sounding nearly sinful. You closed your eyes, feeling the touch of his hands exploring your body, caressing your skin, your tummy and your breasts, cupping them.

"Oh, Jeonghan..." you moaned, tipping your head back as a sweet wave of pleasure flooded inside your body, causing it to writhe slightly on the table.

But you felt his hands on your hips holding you down as you continued to call out his name, chest heaving with your sharp breaths.

Ignoring his rule again, you caressed his hair, brushing it back in an attempt to pull him back. But instead he just grounded his mouth in your pussy, simulating open kisses on your entrance, between your lips and on your clit.

"Jeonghan... sensitive," you flinched abruptly when his lips latched onto your clit, a series of loud smacking sounds coming from his mouth as he teased your engorged bud, releasing moans as he did so.

"Mm," he responded, looking at you again before detaching his mouth from your pussy.

You were embarrassingly breathless from coming so hard, legs trembling and you could feel the wetness dripping from between your legs onto the table.

"I... want—can I suck you off?" you asked, emboldened by the desire to make your boyfriend watch. But still, a tingling and warm rush of blood swarmed all over your face and neck.

Jeonghan rose from the floor, looking at you with an impassive expression on his face. Almost as if he didn't know what to do next, or if he wanted to do many things at once but couldn't decide.

He grabbed you by your hands, helping you sit up on the table to then plant a hard kiss on your lips, making you get a taste of yourself on his tongue when it swept inside your mouth.

"Get on your knees, princess," he instructed with a light tone, running the back of his fingers on your cheek.

Jeonghan turned away as you lowered yourself from the table, watching him get rid of the rest of his clothes in a near methodical way. Straight to the point, not putting on a show, or letting you have your fun by undressing him.

So you kept watching him as he threw his clothes to one side with little care as to where they landed, discarding his shorts, and underwear, until he was completely naked and in front of you. The only two things he carried on his body now were on his wrists: your scrunchie and his watch. 

"I want you here," he pointed to a spot in front of the bed, straight across from where Joshua was sitting.

You swallowed hard before sinking down onto your knees on the cold marble floor. Waiting, your eyes rose and fell on his tall frame, his nakedness. His milky white skin, his strong thighs, there was a beauty on how unapologetically he was displaying his body to you.

"You're beautiful," you whispered abruptly, having your heart crushed over how the words flew out of your mouth.

Jeonghan was shy whenever someone complimented him, but now he just seemed to be amused, as if he enjoyed being showered with your praise.

"Give me your hand," he offered you his palms before you could come out of your daze and placed your hands on his so he could indicate where you could touch him.

He then took your hand and placed them on his hip. "Leave it here. You can tap me if you want to stop, got it?"

You nodded, looking up at him and when your eyes met with his, you felt a deep sense of nervousness. It had been a while since you felt this during sex, and you realized with a flashing pain crossing your chest, that beyond the lust and desire for him, you felt something else.

His hand caressed your cheek before running his fingers through your hair. "Go ahead, princess. I'm yours," he muttered, and you noticed in the slight quiver in his tone that he was nervous and eager too.

You darted a look sideways, finding Joshua in the same position, much as if time had stopped for him the minute you and Jeonghan kissed. He bore the same look of lust in his eyes, the same dark determined look he wore whenever he was on a mission.

You ran your tongue between your lips once, driving all of your attention to the man standing before you now. He gave you a confident look, silently telling you that you were doing well and in that moment, it was all you needed.

Tentatively, your fingers trailed a line from his lower abdomen, a soft smile drawing on your face when you realized that he was hairy when your fingertip raked between the soft pubic hair.

"Don't tease me like this, princess," Jeonghan giggled after your fingers caused him to flinch slightly.

"Sorry," you breathed. But your fingers encircled around his long and pretty cock. It was so hard that you didn't need to stroke it beforehand, the pink tip already dripping with precum.

You pressed your lips on the underside of his cock, making a trail of feathery and wet kisses until you reached his tip, licking your lips to taste his precum with a hum. "You have a pretty cock," you muttered softly, almost sounding dazedly.

Jeonghan smiled, the sound making you break out of your trance. The hand cradling your hair moved, his thumb caressing one of your temples.

Holding his gaze, you opened your mouth and took his cockhead in, licking him first as you would a lolly, the tip first. Jeonghan's hand came to join the other, gathering your hair gently, his fingertips grazing on your scalp briefly.

You felt a rush of adrenaline and arousal as you watched Jeonghan's face relax, his mouth going slack as you slowly took his cock in your mouth, sucking his head eagerly now, trying to get more reactions from him.

"Oh," he uttered ever so gently, his voice dropping to a rasp.

You tried to explore him to the best of your capacity, tongue swirling around the pink head of his cock every time you moved your mouth back on him, taking him deeper when you pushed his cock until your lips reached your fist still placed by his hilt.

"God," you heard him gasp, his fingers clenching around the strands of your hair.

A shudder coursed through your body, making you raise your eyes to find his face riddled with pleasure, he threw his head back and now you could see his pretty neck, his throat moving as he moaned in pleasure.

The sound made your core flutter, it sounded so raw and sweet that you were instantly fascinated by it, eliciting a mewling sound from you. Hollowing your cheeks out as you moved your head back, to suck on his cock pressing your tongue around the head before going forward again, repeating the movement, faster.

"Stop, stop," he whispered, his hand slipping from your hair and grabbing your chin. "I'm close, princess."

You took a big gulp of air when Jeonghan pulled out of your mouth, drool dripping down your lower lip. "I want to keep going," you mumbled.

"Sure, baby?" he asked, the lines between his eyebrows showing ever so slightly.

"I'm sure," you nodded, leaning close to him so you could take him into your mouth again, darting a look to his face and then to his cock in front of you. "Use my mouth, please. I want you to fuck my mouth, Jeonghan."

The satisfying feeling you got from his eyes widening slightly at your words was something you were quickly growing an obsession with.

Before he could nod with his head, his eyes scanned your face swiftly. "Okay," he mouthed, his hands reuniting with your head, gathering your hair between his fingers.

Your mouth fell open for him, eyes trained on his face.

"Hands on me, baby," he rasped, a hand grabbing his cock as he guided it inside your parted lips, pushing it with his hips slowly as your fingers dug on the skin of his hips.

You inhaled deeply through your nose, eyelids fluttering uncontrollably as his long cock slid on your tongue, reaching the back of your mouth tentatively, thrusting slowly inside you before picking up a calculated pace.

There was something about holding his gaze as he pushed his cock inside your mouth, and you could see that it had the same effect on him as it did to yourself. It was near maddening, a frenzied rush coursed through your body, resolving you to keep yourself focused on him.

"Fuck, you're good at this," he muttered with a strain on his voice as he thrusted deep inside you, making you gag as you relaxed your throat for him to fuck, making him moan deliriously. "So fucking good," he whispered.

Your core throbbed at the sound of his words, you would've moaned if you weren't intent on deepthroating him without gagging. But tears were starting to gather on the corners of your eyes, your mouth had relaxed so much for him that you couldn't control the drool dripping onto your chin.

"God," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, shuddering with another delicious moan that rasped on his throat. "Baby, you feel so good."

Your hands encircled his hips, caressing his skin on the process keeping your teary eyes fixed on his face.

"I'm gonna come in your mouth," he gasped, opening his eyes to find your face.

You blinked slowly at him, as if saying "Please do," a thing you learned from your boyfriend on occasions like this.

"Fuck," he whispered shakily, the thrusting of his hips faltering slightly before he pushed deep into your mouth, throwing his head back as ropes of cum spurted from his cock and onto your throat.

Jeonghan moaned, a sound coming one after the other; breathless, raspy until you stopped swallowing his cum, breathing deeply through your nose, determined to look at his face as he came in your mouth.

His face was riddled in pure pleasure, his closed eyelids trembling slightly as he kept his mouth parted, breathing heavily as his hands relaxed on your hair, blindly searching your face to caress your cheeks.

"Fuck," he muttered to the ceiling, but this time it was different.

Jeonghan moved his head forward to find your face with his eyes, his hand cupping your cheek grazed your skin, his thumbs gathering the tears left in your cheekbones.

"Get up," he said, gently pulling out from your mouth and his hands grabbed yours to help you onto your feet. "Are you okay?" he asked once you were face to face with him.

"Mm-mmph," you cooed, nodding with your head in affirmation.

"Okay," he whispered, leaning closer to kiss your lips, slowly locking them with yours, rolling his tongue inside your mouth, moaning gutturally as he got a taste of himself in your tongue.

"Jeonghan..." you whispered.

He grabbed you by the waist as he sat down on the bed, bringing your body with him. Staggering slightly, you pressed one knee at his side, then the other.

"Ride me," Jeonghan muttered suddenly, almost as if in a hurry. His hands came up to cup your jaw lightly. "Come on, baby, sit on me," he whispered in your lips, urging you to move.

You nodded eagerly and pushed his body back on the bed, mouth watering again when you noticed that his cock had grown hard again and you sent him a look.

He must have read the pure awe in your eyes, because he nodded and swallowed hard. "Need to feel you, princess," he mumbled, his hands sliding on your hips, guiding you on top of his body as you moved on the bed to straddle him.

You took his pretty cock in your hand, rolling it over to spread the traces of your saliva and his precum along his shaft. Then, you angled it to your core, his eyes shifting from his cock about to slip inside you and back at your eyes, where they decided to stay as you slowly sat on his cock.

Jeonghan sucked in a breath and his hands gripped your hips tighter. "Don't," he stopped you just as you were going to look at the corner of the room. "Don't look at him. Look at me."

You nodded again in silence and bottomed out on him, your hands anchoring on the sides of his shoulders as you started rolling your hips on him, feeling every inch of his cock slowly. You let out a muffled moan, when you saw Jeonghan's expression change, his eyebrows knitted slightly and his mouth parted.

"Fuck," he groaned, sending his gaze to the ceiling. "Fuck. You're... a dream, princess. That's it, ride me, baby."

You had started to take a little speed, the sway of your hips gaining more control on his cock, bouncing on him to get closer to what your body desperately wanted. You wanted to come, to make him come, to watch him come undone under you.

"Jeonghan..." you breathed, feeling hot in the face because you could feel your boyfriend's eyes on you. "Am I doing it right?"

"Don't stop," he grunted, sucking in a breath through his pink lips, and shut his eyes for a moment.

Joshua had spread his legs, rubbing a hand over his clothed cock. His eyes were on you, just like you had wished for. A hot wave of shame and lust ran from your face to your cunt when you saw how hard your boyfriend was just from seeing you fuck someone else.

A slap came down your thigh, hard. "Fuck!" you yelped, hips stuttering sloppily.

"I told you not to look at him, princess," he tutted.

"'m sorry," you mumbled shamefully.

"Sorry won't cut it," he growled: "Faster."

You trapped your lower lip between your teeth, your hands finding his shoulders to anchor yourself on as you started rolling your hips faster on him. You moaned uncontrollably when you felt his cock hit in your walls deliciously each time you sank back in.

You kept that pace, that motion of your hips because you could feel the sweet pleasure building inside you, taking you closer to your release and the realization of cumming like this hit you, because you've never made yourself come like this, not even with Joshua.

"Je-jeonghan," you stammered, breathless, whimpering. "Fuck, fuck, oh god..."

You screwed your eyes shut, not allowing your body to grow tired and your hips buckled a little before you sank back on his cock, forcefully, letting out a cry as the tension in your body snapped, making you come hard on top of him.

"Jeonghan!" you gasped, opening your eyes to find his. His mouth had parted and his hands were kneading at your thighs, as if trying with all his might not to come with you.

"Look at you," Jeonghan cooed with a sigh, the fascination in his voice and written in his eyes was undeniable now. "Oh, princess, you're making a mess on me."

"Mmn?" you looked down where your bodies connected, without stopping swaying your hips on him. The base of his cock glistened wet with your arousal, his skin and pubic hair had a faint string of your cream smeared all over.

"You're doing great, baby," Jeonghan said softly, his fingers pinching your chin. "Didn't think you'd be this filthy. But it was expected of you, right?"

"'m not filthy," you slurred out, bouncing sloppily to keep your eyes on the mess you made. It was strangely alluring.

Jeonghan smiled, the sigh coming from him made you tear your eyes from the base of his cock and look at his face. "Are you sure, baby?Only a filthy girl can get herself off from this."

Your walls fluttered around his cock from hearing him talk down to you like that, you gave him a slow nod.

And then, without thinking, you looked at Joshua. He had lost his briefs, his head leaned back against the headrest, you saw his throat bob slightly, his darkened eyes set on you as his fist pumped his cock slowly.

Your whole body burned in response, drawing out a whiny moan and your brows knitted uncontrollably. A firm slap landed on your thigh, making you shut your eyes and cry out.

"Fuck, fuck! I'm sorry," you mumbled. "Sorry."

"You're being stubborn," he rasped, reaching out with one hand to grab your neck and pulling you closer so you brushed against his chest with your tits. "I never told you to stop."

"Sorry," you whispered nervously, your face so close to his that you felt his breath on your lips.

You moved your hips again, sinking on his cock sloppily.

"D'you like this, princess?" he whispered, looking at your eyes, then your lips. "Do you like that your boyfriend just watched you come on my cock, not his?"

"Yeah," you croaked. "I want more."

A corner of his mouth curled up, his hands came down from your neck to grip your ass and he stopped you completely, his cock slipping out of your sopping walls.

"Wh-what did–,"

"Get on all fours," Jeonghan instructed before kissing you chastely.

You stilled, searching his eyes impatiently. But he looked back at you, lust blown eyes, his mouth sporting a devilish grin.

"Go on," he urged, patting your thigh with his hand.

You planted your hands on his chest to help yourself onto your knees, and crawled to the middle of the large bed, getting on all fours for him as he followed behind you.

"God, you have the prettiest ass," you heard him say as a hand caressed your butt. "Should we make it prettier, princess?" he mused.

"Uh?" you uttered confusedly.

Then his fingers toyed with the plug inside you, and you instantly moaned. "Do you think you're ready for the bigger one?" Jeonghan asked and then you saw from the corner of your eye, his hand reaching out for the bottle of lube.

"Ye-yeah, I'm ready," you stammered shamefully, you threw a look in front you, finding your boyfriend watching you intently, making you drop your gaze to the duvet swiftly.

"Mmn," he hummed as his fingers plucked the plug out. "Breathe in, princess," he directed gently as you heard the spurts coming from the bottle of lube, then you felt the cold liquid on the pads of his fingers as he spread your hole open for the next plug.

"Breathe out," he muttered.

"Oh," you blinked rapidly as you felt the longer plug inside you, penetrating you even deeper than the first one.

"Okay?" Jeonghan asked, a hand caressing your lower back, waiting for your response.

"Okay," you replied.

Moving your body back, you sneaked a look to Joshua again as you crawled on the bed to then feel Jeonghan's hands yank you from your hips, forcing you to face your boyfriend, ass angled to his best friend.

"You'll get what you want," Jeonghan cooed, his hand sliding on your lower back, then you felt his cockhead gliding up and down your folds. "One spank if you close your eyes or look away from him."

Joshua nodded, making clear his participation in the punishment. Without tearing his eyes from your face he kept stroking his cock, the lower lip trapped behind his teeth smirked slightly when Jeonghan sheathed his cock inside your walls again, eliciting a raw moan from you.

Jeonghan immediately started pushing his hips so hard you could feel his hip bones meet your ass, the slap beginning to sting a little as he quite literally pounded on you, his cock hitting a glorious spot repeatedly, drawing pathetic moans out of you.

You realized that you had never seen Joshua touch himself like this. He blinked slowly at you, suppressing a small shudder, the muscles of his jaw twitching as he gritted his teeth. You knew him well enough to know that he was trying hard not to come, and you nearly smiled at that.

But you couldn't deny that you felt a deep shame washing over your face from being fucked hard by someone else while your boyfriend simply watched. Watched your body bouncing as Jeonghan's hips jackhammered into you, not slowing down or shifting position, just fucking into your glorious spot relentlessly, releasing small grunts every time you moaned.

Joshua looked at your face the whole time, probably noticing the shame painted in your hot cheeks. The small smile crowning his lips told you that much.

You couldn't. You had to look away from him.

"Spank."

Your heart skipped a beat just as Jeonghan delivered a firm spank in your buttcheek. "Fuck," you squeezed your eyes shut and blinked repeatedly, tears gathering in your eyes.

"Fuck!" Jeonghan also gasped when your walls squeezed around him. "You like being spanked, princess?"

Joshua smiled cruelly.

Jeonghan's hands grabbed your hips forcefully before changing the pace in his thrusts, plowing on you, angling his cock so that you felt him hitting you deeper.

"Sorry princess, what was that?" he grunted, a half gasp that could almost resemble a laugh.

You could only moan in response when you saw your boyfriend's cock glistening in precum, just as his hand rolled over the rosy brown cockhead to smear his own slick all over. Joshua muffled a low raspy groan, blinking slowly at you, unable to look away from your fucked out form.

"Are you fucked stupid, baby?" Jeonghan asked after you gave him no actual response.

"Spank," Joshua muttered again, his voice low and raspy.

"But I didn't look away," you whimpered in protest just as you received another firm slap in your already tingling buttcheek. "Gah, fuck, Hannie–"

"Fuck, princess," Jeonghan moaned deliriously, oblivious to your protest. "If you keep squeezing me like that, I might not last long."

"Hannie, please, I didn't–," you started to plead and got from the glint in your boyfriend's eyes that this is exactly what he wanted.

Joshua wanted to hear you beg, he wanted to see you being punished.

"Spank," Joshua's merciless smile crowned his red lips and his head tipped back as he pumped his cock faster. His thighs tensed and you saw him swallow thickly, he was close, but kept resisting his climax.

"Fuck!" you yelped when Jeonghan's hand came down on your buttcheek, your walls fluttering around him, and your arms nearly give out from the flashing pain.

Jeonghan groaned, a low sound coming from him, something you didn't think you would hear from him. "Fuck, I'm close princess," he sighed, words caught in a slurry mess: "Want me to pull out?"

