#I work as a cashier so I get a lot of first hand complaints and thoughts and let me tell you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

colsonlin · 2 years ago

Text

“Cape Cod”: a good old-fashioned short story (a 45-minute read)

“Cape Cod” is an analysis of our society’s tendency to produce narcissism, sociopathy, and casual dehumanization. It felt so good to get all of this off my chest! —Nina

A lot of how we talk about middle school in America is something I take issue with—like, for instance, that it’s somehow not the most formative experience of our lives. (It is.) A lot of people say “college,” but I had already cycled into an idea of who I was going to be as an adult by then—an A student, a talker, a birdwatcher, a take-no-prisoners observer of human social life. I studied sociology at the University of Maryland. At my retail job now—I work at a Nordstrom in Connecticut—I interact with a dying breed: old rich white women who still buy their cashmeres at the mall. At my old retail job in Farmington I was a cashier. At Nordstrom I’m more of a saleswoman—I don’t hand my customers their purchases after I’m done folding their clothes into the bag, I walk around the counter to deliver their parcels to them personally. I work six nights a week until the mall closes at 11 and on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays I drive to my second job at a call center in Southington. I earn enough money to pay for my Hyundai and an apartment above the laundromat, have coffee on the weekends, keep up with my student loans, and map out what the next step will be.

College feels like a million years ago.

Middle school still feels like yesterday.

“Brenda” (not her real name), my supervisor at my old department store in Farmington, was the portrait of managerial incompetence. She was fat and unmarried and all of the associates who weren’t actively helping a customer used to crowd into the stock room whenever she came out of her office, usually to berate one of us for misplacing a store key. We all know a Brenda from middle school. Everything you say is wrong, and everything she says can’t be improved upon. Three of us quit within the first ten months of Brenda’s arrival, and at least one of us later wrote an anonymous email to the district manager about her obvious drinking problem.

My old department store—I don’t want to get into any trouble here so let’s just call them “Not-Quite Sephora”—was in a strip mall. I never knew who to feel more sorry for during the day, myself or the customers who came in. I once explained to my boyfriend that we were kind of like Wal-Mart’s “more youthful older sister”—a high school varsity cheerleader perhaps, but still stuck in the past all the same.

There were ten of us on the first floor—the second floor, “Men’s,” might as well have been a different planet entirely. Brenda acted like she was better than all of us, because she has a master’s degree in “Global Business Administration,” whatever the fuck that was. Brenda didn’t seem to understand that all her master’s degree did was make her look both underqualified and overqualified for her job at the same time. (Her main role, from what I could tell, was assigning holiday bonuses and amplifying customer complaints.)

Not-Quite Sephora has a dying business model, but we were kept artificially alive by a steady stream of suburban glum as the principal anchor of a once-iconic strip mall. The first floor was perpetually understaffed—our Google reviews under Brenda’s mismanagement decayed from 4.2 to 2.8 stars (and this coming from a woman who tends to take “American public opinion” with a grain of salt). The turnover rate among everyone except me, Ashley, and Gabby seemed to be such that a new Chris, Brian, or Andy was being fired every three months. Good riddance, I always thought.

Men don’t understand how to take orders from a woman, and the ones who say they do are liars from the black lagoon.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Brenda’s most direct feature was that you couldn’t get a direct answer out of her, ever—it was either caustic sarcasm or happy-peppy self-deprecation. Everything she said was either designed to suppress or to charm. She was intelligent, which was the problem—quick-witted even—she prized competence, prided herself on being everything everywhere all at once (with self-pity), once complained to me in the break room that she was an ex-spelling-bee champion. Appearance-wise, what once made me jolt awake at night was that she tries, she actually tries. Not doing anything to set Brenda off had become something of an obsession of mine by her third month there. I applied to other jobs, but only in non-retail.

Trying to go non-retail—my life in a nutshell.

Brenda took over at a precarious time. Inflation was rising. Covid was either over or about to be over, but either way, brick-and-mortar seemed to be one of its death tolls. Brenda had mousy blond hair, wore black trousers to work, and used to tramp around the store carrying an inventory clipboard whenever she was upset about something. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to take fashion-merchandising so seriously. Her first day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda compared our fitting rooms favorably to the fitting rooms at her old Kohl’s in Florida, now shuttered (“So coming back up here was kind of like coming home for me, y’know?”). Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey and you can tell.

You can guess what her politics are.

I think what appealed to me most about the Cape Cod trip, if I were to be honest, was the right to tell Brenda that I’d have to take a few days off in mid-September because my boyfriend had invited me on a trip to “the Cape.”

Here was a woman in her late forties or early fifties who had located the profundity of her self-esteem in “competence”—and yet it never finally occurred to her that the only way to be “competent” in your everyday life is to command the trust of those around you. Trust is earned, Brenda, and it’s lost with unreliability. I could never really trust that woman not to not trap me inside a rule without being able to explain to me the reasons—not to not be imperious and self-certain and in self-protection mode at all times—and not to not explode all of her emotional wreckage on me, drenching me in the black mist of her self-absorption. Brenda was always right. Brenda is never to be questioned. (Brenda’s real name is “Karen,” which is why I didn’t want to say it at the time.)

It felt so good to able to tell Brenda that—all of her anxieties about the back-to-school rush aside—I’m going to have to take three days off in mid-September because my boyfriend has invited me on a trip with his three friends to the Cape. (I met my boyfriend a year ago on Opal.) It pained me to be so petty—no, not the reference to Cape Cod, which was just a kiss on the lips, but the reference to having a boyfriend, which was my primary poison. I wore more eyeliner to work, not less, the longer the weeks went by trying to circumnavigate Brenda’s imperialism. I enjoyed looking like a magazine cover while supplicating to her at the makeup counter.