You were close too, you were growing a bit sore from the relentless pounding, the tip of his cock abusing the sensitive spot inside your walls to the point you knew you were about to wet yourself soon if he just kept going.

Your eyes were brimming with tears, but you kept them fixed on your boyfriend's eyes, on the movement of his hand. It was then that you realized that he was matching the speed of his hand to the thrusts plowing on you.

"Baby, answer him," Joshua urged, his pierced eyebrow twitched slightly.

"No, please!" you gasped. "P-please come inside me," you made a motion to turn to look over your shoulder.

"Spank," your boyfriend's voice betrayed you again with a sigh which resembled a faint laugh.

This spank was firmer than the others before it. You squeezed your eyes shut, the pain sizzling beneath your skin and you saw red, your cunt squeezing around him and you knew you were so close to your own release.

"Fuck-k," you heard Jeonghan breathe out, and then. "Cumming," he muttered before the pace of his thrusts slowed down, fucking you sloppily as he emptied himself inside you with a raspy moan.

Joshua was grinning, the tip of his tongue ran over his lower lip before sinking his teeth, his head tilted back, looking at you with lascivious eyes before spurts of cum landed on the back of his hand, on his lower abdomen and chest. Your boyfriend let out a long groan that joined with your moans.

Both men were breathing slowly and ragged, Jeonghan's hands remained on your hips, keeping you steady as you trembled uncontrollably on the bed.

"Clean him off, princess," Jeonghan instructed, patting you in your butt gently, egging you to do it quickly.

You turned to look at him over your shoulder, a question written in your eyes.

Jeonghan was covered in a sheen film of sweat, from his forehead to his collarbones. His dark bangs sticking on his forehead as he breathed hard from the exhaustion, his tongue hanging on his lower lip languidly.

"Come here, bunny," Joshua called, and you turned to him, sitting in the armchair still, just at arm's length from you.

You whimpered slightly when Jeonghan pulled out of your walls, but you crawled to the edge of the bed towards your boyfriend, who cupped your cheek with his clean hand as soon as you were near enough for him to touch you.

"You're being so good, baby," he muttered, his thumb brushing your lower lip just before you bent your head and licked the cum off the back of his hand that was resting on top of his crotch.

Joshua's mouth parted and he lifted his fingers for you to suck on, licking them clean. His eyebrow twitched slightly when you moved your mouth to his lower abdomen. Running your tongue on his skin, you licked to the last bead of his cum.

"Good girl," Jeonghan muttered behind you.

"Mmn, but baby you're making a mess," Joshua said in a honeyed purr, making you turn to see your thigh.

Joshua's hand came down to your thigh, his fingers stopping the cum trailing down, picking it up and inserting it back to your fluttering cunt.

"Can't let it go to waste, huh?" your boyfriend smiled when you moaned as his fingers teased your slit, pushing the cum dripping out of you.

"Babe, I–," you started pleading when he pulled his fingers out of you, you needed to come.

But he stuck his fingers in your mouth quite abruptly, you tasted Jeonghan's cum, mixed with your own arousal. "Mmn, I think princess wants more," Joshua purred, a fascinated look in his dark eyes. "You were close, right baby? He didn't let you cum again."

You shook your head in affirmation, trying your best to give him an innocent look. "Mm-mmn," you hummed, making him grin at you.

You heard a sharp exhale behind you and felt the bed shifted under you. "Princess, you came three times already," you heard Jeonghan say. "What more can you take?"

Joshua's pierced eyebrow quirked up slightly. "Shall we test that, baby?"

His thumb brushed your lower lip as he pulled it out of your mouth softly, his grin widening when you nodded with your head eagerly.

"How are you?" your boyfriend asked, his tone dropping slightly as his eyes surveyed your face. "Are you okay?"

You nodded with your head once, lifting your eyes to meet his. "I want you now, Joshua," you mewled with a breathy tone.

Joshua looked at you briefly before a smirk crowned his beautiful lips. "Come here," he pointed at the spot in front of him, so you climbed down from the bed just as he rose from the armchair.

You followed his face with your eyes as he was now looking down to meet your gaze.

"Are you ready, baby?" he asked, reading your face with his big brown eyes.

You nodded, and then added with more certainty. "I am."

Then he instructed you to place both knees right at the edge of the bed, ass up and pointed at him. On all fours, you were looking directly at Jeonghan, lying in the pillows, blinking slowly as if he were drifting still.

His post-sex gaze found you, making your stomach clench as you noticed something else in his eyes too.

"Mmn baby, you're all red," Joshua murmured sweetly but mockingly, rubbing the sore areas of your ass with his hands. "Jeonghan doesn't know how much you enjoy being pampered."

"Mm-mmph," you hummed, shuddering under the softness of the caress, your boyfriend was now exhibiting how well he knew you, and how blind Jeonghan was to your preferences.

"Are you enjoying this, baby?" Joshua asked as his fingers toyed with the plug lodged in your ass. "Do you like that Hannie is getting to know how needy you really are?"

"Yeah, I do, Josh," you replied, voice dropping to a whimper the plug was slowly plucked out of you.

Jeonghan smiled, his teeth sliding on top of his lower lip as he watched you subdue yourself to your boyfriend.

"But Hannie probably knew already," Joshua muttered. "He also got to read the filthy things you write, right?"

Jeonghan nodded, his eyes wandered from you to your boyfriend behind you.

"Bunny, you're dripping," Joshua sighed, the pads of his fingers gingerly traveling from your clit, picking the slick and cum dripping down from your hole and pushing it back up. "My baby is so messy."

You sighed a moan when his fingers dipped in your fluttering core, feeling your boyfriend's touch, familiar instead of explorative, made you even more aroused.

"So he probably knows that you want both of us," Joshua continued with his musings, but this made you frown slightly, your heart twisting in your chest.

You turned your head to find your boyfriend, he cocked his blond head to one side, reading your expresion.

"Isn't that right, bunny?" he inquired, the corner of his mouth stretching in a grin. "You want us inside you at the same time."

"Ye-yeah, that's what I want, Josh," you stammered dumbly.

"I'd assumed as much," Jeonghan admitted, when you looked back at him you swore you saw the same wolfish grin on his face as your boyfriend's.

"You're gonna be good for us, baby?" Joshua purred as his lubed fingers prodded on your hole gingerly at first, stretching it more.

"Yeah," you whined, closing your eyes to savor the feeling.

"Breathe, baby," your boyfriend reminded you, spreading his fingers, keeping you open for him.

You inhaled through your nose, moaning as you exhaled.

But you needed to see your boyfriend standing behind you, you understood from the movement of his right arm that he was stroking himself, lubing his cock for you. The dark and lustful gaze he kept on you made your body burn with anticipation, making you angle your ass for him.

"Good girl," Joshua breathed before pressing the tip of his cock on your hole, his eyes shifting from your ass to your face, his eyebrows knitting at the same time you did.

"Josh... mn," you mewled, looking his mouth fall open as he eased himself inside you, ever so slowly and carefully.

"Alright?" he breathed, unable to bring his tone any louder.

You gave him rapid nods with your head. "Yes, yes," you mumbled.

His eyes remained on the features of your face for a second before shifting them to his fingers spreading you open for him, a hand reached out to pump more lube onto his palm. A low hiss escaped between his teeth as he coated the remaining half of his cock to ease himself inside you, thrusting shallowly.

It was hard to breathe, you couldn't move. You focused all of your energy to remain lax for him as he eased the first half of his cock inside your tight hole.

But everything inside you became alight with sweet pleasure. You dropped your head forward, enjoying the feeling coursing beneath your skin, keeping your lower lip trapped between your teeth, but muffled mewling sounds resounded in your throat.

You sneaked a look at the man in front of you. Jeonghan was lying on his side, elbow propped on the pillows as he looked at you and your boyfriend. His heavy lidded eyes kept switching between Joshua's face and then to yours, a hand idly stroking his cock.

"Baby," he muttered, a strain to his voice, and when you turned you saw it showing on his clenched jaws as he tilted his head back, moving his hips at a slow pace. "Are you okay? Can I give you more?"

"Yes, I'm okay," you replied, a hot wave washing over your face. "I want more."

"Okay," he sighed deeply, his hands now palming your ass as he thrusted his hips forward, easing another inch inside you.

"Oh god," you shut your eyes. "Please, move, Josh..."

"I don't want to hurt you," he replied in a breathless tone. "I need you to relax, baby. Can you do that for me?"

You nodded, focusing on what your body felt, crying out, welcoming the pleasure, the slow and shallow thrusts of Joshua's hips, his cock pushing in and out of you, making him moan.

You knew your boyfriend could hang. He came once already so it would probably take him more time to come again. But something in the way that he was moaning let you know that it might be different this time.

"Fuck, so tight," he sighed in pleasure, his hands palming your ass, caressing your skin as if to soothe your moans. "Talk to me, baby."

"Don't stop. Please, Joshua," you replied instantly, your fingers clenching on the bed covers, holding on tightly.

"Do you think you're ready for Jeonghan?" he asked with a slight urgency to his tone.

"Yeah," you breathed out, looking at your best friend and then your boyfriend behind you. "I'm ready."

"Okay," he gasped, the features of his face riddled with pleasure, but he came to a stop once he heard you. Joshua raised a hand and motioned you over to his chest. "Move back, baby. Slowly."

You simply did what he instructed, and wordlessly, Jeonghan moved across the bed, standing next to Joshua now. His hands shifted positions, gripping your hips as you stood back on your knees as he said, so your back pressed against his chest.

The two men exchanged a glance before Joshua moved your body from the bed, Jeonghan's hands sliding on your thighs to help your boyfriend support your body from the front.

"You're okay, baby?" Joshua asked when he heard you let out a small cry.

"Yeah," you replied quickly, now looking at Jeonghan as you used your hands to hold onto his lean shoulders. "Please, more, please."

Joshua kept your thighs angled for the man in front of you, just as he took a hand between his body and yours, grabbing his hard cock to guide it to your cunt, his eyes finding yours as he started to sheathe himself inside your cunt in one go.

Your eyes rolled back, squeezing your eyelids tightly as your head slumped back onto Joshua's shoulder. "F-fuck," you gasped, as Jeonghan eased himself to the hilt, making you fuller than ever.

"Baby," Joshua urged, breathing hot against your neck.

"Move, please, Josh," you cried out, the corners of your eyes spilling some tears.

Without wasting a single second, you felt the two men move in a slow sway, appearing to share one mind again because there were no words exchanged, nothing you could make out before they began a push and pull with your body.

"God," you breathed out, seeing stars behind your closed eyelids. "Josh..."

"You're good, baby," he replied, his voice muffling as he pressed his lips on the crook of your sweaty neck. "You're perfect."

As the two men moved inside you, the rest of your body supported by Joshua's strong arms on your thighs, Jeonghan helping him through as he moved in with shallow thrusts.

You blinked, leaning your head forward, the tip of your nose bumping sloppily against Jeonghan's. You kissed him slowly, eliciting a raw moan from the man, but he reciprocated the kiss, breathing in your mouth when you backed away.

Then you turned your head to your side, Joshua reached for your lips with his own, meeting in a feathery kiss. "Mmn," you hummed into his mouth before leaning your head back onto his shoulder once again. "So full," you whispered in pure bliss, dissolving into a puddle of pleasure.

"I know, baby, I know," Jeonghan mumbled, his voice too, sounding tense.

"So good for us," Joshua whispered, kissing your shoulder.

"Mm-huh," you hummed entrancingly, but your mind had already gone completely blank as you were reduced to breathy moans, tears spilling from your closed eyes, unable to string up thoughts.

Lips kissed your neck, your shoulder, while another set of lips kissed your cheeks, your tears and even your own lips. But slowly you lost awareness of who was who anymore, not even if you would recognize Joshua's lips anywhere, you couldn't do it.

The sway of both men pushing inside you never changed, it never paused, you heard tired gasps and raw moans as they used your body, filling you up to the brim.

Your moans were becoming increasingly louder every time, and whinier. You had never sounded like this, never felt like this before. So full, and taken over by pleasure that there was nothing you could say. You saw lights and colors behind your eyelids and tasted your climax in your mouth, pleasure blooming inside you in fiery waves, taking over you completely. 

"I think she's close."

"Are you gonna cum for us, baby?"

"Yeah," you breathed.

"Come, bunny, come for us."

"Oh god," you whimpered before coming undone without any warning, crying out blissfully, your body being overtaken by relentless tremors. Your hands held onto his shoulders, nails digging into skin.

"Fuck," you heard one of the men gasp in response.

The orgasm was so brutal that you felt like collapsing, you felt it everywhere, flooding you from inside, coursing through your whole body, you even felt it on your face, between the tears rolling down your cheeks.

The room was filled with your raw cries of pleasure, and low moans and gasps from the men holding your spasming body while you clenched around them, triggering their own orgasms, stuffing you up with their cum. One had propped his forehead on one of your shoulders, while the other was breathing hard on the curve of your neck, while grazing your skin with his lips.

"Fuck, baby," one gasped languidly, fingers digging on the plush of your thighs.

Both men had stopped pushing inside you, but kept holding you as you trembled with the aftershocks of your orgasm.

"Baby?" the same voice asked.

"She's out of it," the other said knowingly. "Give her a moment."

"Let's lay her down."

A weak cry spilled from you when Joshua pulled out of you, even if he did it with care, you felt the sudden loss of him inside you. Followed by that Jeonghan pulled out of you. Next thing you knew, your trembling thighs were wet but before you knew it, your limp body was quickly laid on the bed.

"Easy," you heard him whisper soothingly. "Eaasy, baby."

"I got a towel and I already started a bath."

"Thank you," a hand brushed some hairs from your face. "I'm gonna clean you up, bunny."

"Okay," you mumbled, opening your eyes to see Joshua sitting beside you, carefully pressing a wet hand towel on your thighs, cleaning up the cum that had dripped down from you.

"Hi there, baby," Joshua smiled at you. "How are you? Okay?"

"Amazing," you replied with a slurry tone.

"Tsk," you heard Jeonghan click his tongue with amusement before announcing: "Bath is ready, princess."

"Come on," Joshua nodded his head back to the bathroom door. "I'll take you there."

"I can do it," you protested, starting to prop yourself onto your elbows.

"You don't have to," he retorted, already getting on his feet to lift your body from the bed, cradling you on his strong arms to lower you gently into the warm water of the tub.

"Thank you, babe," you mumbled sweetly.

Jeonghan was already in the shower, its glass walls letting you know that he was sending you glances to check up on you.

"Are you hungry, baby? Do you want me to order something?" Joshua asked as he knelt before you. "Waffles? Fries? Strawberry milkshakes?"

The crushing love and adoration you felt for him was beyond anything your languid body could handle at that moment. You smiled and nodded lazily.

"Everything I just said?" his eyebrows pushed up, and his beautiful lips were crowned with a smile, making his dimples above his lips show.

"Can it be chocolate now?"

"Of course, baby," he smiled endearingly at you. "Do you need help?"

"I got it, Josh," you replied. "Thank you."

"Okay," he whispered, giving you one look before he got up, as Jeonghan was stepping out of the shower and was now being occupied by your boyfriend.

"You're okay there, princess?" Jeonghan asked as he patted his face and neck with the towel.

"Yeah. A bit sore but I'm okay," you replied, watching his fully naked body as he wiped the droplets of water sticking onto his skin. You pretended to busy yourself, subbing your soapy hands onto your inner thighs.

Jeonghan sat down on the rim of the tub, at arm's length from you so he only stretched out to boop your nose with the tip of his finger. You looked at him startled for a second.

But he smiled, in fact, a breathy chuckle left him as he saw your face.

"What?" you asked, blinking confusedly at him.

"You're cute," he replied nonchalantly, resuming to wipe himself down.

You said nothing, in fact, you felt like you didn't have the brain capacity to process why you felt so confused at the moment. You simply pulled the drain stopper with your foot, the warm water scurrying down quickly.

"Help me up?" you extended a hand at him.

"Sure you can walk?" Jeonghan smirked, casting a look over his shoulder.

Joshua was coming out of the shower, draping his lower half with a towel as he kept an eye on you. "I'll do it," he offered and bent forward to get you up, lifting you up in his arms again.

Jeonghan got another towel for you, which he extended on the bed as Joshua set down on it neatly.

"You guys make a great team," you noted aloud finally, looking at both men standing before you.

They both exchanged a quick look, Joshua only nodded nonchalantly, Jeonghan smirked at your words. "We know, princess."

After that, Joshua ordered room service for everyone and you all waited with the TV on. You were blissfully dozing on the bed, aloof to anything that happened around you until you were woken up by your boyfriend telling you the food was here.

You ate in silence, barely able to keep your eyes open but the only thing keeping you up and running was your growling stomach.

"It's time for me to go back," Jeonghan announced, rising up to his feet.

The meals were done and you could barely hold your head up from the slumber and tiredness taking over you.

"You stay."

Both men jerked their heads upon hearing you say that, both looked confused, much as if they weren't expecting you say that.

"Please?" you raised your eyes to look at him. "I want you to stay."

"If Joshuji has no issue with it," Jeonghan shrugged, casting a glance at your boyfriend.

"Yeah, no problem," Joshua responded, but his brow was slightly furrowed.

You giddily crawled on the bed, slumping down on the pillows face down. Joshua quickly occupied a place by your side, cupping cheek with one hand to press a loving kiss on your forehead.

"Sure you're okay, baby?" he asked, scanning your face and your body inquisitively.

"I'll be fine, Josh," you rolled your eyes but a small giggle spilled from your lips.

"Mkay," he replied, pressing his lips in a tight smile.

Jeonghan however, slid onto the large bed with some reluctance, occupying your other side. You shifted your body so you could look at him, an arm tucked beneath his head.

He felt your gaze before he could turn and look at you. "What?"

"You owe me a scrunchie."

Jeonghan closed his eyes slowly, a sly smile appearing on his face. "No, I don't," he mumbled. "Go to sleep."

"You first," you replied in the same fashion.