We worked at a department store.

(“—so that’s my life, okay?”)

I could see it already. I love how Brenda, with her master’s degree in Global Business Studies or whatever the fuck she majored in, has to flinch every time who I really was blinked in front of her. I bet you flinched every time you saw me shrug into your office, Brenda, no matter what you called me into your office for, because I know about the Us Weeklies you stole from the front stands—I told Accounting about them!—I know how responsive you are to young women with movie-star looks who had won the genetic lottery. I smile at you, Brenda, precisely because I know how my angelic dimples make you feel. It makes you feel like you want to protect me.

It makes you feel you need to defend your true queen.

Beauty was my one and only power over Brenda, but I can assure you I only used it sparingly (all it took was sparingly with a woman so obsessed with appearances). We don’t talk about being pretty enough, which is another way of saying we don’t talk about seeing only the appearances enough. Seeing only the appearances was how I, prior to this weekend, once saw Cape Cod. What do you know about Cape Cod anyway? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you mentally google it? I want to leave you now with an image of seagulls.

I matched with my boyfriend last September on Opal.

Now I know what you might be thinking—this whole story basically amounts to one long humblebrag about how I have an account on Opal, lol. No. First of all, I deleted that account six months ago. My boyfriend and I both did, on the same day—that was how we agreed to be serious.

Opal’s cornered the market on young attractive people who like to paraglide to remote destinations—the one and only trick it has up its sleeves is “exclusivity,” which in America is a royal flush. I’ll tell you real quick how I landed an account on Opal. A hedge-fund apparatchik I had gone on two dates with wrote me a recommendation letter after I told him I didn’t think it was going to work out between us, but did he still want to be friends? (And what do friends do?) It was his fault. He was the one who’d bragged to me about having an account on Opal in the first place. He even helped me pick out my profile pictures.

I left the Alma Mater field blank.

Opal’s about what you’d expect—videos of narcissist after narcissist who summer in Thailand. I swiped past all of the alpha males, which took days. Men who were earnest or men who were silly were the only men I could take seriously.

My boyfriend’s in that five percent of men just below the top ten percent that most women don’t know to circle the ocean for. You know the type. He’d be unstoppable if just one or two more things had gone right for him, but as it were, the wrong job, the wrong company, the wrong alma mater, had kept a handsome face trapped beneath a monthly gym membership. You’ll recognize these five-percenters from their personality—pure souls who’d lucked out facially, two sevens on the slot machine, but whose unambiguous victory had been stunted by some existential lemon. Some of them have eating disorders. Some google “male plastic surgery” in the dead of night. In my boyfriend’s case, he’s pansexual. Open-minded women have rejected him, which gives him a chip on his shoulder, and now he thinks he understands what it’s like being a minority. My boyfriend’s the type to care a lot about social issues. I’m not sure he even knows we’re interracial.

His parents have a house in Cape Cod.

His dad’s a federal judge and his mom’s an immigration attorney. Until we met and he started showing me pictures on his phone of his childhood vacation home, I had never really thought a lot about Cape Cod. I only knew it as the brand of a potato chip one step up the class ladder from Lay’s, and as a cultural metonym for white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, and the Kennedys. Brenda grew up in a trailer park in New Jersey, but I’m sure she must have learned at her master’s program what Cape Cod was.

Cape Cod was where she wanted to be.

And as it so happens, Brenda?

Cape Cod is me.

I wanted so desperately to tell her but I couldn’t.

I wanted so badly to inform Brenda that I had more important things to worry about than making sure the lipsticks were alphabetized, or that the powders were arranged in alternating shades of rouge and beige: namely, that a splitting image of one of the stars you read about in Us Weekly had a life to live, and she was going to enjoy the fruits of her beauty—fruits that Brenda could only live vicariously through (I tallied six missing issues of Us Weekly over the course of a year; no other magazine had gone unaccounted for during the same period except for a single issue of Better Homes & Gardens, which I found one night crumpled on top of Brenda’s desk).

The way Brenda’s eyes lit up whenever she talked about Mackenzie Davis—I just needed Brenda to recognize my own beauty in the same way! It flipped around, you see, like a head trip—sometimes Brenda bowed to her true queen, and sometimes she said mean things to me. I wasn’t thought of as “intelligent” by Brenda, and I could never tell if it was because of my race or my beauty—the two possibilities flickered around in my head like a dueling candlelight until one night I decided, “It’s both,” and just let it die.

Resentment was brewing between me and Brenda.

Ever since I realized I would have to lie to her about my Cape Cod trip, because September would be the back-to-school rush, and there was no way Brenda was okaying me those vacation days. At Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda’s first rule was: “Just be honest. I want to know everything.”

But do you, Brenda?

Do you want to know how I plan to get out of work during the back-to-school rush, because I’ll be with my boyfriend and his three Yale Law classmates traipsing across Cape Cod? Do you really want to read about a beautiful woman’s life in Us Weekly? (Just steal my diary.) I’ll call in sick. I’ll lie and cough right to your face over the phone, Brenda, and I’m telling you it’s corona. I don’t have to be honest with you about anything because you rule by fear, not trust, and in a world of fear without trust anything goes.

Fear without trust is the animal kingdom.

And Not-Quite Sephora is the animal world.

The night before my last day at Not-Quite Sephora, Brenda humiliated Ashley in the stock room. (Ashley had made the mistake of asking her for paid time off for a wedding in December.) I didn’t overhear it, but I heard about it, which was enough. I have always had a way with words, and I gave Brenda some direct evidence of it by way of a resignation letter I wrote to the district manager—only it wasn’t really a resignation letter, it was more like a record of how Karen McHiggins was a terrible supervisor, sent to Corporate and cc-ed to the entire floor. (What mattered wasn’t that I had cc-ed the entire floor, but that the next morning, every single person on the floor congratulated me.) The group chat I’m in with Ashley and Gabby pops off more than ever now ever since I quit, only I didn’t mean to quit.