A heavy arm hugged you from behind. Joshua cuddled his body against yours, pressing a kiss on your hair. "Go to sleep, baby," he said, smiling softly on your cheek before littering it with kisses.

Like a work of magic, you were gently swept away by a very heavy slumber.

You felt like hours had passed since you shut your eyes until something pulled you from your dream. You turned in the bed, following the faint sounds of Joshua snoring softly beside you. He was sleeping in an odd position, and you realized the pillow had moved and was about to fall onto the floor.

You reached out for it, carefully placing it beside his head.

"Joshua," you whispered, trying not to wake the other man lying on the other side of the bed beside you. "Babe, use your pillow."

"Mm?" Joshua lazily pushed his eyebrows up, opening his eyes slightly.

"Baby, use your pillow. You were snoring," you smiled softly, feeling something tug in your insides.

He just looked so cute, pouting his lips as he nodded. "'m sorry," he mumbled and placed his head on the pillow before continuing on his deep sleep.

You laid back on the bed and curiously eyed Jeonghan, who had his eyes open and focused on you.

"Did I wake you?" you asked shyly.

"No," he whispered. "I can't sleep," he explained briefly.

"Oh. Same," you sighed a smile, your heart skipping a beat over the sense of familiarity you felt whenever you were reminded that Jeonghan is just a bad sleeper as you are.

There was a restlessness in his gaze as the man that you had come to call a best friend swallowed thickly. A lithe hand came to your face and grazed his knuckles on your cheek.

His touch startled you at first, but you welcomed it, leaning your cheek against his touch.

"Is this okay?" he asked softly.

"'s okay, Jeongjeong," you replied with a small smile. "Are you okay, though? This might have been too much."

"I'm okay, princess," he mumbled with ease, but his gaze remained shifty.

"Sure?" you mouthed, his eyes were on your lips already, so he nodded.

The moment grew quieter, Jeonghan removed his hand from your cheek, licking his lips as he appeared to be considering something inside his head.

"Stay still," he whispered.

You held in a breath, closing your eyes when his face moved closer to yours, and waited.

His lips grazed yours, capturing them ever so slowly, giving you a tender kiss that made a small grunt bubble in his chest.

Your hand cupped his cheek, diving for a deeper kiss, feeling his tongue on yours. His palm pressed against the back of your hand, his fingers encircling it briefly before pulling his head back.

"Did you... like it?" he asked, seeming to be curious as well. "Was it what you wanted?"

"You know I liked it, Jeongjeong," you smiled slowly at him, waiting for his smile.

But no, Jeonghan didn't smile, in fact, he didn't seem to be relaxing.

"Did you?" you asked shyly, your eyes trailing down to his mouth and then his eyes.

"Yeah, I did. I liked it," he mumbled sleepily.

"We should do it again sometime. Us three," you put in quickly and then looked away at the ceiling, feeling ashamed.

"You don't think your boyfriend will say no?" he mused, his voice merely a whisper.

"Why? I mean, I don't think so," you frowned, then added. "It's just sex, right?"

It grew quiet, so quiet that you barely couldn't hear Joshua's deep breathing. Jeonghan's eyes scanned your face again, but the restlessness only grew into something you couldn't quite place. His gaze darkened, and his lips tensed into a line.

"Right?" you asked again, your eyes reading his face, but you couldn't understand what you had said wrong.

Jeonghan sat up in the bed slowly and rose, throwing his hoodie and then putting his sweatpants on, he didn't look back at you.

"Jeonghan?" you called, sitting up in the bed when he crossed the room, walking out the door without saying a word.

You sat there, eyes fixated on the hotel room's door, hesitating on what to do. Your heart was beating frantically against your throat.

"Leave him be," Joshua mumbled sweetly behind you.

"Did you hear all that?" you asked, but didn't need an answer. You knew he did.

"I think Jeongjeong might have a crush on you, baby," he ran a hand on your back, his fingers caressing your bare skin lovingly.

"He doesn't," you brushed off. "He's just..." you stopped short of words.

"It's okay, baby," he whispered. "I don't mind if he does."

"But he's your friend!" you whispered.

"Our friend," he corrected. "So?"

"So, I don't want to hurt him," you mumbled awkwardly.

"Why would you?" he frowned.

"I'm with you, Joshua," you rolled your eyes annoyingly. "I can't be giving him false hope."

"Baby, you don't have to," he smiled, looking fondly at you.

"Are you actually saying what I think you're saying?" you asked dumbfoundedly.

Joshua appeared to be pensive for a second, and shrugged slightly. "I mean, he's been there for you this whole time," his tone was sweet, but cautious. "And you had grown really close, it would make sense that he feels something for you."

You stared at your boyfriend in utter bewilderment, but something more alarming made you think. Did you feel something for Jeonghan?

"I never... we never did anything or said anything," you whispered with a slight frown of confusion.

Joshua's smile reached his eyes. "I know, baby. That's not what I'm saying," he said and sat up in the bed and gently placed a finger under your chin. "Do you feel something for him, baby?"

"No. I don't know," you whispered, feeling your heart deflate painfully in your chest upon uttering those words. "I love you, Joshua."

"I know, that's not what I'm asking," he smiled slightly. "I'm just saying that it's not entirely wrong to have feelings for someone who's been there for you. Even if that someone happens to be my best friend."

Your breath hitched and took his hand that was holding your chin. "Should I go talk to him?" you whispered.

"If you want to," he replied in the same manner. "I think he needs time right now... and you do too."

Your eyebrows knitted, breathing was hard, the pain in your chest becoming worse. "What?"

"I think you feel something for him, baby," he whispered, pressing his fingers on your chin.

"I don't," you muttered, but your eyes had started to water.

"Are you sure?" he asked, frowning slightly. "Baby, I know you. I've seen the way you look at him."

You choked back a sob and immediately denied shaking your head. "I'd never do something like that to you."

"Baby, listen to me," he muttered, his hand cupping your chin tensed slightly, commanding your eyes on him. "I am not judging you. I just need the truth."

Taking a few deep breaths, almost sobbing as your mind spun over the situation. You knew you couldn't deny it to Joshua or to yourself any longer.

"Maybe I do feel something for Jeonghan," you confessed, the realization making your breath hitch.

Nothing could have prepared you for his reaction.

Joshua recoiled, as if he had suddenly been slapped, then blinked rapidly, his big brown eyes dimming a little. You knew his feelings were hurt and you immediately wanted to take it back, to pause your whole life and reevaluate what you were actually saying to him.

"It's okay," he breathed, sushing you when you couldn't contain your tears anymore and started to cry. "It's okay, baby. It is. I understand."

"Wait, please, please," you mumbled, grabbing his arm with one hand as you tried to steady yourself, becoming light headed over the surge of emotions invading you.

"I'm not going anywhere," he muttered, looking at you with a worried look on his face. "Baby, breathe."

You inhaled deeply, your eyes itching because of the tears that kept on coming. "I'm sorry, Joshua."

"What for?" he whispered, his brow furrowing as he gathered your tears with the back of his fingers. "Don't apologize. Not for that."

"But I feel like I'm hurting you and I don't want to do that," you choked back a sob.

Joshua frowned a little, almost as if he were putting his thoughts together, and laid them out for you slowly: "It was me who told him to get closer to you, because I've been away and we both barely talk, I know you would feel lonely and I didn't want that for you."

"But this isn't your fault."

"It's no one's fault," he shook his head slightly. "There's nothing to blame here."

You looked at him, trying to decipher what was going on in his mind. "What are you saying?"

"Jeonghan and I are very similar," he said with an empty smile. "It doesn't seem strange to me that he grew feelings for you. You're fun, smart, beautiful."

Joshua said this with a vague expression on his face, almost as if he were putting the pieces inside his brain, as he himself was realizing how he felt about the situation. "And by that, I also don't find it strange that you have feelings for him," he decided.

You felt the features of your face relax, but the morose and cold feeling seizing your heart didn't go away. "It's entirely platonic," you said shakily.

That made Joshua smile with a glint of fondness in his eyes. "Baby, I know that you love me," he replied with certainty. "And I know that you having feelings for Jeonghan doesn't affect what is ours."

You read his eyes for a second as you were letting the words sink, you nodded slowly. "I love you, Joshua," you whispered, leaning so that your forehead touched his.

"And I love you, bunny."

✮ yet another long author's note: heyoooo THEY DID IT!!!! THEY CROSSED THAT BRIDGE, JOSHUA OVERCAME HIS POSSESSIVENESS (or did he?) 👀👀👀 as you may or may not know my bias is Jeonghan and my wrecker is Joshua (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝) so i am doing this purely to satisfy my brain, but i guess that if you want to indulge with me you are more than welcomed to do so OKAY NOW I NEED TO EXPLAIN AGAIN this is the last part belonging to city lights! take this as the finale! AND THIS IS CANON OKAY yes, i'm sorry for those that didn't want a threesome 😭🫠🫠 NOW LET ME EXPLAIN A FEW THINGS. bunny's story doesn't end here. i decided to make a city lights season two! but i'm going to take a break from writing this fic for a short while and focus on my other projects!! so city lights is going on a short break and will be coming back under a different title!! so be on the lookout for that one! 👀 i hope this explains everything AND I DON'T WANNA SEE ANY OF YOU IN THE COMMENTS SAYING THAT CITY LIGHTS IS OVER OR WHATEVER BECAUSE IT'S NOT TRUE! ᕙ( •̀ᗝ•́)ᕗ sorry i didn't mean to yell at you i love you all! toodles!

buy me a coffee? 🩵👉🏻👈🏻

© RIGHTS RESERVED TO HANNIEWEEN I DO NOT ALLOW TRANSLATIONS, CONTINUATIONS, REIMAGINATIONS OF MY WORKS OR THEIR REPOSTING ON OTHER WEBSITES.

[delcakoo]

txt’s reaction to you being asked out ⋆˚｡⋆↯˚

requested <3

PAIRING ! txt x f!reader

WC ! 4k

GENRE ! fluff, crack

WARNINGS ! jealousy, slight insecurities, strangers asking u out

a/n: the readmore cut actually worked for once a tear rolled down my leg . ty for the req nonie hope u enjoy !

// CHOI SOOBIN !

DISPLEASED. EXTREMELY DISPLEASED AND ON HIGH ALERT !!

soobs doesn’t find himself getting jealous often

he trusts you more than anyone in the world and basks in the knowledge that you’re just as whipped for him as he is for you,,,

something super big would have to happen for him to genuinely get upset

and so when he does..

oh boy

good luck dealing with a clingy sulky baby :(

everything was going SO well today too

soobin was very proud of himself for organising the beach date you were visibly enjoying to the fullest <3

you’d spent all day making a giant sandcastle, playing around in the water, having an intense game of volleyball that soobin complEtely dominated and it’s not because he’s good. he’s just ridiculously tall and barely needed to jump

and of course !! getting ice cream !!! the highlight of a very hot day

you were both still dripping saltwater, but soobin put on a t-shirt over his swim trunks while you decided to stay in your bathing suit due to the fear of getting your clothes soaked too

while you waited in line for the ice cream truck, your boyfriend was busy trying to fix his hair when you feel someone poke your shoulder

of course you turn around to investigate,,

just to see some random guy around your age holding his phone opened to a new contact, a confident smile on his face as he continuously glances you up and down

bro wasn’t even trying to be subtle with the staring >:[

“hey, so i was just wondering if i could get your number, i think you’re gorgeous.”

THE SPEED IN WHICH SOOBIN TURNED AROUND

he doesn’t even say anything, just completely awestruck that this asshat couldn’t see him right there?!?

yeah, okay maybe u could pass as friends since he wasn’t much for pda, but too bad!!

he should’ve known and now soobin has the biggest pout on his face as he stares daggers at the man, waiting for you to deal with the situation yourself unless the time comes for him to step in

you just blink in surprise, “oh, me? thanks, but i’m here with my boyfriend.”

finally, he follows your finger to meet soobin’s eyes, gulping at the way he has his arms crossed and face sporting a please-dont-actually-try-to-fight-me-but-i-hate-you glare

personally you think he looks like a cute angry fluffball

but clearly the guy is slightly intimidated — perhaps by his height and built biceps — judging by how frantically he shoves his phone back in his pocket

“oh, my bad. sorry bro,” he apologizes, jogging off before he could embarrass himself further

as soon as he’s far enough, soobin starts murmuring under his breath, wrapping a big arm around your shoulder

sulky soob activated T-T

expect him to be extra clingy and show lots of affection in public for the rest of the day regardless if he’s feeling better or not about the situation

which is SO not like him

the grip he has on your waist even makes yOu nervous

“m’ not your bro. who does he think he is? seriously. looking at you like a piece of meat, i’ll- i’ll punch him!”

you snicker knowing damn well your boyfriend wouldn’t even hurt a fly

amused, you watch as he begins tapping his foot, clearly thinking way too deep into the situation, “couldn’t even ask if you had a boyfriend first! do i not look boyfriend-y enough?” his heart shaped lips form a frown, showing off his dimples unintentionally

“love, you’re the most boyfriend-y guy here, okay? did you forget how that guy nearly shit his pants when he saw you?”

a childish grin sports soobin’s cheeks at that, pride flowing through him and making you chuckle in return

“now c’mon big baby, what flavor are you getting?”

yeah you’ve made him feel a bit better about it

but don’t expect him to be anything but attached to your hip all day <\3

even when you go to the washroom he’s standing outside the door like a guard dog

constantly on the lookout as if that guy is plotting to randomly show up and steal you away !! he has to be sure :( !!

when you tease him though,, he of course gets all defensive

“ay, you wouldn’t be laughing if it was some girl trying to ask me out! you don’t understand.”

when you tell him that he’s right and that you’d be pissed too, he feels a bit better n’ goes back to having only a sliGht pout

but pssst secret

some cuddles and kisses when you get back home should fix him right up <3 !!

// CHOI YEONJUN !

the most atrocious yet blank stare imaginable

he wouldn’t even process what’d happened for a few seconds like

huh 🧌 that’s. that’s my girlfriend what do u mean. doesn’t everybody know she’s mine what no how could this happen plea

at the same time junie isn’t really a fan of confrontation and y’know

calling someone out

but in this situation IF he isn’t busy being the real life version of the standing man emoji HE WILL SPEAK UP !!

when something like this actually happened, it was originally a very chill day for you and jun <3

he invited you to come grocery shopping with him for the dorm

and man oh man he looks so boyfriend with that plain white tee and half his hair in a lil’ ponytail T-T

you tried not to ogle him the whole time

but clearly you weren’t doing well considering he already caught you staring twice …

“yah, cutie,” yeonjun barks with a teasing look on his face, “stop drooling and go get soobin’s bread. i’ll be in the ramen aisle.”

you roll your eyes but listen anyway, making your way two aisles over to find the bread section containing a man who’s carefully glancing at his phone, then back at the display with a lost expression

as you get closer you quickly realise he’s having trouble finding the bread on his list, so of course you decide to help him out like a good citizen

“is this the one you need?”

the man whips his head up at your voice, a grateful smile on his face as he nods and acceps the loaf carefully

“yeah, thanks. you’d think being so tall i could find things easily but..” shyly, he looks away, ruffling his bangs habitually

you chuckle while grabbing a loaf of soobin’s favorite bread, feeling the guy watch closely from beside you

“i uh, actually recently moved here and i was thinking,” he swallows, “would you want to help me find a good place to eat? on me, of course.”

you blink

was he asking you as a friendly gesture of thanks or as a date

you honestly couldn’t tell

“well i’ll have to ask my boyfriend, he’d probably wanna know the details and stuff. or maybe he could come with us?”

“oh, that isn’t really—“

just as he opens his mouth to reply, a familiar pale arm wraps around your waist and pulls you into a sturdy chest

“hey princess,” yeonjun aggressively pecks the top of your head, a gesture that has your stomach swooning, “who’s this?”

obliviously, you smile, “oh, we just met here and he was going to take me to—“

since you were in front of him, you didn’t get to see yeonjun’s cold stare that caused the man to quickly put his free hand up in surrender

“oh, no no, nevermind that! sorry— uh, thank you again.” he barely even finished his sentence before turning around and storming off, ears bright red

you begin to question why he was suddenly rushing, but you’re snapped out of it by none other than your boyfriend swivelling you around to face him

yeonjun just stares at you for a moment

looking carefully at your features before cupping your face and leaning down for a kiss

his lips were always so plush n’ soft and you desperately wanted to keep feeling them but

it couldn’t be too long as you were still in a grocery store after all

but even once you pull away yeonjun grabs your hand tightly

“i leave for five minutes and other guys are already hovering around you like flies,” he complains, duck lips turning down cutely

“now you know what it’s like,” you snort, rubbing his knuckles with your fingers laced through his. “you know i’m only yours, ignore them.”

he looks down at you, a fond yet playful gaze in his pretty eyes

“oh really? what are you? i think i forgot, say it again~”

“yours, dumbass,” you can’t help but smile at his antics ^^

“that’s right, mine. mine. all mine.” with each word, yeonjun gives your head another loving smooch <3

// CHOI BEOMGYU !

now this one ..

hate to break it to you but gyu may start laughing and mocking the guy as soon as he’s gone

he finds you rejecting other men hilarious, especially watching the way their face falls in defeat :)

butttt sometimes he gets a little irked out,, especially when the guy has pretty much anything better than him whether it be height or just neater hair

n’ even though you reject those kinds of guys just as quickly as any other, his insecurities tend to eat away at him

so make sure to reassure your boy !!

you and beomgyu decided to bus downtown for a day at the cat cafe that recently opened

things were going better than expected considering going on a weekday apparently meant not many other customers would be around ^^

plus the amount of lockscreen-worthy photos you got of gyu with kittens was astronomical HOW WERE YOU GONNA CHOOSE!!

out of the corner of your eye though, you couldn’t help but fidget at the feeling of the employee staring daggers at you

and at first you worried you were doing something wrong, but all you’ve been doing thus far is play with a grey kitten, laugh at gyu, and take a million pictures

“this one really likes me. i think we should take him home,” beomgyu declares, holding up a small white kitten to demonstrate

but when you don’t reply, he sends you a concerned gaze, “you okay?”

“yeah.. just, that guy won’t stop staring at me.”

when he looks to see who you were talking about, a frown pulls onto beomgyu’s lips

the man was even taller than him and had soft, neatly parted black bangs that somehow rested perfectly by his eyes

don’t even get him started on the uniform he attired being pulled up a bit to reveal tight muscles against his arms, what’s a guy like that doing working at a cat cafe of all places?

beomgyu turns to you, placing the white kitten back onto the floor, “want me to go tell him to stop? i can be very intimidating~”

you watch as he wiggles his eyebrows and snort, “it’s fine. i wanna go ask him about this grey kitten anyway, she’s cute.”

immediately, gyu stands up along with you, “well i’m coming too.”

what? he didn’t want that guy talking to you one on one >:[

as you make your way over to where the employee stands behind a counter, a smile quickly rises to his face when he catches you approaching

“hey there, can i help you with anything? would you like a drink?”

the whole time he never takes his eyes off of you, and beomgyu crosses his arms at the realisation that this man was totally ignoring him! the audacity!!

so of course he opens his mouth, “yeah, actually. i’ll get a latte, please.”

finally, the man turns to him, and his expression falters for a second before he nods and gets to work

you give beomgyu a strange look that he ignores

“you don’t even like lattes,” you murmur with furrowed brows

he simply nods to the kitten in your arms, a defensive glare on his face, “yah, don’t forget what we came here for.”

just in time, the man turns back to you while finishing up the latte and sliding it over to your boyfriend, who emits a barely audible ‘thanks’

a smile quickly returns to his face as he takes you in, along with the kitten you’re holding, “anything for you, pretty girl?”

what

what’d he call you

beomgyu’s jaw DROPS touches the ground even

that is HIS nickname for you!!!

he immediately frowns, a competitive gleam in his eyes as he reaches down to pat your head

“she is pretty, isn’t she?”

apparently the guy didn’t get the hint as he quickly agrees with a cheery ‘of course’ 👎

you seem equally confused but you quickly cough and speak up, “i— uh, i was just wondering what breed this kitten was.”

with another cheesy smile that has beomgyu gagging, he replies, “that’s a british shorthair. we actually have a new litter of shorthairs arriving next week. if you decide to stop by i could give you a personal introduction.”

the man winks, sending another surge of fury through beomgyu, “along with a coffee on the house, of course.”

… it honestly wasn’t a bad deal

but judging by the way beomgyu grabbed your hand and dragged you towards the exit, you assumed it was a no

“sorry, thanks for the offer!” you barely make out before the cafe door slams closed

“along with a coffee on the house, of course,” beomgyu mocks the man’s deep voice, face scrunched up obnoxiously while you groan next to him

“don’t let him ruin our nice day baby, c’mon,” you reassure the boy, smoothing out his frustrated wrinkles with your thumb, “i’ve already forgotten what that loser looks like.”

beomgyu’s snickers, relief taking over his features as he stares down at the sidewalk

“mkay. you think i’m better looking, right?”

“he isn’t even competition next to you.”

he gets giddier by each word, slowly going back to his regular self whilst a small :> rises to his lips

“and you’re all mine, right?”

“yeah,” you bump his shoulder, smirking playfully, “and you’re mine?”

his smile grows, “obviously.”

gyu mostly stays positive like that through the remainder of the date, but later you may find him sitting and staring off into space, once again reminiscing on what could’ve made that guy think you weren’t taken, if he wasn’t good enough, etc

but don’t worry! as long as you’re ready to offer words of affirmation and big spooning, he’ll be back to you in no time ^^

// KANG TAEHYUN !

not a very big reaction

it’s terry we’re talking about !! our unfazed king

he knows you’re his, what’s there to worry about ^^

honestly he might even chuckle at whoever had the confidence to try and ask you out rigHt in front of him

he lets you deal with it yourself unless it escalates in any way,, in that case oh boy is he ready

mans can finally put those hard-earned muscles to use <3

anways so you and tyun were having a nice lil’ outing at a cafe for lunch

being seated by the window, you spent every few seconds pointing at random things outside like literal cats <3

at one point a squirrel ran by and you immediately pointed at it going ‘you’ THEN TYUN DID HIS CUTE GIGGLE

he was in one of his cute moods and you could swear his eyes held the whole world when he smiled at you like that :(

that kinda changed when the waiter came though,,

you were a bit oblivious, but taehyun quickly caught on to the way the young man’s gaze would linger on you each time he handed you something no matter it was your drink, a napkin, absolutely any reason he could use to stAre at you

and despite him not being a very confrontational person, he makes sure you’re fully aware of what he sees

“ that guy totally wants you,” he comments as if it was something as simple as the weather 💀

meanwhile you nearly choke on your drink, “that— what? who?”

“waiter guy.”

“and at first you smile, “aww, you jealous?”

but of course ,, big mistake

“of what? you’re in love with me, aren’t you?” HE’S SO GRHRRGFH

you do that classic pouty pout and taehyun secretly wishes the table wasn’t there so he could lean over and kiss it away because aWww <3

bUt after that incident things were running smoothly, and since the waiter hadn’t returned for a while, taehyun figured it’d be a good time to run to the bathroom

well

apparently he couldn’t get a moment of peace because as soon as he waddled back to where you were seated, waiter guy had his elbow on the table, writing something on a sticky note while murmuring something that taehyun could only catch a few words from

“—can always call me if he messes up, i’ll be waiting.”

OOOHH yeah no he’s shaking in fury on the inside but stays cool on the outside

the sound of your sweet voice telling the man you weren’t interested and that something like that would never happen manages to cool him down a bit, but tyun still makes sure to bump the man’s shoulder extra hard while pacing back to his seat

“what’d i miss?” your boyfriend’s voice is so calm as usual,, but also somehow scary and cold n’ even yOu get nervous!!

“i- uh, enjoy your meal.”

taehyun SCOFFS as the man wobbles away with his tail tucked between his legs, “how pathetic,” he frowns

ouch…

you reach over to his knuckles which instantly softens up his tense muscles, watching as he sighs

“see, you’re just too gorgeous. it gets bothersome,” as usual, his voice is calm, but this time laced with a hint of dramatic playfulness, making you giggle shyly

you’ve gotten better and better at reading and understanding your boyfriend’s speech habits and tones, which is something not many could successfully do ^^

that’s pretty much it though

he might bring it up another time as almost a little inside joke between you guys, but he prefers to say that the guy was too irrelevant to bring any more attention to !!

but also

on the bill..

taehyun reattached that sticky note he tried to hand you and wrote something on it

unfortunately he folded it so you never got to see, but judging by the nervous stutters the waiter let out while handing him the receipt, you guessed it wasn’t too polite

your mind is taken off that real quick though when his larger hand is cupping yours :D

“c’mon princess,” with the gentlest forehead kiss ever, “we won’t be back here, that’s for sure.”

// HUENING KAI !

does that thing where his head just frantically shakes between u two like O-0

nervous chuckles awkward foot movements

starts inwardly panicking like fUck what should a boyfriend do in this situation SHOULD I BE PUNCHING THAT GUY

because lowkey

he doesn’t care that much,,

he trusts you fully n’ knows that guy is getting rejected

by the end of the whole fiasco he may end up having a nice conversation with the stranger as if they’re besties

they’ll be discussing how awful the weather’s been in the past week while you just stand there utterly gobsmacked

..he’s hyuka what’d you expect

however

do note that your boy may become unusually clingy after it’s all over

and if you question him he may or may not gaslight you into thinking everything’s normal out of embarrassment <3

anyways SEGWAY GOES HERE (coughs. so smooth)

being the rock-paper-scissor loser that you were

your co-workers left you alone to close up the local convenience store for the night (boooo tomato tomato)

closing was in a mere five minutes, and you were more than ready to book it out the door n’ spend your remaining waking hours watching anime with kai

AND all his plushies of course ^^

besides that NOBODY else was invited

not even soobin despite how he usually loves watching anime with you guys :(

kai insisted it was his very much needed alone time with you

so when the bell above the door jingles, a smile already makes it’s way to your face, expecting to see your boyfriend there and ready to drive you home

well.. not exactly

a man that looks around your age runs in, quickly sprinting over to the grocery section

and you’re just like well. shit.

if this is a robbery you’re fully prepared to sacrifice everything in the store

what’d they expect paying you minimum wage ??

but before you even raise your hands in surrender, the man has already made his way to the cashier, panting and huffing as he drops his basket onto the counter

“sorry, i know you close in a few minutes but if you could ring me up it’d be really, really great.”

you blink

“oh. yeah, sure. sorry, i thought you were a thief this whole time.”

watching you scan his items, the man giggles, “my bad. it’s.. a long story.”

“clearly, if you’re buying energy drinks at this time of night.”

again, he chuckles, leaning his palms on the table. “hey, you’re quite cute,” just as he speaks up, the doorbell rings again, “could i get your number?”

meanwhile you lift your head to see kai, who is now awkwardly staring between you both with a nervous smile on his lips

facepalming inwardly, you clear your throat, “uh- sorry, my boyfriend is- um, right there.”

when the guy turns to face him, kai just coughs with a barely audible, ‘hi’

“shit, that’s embarrassing. my bad— again.” you almost feel pity as the man fumbles to put his card back in his wallet, grabbing his bag and speedwalking to the door

but right before he can leave, kai speaks up out of nowhere, “where- where’d you get your jacket?”

you give him an odd stare, matching the guy who backtracks in confusion, “uh, i dunno. why?”

“i think i have the same one, that brand is super underrated,” kai grins nervously, and honestly, you’re starting to feel like a proud mom watching her kid make their first friend at pre-school

after the stranger gasps and brings up how he’s never met anyone else who knows it, they ramble for another few minutes before he eventually checks his phone, apologizing and saying that he needs to leave

nOt without exchanging numbers with your boyfriend of course

when kai turns around to see you shaking your head in disbelief, he bursts into a fit of screechy dolphin laughter

“he came for your number and ended up with mine instead!”

you smack his shoulder, countering the endeared smile growing on your lips, “god, you’re insane. who the hell makes friends with a guy who asked their girlfriend out minutes prior?”

grabbing your bag for you, kai throws it over his shoulder and wiggles his brows, “your boyfriend does, cutie. i personally think i handled it great.”

“yeah, whatever. go watch demon slayer with him instead.”

he pinches your cheek, cooing mockingly, “aw, no need to be jealous! i only wanna watch with my pretty girl~”

he’s acting all cocky right now

but right as kai starts to gets sleepy, he begins mumbling on about how much he doesn’t like when others try to steal you from him, and that he’ll do anything to be the one staying by your side permanently ^^ <3

if you enjoyed, reblogs n’ feedback is always appreciated + motivating for me to post more!

© delcakoo on tumblr. all rights reserved. do not rewrite, cross-post, translate, copy, etc.

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[dunmeshistash]

Greetings, Mr. Meshi!

This is perhaps a bit of an unorthodox question, but one that has been bothering me for an unreasonable amount of time.

Now, here's the thing: I OBSESS over Marcille outliving everyone she holds dear. It's a theme very close to me, but even beyond that I just find it to be one of the most interesting elements of Dungeon Meshi's story for me personally. I've written an embarrassing amount of lengthy essays on it that will never see the light of day - that's how obsessed I am over this specific element of her character. But, there's something that bothers me...

A lot of poignant stories and artworks that tackle this topic get comments on 'em whenever Falin is the subject of aging, each one some variation of "Everything points to Falin having an extended lifespan after her revival!" which... Seems weird to me?

I don't know why this bothers me so much, but setting aside my personal annoyances, I don't remember anything pointing to this at all. At least, nothing concrete.

I don't know if this is a question you'd want to answer or not, but since your blog is a hub for all sorts of opinions and headcanons, I'd love to know where this line of thought could originate from.

I really wouldn't blame you if you didn't answer this question, though. Part of me feels I'm just asking this because I want to see if others share in my confusion or not.

Rrrregardless, though! Lemme take the opportunity to say that your blog is delighful. Love it! Also, that mushroom man with the funny face that sometimes responds to you with lengthy essays is also really cool. Everyone is cool. At least here on the northern hemisphere! It is smack dab in the middle of fall, after all! Coolness all around! Stay frosty! Or don't! Maybe warm up at a fireplace. I don't know!

Hi there! Thank you for the kind words, I love reading other's opinions on what I post so I also love the additions by the mushroom <3

It's quite hot over here in northeast Brazil, send some coolness my way please I'm dying.

Your question isn't strange at all! And I don't mind answering anything (unless it's rude or sounds like shipping war bait) so don't worry.

(Decided to put the rest under a readmore, TLDR: Kui said "maybe so, right?" about Falin having a longer lifespan but I have arguments why I don't think this actually confirms it. Anyway if you're someone who likes the headcanon you might want to skip this post)

To be honest those type of comments bother me too because I also LOVE Marcille's struggle with mortality and sometimes "Falin will live much longer!" feels undermining of the lesson she had to learn. I don't mind it in the headcanon sphere where everything is allowed and happy endings grow on trees but when it becomes intertwined with canon it starts to make me a little disappointed.

Just a reminder of the lesson she has to learn

She has to come to terms with the cycle of life and death, that something she wants (everyone to live longer) shouldn't be forced upon others just because it causes her grief. So, to me at least, Falin being made into something that will end up outliving other tallmen would undermine the message? In a canon sense ofc, if you're writing a wish fulfillment story then her living longer would have a different meaning, I just wanna be clear I have nothing against it in that sense, it all depends on what story you're trying to tell.

Anyway, actually answering your question that idea comes from the fact she was fused to a Red Dragon, and the fact her body has been affected by it, her sight was fixed and she grows feathers for example, so people theorize maybe her lifespan has been affected too. But we don't really know how long dragon's live so it's hard to say how much it would have been affected if at all.

It also comes from this answer Kui gave in a QnA

Q: Would Falin have an extended lifespan after the whole chimera thing? A: Maybe so, right?

To me this reads as the usual non-answers Kui gives, like, "I'll leave it up to your imagination" but for other people this read as a confirmation of the headcanon, in another questions she answers "I hope so" about Thistle leading a happy life after having his desires eaten and it's even debatable if Thistle survived at all so I don't think those comments indicate much of canon (I'm that way about most QnA answers tbh, unless it's something inconsequential like confirming Mithrun's Brother's name or stuff about very minor characters)

Another argument I have against her having a different lifespan is Izutsumi, Izu has been mixed with a monster but continues to age at the same rate a Tallmen would, even tho she also has different biology because of the Great Cat she's fused with (ears, reflexes, eyes etc etc) she is still a tallman

Falin isn't really the same thing as Izutsumi tho, I understand, but it's the closest example we have, if we believe the AB descriptions and demi-humans are really mixes between humans and monsters that's also another argument about it not affecting lifespan, since all of them are short lived and have an average lifespan of 55.

All of this *can* be dissmissed tho, the other demi-humans and beastmen are all mixed with mammal monsters and nothing nearly as powerful as a Dragon, so there is arguments to be made that Falin is different and that she *might* have an extended lifespan, all I'm saying is that there's no solid confirmation of it, it's fine to believe it but going around "correcting" other people saying it's a fact wouldn't be right I don't think, especially if you're saying that in a conversation about Marcille journey of death acceptance.

Death is a touchy subject and everyone is at different stages of their own journeys with it so I really don't want to judge those who would rather have Falin or even Laios live longer. I'm not really sure how to talk about this in the proper way, but I hope I didn't make anyone upset!

[corpupine]

I've been doing a lot of thinking...and I feel like I need to scream this out somehow even though I'm sure it's been talked about before (and I'm putting it under a readmore because it gets long).

No matter what, in any playthrough you do and any timeline you create.

UNDERTALE is a game about guilt.

You have Toriel, so guiltridden she couldn't protect her own children that she devotes herself to never letting another child leave again. And then they do!! over and over again, that guilt compounds until it's the center of her life and every choice she makes!!

And obviously Asgore, so guiltridden that he couldn't protect his own children from humans that he spends the rest of his days trying to get out and get revenge on them--as if that will stop the voices in his head saying, if you had been out there with them you could have stopped it, you could have stopped those humans from killing your children, and maybe he could have!! Or maybe not!! He'll never know and it eats him from the inside out!

Alphys, oh my sweet summer child this fandom does not deserve you!! Alphys, so guiltridden from her own perceived failures as a scientist that she began to try anything, anything to make the King happy, and it seemed to be working at first, and then it was so everlastingly worse, how can you cause something worse than death?? without even trying??

And it shows up in little ways, silly ways, too! Ways you wouldn't even think about as guilt! Undyne! She feels guilty that she won't let Papyrus join the Royal Guard so she gives him cooking lessons instead! Papyrus feels guilty that he's not in love with you after one date so he'll "keep being your cool friend and act like this never happened!"

SANS MY BOI don't even get me started. His guilt isn't as physically obvious but he made a promise to toriel, he promised her he would keep the human safe, and in timelines where you save everyone he follows you pretty much all throughout the Underground (even if he doesn't do anything to help smh) because he'd feel guilty not doing it, and in timelines where you kill everyone he feels guilty for not stopping you, AND in those SAME timelines he feels guilty for stopping you because it means he's breaking his promise to Toriel to keep you safe I!!! This boy can fit so much cosmic guilt in him!!!!

Asriel! FLOWEY!! Do you ever wonder if he feels guilty about being the one to wake up again? The one to survive, when Chara had to die twice?? He sits at their grave and he will do anything, anything to drown out those thoughts so he befriends and kills and torments and it's all the same and it's all useless!!

And their guilt compounds each others'! Toriel makes Sans make that promise because of her own guilt, which increases his! Asgore's guilt is what pushes Alphys so far past the limits of ethical science, because he increases hers!

And all of this, all of this, ALL OF THIS pales in comparison to you!!!

You!! The player! You return to the Underground after maybe accidentally killing Toriel or a few others because you didn't know, you never wanted to hurt them!! You listen to Flowey and you come back and you save them all!