I only wanted to take a truthful temperature.

Brenda showed all of her cards when I showed up to my shift the next day. “Nina? My office. Now.”

I made eye contact with Ashley, who was already in her uniform, and we both smiled.

She kind of gave me an eye hug.

I wore nude lipstick that day.

The email I had sent Corporate was subject-lined “Management’s Mismanagement,” and it listed six bullet points about Brenda’s bad behavior (one involved throwing a purse at a mannequin; the last five were instances of emotional abuse). It ended with a paragraph about Brenda’s encounter with Ashley in the stock room (Brenda had called Ashley “unlikable,” “self-absorbed,” “a fucking dipshit”).

I laid out the case like the lawyer I couldn’t afford to be (I had other interests, hobbies, and pursuits in middle school, like not killing myself). Brenda was probably shocked I could write. She was probably shocked I could read, but I wield words as weapons—that’s the only thing you ever have to know about me. (In third grade, I won the spelling bee too.)

How did I dress for work the day after I wrote “Management’s Mismanagement” (and really I should say the morning after, because I sent the email at 4 a.m. and had to wake up three hours to let an exterminator in)?

I looked like a star.

I had even spent the last six months of my life casually coaxing Brenda toward the mixed-race celebrities I wanted her to subliminally see me as. Cape Cod would smile. I’d fit in well there, because in my late forties or early fifties I’d have the sort of personality that everybody at Beach Road would know to be impressed by—I could lift my life up to heights that the bourgeois rabble couldn’t even see. Not a single one of my applications to a white-collar job had ended in a palatable offer. Not-Quite Sephora, founded in Vermont, has a labor-friendly CEO. My benefits were good—I even had vision and dental. “One way or another, I’m bringing up my Cape Cod trip,” was the last clear thought I had before knocking on Brenda’s door.

“Come in,” a harsh voice gruffed.

I opened the door.

“Close that please,” was the first thing I heard Brenda say before she and I even made eye contact.

I closed the door dutifully.

Karen McHiggins was standing next to her desk in red pants and a black blazer. She had tied her hair into pigtails that day for some reason, although her hair was so short that they ended up looking more like ringlets, and her eyes behind her glasses were blue and pixel-like. Brenda made a quick gesture at the floor with her hands, almost like she was trying to say “Enough!”, and then said: “What is going on, Nina—what is going on, because I do not understand you.”

Her voice was hoarse.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her red pants—but your blazer is black?—so I just said, “I—” while panning my gaze to her desk, waiting for her to continue.

Brenda’s desk was a mess.

Just like her thought processes.

“If you have ever had a problem with me, you could have come to me directly. What have I always told you, Nina—” Brenda was now screaming.

Brenda thinks screaming has an effect on me.

She’s right—loud noises do have an effect on me. Elevated decibels have an effect on every animal that evolves through nature. How much do I hate Brenda right now? My eyes are staring into hers—but I don’t see a human.

I see an animal.

The power of volume is that it throbs the ear—and ears desire music. Ears desire harmony. Wild animals make me forget poetry as I bolt into the jungle—how much do I hate the woman screaming into my ears right now? Well, there’s a simple formula for that, and all of us are making it, even if we don’t know that we’re making it. We take how much anxiety we experience from being around a person, and then we multiply it by a factor.

My factor is 1 when that person is equal to me.

My factor is a fraction of 1 when that person is homeless.

My factor is greater than 1 when that person is greater than me.

And for Brenda my factor was 42,137��that’s 1 for every dollar that the winds of Brenda’s turbulence lorded over me, granting me vision and dental.

The ensuing number is a hatred.

How much anxiety was Brenda creating in me? Well, for starters—how much did I distrust Brenda? (And how much did I secretly want Brenda to like me?) All the eyeliner I wore to work every day—it wasn’t for mall patrol, it wasn’t for Ashley, and Lord knows it wasn’t for Gabby.

It was for me.

But maybe a little bit of it was for Brenda.

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now?

And how much taller does Brenda tower over me right now? Well, let’s see—I submitted 42 job applications, all non-retail. Interviewed at 11. Final-rounded at 7. Received an offer at two—both in New York, which I couldn’t afford. A young white boy at a social media marketing firm told me during the interview that I was “obviously brilliant” before offering me an internship. By July, Brenda towered over me like a god. I fell asleep at night fantasizing about her supervillain origin story. Brenda complained so much about Americans who weren’t vaccinated that I once asked her if she was a childhood polio survivor. “Where in the world did you get that idea?” Brenda laughed, and I laughed too. “Oh, I was just curious.”“How many times have I told you, Nina…”

My expenses have been going up, thanks to my new boyfriend. (As a matter of fact, I am the type of girl to go Dutch!) Taking over Brenda’s position would mean a four-percent raise. To my surprise, Brenda took off her glasses, put them on top of a crinkled magazine on her desk, and started crying. Like, actually crying.

Two actual teardrops leaked out of her eyes.

Self-pity makes me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable when the powerless do it, because now I have to do something, and it makes me uncomfortable when the powerful do it, because now I have to eat them. When somebody more powerful than me expresses self-pity, I can’t help it: I want to guillotine them. I want to take away their right to exist, but I want to watch them suffer first. If I were God, I’d invent Hell just for Brenda. It satisfied me that Brenda would most likely die without children or a partner. I want all capitalists in the First World to die without children or a partner, but to have afterlives that go on forever.