You! The player!!! You cry at the ending and you'd feel guilty, so guilty about letting them all go, wouldn't you? So you ignore Flowey's pleas to let it alone, and you come back again, you say hello to your dear friends but this time it isn't the same, this time you kill them all because you want to see everything this game has to offer, might as well get your money's worth, the fights are cool, right?? And then you get hit with the most unsatisfying atomic bomb of an ending and the only thing left is your own reflection staring back at you from the black screen of your computer as the horror dawns, what have you done???

YOU!!! The player! You go back again even though there is no Flowey left to tell you to, and you save them all again because I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, nobody deserves what I did to all of you, and it's all good, nobody remembers, and then you get to the end. The game knows what you did!!! It never forgot, and it'll make certain you never forget either!! Guilt!! Guilt, guilt!!! It's baked into the code of this game!!

Anyways tl;dr, maybe it actually did make sense to give this game to the pope

[mandiemegatron]

Why kill off the reader in the second part of losing the war? I was expecting Kidd or Killer to get hurt or something but killing the reader? Tell us you don't care about your readers without telling us you don't care about your readers. Who the fuck kills off the READER? Take the L and maybe stop acting like your writing is better than it actually is.

*deep breath*

Okay.

I've received a handful of anons similar to this one and I didn't think I'd have to come on here to break down my ideas and give reasons as to why I wrote something the way I did, but clearly some people are pretty pressed over my choices for Just Come Home. Everything under the readmore so I don't clog up people's dash.

Let's break this down one point at a time. So firstly, my choice to kill off the Reader was actually a last-minute decision while finishing it off. My original idea was reader never forgives Kid and decides to fight Kid and Killer instead, losing and being left for dead (for Law to find), but decided, why not even more hurt? More pain and more anguish, as I was asked to put Kid through via some askers/anons. I found the best way to do that, was to kill off the reader. Have them make amends only to have that ripped from Kids hands and destroyed with a simple flick of the wrist, and honestly, the fact that I had myself in tears while writing it gave me the motivation to continue with that idea.

I also wanted to delve into trying my hand at Law who felt backed into a wall and decided to spill blood, all for the sake of having an upper hand, and if that meant he had to off the reader to keep that upper hand, then so be it. I wanted to write something different from my usual angst, something a little more devastating and I feel like I hit that mark pretty damn close. Truly, I'm sorry you feel differently about it.

Secondly, don't you EVER come into my inbox and point fingers, saying I don't care about my readers. Buddy, I probably care TOO MUCH about my readers, about what they think and about how they feel when reading my writing. This is incredibly hurtful for you to come up here and essentially scream in my face that this isn't good enough. I need you to understand that if you dont enjoy something, that means it wasn't written for YOU. Not everything you come across is going to be to your taste and it's insanely self-centered and entitled of you to come in here and tell me I don't give a fuck about my readers because YOU thought it was stupid. It feels like you're taking this a little personally and I don't understand why.

Lastly, i don't sit here and brag about my writing. In fact, I feel like I stay pretty quiet other than some self reblogs of things I've written when I'm feeling that certain blorbo. It's confusing and again, hurtful, for you to come in here and essentially tell me to shut the fuck up... on my own blog. That's some strange activities there, buddy. I think you maybe need to log off for a bit, go sit in nature and do some deep breathing because this is crossing the line over to chronically online. Please go outside for a bit. Please revise your manners and remember the golden rule. You don't have to be religious for you to understand "treat others the way you want to be treated".

Do better.

[liedownquisition]

Jason Todd's timeline and "Age"

So, there's a lot of discussion of Jason Todd's age esp as relative to other sidekick vigilantes, particularly Tim and Mia. I believe the exact words are usually something about a "grown ass man beating up/trying to kill teenagers."

DISCLAIMER: This particular post is specifically regarding the "grown ass man vs teenagers" statement, I have posts regarding the "tried to kill them" portion and other stuff like "seriously Jason Todd is like being shot by a marshmallow gun compared to what goes on directly before and after him in these incidents, also you don't bitch about the right stuff, also a lot of you prop up characters who are Objectively Worse, and no that's not hate on your fave it's just me calling out hypocrisy". It just takes time to find digital copies of the panels I'm using. NOTE I AM NOT JUSTIFYING HIS ACTIONS. I'm just saying y'all blow it out of proportion for petty character hate. Like, shit, they're superheroes. Jason's soooo fuckin' tame. He's not even framed as a big deal to the teens it's only the adults that think it's that much of a problem.

Courtesy readmore post cut:

Now, to start off, we all know Jason died at 15 & a few months off from 16 (if you want me to dig up panels, sure, but I figured at this point that wasn't in question). Tim at this point is somewhere between 12-13, and we have this panel in Lonely Place of Dying which takes place a few months later:

So that's a ballpark of 2-3 years between Jason and Tim.

But Tim's age is really fucky and they keep de-aging him tbh. We can extrapolate that his confrontation with Jason was between the ages of 16-17 bcs it's after the arc where he has his incredibly shitty 16th birthday in Robin Vol2 #116 and before Red Robin where he's stated to be 17. This would put Jason between 18-19 at the time. (If you really want me to find panel sources for Tim's birthday and his age in RR then, sure, but I don't think they're necessary. I used it more as a guidepost for Jason's age, since we have a clear idea of what the age gap is.)

At least, on paper.

Mia for her part I've had a hard time finding like, on panel mentions of her age and if anyone can direct me to it being explicitly stated I'd love that. I'm rereading old comics but it's a LOT of comics to hunt down & dig through. To my understanding she was fifteen when Ollie first met her, and there's at Minimum of about a year and a half between that to her meeting Red Hood, more likely at least two? because there's at least few months between that and her joining the Titans, the Doctor Light stuff, then One Year Later, and then returned to Star some 3 months after Ollie came back to run for mayor? And then Jason not too long after. So, two years feels safe. Puts her at 17-ish, Jason at 19-20

Once again, I specify: on paper.

People would happily point out at this point that the upward stretch of a 4 year age gap is a "huge gap in maturity." And yeah, under normal circumstances, I'd agree.

But, and this is going to get contradictory bcs I found Two different timelines (BOTH written by Winick, lmao), and depending on how you read it it could be up to three different possibilities. Let's Start with Batman Annual #25: Daedalus & Icarus.

Timestamp before Jason's resurrection, which is pretty well known at this point:

Next, him waking up from a coma afterwards, when he escapes the hospital:

Now the above could be interpreted as either 1 year after he died if we're assuming that it's using the same "start" point to count as the resurrection (unlikely), or one year after he came back (more likely).

Next, the timestamp right before a guy recognizes him and sells him out:

And, finally, the timestamp before being put in the Pit:

That is, count it up, between 3-3 1/2 years where Jason was dead, in a coma, or otherwise not particularly... cognizant of the world around him. His ass is NOT developing emotionally, socially, or mentally like this, which pretty handily bridges the gaps there. Taken at face value, Jason's maturity level is going to be, unironically, younger than Tim's in the wake of these setbacks.

Now, if we go to Lost Days issue 1, it doesn't specify how long he was dead, nor how long he was in a coma, so we'll just carry those two over, what we DO have is this from just after Talia brought him home:

This puts him as being on the streets for five months, so we're at just shy of two years so far. And then we have this:

Which is right before Talia puts him in the Pit.

So, in summary: 6 months dead, 1 year coma, 5 months on the street, and something like 1-1 1/2 years with the League which...

Actually puts us on almost the exact same timeframe either way. 3 to 3 1/2 years. It just changes whether Jason was on the streets or with the League for longer.

And is utterly incomprehensible because comic timelines are a freaking nightmare.

If we're being generous, then that would put Jason at a minimum of 19, maybe toeing the line of 20 for UTRH, again, on paper, because like hell are you convincing me he did less than a year's worth of training abroad throughout Lost Days. Yeah maybe they trained him in fighting while he was catatonic, muscle memory and all that. But the other teachers that we KNOW of? The bombs, guns, probably something to get him up to date on handling all that tech we see him using, Egon, potentially arguably All-Caste if you want to draw from n52...

but you'd have to knock at least a year and a half off of his internal/personal development from death & coma, at minimum. Maybe you could argue he was somewhat developing while in his "the lights are on, but nobody's home" phase, you can't say it's at the same level as a normal person might when going about their day to day life, and it's difficult to measure. But he's not hitting the kind of milestones that he should be for his age. I wouldn't put him at anything less than two years behind. So if we use our upper estimates on Jason, and lower estimates on both the developmental setbacks and Tim/Mia's ages that gives us:

Jason toeing 20, mentally 18, fighting Tim at 16. 2 year gap, kind of stretching the physical age gap if we assume Tim had just barely turned 13 when he showed up to be Robin. - OR LESS

Jason maybe 21, mentally 19, fighting Mia at 17, two year age gap again. Honestly, still not that big of a difference - OR LESS

And, to be frank, that's not even counting the mental development issues that come from the intense physical trauma from dying - and I swear to fuck don't give me the "He's not the only one who died he's not special" speech.

HOW MANY OF THE OTHERS YOU'RE USING AS A GOTCHA LOST, *GESTURING AGGRESSIVELY ABOVE*, LITERALLY MULTIPLE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.

Not counting adults, of course. Barry lost years, Hal lost years, Ollie I think also lost a couple years? but A) they came back still adults, bodies pretty much the same. B) While Jason's body didn't go through a magic growth spurt in canon, it did still grow esp while with the League.

I'll eventually get around to Titan's Tower & GA#72 (tbh, there are other people who've already done Titan's Tower and it'd probably be better than what I do, so I'm more going to focus on the latter, but there IS a specific part of the former that drives me nuts that I don't see brought up a lot), and maybe if we're feeling spicy all my issues with UTRH starting with how Winick is just as guilty of retroactively writing Jason as being inherently a bad penny since his Robin days as any of the other "modern" writers. Like, bud, Severe enough Head Trauma is legitimately enough to change someone's personality, not to mention trauma. It wouldn't hurt your narrative for that eerie difference, the Shade of What Once Was if you're really going for RH being Like that.

Final addition: I swear to god if you use my post to start up some kind of petty-ass ship war or flame other characters I will immediately turn off reblogs and replies I am Not Dealing With That Shit, please and thank you.

Anyways, @glitter-stained, your interest made me decide to actually put the work in now to pull it up rather than passively gather stuff to dump whenever discourse pushes me over the edge so, here ya are. Looks like you did have it closer on the mark than I did.

[yellow-faerie]

@wormsontoast I do indeed have some thoughts about Archivist!Georgie (from the au vaguely outlined here) and since you showed a mild interest in it, I shall now tell you all about it here haha

So there are two things I kinda want to say before I keep going because this au has been changing and shifting in my head a lot and I want to get a bit more of it out into the world.

The first is that each archivist au is based off of as few changes as possible to the canon timeline, aiming (ideally) for only one change that causes ripples throughout the timeline. For example, in the Gertrude-causes-the-apocalypse au, the one change is that Agnes and Gertrude get bound when they are both much younger and the web manipulates things from there, yada yada that's not why we're here BUT you see the vision.

The other thing is that my initial intention was that most people would have a pair, forming some sort of couple or QPR, two people against the world kinda thing - one of them would be the Archivist and one of them would be their apocalypse + 1. This was mostly because (in my head at least) I saw one very eye-aligned character in each couple.

BUT I have recently been doing a re-listen and one thing that stands out to me is that so many of the main characters want to know things, that I think a lot of them could have ended up in the Archivist position in fact. Martin seems to actively encourage reading statements in S3, and Tim definitely has the motivation (when the circus gets involved at least) to be manipulated into the position - more curious though are Daisy and Georgie.

I'll leave a potential archivist!Daisy post for another day (because that's a wild au and a half haha) and talk instead about Georgie, who was meant to be the purpose of this post lol (I'll pop it under a readmore)

So, Georgie - the first thing is how does she become the Archivist? I think the point of divergence for this au would be that Georgie and Jon don't break up during Uni (or just after) and keep their relationship kinda going for a while, and when Jon mentions joining the Magnus Institute, Georgie goes with him.

The real question is why. Georgie in the podcast is fairly avidly against chasing the monsters, so I can see her as taking a job there as a way of keeping Jon safe - I think she sees him as quite naive for his scepticisim and knows that she will not talk him out of it, so she better just be there to stop him from going somewhere he shouldn't.

Jon and Georgie do break-up though, although fairly amicably. They keep living together because it's way cheaper than living alone in London and they are friends. Georgie also starts WTG but it's very much a side project to work (one that she keeps putting off making her full time job, even though she wants to, because the Institute's library is just too good for research).

She's also the one to push him towards the cute librarian with whom Jon has several cringefail attempts to woo before they start tentatively dating.

I reckon that during the course of being in research (with Jon and Tim and Sasha), Georgie gets marked by the web. They'd marked Jon but then Georgie had come, and so they saw an opportunity in her (or wanted a back-up just in case).

Either way, by the time that Gertrude dies, Georgie is the one that Elias chooses as the next Archivist (and I honestly think that Gertrude might have thought that Georgie would be the next Archivist too - Sasha is good but you can't beat actual fearlessness coupled with good sense).

She gets to take with her Jon and Sasha and Tim (Elias is like...let's make sure I have plenty of hostages to work with when the time is right) and that's the Archives team sorted. They're fairly competent, considering the fact that none of them have a library science degree.

Season 1 goes much the same but we meet Martin when he escapes Prentiss. Jon has been going to the library for Georgie, getting out books on archiving and the like and periodically finding references, mostly because he's the one who's closest to the library staff (well, one library staff member in particular).

But Jon mentions that Georgie assigned him the Vittery statement - something about facing his fears - and he hates it, so Martin suggests they go together after work, and he would deal with any remaining spiders for Jon. (Who is Martin, if not down bad for Jon?)

(That is, of course, a rhetorical question lol)

Something something, Martin gets trapped in his apartment for two weeks by the Worm Woman despite not actually being in the Archives. Then he comes straight to the Archives to give a statement, where Jon is working late and waiting for Georgie to finish so they can go home. Jon is the one that suggests Martin stay in the Archives, after he turned down the offer of staying on their sofa.

So Martin lives in document storage and continues working in the library with the rest of his coworkers none-the-wiser, and gets kinda absorbed into the Archives nonsense as Sasha meets Michael etc. etc. And Martin and Jon get really close, from late nights and evenings and weird little dates.

It goes from like...dating to being genuinely quite serious; they have been together for probably like 2 or 3 years by this point but this is a tipping point in their relationship. They keep talking about how they'll move in together after all this is over, so Georgie can finally have her home studio and Martin doesn't have to go back to his flat.

Anyway-

There's also Melanie. She comes in because Georgie was one of the people she contacted in her search for answers and Georgie was like...come and make a statement, maybe we can do something.

Melanie is slightly less derisive of the Magnus Institute (only slightly) mostly because she likes Georgie more lol

Martin is in the library when Prentiss attacks, and is the one that Sasha finds when she runs up from the Archives. Jon and Georgie and Tim are down in the archives, knocking in walls and fighting off worms, and Sasha and Martin go find the CO2 suppression system.

Sasha turns the right corner; Martin doesn't and ends up in Artefact Storage.

Tim finds Gertrude's body. The tide of worms split him off from Georgie and Jon who end up getting wormed in the archives before the fire suppression system gets set off.

They have a few weeks off. Not!Martin and Jon do move in together as had been planned, staying at Georgie's while sorting out a place together. Before everyone returns to the Institute (Martin got the time off too because he was deemed sufficiently traumatised by it all), Jon and Martin move in together, Sasha and Tim have another ill-advised hook-up and Georgie ends up...alone.

Queue the paranoia arc. Georgie might not be able to feel fear but I think that would make a paranoia arc even funnier, because she is convinced that she is seeing things Rationally only for her very much not doing that.

So the thoughts get a bit vague from here. I have some thoughts for each character though!

Martin is obviously taken by the Not!Them in this and so that really fucks Jon up. Jon is Georgie's oldest friend and very much her closest support net, often being the one to feel fear in her place (like she uses him to gauge how she should react to a situation, something that developed because there hasn't really been a time since Georgie returned to Uni where they haven't been in relatively close proximity).

So Jon goes off the deep-end after the revelation of Martin's death and the fact that he wasn't even living with the guy. He takes the responsibility of Martin's mother onto his shoulders, he literally ties up all of Martin's loose ends and then I think he just...stops caring.

It's a mix between Tim's complete S3 despair and Jon's S2 paranoia. He literally cannot trust anyone anymore, no matter how hard he tries, except maybe Georgie because of the whole Archivist thing. And so he goes to the circus with Georgie and Tim and Basira and Daisy.

And he is the one to press the button and die.

I don't usually like taking that away from Tim, because it is a decision so tightly linked to his backstory but I actually put him as ending up in the Coffin in this, shoved in there by a well-meaning Gerogie with her mind being twisted by the Unknowing.

I like the idea of Georgie having a bit of a superiority complex in this AU, where she is sure that she knows better than everyone else because she can't feel fear so she can see things Rationally and Correctly (she wildly underestimates how much other emotions can influence you).

Anyway, back to Tim. He wasn't as depressed during S3 because Georgie's own mini-paranoia arc involved a lot more of digging into statements because she is much more certain that the knowledge of who killed Gertrude is in there, and also Sasha is very much alive and well.

I mean, Jon's rancid vibes are definitely off-putting but like this is at the point where they realise they can't leave and the dread powers exist so the vibes aren't great anyway.

So Tim ends up in the Buried. How does he get out you ask?

Sasha.

I have been waiting for a potential AU in which to put Vast!Sasha and I have decided this is the one. No I don't know how yet but this is my decision - I love the idea of Buried!Tim and Vast!Sasha being something of a couple.

Beyond that for them though, it's mostly vibes.

I think Basira might actually choose to work with Peter Lukas in this one. I wouldn't have Georgie go into a coma post-Unknowing because she's already touched by the End and I don't think she would choose to wake up again, because she simply doesn't have the fear of death that influenced Jon, so she's around for the inter-season shenanigans that occurred.

So Basira doesn't trust her or Elias or Peter, but she decides that as she knows Elias and Georgie, and she's been offered this position by Peter, she'll take it.

(She's trying to ignore the pull of Daisy, hunting out there somewhere, lost after the circus - she never even got the chance to fight against it)

Melanie would be a very interesting one indeed, because part of what attracted her to Georgie in the first place (I think) is that Georgie knows about the entities and can understand her trauma, but is determined to not be a part of it, so they would be so much more messy than in canon.

I honestly couldn't say how her story would thus change. Melanie is a very fascinating character to me and I struggle to sort her out in my head without writing her (and so is Georgie - that's the problem with not writing them as much as some other characters :/) - that said, I do think she doesn't go full eye gouging because she does really love Georgie and doesn't want to leave her in hell alone.

(Hand in unlovable hand and all)

(I also think that Tim and Sasha might decide to do some eye-gouging with friends, as not-quite fully realised avatars of other powers, and try and settle down together somewhere, just in time for the apocalypse)

I'm not sure what all of Georgie's marks would be, or how she'd get them, and if you've got this far I am sure you understand my thoughts are vague and disjointed; but know it will be tragic and upsetting because I refuse to let myself write happy AUs lol

ANYWAY, thank you for showing an interest in this AU :)

[kooki914]

Hi again kooki! Hope you're doing great!

I LOVE your characters analysis and theories and after the newsletter thing, I really wanted to ask about your opinion on the Berdly's alleged invitation for Kris to go to the festival together. One of the problems that bothers me is that, I don't know, I hope this isn't just me, but to me, it seems Toby is creating a love triangle between Kris, Ralsei and Berdly if Kris really goes with Berdly to the festival. Precisely because of the romantic implications between Kris and Ralsei in the tunnel of love and Kris's playful little flirtations with him. And i feel like i need to see more thoughts on it - i feel like the only one thinking of how this would work? :( Now I wonder how Kris choices would be in game, if they would answer yes or no genuinely, Although the choices don't matter lol Imo, I dare say I would love to see a kind of denial on Kris's part (if Noelle ask Susie to the festival first), since Susie's question about the festival, I feel like they want to go with HER, on top of everything, and I would love to see a kind of jealousy on their character.

Maybe it's just my favoritism, I also thought about Susie asking who Kris would take to the festival and the Ralsei choice + wanting to bring Ralsei and Lancer to the Light World, I feel like Ralsei might even feel a bit more excluded than he already is in the game if all his friends were always having fun in the world without him. And if that's the case... I don't know what I would do other than cry for my baby boy 😔💔

My ask ends here, I hope I didn't miss the point of my question 😅 from such a small dialogue you can get a lot of information and thoughts and I think that's what happened here haha, but anyway, that's it!! I wish you all the best and a happy new year for you!! ^^ ✨

Happy new year to you, too! And, if I caught it correctly, the point of the ask is my opinions on the implied Kris/Berdly as a legitimate pairing in the last newsletter? And general thoughts about how that feels exclusionary towards Ralsei? As your ask is already long, so I'll put my answer under a readmore-

In short, I didn't really pay much mind to that bit of dialogue that was revealed. As a general rule of thumb, I assume all content outside of the game (newsletters, sweepstakes, merch) doesn't actually carry weight for the overarching plot. Some could argue with me, but, as an example, the only thing in the trailer for chapter 1 were characters hanging out and a running gag of too many dogs blocking everything because of "spoilers", and everything that WAS shown wasn't any kind of impactful spoiler at all. Or, the trailer for chapter 2, which only featured the first cutscene of the chapter and nothing else, not even showing us Susie and Kris landing in Castletown. I believe the supplementary material we're getting right now fills the same purpose, teasers that show us snippets of comic relief or set-dressing that doesn't actually impact the deeper themes of the story, or the narrative beats of character arcs.

With this in mind, my thought for the Berdly dialogue was, originally, that it can only be triggered if you didn't break his arm in the Queen battle AND if you gave the present to Berdly in Cyber City rather than literally anyone else. It's something the game actively mocks as an action (adding the starwalker to your team on TOP of Berdly in some cases and them both just disappearing in the next room, since it's all just a gag), and if I remember correctly it was only added after a playtester told Toby Berdly had become their favourite character. (I might be misremembering that trivia though don't quote me on that!) I imagine this dialogue follows that thread? Where if Kris was nice to Berdly and included him, Berdly decides to also be nice to Kris and include them.

I don't think there's any kind of love triangle is being set up between Kris Berdly and Ralsei, and I'm not just saying that to ease your concearns. Don't let popular fanon fool you, Kris seems to harbour no positive feelings towards Berdly even by the end of ch2. I really don't see romance between them implied in the game, with or without that bit of dialogue from the newsletter. Krerdly as a ship SKYROCKETED after ch2 when it didn't really exist in ch1, and I think Toby might just be giving a little nod to that with that dialogue. Ralsei is excluded from his friends in a myriad of ways, but I really don't think BERDLY is a contributing factor. Again, fanon likes putting a spotlight on him because people grew fond of him, but narratively speaking Berdly is as ir/relevant right now as Catti and Jockington are.

Overall I understand the worry of a forced love triangle, god knows that's how I felt during most of Cyber City as I played with Kris and Noelle pining after Ralsei and Susie respectively, but I (tentatively) have faith in the game to not actually play a love triangle completely straight. (Even with everything in the snowgrave route, I wouldn't consider Noelle/Kris/Ralsei to be a love triangle, at least not one being used in a trope-y way, Ralsei/Kris and Susie/Noelle are just the two main pairings in the game and they aren't messed with all tat much.) It just seems cheap and unearned to shove Berdly into that dynamic, especially since he's acted like a bully towards Kris for possibly even longer than Susie has (as she moved in recently but Berdly's been boasting since he was a kid), and Kris at no point shows interest in Berdly other than to mock him. You CAN make a ship out of that but I don't think it's gonna be canon, nor that plausible if I'm being biased lmao

On the Ralsei side of things, if Kris ends up romantically involved with any of the lightners I think Ralsei's true and honest first instinct would be to just back away and sort of re-instate "his place" in the group dynamic, aka full doormat mode. I really, REALLY hope we see him have some self awareness of the fact that he's constantly being left out, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. His purpose IS to stay in the background, essentially a piece of the dark worlds rather than a fully realised person, but I'm hoping that, at some point, he's going to yearn for more. The town fair might be the perfect place to do it, too, as it's entirely in the light world and it, inevitably, leaves him out of it as he doesn't even (seem to) have an item he can turn into to be carried around. It'd be interesting to see him actually GRAPPLE with the fact that his friends are "more important" than he is, and maybe give him a sense of worth that doesn't entirely hinge on their attention and approval. Though, I don't want to get too optimistic, as there's some WEIRD shit going on around Ralsei and his autonomy.

Out of all the darkners he seems the most self-aware but also the most resigned to his fate, even more than Seam I'd argue. Where they waste the days away in unfulfilled monotony, Ralsei ACTIVELY SEEKS unfulfillment in order to lift up his friends, and as much as I WANT Ralsei to go crazy go stupid it's going to take a lot of convincing, and I don't know if that can happen through Susie and Kris as they ARE the people he's worshipping and putting himself down FOR. It's always just a whole bag of worms with this kid, and in the end if it's any consolation, Kris has two hands. Though I don't know if either Berdly or Ralsei can handle polyamory in a healthy way LMAO

All in all I consider that Kralsei must be canonized.

[sukisukidaysook]

Okay, I have thought of more pairings for you for the bingo game:

• Lanamia;

• Krisnix;

• Wrightworth;

• Solkat;

• Vrisrezi;

• Zosan.

I'm sorry if it's too much. If you don't want to do a bingo for all of these, it's fine.

I’m putting in depth thoughts under a readmore bc it’s gonna get LONG BABY!!!

LANAMIA:

OUGHHHH THEY WOUND ME!!!! Intellectually attracted. Lana fumbled Mia soooo badly and honestly I ship them as an OT3 including Diego <333 Lana had to become corrupt to save her sister while Mia fought corruption and died because of it… Lana the chief being called by Mia’s killer and informed through that (which I get was a translation error BUT MY GOD THE IMPLICATIONS!!!)… Imagine Godot trying to contact Lana to discuss Mia after he wakes up or them meeting in prison after TT…. UGH. Lanamia.

KRISNIX:

I’m fuckding crazy. They are toxic. They match each other’s freak. They pretended to be friends but they knew they were lying to each other (but what if those feelings got too real? What if it wasn’t an act? but you can’t let your guard down, no, not now, not after everything you’ve worked for). THEY SPIED ON EACH OTHER. for seven years. Kristoph made Phoenix more corrupt but Phoenix made Kristoph more human but they damaged each other and spiraled into madness. Kristoph ruined Phoenix’s like and Phoenix returned the favor. They are the same polar of a magnet, the same in every sense but always five steps away from each other, never able to get too close.

WRIGHTWORTH/NARUMITSU:

What is there to say that hasn’t already been said? I went through the pipeline. I hated Edgeworth and then instantly understood why the pairing is so popular. Childhood friends, to strangers, to enemies, to friends, to enemies again (one sided), to friends, and then lovers. They have long periods where they don’t talk or see each other and yet their bond only gets stronger each time. I don’t believe in soulmates and I hate the concept but if soulmates did exist, Narumitsu has that going.

SOLKAT:

Homestuck is fucked for separating them but at least they were put back together RECENTLY. They are so DOOMED in the main webcomic. They are best fucking friends and the closest each other has (outside, maybe, Sollux and Aradia). “kk dont u2e the computer explo2iion code iit wiill explode your computer” “FUCK YOU” and then the computer exploded. Sollux is Karkat’s IT guy (romantic). I think they could easily vacillate flushed and pitch and pale and. Yeah they are soo multi quadranted (with flush as the main). Goddd I miss them. When Sollux left it BROKE me. Davekat could never have what they have.

VRISREZI:

EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR TOXIC DOOMED YURI!!!! WOOOO!!! They find each other in every universe. They are perfectly pitched (but also a little flushed). They have a POWERFUL rivalry like nobody else and are always evenly matched, bouncing one step ahead of each other. They act like they hate (platonic) each other at times but it’s sooo clear how much they care about each other. They would do anything to stop the other (cuz they are pitched rivals) but they would do anything FOR each other too. They make my head hurt and I mean this positively.

ZOSAN:

The fandom has them so wrong they are NOT CUTE YAOI they are MEAN and they FIGHT and that is their love language. They are a great example of Homestuck pitched. Sanji cooks Zoro’s favorite food because he has it memorized and Zoro eggs him on and threatens him but he’s eating the food and so clearly enjoying it and they keep up their bickering which escalates to a fight but they are fully in sync every step. They are a POWERFUL duo in fighting and they cover each other’s weaknesses FLAWLESSLY. They CARE about each other and their “love to hate” was clearly shown early on through Dorry and Broggy’s parallel, which is the same arc where this dynamic started. I don’t want them canon because I do like the friend dynamic the crew canonically has, but they are WONDERFUL in fanon.

[puppypuppypuppypuppy]

How did your human spam and jevil meet?

OK. This took a while I had to scour the underground cave system of me and yashas dms to find all the relevant convos and such. I'll put them under a readmore bc. Yeah.

Also, the moment of first contact as depicted by the magnificent @naggingatlas

So, surrounding info: The au takes place in Hometown ofc. Eugene, after being released from jail (no murder here just manslaughter. he does tell ppl it was murder tho) has lived there for maybe like, 5 or 6 years (seam pulled some strings (hehe) to get him the place and peaced tf out) He's since been living as a hermit in the forest in this decrepit spooky house. He was once a prolific poet/philosopher/whatever and ig kind of still is? but he has a complicated relationship with his old work and resents how misinterpreted its been by the majority of his fans. His only real friend is dess. He's also a ukrainian immigrant, came to the us before the collapse of the soviet union. No desire to go back bc he had no attachments...

Meanwhile Esteban's deal is much more similar to canon... was once a big shot, the powers that be abandon him, he loses everything, now he's homeless, so it goes. He was once in a super bowl commercial with spuds mackenzie and is VERY proud of that fact, don't bring it up. At this point, h'ed been living in the streets of new york freakin city, too proud to go back home (el paso, texas, second generation mexican immigrant), getting by taking shady gigs and reselling garbage, scrap, old electronics, etc... One such gig being what brings him into hometown thus beginning our au. I've got some screencaps abt the gist of it all

(these are so funny bc some aspects of it get immediately retconned. also the reason I say he finds eugene familar is because they've technically "met" before multiple times in their lives just very informally. might go into that later idk)

(Here is where yashas images above the cut take place ^^)

(his door knocker is shaped like a dragon btw. very cool.)

(We wrote more of this encounter but frankly it's incomprehensible and this post is getting way too long just know that they're engaged in spamvil typical psychic warfare.) (it's like this.)

And thaaaat's basically it. Some details prone to change but overall this is how their first official meeting goes. Esteban comes by every day trying to sell shit but other things happen too like they go fishing, sit in a dusty abandoned car, smoke weed, eat cherries... .. ., lot's of fun stuff. Maybe I'll even make another post abt it if there's interest.

If you've read all of that have this in consolidation:

[chaseprice]

hi!! hope i’m not a bother. i just came across u and i wanted to ask something,,,

basically, i joined the life is strange fandom in 2018 so i never got to experience the pre-bts era, meaning i didn’t get to experience what rachel was like to the fandom back then or see the different interpretations of her.

i did some digging and i found some fan content of her from 2015-2016 & i’m absolutely infatuated with all aspects of the fanon version of her, especially her personality & how she looked. i totally wanna embody her. also the love is strange vn was so interesting to play, i love how she was written. i’d love to know more!

i stumbled across ur blog while i was doing my digging and i saw an old long post of urs saying how bts didn’t live up to the fandoms expectations, as almost everyone perceived her differently.

sorry for all the yapping LOL but what i basically wanna ask is,,, how *exactly* did the fandom perceive rachel back then (2015-2016). what were some popular headcanons for her? things you guys even considered to be canon? what were some of your own *personal* headcanons? (can be silly, realistic,,, just anything you thought resonated with her)

do you have any favorite arts from that time period that you thought really captured her? what were your hopes for the prequel/rachels character before it was released? what did you want to see in terms of story? was rachel’s style, appearance, & personality extremely different than what you expected? what did you expect?

i assume that rachels treatment in the fandom was different then than what it is now. whether it’s better or worse, i’m not sure. i was hoping u could answer that too😞. recently i’ve just been seeing constant hatred or lack of care for her character so i’m starting to think that if bts was written differently and based on the fandom’s interpretations instead, the hate now wouldn’t be this bad.

from my digging it seems like you guys had alot of fun sculpting rachel’s character on your own, and the interpretations were probably more realistic than what decknine put together.

anyway i’m sorry for the yapping essay on this random saturday, most old lis accounts are dead & i didn’t know who else to ask☹️. just trying to relive what you guys experienced the best i can. hope i’m not bombarding you with this. thank you so much if u respond !!

hiii u def did not bother me, i am not in a position to answer all of these questions, but although it makes me feel ancient, it's cute to see so much passion for rachel and pre-BTS fandom opinion, so i'll try answer some and for the rest (art, hcs, etc.) im just gonna have to direct you to my archive* (will continue under the readmore)

*(tumblr archive is so broken on mobile so you gotta go on pc for this, but also there's so many gifs from that time so it will Definitely slow down your browser). i was insane and 17 years old so like, just excuse all of the cringe content i guess. you can click tag and filter it by either #lis #rachel amber #amberprice or whatever to try and find stuff like art. and i got into lis sept 2015 so that's like, as far back as it will go, but i was fully lisbrained from 2016 through 2018)

to be honest, in alignment with pre-bts thought lmao, rachel is whoever you want her to be. there was less of 'this is a correct objective fact about her personality/history' and more 'yeah, this is an idea the fandom really likes and has become fanon, most likely because it is a nuanced and entertaining and realistic interpretation of what we have seen of her character in lis1' which means people whose opinions conflicted with that might've be contested/laughed at/unpopular, but they weren't wrong per se. there were plenty of people i'd criticise (and ridicule) back then for implying that this teenage girl was evil, and being a teenager myself back then, i'd call them morally reprehensible and cancellable and whatever, but tbh, as an adult now, i can just see that it was simply a boring interpretation of her character informed by misogyny

i'd disagree with the notion that fandom treatment of rachel's character was better before bts, back then there were plenty of people seemingly excited to characterise her as emotionally manipulative, a cheater, deserved what she got, etc. as well, bc tbh, the story did leave room for that interpretation, but it left room for so much more as well. i feel like bts just really locked in on a certain story they wanted to tell plot-wise, and didn't choose to explore a lot of the questions fans had about rachel as a person. it's hard to turn the ambiguity of a friendship turned situationship over a period of 4 years into a playable experience for an audience - so they didn't. regardless, it got people thinking about rachel more, putting a spotlight on her, hence increased attention both positive and negative. i feel like there's just a fundamental difference between what lis1 fans enjoyed about the potential for her character and how she related with chloe and the world around her, and what deck9 wanted to portray in bts (yes they hit the astrological headcanons, the charmingness, her rebellion, the emotional conflicts... but it personally felt hollow, contrived sometimes, i suppose). but there were a lot of people who loved bts (i enjoyed a lot of parts of it!). just, in my opinion, some of those were quite different people from who loved lis1, and with that wave it brought a lot of emotional immaturity to the fandom (like... ship wars, really? that was an insane change to fandom dynamics for me lmao, but maybe i was just spoiled by surrounding myself with people whose takes i respected)

anyway i highly recommend also that if you're hungry for that kind of content, read fanfiction on AO3 by the old fans - by Mogatrat (TON of rachel centric ones there), explosionshark and tippytypewriter, chicknparm (though Cusp is written post-bts, it's informed by pre-bts characterisations), vicepoint (me hehe), def many more good ones out there those r jus my friends so they come to mind first, e.g. i liked homecoming by kriegersan back in the day, but you could def find some more by sorting the lis ao3 page by kudos and reading the older ones that are highly rated featuring rachel. and lastly, my gf wrote a beautifully worded blog post called "The Assassination of Rachel Amber by the Cowards Dontnod and Deck Nine" which gets into some of this from a media crit perspective (not about fandom) in a very eloquent way thru comparison w twin peaks and i highly recommend that

rachel hcs that def started way before bts: skater rachel, stoner rachel, punk music listener rachel (but also like, fleetwood mac cranberries cocteau twins grungy hippy stuff rachel too), rachel's parents being distant and still living in california, curvy thick rachel, things that i've accepted as canon but were def created by diff people: bri explosionshark hc'd that rachel paid for chloe's sleeve, mogatrat (i think) hc'd that rachel initially went to get her nips pierced with chloe (that's a longtime fan hc now idk who started that one) but chickened out at the last minute, i think she also hc'd that chloe made the earring for rachel which is cute too

[captmickey]

Don't mind if I do~

For everyone's dashboard consideration, I'll put it under the readmore and point out, once more, this is all silly headcanons that flip flop around so like... yeah.