It still doesn’t seem enough though.

Brenda’s office has a desk, no windows, and a door that leads to the loading dock. A poster on the wall behind her desk, and I was just noticing this about her office now for the first time, was of a lighthouse in Cape Cod. “—the back-to-school rush—” Brenda was saying, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

The ceiling light was fluorescent, and the walls were built of the same beige bricks that made up my elementary school. I once applied to a master’s program in sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

I got in, too.

I hate it here in America—doesn’t anybody else? Is this really that much better than the Soviet Union?

Sympathy for Brenda?

Brenda who lorded over my vision and dental like a bureaucratic algorithm—my boss Brenda?

I did good work.

I was Brenda’s star employee! (I left that part out because I’m not the bragging type.) The only work I couldn’t charge for was the work I didn’t want to do—navigating around the runes and mysteries of Brenda’s uncharted sensitivities like Leif Erikson. The truth was, I hated Brenda for not being able to see me as a beautiful woman just because I wasn’t a beautiful white woman like the pin-up girls she’d gone to school with in New Jersey. Brenda bleeds white guilt, but she rarely ever let me massage any of it toward my favor, except superficially (and you can guess by now how I feel about superficiality). Brenda’s insincerity dehumanized her to me. We humanize each other first as leaps of faith, and then through trust—and nothing about Brenda’s way of existing suggested she could be trusted by me. Not her white guilt. Not her New Jersey liberalism.

Not even her tears.

In fact the longer Brenda cried, the more intensely I wanted to punish her—the phrase “white bitch tears” comes to mind. I wondered if Brenda sincerely didn’t understand that if I could push a button to keep her trapped inside a hole for the rest of her life, I would, and her tears only made me want to push harder. Still, it gave me a start to see—this woman who could take away my ability to not go into debt like checking “Buy Now” on Amazon—reduced before me into a person now trying to trick me into believing she has a soul.

Don’t the workers of the world understand?

Powerful people don’t have souls.

Brenda having a soul would have meant taking my ideas about the BOPUS orders seriously, and not dismissing them out of hand because how could any good ideas come from Nina, the pretty one, if Brenda’s even not-racist enough to see me as pretty (BOPUS is industry slang for “buy online, pick up in store,” and it’s basically brought Not-Quite Sephora to its knees—that and Brenda’s mismanagement). I could divide my hatred of Brenda by a factor to account for the fact that she was fat and unmarried—but whose fault was that, Krispy Kreme? Do you think I actually like exercising?

Are you ready for some real talk now?

I can tell you about the runner’s high until I’m blue in the face, but I’m not built inside like a runner—I’m built inside like a girl who understands that nothing tastes as good as being pretty feels. I don’t know how American society decayed to this point—my Ph.D. dissertation in sociology at Johns Hopkins would have been about the link between an artificial society and the importance placed on appearances, but I couldn’t afford to go, I had actual work to do in middle school (like not killing myself) so I never bothered thinking very long and hard about anything. “Quitting would mean losing my gym membership,” I suddenly remembered.

A new recognition suddenly dawned over me—no gym membership would mean no Cape Cod. It takes a couple hundred months and a couple thousands steps to get there, but trust me, I’ve worked out the odds.

(I make my brain work for me.)

I looked at the lighthouse poster behind Brenda’s desk and said: “Brenda, it’s just—how you treated Ashley last night in the stock room…”

“You weren’t even there!” was what a clear-headed Brenda would’ve said, but Brenda the Tender said nothing.

“I heard about it from Gabby,” I continued. “You know, we’ve talked about this so many times.”

“I know, I know,” Brenda whispered.

“You don’t know how to create a functional work environment sometimes. Groups are held together by trust, not fear.”

I wasn’t quitting.

I was saving everyone at Not-Quite Sephora from Brenda’s bad temper. Brenda’s boss Charles would understand—he’d say, Nina made some good points in this email, but it sounds like you guys have everything worked out, so get back to work—and everyone would move on.

Only Brenda would now be moving into the light.

She would see how her anxieties about Not-Quite Sephora’s declining sales figures were spilling into her paranoias about job security (“And what will I do with all of my competence now that I can’t find a job because I’m old, fat, and ugly?”) and have been spilling into us as sarcasm and curt dismissals ever since her second day on the job. (Her first day was lovely—I was obsessed with Brenda! I even nicknamed her “cool Mom” to Gabby and Ashley.)

How Brenda appeared to me that first day was how Cape Cod once appeared to me too, before this weekend—white-sand beaches, old stone lighthouses, the Kennedys.

Cape Cod had told me a story—and so had Brenda when she first took over Kristi’s post at Not-Quite Sephora (Kristi got pregnant and never came back). Cape Cod’s story was Yale Law, benevolence, intellectualism. Brenda’s story was that she was loud and earthy and understood how to make an entrance—if she’d been honest, she would’ve just said: “I can use my power to make you feel however I want you to feel about yourself. I’m an emotional abuser.”

But the story I heard, because I’m a gullible sweetheart, was “Fun Mom.”

I laughed along amiably to “stressed-out Mom,” bopped along bewilderedly to “not everything is functional upstairs Mom,” and—how do I put this?

I didn’t like the mother who had a master’s degree.

Self-protection was Brenda’s middle name, and nothing I said using the tools of reason or logic could penetrate the fortress of Brenda’s first impressions—that’s the definition of “closed-minded,” by the way (Brenda has a lot to say about closed-minded people—that’s the crazy part).

How we look is the first story we tell each other about who we are. It’s our audiovisual accompaniment to the words that make up the second half of our story—the “spoken half”—and everyone understands that this isn’t fair, everyone understands and then does nothing. Brenda isn’t the only person who learned how to survive in America by going to an American middle school. She’s only lost her temper at me a couple of times, but I’ve been tracking all of them.

I’ve been watching you like a falcon, Brenda.

I’ve been watching you like a true A student.

True A students are out of favor in America for a reason. We’re only mortal, but we’re a little bit supermortal too. Because what I really didn’t like about Brenda was her insincerity—“When have I ever said no to you, Nina?” Brenda was now drying her eyes with a tissue and screaming.

It was a change in the air—a subtle bit of misdirection that she probably thought I was too stupid to catch (I’m not).

I was the powerful one now.

And Brenda McHiggins was now “the victim.”

“You threatened to fire me right after Easter for being late on a BOPUS order,” I treaded carefully.

“Nina, ninety-nine percent of our Google ratings come down to the BOPUS orders—”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t .”

“Which is why I said you needed a better system for assigning roles for when people aren’t here.”

“But I never threatened to fire you.”

“You told me you’d have my name forwarded to Charles!"

“Exactly!”

“Which is the same as getting fired!”

“That isn’t true, Nina—I would have protected you.”

This statement was so stupid that it almost broke my brain. “Wha—protected me: do you not understand how Charles operates?” Brenda turned her back to me, waved her hand in the air, and said: “I’m not going to go into this with you again” as she looked for her glasses.

“It’s right there,” I said. “On top of Better Homes & Gardens.”

“Oh,” Brenda said without acknowledging me.

Brenda put on her glasses and then sat down into the chair, which made a sound like it was about to snap in half.

This was how she always liked to berate us—from her chair. I had seen that painting of the lighthouse behind Brenda’s desk so many times—it just never occurred to me that it was Cape Cod. Sometimes, I’d overhear Brenda berating Gabby on my way to the restroom and I’d think, “Well, she isn’t wrong—Gabby is kind of stupid—but that’s still not the way you talk to her. You have to incentivize her to trust you first.” (Gabby was the one who first changed Brenda’s nickname from “Fun Mom” to that cunt with a stick up her ass.) Ashley and I burst out laughing. (What else is there to do inside a dying country?)

“Everyone here is so short-tempered with each other because you set the tone. I’ve been too afraid to ask you for three days off in September to go on a trip with my boyfriend for our one-year anniversary because I knew you weren’t going to say yes, so I was just going to take them off as sick days—and that’s not a functional work environment if people are constantly doing things like that all the time, because what you really need to do is go to Charles and ask for more staff.”

“This September—oh, Nina, you got to be kidding me!”

It was the first honest thing I ever heard Brenda say.

I thought about my naïve dream from earlier—how I thought I was going to turn Brenda around.

How I thought I was going to save the store. “The problem is we’re under_staffed_” was what I should’ve said—I get that now, I do, and I don’t know why I couldn’t wear it in my mouth even as it was trying to form in my subconscious. Because other forms were rising in me now too, forms like: “Brenda is a world-class manipulator. She butters you up just to brine you.” (I couldn’t even trust her tears, and if you can’t trust someone’s tears, you can’t trust them to ever find help.) I don’t know how I’d fare if it were just me and Brenda on a deserted island—I could see her killing a cougar for us with her own bare hands, but I could also see her killing me. “I never said that, I just told you I’d have to forward your name to Charles”—Brenda the liar. Brenda who could probably play dead about as well as she could play stupid—any falcon worth its weight in bird could see through it.

“I’ve been having issues with my boyfriend,” I suddenly blurted out.

Where had I learned this from?

Middle school.

“The anniversary trip means a lot to him, and I can’t even say yes or say no—it just hangs there over us, because he knows about the back-to-school rush. And he’s not even someone I—even feel fully comfortable with in some ways. But I’m also scared to lose him, I’m scared every time I come into work on Tuesday because I don’t know how you’re going to change my hours. Everything we do revolves around my not having enough time—I’d have issues building a perfect relationship with him if we had the rest of our lives to ourselves on a deserted island, but every weekend until closing? He works a normal job! He’s tired all the time too, but he makes time to see me and I can’t—I can’t come to you about anything.”

I didn’t cry.

But I did smile in my head:

“Wanna play victim, bitch?”

I could see Cape Cod now—I could see its lighthouse drawing my boyfriend and I closer and closer, I could see us dancing now to The Strokes at midnight like we were back in middle school because I didn’t want this to be the rest of my life, I don’t want retail, I don’t want resumes and cover letters and I don’t want to meet any more Brendas—what I want is for the Brendas of the world to collapse at my feet, but all I can see are the Brendas of the world closing in on me until death and so I need a release, I need to go back to middle school (I was popular in middle school, I can admit that now, I had bee-stung lips, and a bee-stinger too)—I need The Strokes (haven’t you ever made out with a boy in a hot tub while stroking your nails across his abs, parting the hair where his lower back begins?)—“Is this it? … Is this it?”—(my boyfriend and I swimming in the stars of our liberation, and I’ll give him all the vision and dental that he likes)—prey: always just a one-click order away (and we’ll eat lobster, because lobsters hold harms forever)—I the warm body and he the warm arms, holding me in his lanky-panky forever (and if Connor ever got a gym membership I would die—I don’t need a perfect 10, I can settle for an 8.9)—my captors: do they know? Do they understanding I’m not living my one true life? Wearing Ray-Bans while gazing out at the Atlantic from a yacht, because Comfort is my one true God—I’m ready, Mr. DeMille, for my one true closeup to begin. How am I still in Brenda’s office? I’m twenty-seven years old—how am I twenty-seven years old and still smoldering in Brenda’s office? In middle school I listened to The Strokes while everyone else listened to pop hip-hop—another Universe has been calling to me all my life. And all it would take was just a few more thousand steps to get there.