Here we go!

For Dee: - I like to imagine her parents are something akin to a doctor/herbologist, which is why she is so into reading about facts and such. I also like to imagine her parents as inter-racial though that one is still being figured out (and with it, I like to think she's bilingual). - She is the easiest to make laugh no matter how tough she tries to come off as. And she is tough, but Boybrush and Chuckie know exactly what to do to make her laugh really hard. - She bonded with Chuckie over a mutual interest in pirate trading cards, they had a bit of a competition who could have the better deck before really bonding and sharing facts (she got really excited to learn it was Chuckie that got Boybrush into it too). - Refused to believe Guybrush could hold his breath for ten minutes until Boybrush grabbed her arm and took her to see his dad where Guybrush did it (more or less). She is determined to learn the science behind it and wonders if she could do it too. - Very protective of her boys and will throw hands at the nearest bully if they hurt either of them. It takes both Chuckie and Boybrush to hold her back.

For Chuckie: - His dad is a sailor and is pretty often out at sea (so not so much a negligent dad, but someone who is out on jobs pretty frequent to make sure the family is provided financially), so he's with his mom who occasionally takes odds and ends job. - Speaking of mom, I don't know why I'm drawn to the name Marigold but I am so.... tada. - Chuckie is incredibly shy talking around adults. He can and does joke and throw remarks around Dee and Boybrush, but when an adult enters the room? Goes quiet and lets the others do the talking. - Tallest of the group (and grows up to be THE tallest, sorry Boybrush) and can often be mistaken for someone who is rough... but he's not. He's a big ol' softy (except, again, around Boybrush and Dee where he's more relaxed and will get protective if needed). - Initially terrified of Guybrush. He's heard of stories and tales and such and was a bit of a fan of them somewhat, and he really loves hanging around Boybrush, but a part of him is terrified that Guybrush will go after him because his name is similar to LeChuck and tries to limit as many interactions with Guybrush. It wasn't until Boybrush asked his dad to talk to Chuckie and Guybrush reassuring him that he has nothing to worry about, he won't go hunting after his son's best friend, and even apologizes for scaring him unintentionally (though he has no idea what he did exactly).

For Boybrush (Lucas), - He wanted to go to school only because Chuckie and Dee were there. He's there most of the year until an adventure pops up... then it's back to home-schooling. - Bonded with Chuckie over pirate trading cards because he once saw him in the park with a card of his dad on it. Beamed up and went "Hey, that's my dad! 8D" and the rest was history. - Always comes back with presents for Chuckie and Dee when he returns from an adventure with his parents, ranging from shells to unique items he found while away. - He has a school yard bully and she is meeeeeeeeean. It takes a lot to rile Boybrush up but she can do it in no time by insinuating that his parents aren't really his and that he is adopted etc. She will also bully and say things how Chuckie is really LeChuck's son and Dee will be alone... He compares her as his LeChuck with how angry she makes him. Bonus of Guybrush and Elaine: - Even though Boybrush gets great education from Elaine, Winslow, and occasionally Guybrush, he still wanted to go to school. Elaine initially was confused but figured it would be good for him to socialize while Guybrush doesn't get it but won't stop his son either... he wants him to have the things he never had when he was a kid (school, parents, friends etc). - Guybrush is great with English and can and does help not just Boybrush, but Chuckie and Dee with their homework from time to time. But it's Elaine Boybrush goes to for any and all other subjects. Primarily math. - Guybrush and Elaine are really good friends with Chuckie and Dee's parents. They figured it didn't hurt to befriend other parents since, with respect to Carla and everyone else, they could use some time with other parents. - Hilariously enough, although Chuckie is scared a little of Guybrush, Guybrush is really good friends with Marigold and offers to help her when he can while her husband is away. Elaine finds it endearing that Guybrush even offered such a thing and is proud of him. - During one of their adventures, Guybrush, Elaine and Boybrush ran into Chuckie's dad while he was on a job. Chuckie's dad got so excited and asked them for when they go back home to deliver a present to his wife and son since he won't be home for a bit. - Guybrush, Elaine, and Marigold don't exactly get along well with the PTA, but it's Guybrush that has an on-going feud with Helen from the Parent-Teacher Association. He initially did not care for it (he's a pirate, why would he care) but it was when Helen said something akin to being a bad parents that had him go into Spiteful Mode and learn how to properly bake better lemon squares. He will also trash talk with Marigold during any meetings if Elaine is there with them.

[wavebiders]

what do you think about campaign 2? is there anything it does better than campaign 3, and vice versa is there anything campaign 3 does better than it?

Interesting question! Gonna put the answer under a readmore since it'll probably get long and also bc my feelings on cr2 aren't all that positive so superfans of that campaign have a heads up to keep scrolling

So, I'm just gonna be completely honest up front and say I never finished cr2 so my judgement is gonna be very flawed. At the time I was younger and very caught up with the toxic positivity aspect of this fandom, so I stamped down basically every issue I had until it all spilled over and I was left feeling so negative about it I had to go complete cr cold turkey until tlovm aired.

I know that's oversharing, but I just don't feel right commenting on cr2 without being upfront about how my personal feelings on it come from a weird place. I try to be more objective about it these days, but I'm afraid I'm not entirely objective.

Anyway cr2 and cr3 are really two entirely different kinds of stories. The former I consider to be most like an open-world video game, while the latter is more like an ongoing comic book. It's hard to tell which one does things better because they're not really doing the same thing at all

In terms of pacing they both struggle in opposite directions. Cr3 has had too much going on for a long time with very little breathing room while cr2 was 90% filler. We haven't had balanced pacing since cr1 so for these two it's more about what you personally prefer. For me the difference would be determined by my connection to the characters.

Which brings me to the characters. This is of course the most subjective thing of them all. I'm not going to pretend I don't prefer the Bells Hells by a mile, but there is also a reason the Mighty Nein are so popular on social media. It's the party of NPC's vs the Be Gay Do Crimes party. The latter may has well have been built in a lab for tumblr queers. Hell it's what drew me to the show in the first place.

I think cr2 was more experimental for most cast members, with them really going outside their comfort zone(Travis playing a more serious character, Liam going more morally questionable, Travis and Ashley dipping into romance) and the results really resonated with a lot of people. Personally I struggled with most of the party for a few reasons. What they were trying didn't suit me, Ashley being gone for most of the early days, a party member dying before they could really get started, etc.

With cr3, I think it's clear they took the lessons they learned from the past 2 campaigns and really played into their strenghts while still exploring new ground. The fact that the players have lived in Exandria for so long now also allows them to craft backstories more tailored to the world around them which gives them a very unique feel. I also personally just find myself resonating more with the themes they chose to explore.

Honestly I could do a whole breakdown of each character and which ones I think work best for their campaigns but this is getting long enough so I won't.

Cr2 did spend more time digging into characters backstories but for me that had the massive downside of the gap between which characters got focus being incredibly blatant. I know people like to complain about main character Imogen, but that's nothing compared to how badly cr2 sucked at balancing narrative focus amongst the party.

That's not say I'm not bothered by cr3 not taking more time to explore things specific to the pc's backstories, but with the way most of them are tied to the main plot it still works. I do think it does a much better job at balancing focus, even if Imogen obviously has the strongest plot connection.

And finally, I think cr2 is best at being a more typical found family fantasy experience(cr1 is too but a very different flavor) in that you have a bunch of assholes slowly learning how to trust each other and help each other face their demons. The bond between the Hells is just as believable and more compelling to me personally, but it is not gonna scratch the itch a lot of people are looking to scratch with an actual play show.

What cr3 excells at is deconstructing tropes, posing ethical dillemas, really making you think about the world the story takes place in and considering different point of views. This is why so many long-term fans struggle with it so much. It's also why I think, especially if all 3 campaigns get adapted, cr3 will be the most memorable one with the biggest impact.

[rosanna-writer]

we said hello and your eyes look like coming home (14/?)

Summary: A canon-divergent AU where the bond snaps for Rhys on Calanmai, Feyre unwittingly accepts it, and Fire Night magic proves to be more transformative than anyone bargained for. Feyre drags a mate she hardly knows out from Under the Mountain, then puts him back together as war with Hybern approaches. Warnings: dubious consent, canon-typical sexual violence, canon-typical violence Rating: Explicit Chapter Word Count: ~3.9k

Family dinner and fretting about reputations #JustNightCourtThings

Read on AO3 or you can find the fourteenth chapter below the readmore.

ch. 1 - 10 | ch. 11 - she underestimated just who she was stealing from | ch. 12 - no amount of freedom gets you clean | ch. 13 - stay stay stay | ch. 14 - call it what you want to

A pair of strong arms wrapped around my middle and lifted me up off the floor. "The Middengard fucking Wyrm!" Cassian was saying, but his voice suddenly seemed oddly distant. He was pulling me into a hug, but I let out a panicked cry. His hands, my feet leaving the floor—it felt too much like the the Attor scooping me me up by the armpits before it dropped me in that trench.

Just like with Andras, I realized, I hadn't known the Wyrm's name until after I killed it.

It wasn't the same; Andras hadn't been about to eat me. I took a breath and reminded myself that it was all over and that I was safe. We were in the dining room of the townhouse. The rest of the Inner Circle had arrived for dinner. I was fine.

Cassian set me down gently, looking horrorstruck, and said, "I'm sorry, Feyre. I thought you knew I was there."

A low growl escaped Rhys, and tendrils of darkness made the lights go dim. Cauldron boil and fry me, my momentary panic must have crossed the bond. That protective instinct was back—I could see it in the tense set of his shoulders. I gave him a pointed look, even as I said to Cassian, "It's fine."

For good measure, I added down the bond, Do not start a fight over an accident.

Despite the darkness fading, I could feel Mor, Azriel, and Amren watching us very carefully. Perhaps all bets were off when it came to mated males, even ones who were deconditioned and recovering.

Cassian just grinned and said, "Save it for the training ring tomorrow, Rhysie. I promise I won't beat you too badly in front of Feyre."

It took me a moment to process the fact that he'd just called the Lord of Nightmares Rhysie. That was the sort of thing you only called someone if you'd known them as a child, and it was easy to forget that Rhys had been a boy once. Sometimes it seemed he'd just appeared out of the ether fully formed, pristine black tunic and all.

Rhys turned to me, eyes bright as if he were pleasantly surprised. "You're training tomorrow?"

Cassian breezing by Rhys's grip on his power loosening had made the threat of a fight feel distant. It seemed best to follow his lead. Keeping my voice carefully light, I said, "I think after what we just went through, anyone would want to get outside and hit things for a bit."

"And you'll hit things later," Mor said as she pointedly took a seat. "I want to get this meeting over with so we can eat."

The rest of us followed suit, sitting down around the table. No more chatter, just business. I hadn't known a dining room could feel so much like a war room.

"Domestic affairs first," Rhys said with an air of authority I'd never heard from him.

"Illyria's a mess," Cassian said, face darkening. "We knew it would be bad, but it's backslid worse than we thought. Wing-clipping is rampant, the camp-lords have been ignoring laws Rhys put into place centuries ago, and they don't seem worried about the repercussions now that he's back. I hadn't thought so many of them would side with Amarantha."

And I hadn't thought any of them would side with Amarantha. After bearing the brunt of her cruelty, I couldn't imagine why anyone would. There had to be information I was missing because no one else at the table seemed surprised, just frustrated.

Rhys asked for specifics, and there were too many unfamiliar names for me to follow the conversation after that. I just listened, fascinated by this side of Rhys I hadn't seen yet. I'd watched him intimidate and frighten with just scraps of power Under the Mountain but then, he'd been subservient to Amarantha. Even exhausted and healing, Rhys wore the mantle of authority well, the way only someone who'd done it for centuries could.

For once, it wasn't a mask or a thin veneer of faked confidence. This was just what it meant to be a High Lord.

He turned his attention to Mor next and said, "And what of the Hewn City?"

When she spoke, Mor's voice was colder than I'd ever heard it. She must have had her own reunion with her family today, and though I didn't know much about their relationship, the vague mentions had been enough to tell me it was a painful topic. I knew better than to press for details.

"Keir spent the last fifty years with his tail between his legs. After that bloodbath of a party, he's been too afraid to cross anyone. I can bring them back in line myself," she said.

"Good," Rhys said, then looked to Amren. "And Velaris?"

"Economically, a bit worse for wear with the borders being closed for so long, but nothing we can't overcome. Otherwise, just the same as you left it," Amren said. The silver of her eyes swirled with something I couldn't quite name. "Whatever you did Under the Mountain kept this city safe, Rhysand."

Amren knew exactly what he'd sacrificed. They all did.

There was no change in Rhys's expression, but his throat bobbed. The relief I felt on his side the bond was enough to make my breath catch. "I got through it because I knew that Velaris was in good hands. Thank you, Amren," he said, voice thick.

Rhys's eyes flicked to me, then over to Azriel as he said, all smooth polish again, "And the rest of Prythian?"

Amren, Mor, Cassian, and Azriel shared a look, and I had the sneaking suspicion that the four of them had discussed this before coming here. I wasn't sure how I felt about being something to be handled.

"There's widespread curiosity about Feyre," Azriel said slowly, tucking his wings in tight, "and concern about what the Night Court might be doing to Prythian's savior. Rumors are flying that we've killed or kidnapped her. The other courts are in shambles, and they've been too distracted by that to push very hard for answers at the moment."

I hadn't thought much about the state of the other courts, but if they were dealing with anything like the blight on the Spring Court, then it made sense that they'd be more concerned with rebuilding. The magnitude of devastation Amarantha had left…Prythian had to be a shadow of its former self.

Mor added, a bit uncertain, "The longer we wait, the more suspicious it looks, but how much to share isn't our decision to make."

Rhys and I locked eyes for a moment as we considered that. I didn't want to give anyone answers just because they demanded them, especially when there was so much I was unsure of—my potential bargain with the Night Court, being Made immortal, and most of all, where Rhys and I stood with so much recovering left to do. I felt the strangest urge to snarl at invisible enemies and tell them to back off.

We kept our thoughts to ourselves for a long silence, then at the same time, we both blurted out, "Keep the bond a secret for now."

I couldn't help a small smile at the sound of us speaking in unison again, and a sidelong glance at Rhys told me his expression mirrored my own. We were co-conspirators again. Even with four other people at the table, I knew his smile was for me only. I let the warm feeling it gave me drift across the bond.

Cassian's eyes darted back and forth between me and Rhys. "Mother's tits, are you two always like this together?" he said.

"Like what?" I said, unsure what he was getting at.

"Like you're both in on a secret."

Perhaps it was because we were. And had been almost since the moment we met. Rhys looked smug and started to say something, but Amren cut him off, even as she said shot a glare at Cassian that would have sent almost anyone else running. "Focus, boy," she said, the sharpness in her voice making me flinch. Cassian didn't look bothered in the slightest. "There's still more to discuss."

I caught sight of Mor pressing her lips together to hide a smile before she said, "If we're not revealing the truth, what are we telling everyone instead?"

I had absolutely no idea, but Rhys's eyes glittered in that way that told me he had a plan in mind. "That Feyre is the Night Court's human emissary, which will be the truth. Spin a lie about the Suriel telling her about the curse and Night's strained relationship with Spring. We'll say she sought out her kidnapper's enemy for assistance on Calanmai, and I offered her a job. She went Under the Mountain on my orders. Thoughts?"

The question had been directed to the room as a whole, but five sets of eyes fell on me as I weighed that option. It was just as neat and tidy as I'd come to expect from Rhys, something that wrapped up loose ends while buying time to get our feet under us. I was almost inclined to agree to it. Almost.

"No one will believe you made an uneducated nineteen year-old huntress your emissary," I said. Beyond simply being human, I wasn't the sort of person who could represent a court and be taken seriously.

"The only common thread in the rumors is that every single person who reunited with loved ones last night knows that you made it happen, Feyre," Azriel said. "Having so many powerful faeries feeling indebted to you is an incredible amount of soft power. No High Lord in their right mind would let that slip away."

I'd gone Under the Mountain with such a single-minded focus on Rhys that I hadn't thought about it that way. But I saw the truth in Azriel's words. I still felt like a burden, but perhaps….I was an asset, too. The thought made me feel just a bit better.

But there was still another aspect of the plan that gave me pause. Afraid to voice it aloud, I glanced at Rhys and said down the bond, They'll all conclude I'm fucking my boss, won't they?

He went absolutely still again, in that way that only High Fae could. Even to me, his expression was unreadable. I don't see a way around it. If that bothers you, we can come up with something different. Your choice. Always.

I really didn't want to be having this conversation now of all times, but Mor had been right that we needed to address the rumors sooner rather than later. From the way everyone else seemed to be shifting uncomfortably and pointedly not looking at us, I could tell they knew we were discussing something mind-to-mind. I pushed ahead. Will it be the truth?

Do you want it to be?

With our shields down to speak to each other, I let him feel my irritation that he'd answered my question with a question. Perhaps it was unfair of me, but I did the same to him. Do you?

His response didn't come in words, just a wave of want and longing strong enough to steal my breath, lust threaded with hope and a sweet sort of surrender. By the Cauldron, I hadn't expected that when a simple yes or no would do.