I’ve been running every day since I was thirteen. I don’t even eat my desserts correctly—I just spit and chew.

Ashley and Gabby remind me of who I was back in middle school. I had power over everyone back then except Abercrombie Couture (not her real name). Abercrombie was the class favorite—it’s hard to explain, but among the very-outgoing girls, Abercrombie was Frivolity Personified. And when only the people who needed to see it could see it, Abercrombie was the cruelest human you’ve ever met—she’d ignore you so subtly you’d drive yourself crazy for days asking the other girls if she was mad at you. Back then I had already begun telling myself I was too cool to care—but I still have nightmares about Abercrombie sometimes, about the way she’d say hi to everybody else at the party except me. “I just can’t deal with your emotional up and downs anymore, Brenda! Like I’m sorry—I’ve defended you to Ashley and Gabby so many times! I’m sick of having these conversations with them.”

Abercrombie, I later realized during college, must have been unsettled by how candidly I could talk about her behind her back. That was my little power over her, and I’d like to think I wielded it gracefully. (Abercrombie was dethroned by a lurid sex scandal involving a used condom in eighth grade, and I’d like to believe I led our class to a more open and inclusive place after her dismissal.)

“Three days—where you trying to go, Wuhan?”

“No. The Cod.”

“The what?”

“The Cod.”

“Where’s that?”

“In Massachusetts.”

“You mean Cape Cod?”

That was how quickly I realized I had fumbled the ball—that was the speed at which I realized I had fumbled the fuck-you—the one thing I needed to do correctly and I had fumbled the ball trying to cross the finish line. “It’s the Cape, not the Cod sweetie,” Brenda was already huffing to me by the time I realized my mistake, with a smile on her face. She’ll deny it to this day, and in absolute candor I can’t really say it was a “physical” smile—I don’t remember what it looked like, I don’t remember if Brenda actually huffed or if she even moved her mouth all that much at all, it was more in the eyes, but that bitch smiled.

I grew up in Nevada.

My boyfriend graduated from Yale Law and with him I can see a way out of my life—and I really don’t understand why that’s such a terrible thing to say. And I’m about to lose him—it’s in between the lines, but I can just feel it, I have him wrapped around my little finger because that’s the only way I’d ever have any man who loomed so tall over me, with him it’d be Cape Cod until the end of my days and nobody would ever laugh at me for calling it the Cod again—I’ll just rename it.

My hatred of Brenda in that moment was rivaled only by my childhood hatred of Abercrombie Couture.

But I knew I had to proceed gingerly.

I began to feel like Leif Erikson again—what other uncharted sensitivities do you have, Brenda?

Do white people really have white guilt?

Verbalizing the subconscious is like navigating by stars—Pequod knows where it’s trying to go, it just needs the conscious mind to plot out the steps to get there first—only I couldn’t verbalize any of this, all I could do was feel the mind for throbs like the twitches of a rat’s tail inside the forest below—and I was throbbing for a release, I was throbbing all my middle-school embarrassments, I was throbbing Cape Cod. A woman who understood nothing but appearances stood in front of me, utterly preoccupied with her own self-preservation—neither wise, open-minded, nor beautiful—but who could mean the difference between me and my income, between me and my livelihood, between me and my boyfriend breaking up (which would mean the difference between me and Cape Cod)—and I couldn’t even get anyone on the second floor to take her magazine theft seriously. How do I even begin to tabulate all her subtle knife-wounds to the psyche?

My favorite song by The Strokes?

“Hard to Explain.”

“You can correct the way I say things all you’d like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I live in fear of you—okay? I go home every night and cry. You bully Ashley and Gabby every day but I’m not Ashley or Gabby—okay? You have not created an emotionally safe environment in the workplace and it’s affecting my life—okay? I’m sorry you take yourself so seriously, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with your fear that all the girls who thought you’d never amount to anything in middle school might be right, but if you have to terrorize other people just to feel better about yourself, that’s not how I roll—okay? That’s not me. The way you talk to Ashley, Gabby, Mike, Chris—it’s un-ac-cep-ta-ble, Brenda.”

And this is where my ship was trying to go:

“I don’t think you belong in your position. So that’s what I told Charles.”

I’d set fire to Cape Cod if I could.

I’d set fire to my boyfriend’s lake house, I’d set fire to Brenda’s Us Weeklies, and I’d certainly set fire to the poster of the lighthouse with seagulls behind Brenda’s desk.

“I don’t work here anymore. Not until you apologize to Ashley,” I added quickly.

My speech was now outpacing my life decisions.

“And I’m not going to be manipulated by you anymore, okay? Because you know how hard I work, you know how much I give to this store every day but Wannabe-Nordstrom isn’t my life, okay? I am not living the life I want to live every single day—so that’s my life, okay?”

Were ordinary people in the Soviet Union this unhappy? Has anyone ever bothered to ask them?

The only thing I ever knew how to do around Brenda was say whatever I needed to say to make her feel comfortable.

Like seagulls exploding out of a cove, that was the only thing Brenda ever seemed to value: her personal comfort. I don’t remember how Brenda looked in that moment. She kept darting her eyes between Better Homes & Gardens and the floor, and her glasses were foggy. I gazed at Brenda with a falcon’s stare and said:

“Think of last night as my last straw.”

It’d be worth it, you know.

It’d be worth it to suspend my gym membership for a few months to see Brenda have to swallow the fruits of her own disorder. I hadn’t coaxed Brenda into reacting the way she did to Ashley’s request—I had only coaxed Ashley into talking to her, and that was a sincere act of friendship: “You have to stand up for yourself with people like that, Ashley.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Brenda and you are like best friends.”

“We are not.”

“You have her wrapped around your little finger, Nina.”

“No I don’t,” I said, and then I hit Ashley’s face with a big fat pillow until feathers fell out, which of course never happened because Ashley and I don’t have open and honest conversations about anything. All Ashley said was “You’re probably right,” and I could sense in Ashley’s eyes that she was perceptive enough to understand I was probably wrong—but even I couldn’t pick that up, at least not consciously, so in a way, Ashley doomed herself by failing to correct me.

I was Brenda’s star employee and everybody knew it.

I’ve been an A student all my life.

I’m the picture of good anger management.

Management hates it when you quit. That’s the one thing you can still lord over them, even during a recession (and July 2022 in America was anything but)—replacing an employee costs time, and time is money. Every store manager knows that—even Brenda (her management woes don’t source back to her inability to optimize).

And then Brenda said something so stupid that for a second I almost thought she was parodying Gabby.

“I thought you and I could speak openly to each other.”

Brenda.

Girl.

Just because you tell me about the medications you take for your back problems doesn’t mean we’re friends.

Was this really happening right now?

“I don’t know what you expect me to say,” I told Brenda. “I did speak openly in the email.”

Was Brenda really buying into Ashley’s delusion that management and workers can be just friends?

Or was she just calculating that I—because I’m pretty—was stupid enough to buy into it too?

“Actually, no—the way you engage with others doesn’t seem intended to provide a pathway for sincere and open conversations. You have a ‘No Assholes’ policy that seems intended to make other people suppress their true feelings around you at all times, because anybody who contradicts you is automatically an asshole.”

I didn’t say that.

I just said: “It can be intimidating to speak to you sometimes.”

Even when you try to laugh with me about your muscle relaxants, I laugh back, but what I really want to say is “Brenda, a certain percentage of the population is going to have back problems, and you have given me no particular reason to care about yours.” I think again now about if Brenda and I were stuck on a deserted island. I’d probably have to save her life from the elements from time to time, and that’d build trust between us. “What we’d need to do is charter a plane somewhere, and have the plane crash. That’s the only way to resuscitate this relationship.”

“How many times have I told you, Nina, you can come to me about anything…” and before I could even respond, Brenda began comparing our dynamics to a mother-daughter relationship and I was one second away from saying, “Bitch, that’s your problem,” but I caught myself and said calmly:

“Brenda, that’s the problem.”

Brenda looked at me earnestly.

“Just, that right there—the word you used. I don’t think you really understand other people’s boundaries? I tell you obligatory anecdotes from my personal life because you specifically ask to hear them, not because I want to volunteer them—again, that’s how afraid I am of you, Brenda, because I don’t even feel like I have the right to tell you that my dating history is, actually, now that I think about it, none of your business. And then you lecture me about how I talk to my boyfriend? Again, because you asked to hear the details, and you actually make it so that now I’m thinking about my boyfriend at work instead of focusing on my job, which you then get mad at me for? I don’t think you really understand, Brenda, how your friendliness comes off when it’s mixed with so much—neediness, I don’t know, this need to control everything all the time—to make everything perfect.”

The first time I ever met Brenda, we got along so well that after our shift we went to a Red Lobster on the other side of the strip mall, where she bought me three milkshakes. I told her about growing up with my mom in a trailer park in Nevada and she told me about growing up with her mom in a trailer park in New Jersey—we laughed a lot that night. I don’t even remember what we laughed about, but we were both talkers, Brenda and I, we were both tellers, and we were both showers. I could tell after my first milkshake that Brenda must have floated in the margins of the sub-popular crowd in middle school, and she all but confirmed it on the second (she just had one of those I’ve seen it all energies).

“So how does it feel being back in the Northeast?”

“Honestly?” Brenda said, grabbing a French fry. “I’m ready.”

You couldn’t hear the ocean from where we were sitting, but you could hear a highway.

I understand Brenda.

I really do.

Sometimes at night, while I fantasized about quitting a company whose Corporate was famous for giving their employees vision and dental (and anyway, what else would I do besides marketing or retail? In what other way might I be called upon to serve the good people of America?), I’d climax with an image of Brenda sitting alone at home on a Thursday night (that was Brenda’s day off), crocheting to Fleetwood Mac, with a cat rubbing up against her ankle. The only mystery was how many paintings of beaches dotted her apartment.

I know Brenda doesn’t talk to her mother anymore (“Neither do I!” was probably one of our first laughs), and I’d fantasize about how much she probably secretly admired me—because I was pretty—because I could always talk my way into classes and parties she could only stare through the curtains of (I once helped Brenda create an account on Plenty of Fish), and now it was too late for her because she was already in her late forties or early fifties—and I?

I was bound for Cape Cod.

“What are the locals there like,” all summer long I used to wonder. I work at a Nordstrom now.

And I no longer wonder.

“Oh, sweetie—it’s called the Cape, not the Cod.”

Wasn’t that how she had said it?

Even in her most helpless moment, she was still so condescending—she was still just so frivolously condescending—I mean think about the stakes here, girl, you’re about to lose your star employee right before the back-to-school rush—was the poison dart worth it?

Was the poison tip worth it, Brenda?

“I don’t think it’s healthy for me to work here anymore,” I suddenly blurted out. “You’re not a good influence on me.”

“What can I say to make you stay just through September?”

It was so quick and direct that it snapped me instantly out of my sympathy spell.

Brenda.

There’s the Brenda I knew—Brenda, you’re back!

And you’re still holding onto threads in the air.

This store will dissipate, Brenda. Your job will dissipate, and then you’ll have to go right back out there again and sell your competence at another round on the roulette wheel. (Just don’t end up at another store that sells beauty supplies, Brenda—I don’t think you quite understand what they’re really telling the world.) “I don’t think there’s anything you can say, Brenda. I know how hard the last few months have been for you, and I thought very long and hard about doing this to you. But I have to prioritize my own mental health.”