I crossed and un-crossed my legs. Rhys looked pleased with himself. Glad we're in agreement, then, I said, my voice a bit weak even in my mind.

"Whatever you two are thinking at each other had better be relevant to the discussion at hand. We're trying to wrap this meeting up so we can eat," Mor complained, though there was no real rancor behind it. She was suppressing a smile again.

If I wasn't mistaken, she was happy for us. I didn't quite know what to make of it.

But I had all the answers I needed to make a decision, so I said, "It's the best plan we have. I'll take the emissary position." Cauldron, it wasn't until the words were out of my mouth that I realized I'd never had a proper job before. I'd brought in money hunting, but that wasn't quite the same. It was a strange thought.

"Perfect," Rhys purred. "A bank account will be opened for you, Feyre, and I'll ensure you get backpay dated to Calanmai. We won't be caught in a lie by a simple accounting error."

I understood what he was trying to do, even if he didn't say it—money of my own would give me a measure of independence. And I understood the other concern, too; there would be so much interest in me that a curious government official might go digging in the budget ledgers for information. I wasn't sure if it was likely to happen, or just Rhys being exceedingly thorough.

"Thank you," I said, voice even despite my worry. "Then I suppose the next step is making it clear that I'm alive?"

"It's not urgent now that we have a cover story. I'll answer the correspondence from other courts, and if Feyre's spotted in public once or twice, that should take care of the worst of it," Mor said.

That was something else I hadn't considered—I was recognizable now. One glance at my rounded ears, and anyone in Prythian would know exactly who I was. A knot of dread formed in my stomach at the thought of attracting attention.

And then that anxiety was replaced by a new, worse thought. "Have you heard from the Spring Court?" I said. Tamlin had kidnapped me once—perhaps he'd decide to drag me back again. Or worse, if he thought I'd made a fool of him after revealing the ruse, he might want to kill me for it. Wounded pride could be dangerous.

Amren snorted. "Tamlin's a fool, but not a big enough one to waste his time writing a letter that will just be thrown into the fire," she said. I wasn't quite sure what she meant, but there was something satisfying about the way she spit his name like a curse. Rhys must have caught my reaction either on my face or through the bond—the corner of his mouth quirked up as he glanced at me again.

"Diplomatic relations between Night and Spring haven't been normalized since Rhys became High Lord. They don't talk to us, and we don't talk to them," Mor said.

That made perfect sense. Before I could say anything else about it, Azriel added, "I have spies there gathering information now."

There wasn't much else to discuss after that. Rhys asked for more updates, but the four of them reassured him there was nothing that couldn't wait until tomorrow. I'd known, of course, that Rhys and his Inner Circle worked as a team—running the Night Court was far too complex a job for one person. But there was still something so foreign to me about watching them take on additional work to give Rhys a chance to recover, without him even having to ask.

No one had ever done that for me during those years of hunting in the woods. Rhys had done it Under the Mountain, but the mating bond made everything different for us. Even after the weeks I'd spent in the Night Court, I hadn't considered that this was just…how they treated each other.

There was another palpable change in the air once business was done, as if everything had gotten lighter. Mor smiled as she waved a hand and food appeared on the table. "We got your favorites from Sevenda's," she said to Rhys. Her smile dimmed for just a second as she looked to me next and added with a note of hesitation, "I would have gotten yours too, Feyre, if I knew what they were. But as far as I can tell, you'll eat anything."

A sympathetic look from Cassian told me he knew exactly why I'd eat whatever was put in front of me—we'd never spoken about it, but I suspected he was the only other one here who'd had the misfortune of eating deer tripe. And besides, faerie food was far more flavorful than anything in the mortal lands. I couldn't imagine disliking any of it.

"It's fine," I said, sincerely meaning it. Even in Spring, I hadn't given much thought to preferences like that. "There's soup, which is all I would have asked for anyway."

Under the table, Rhys's fingers brushed mine in silent understanding. The soup was one more thing that was just ours, even among friends.

At first, I was just focused on my food, but eventually I noticed that the uneasy atmosphere hadn't disappeared completely, even with work finished for the day. I was no stranger to the Inner Circle being less than harmonious—after all, Amren had come to dinners at the House of Wind merely to bicker because she didn't eat—but there was a brittle, forced quality to some smiles and laughter. Conversation normally flowed between them with an ease that had developed over centuries, but that night it was stilted as we avoided mention of the recent ordeal we'd just gone through. And I was all too aware of watchful, worried eyes on Rhys and me.

They all needed to clear the air. But no one wanted to do it in front of me.

At the very least, though, the food made the awkwardness worth it. Even for faerie food, it was uncommonly rich and well-spiced, yet it warmed me the way a simple home-cooked meal would. This morning, I'd been too ravenous to taste anything, just concerned with quelling the hunger gnawing at me. But now I was able to curb that instinct enough to take my time and enjoy the meal.

In truth, it wasn't all that different from dinners with them before I'd gone Under the Mountain, when we'd carefully talked around the shadow of Rhys's absence. I'd realized I was comfortable in the Night Court then. And now, I was glad to be here, as imperfect as things still were.

Though no one was tactless enough to say it aloud, tomorrow would be another long day with an early start, and they needed rest, too. No one lingered. As soon as Rhys and I were alone again, his wings drooped, muscles tired from the effort of just holding them up for the past couple of hours. I felt the same—not drowsy, but utterly lacking in energy. Dinner had taken something out of us both, and even with some sleep, we were still battling an exhaustion that had burrowed in deep and made itself at home now that we were no longer constantly looking over our shoulders for threats.

"I need air. Come to the roof with me?" Rhys said.

"Only if we winnow," I said. I didn't want to so much as look at a staircase for a while.

He took my hand without another word, and we were up there in seconds. I'd needed to see the sky, too, and hadn't realized it until I took a deep breath of salt-tinged night air. The townhouse dining room wasn't exactly small, but it was windowless.

Rhys sat without dropping my hand. I glanced at the other chair, the bond tightening in my chest at the thought of sitting next to him with several inches between us. Ridiculous as it was, the feral part of me ruled by the mating bond railed at anything less than touching in as many places as possible, consequences or current company be damned.

Even with my shields up, Rhys knew what I was thinking. His eyes might have been dull with fatigue, but his lips twisted into a smirk as he spread his legs in invitation. "What kind of mate would I be if I didn't offer you the most comfortable seat in the house?" he purred.

Under the Mountain, I'd thought the flirting was nothing more than a desperate attempt to claw back a sense of normalcy, a strategy to keep us both from breaking. Perhaps that wasn't exactly false, but I was beginning to suspect that Rhys really was just that shameless about it all the time.

"Comfortable because it's soft?" I said drily, even as I let him tug my hand and pull me into his lap. For once, I wasn't doing it because I was pretending to be a plaything, merely sitting on him because we both wanted to be close. He wrapped both arms around me, leaning forward so his chest rested against my back.

"Soft for you? Never," he whispered, breath warm on my ear.

I smiled and flicked his nose. He laughed—the first time I'd heard it since returning to the Night Court—and nuzzled his face against the place where my neck met my jaw. It was so quick I nearly missed it, but for a moment, a spark of happiness lit up the bond, new and unfamiliar. Until then, I hadn't believed we could ever be anything more than just fine.

Rhys's cheek brushed mine as he tipped his head back to look up at the sky. Even with the city lights shining brightly, I'd never seen more stars in the sky. More of the Night Court's magic, I supposed, making sure they weren't washed out.

After a moment, he said softly, "Part of why I bought this house in particular was the view. Out of all the constellations, I kept finding myself drawn to the hunter."

The townhouse faced due north, keeping the Arrowhead—the star I'd followed here—right in front of it every night. And along with it, the group of stars that looked like a hunter holding a bow.

A memory flashed in my mind, the image of the dresser I'd painted back in the cottage. Flowers on Elain's drawer, flames on Nesta's, and the night sky on mine. At the time, I hadn't thought much about the position of the stars I'd painted. But they'd formed that constellation, too.

"I painted it. Back in the cottage, on a dresser drawer to mark it as mine. We were looking for each other, weren't we?" I whispered, though the thread I felt tied to my ribs made the answer obvious.

"Five hundred years of feeling like I was searching for something but having no idea what, only for you to track me down on Calanmai with the efficiency of a bloodhound."

The comparison to a dog would have made me scowl if it weren't for the obvious admiration in his voice. Yet again, I found myself wondering just how bad things would have gotten if we hadn't found each other so quickly. But I pushed that thought aside, unwilling to dwell on it tonight.

"You're not exactly inconspicuous."

"And here I thought you were going to tell me it's because I'm irresistible."

I double-checked that my shields were up—he was incredibly alluring, but I'd never hear the end of it if I admitted it aloud. Besides, it was overwhelming to think about just how completely he drew me in. He pressed a kiss to my shoulder, and I wordlessly tipped my head to the side, sweeping my hair off my neck and baring it to him. I let my eyes flutter shut as he dragged his lips from my jaw to my collarbone.

If we hadn't both been so raw and exhausted, I would have begged for more. There would be time for that later. Rhys and I were all open gashes, and that night was the first stitch that began to close them enough to heal.

[normalestenstars]

do you have any personal favorite responses? ones that make your brain itch? or responses that make you go "they are SO wrong"

i'm going to assume you mean overall, so i will stick to the form responses for the sake of simplicity. though, i will say i found the responses to least normal form more interesting as people tended to be more opinionated/divided about their answers

this answer got a bit too long, so i put it under a readmore

Favorites from normal

i made a post about this some time ago, but whoever wrote "He's just a closeted gay teenager" for tomoya killed me

Favorites from not normal there is a lot

Tied btween Ibara and HiMERU tbh because HiMERU is doing something deeply insane and caused all of his own problems and made several other people's problems worse in the process. However, Ibara is a teen business major and that alone signifies he has issues.

Wataru instills a fear in me that the other characters do not. Yes, Mayoi be in the vents and stuff but like, hell stay there. when i go to piss at 4am in the morning and its pitch dark and i see something go by in the corner of my eye its wataru.

do you think i would be a shuP if he were normal in the slightest?

Honestly my choice was based entirely on the fact that I can put a name (or multiple) to everyone else's problems but when I think about Tsumugi all I can do is just hold him up and go "there's something wrong with him"

look i think himeru will win but considering how much mamas completely unwillingness to cope with anything ever has impacted both double face and just about every other story shes in i like had to. like at least himeru is capable of having friends without having a complete meltdown over the idea

he freaks me out. a little too willingly weird ((about himeru))

The other characters have their quirks, but Tsumugi clears the "says things that have made me audibly go 'what the fuck?'" bar. For everyone else, their freakiness might as well be Tuesday, you know?

He’s very interesting to me personally ✌️ like you cannot be in his situation and be very normal, i thinks. Hope he gets worse or better, either would be fun to watch ((about himeru)) ^^^ really like this one. lol

something is wrong with him like. deeply. unfixably i fear ((about madara))

honestly. let me preface this by saying crazy:b is my favorite group, but if you called himeru some sort of freak you probably got a chuckle out of me. like genuinely, what's wrong with this guy

Favorites specifically from the who should be on the least normal poll section

eichi is the only one who can truly contest tsumugi’s weirdoness and honestly he takes the cake. all the cake. every last slice. and others may try, but none truly hold a candle to these goobers. a match at best. maybe a sparkler if we’re feeling festive. eichi’s weirdo behavior is natural and genuine. his lack of normalcy has no pretense and is integral to his existence. he is the ensemble star and hes soooo weird about it. he should sweep the whole poll. every poll. weirdest in every unit.

Brain itchers all coming from the least normal form

apparently natsume once told sora that he's making bombs??? when he was clearly baking??? and that he'd have tsumugi give out the "bombs" so his reputation doesn't get ruined??? what story is this 😭

WHOEVER WROTE THIS ↓↓↓ YUZURU RESPONSE... CAN I GET THE ESSAY I'M BEGGING PLEASE where are you i only read gang 🥺🙏 LISTEN!!!!!! YUZURU FUCKING FUSHIMI!!!!!!! IS INSANE!!!!!! as a wataruP I am so incredulous that he won over Yuzuru. Because Yuzuru is SO MUCH LESS NORMAL!!!!! I already left an essay I wasn’t expecting to leave in this response… so consider yourself spared the Yuzuru essay given that he wasn’t one of the main options and that…. I am planning to scream about Yuzuru fushimi’s insanity in my own post bc HE MAKES ME INSANE. But just know. He should be here

a handful of people keep/kept mentioning whatever happened in raison d'être with the graves AND I DON'T!! KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!!! I'VE ONLY READ NEVERLAND 🥺 IT'S MY ONLY VALK STORY OTHER THAN STEAMPUNK MUSEUM AND ANTIQUE LEGEND 🥺🥺🥺

Misc. thoughts because it looked weird if i didn't indent this section

as for responses i didn't agree with, this is a hard question to answer because i don't know enough about a third of the cast to strongly disagree. not to mention, i personally think that even if i knew it would be extremely rude of me to share and pick apart people's responses in front of a sizeable audience, so i will not. the last thing i want is for people to feel judged and ostracized over some silly enstars poll, and i personally do not enjoy how hostile this fanbase is to casual fans

like for example, i personally think chiaki is the weirdest ryuseitai member, but many people would disagree on that, right? and it's really not that big of a deal, because i understand why/how people come to that conclusion. some of these questions are really subjective, and are ultimately up to interpretation. just because i understand the text differently doesn't mean that another fan's opinion is inherently wrong. i think that's partially the fun of enstars in that there really is no explicit answer to some things, and it's up to the reader to draw their own conclusions

it hasn't come up often enough to address it, but i only feel bothered by people's responses when they overlook writer's biases and how that bleeds into the writing of some characters, like the amagis and adonis, somewhat mayoi, etc.

anyway, my sincere apologies if this feels like i'm personally lecturing you 🙇 i understand your interest in wanting to know this, but i do not want people to feel bad over mostly subjective opinions. on top of my own understanding of the text versus theirs, yknow?

i guess i could address the polls? for the normal unit polls i personally think hiiro, shinobu, hinata, and nazuna should have won their respective polls. i don't think niki should have won either but i'm not sure who should take his place 🤔. as for the least normal polls i think tatsumi should have won. but outside of these opinions, i do not wish to address actual written responses

[1lostsoul0fishbowl]

In lostys universe, Gare and El are long distance during some of their college years.

Do they ever have any big fights or miscommunication during that period?? Any conversations about what their future together will look like as the years peel away to adulthood? Just curious 🥰♥️

Still loving that greatmage lore 💜🩷

Ohh girl this made me think A LOT. because my first instinct was to be like “noooo my pookies never fight!” but that’s completely unrealistic. So I dug deep and came up with a few ideas… and of course it got really long so I’m putting it under a readmore…

- I think their biggest fights would be about money, but not in the typical way a young couple fights about money! In both Next Time I Fall and Lost and Found I alluded to El and Kali getting large settlements of “hush money” from Hawkins Lab, and at the end of Next Time El even suggests to Gareth that they use some of that money to get married. But it’s the late 80s and I’m sure Hopper had repeatedly impressed upon Gareth the importance of The Man Being The Breadwinner and the need to Properly Take Care Of His Daughter, so Gareth wouldn’t feel right about letting El pay for anything.

Finally El sits both Hopper and Gareth down one day and tells them look, Chrissy helped me find this super cute house and I can easily afford it so I’m gonna buy it. Gareth, you’re welcome to live there with me if you can get over your pride about it. And Dad, you need to mind your own beeswax. (Will taught her that phrase, and he almost chokes trying to hold back his laughter when he hears her repeat it.)

- Another thing I can imagine is the long-distance thing just wearing on both of them (they’re cuddly koalas and they can’t stand being apart for too long) but I could see that manifesting in different ways. For El, I think insecurity would be something she’d struggle with; especially if school interfered with time they wanted to spend together, she would feel neglected and get a little pouty about Gare thinking his work was more important than her. And I can imagine if he got impatient or exasperated about that, her mind would immediately leap to “you don’t love me anymore?” She needs a lot of reassurance after everything she’s been through.

But this, I think, would probably lead to Gareth never wanting to speak up about his own needs or problems, because he does truly want to be that steadfast source of reassurance for her, but also sometimes he feels a little resentful, as if she doesn’t trust him enough to keep loving her even when he’s irritated. And then that makes him wonder if she feels that way because of everything with Mike, and he gets pouty thinking she’s comparing him to Mike. Oh, kiddos.

- I imagined all of this coming to a head one weekend when Gareth wasn’t planning to come home because he was exhausted and had a ton of work to do, but El getting upset with him and kinda giving him a guilt trip about it until finally he gives in and says okay fine I’m coming. But he’s so tired that he ends up falling asleep behind the wheel and getting into a minor accident, which naturally freaks El out, and I think that would lead to a very deep heart-to-heart talk where they both end up resolving to communicate more honestly about their needs, and trust that their relationship can withstand temporary separation when needed.

- On a much happier note, conversations about the future!

I know a lot of people headcanon El as wanting tons of kids, but for some reason I imagine that pregnancy would be total body-horror for her. (Maybe I’m drawing that from my personal life? Lmao) I do believe she’d want a family of her own though, and I think she and Gare would have a lot of conversations about fostering and/or adoption to help troubled kids. And there’s a lovely fic that was gifted to me about the two of them preparing to welcome their first foster child.

I think they’d want pets, too— I imagine them going to an animal shelter just to look around, and El overhearing an employee saying “nobody will ever adopt this one, these dogs are monsters.” She instantly demands to see the monster dog, and of course it’s not a monster at all, it’s the cutest tiny little pit bull puppy, and El and Gare instantly fall in love with her and name her Bosco since she’s chocolate brown. 😊

I think El would have a lot of trouble deciding what she wanted to do after high school, as far as more schooling or a career or what, and they’d have a lot of discussions about that.

And of course they’d talk about traveling— there’s so many places they both want to see, and experiences they want to have for the first time together. Also I think it would be super cute if they went to Wales with Granny and Granddad Emerson to visit relatives and friends there. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

This got way longer than I thought it would lmao but thank you so much for asking! I always love sharing my ideas and headcanons with you! 💕