“You know Charles is only giving me a year.”

Brenda said this with a vulnerability I had never heard from her before.

Her voice was like a child’s.

Guilt—it’s impossible to summon it for a person you’ve already dehumanized. Cockroaches die every day.

My subconscious was churning again—I would have a child with my boyfriend someday, and I would protect her from people like you, Karen McHiggins. “Brenda, you have the mental age of a child,” was what I really wanted to say to her. “When I fuck up at work, who do you think I go to? Nobody—do you understand that, Brenda, because adults take responsibility for their shit.”

But I would have to sugarcoat it, because someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would be unable to understand that the powerful can’t be friends with the powerless, no matter how hard they tried—and someone with the mental age of an Abercrombie would also need everything sugarcoated for them.

“Brenda, I don’t know how to break this to you but there isn’t going to be any back-to-school rush! It’s not 2019 anymore—Covid killed retail. We don’t know whether we want to be bargain basement or high-end and the middle class is dead, everyone wants either a bargain or an experience! What did they teach you in that master’s program?”

Only I couldn’t say that either, because Brenda would somehow spin it into me losing my cool, which is the one thing I never do—I’ve been one thing and one thing only all my life, and that’s an A student.

“You’ve given your life to a dinosaur, Brenda—move on. Department stores are dead—this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Your image of America—it’s a façade, and I can prove it. It’s that picture of the lighthouse you keep behind your desk that you pilfered from returned merchandise, and I can prove that too. We’re like explorers in an uncharted land. Things are going to fall apart for us in ways we have no templates for, just like they did for all of the generations before us—only they weren’t as trapped inside the façade of returned merchandise as we are! Settled mores are changing. This century could still look like anything—it’s all up for grabs, and more and more people are just beginning to wake up to this new dawn. Maybe what you really need to do is start a YouTube channel. You have the voice for it, you have the charisma, and you have the storytelling abilities—we could all profit from hearing from your perspective, only nobody will because you’re not young, thin, or beautiful, but hey—it’s worth a shot! You’ll have a better chance there at the lighthouse than you do in retail.”

Only I didn’t say any of this either, because I knew Brenda couldn’t hear a word I was saying. Brenda was dead between the eyes—her soul died in middle school, and she’s been dragging the corpses of would-be lives ever since.

“You’re not a particularly smart or competent person, Brenda, and what’s happening right now speaks for itself. You didn’t just get unlucky, Brenda.”

Brenda once whistled to me when she saw me change into a sundress as I was leaving my afternoon shift—“Whose heart are you breaking tonight, Nina?”

“None of your business!” was what I wanted to tell her, but I wanted to let Brenda live vicariously through me—it was the only gentleness I could ever offer her.

“You know Charles is only giving me the year,” Brenda had said, and she was staring into the void now. I could feel her back pain. She had given her whole entire life to Not-Quite-Sephora, six days a week, and on most nights on my way to the restroom I could hear “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac playing from a small Bluetooth speaker. I looked at Brenda and said: “I have no idea what you want from me. It’s not my job to make you look any better than you are at your job. And I don’t know what your agreement with Charlie has to do with anything—in fact, I had lunch with him the other day.”

Brenda lifted her eyes.

“What?” she said stupidly.

“Oh, I’m sorry—I was trying to get a vacation approved. No, Brenda. I needed to talk to him about a few things.”

“What things?”

And then, before I could offer an answer, “What are you trying to say, Nina? Just spit it out!”

“You have a problem, okay? I’ve seen the way you’ve unraveled in the last few months—Gabby and Ashley are afraid of you, Chris is about to quit, literally nobody can handle your emotional volatility anymore. Everybody’s so short-tempered with each other all the time and coming to me for help, and it’s not my job to help them—that’s your job! You’ve created a situation where nobody can even talk to you. We just smile at you out of fear. You don’t command anybody’s respect—you know that, right? So we basically have to operate without a supervisor—you understand that, don’t you?”

It feels good to eat.

I no longer have a gym membership anymore. Instead, I jog every Tuesday and Friday at the public park.

“So yeah—so I guess I just thought it was about time Charlie heard all of this. He’s actually very reasonable if you talk to him in a reasonable way. He said he’d look into opening one or two more positions for us to cover the weekends. But you probably won’t be there to oversee it.”

Not-Quite Sephora was founded as a regional competitor to J.C. Penney in 1991. It never expanded beyond the Northeast, Minnesota, and California, and it’s about to die—it’s only a matter of time. Unless if maybe Corporate in Burlington saw the light and hired someone like me and actually listened to her ideas for turning all of their stores into “experiences,” which is what I’ve been trying to tell Brenda every time she questioned one of my lipstick arrangements. A lot of what I miss about middle school is the taste-test of freedoms I enjoy every day now as an adult: you build a friendship with the highest person who’ll take you in.

That’s how you climb a hierarchy.

Brenda looked at me like a wounded animal.

There really isn’t ambiguity, is there, about which one of us would survive if it were just you and me on a deserted island. A new recognition was forming inside of Brenda, and I didn’t want to be there to watch it settle in—you can’t treat people like you treated Ashley the other night in the stock room, this isn’t the ’80s anymore. Of course, Brenda was too obtuse to work out that I was only bluffing. The truth was, I had talked to Charlie briefly on the second floor, but he just told me to “put it all in an email,” and I knew he was never going to speak to Brenda long enough to ever contradict anything I had just said—Charlie’s not exactly the open type. Besides, Charlie did agree to look into hiring more part-timers, the way Charlie ever agrees to anything—by pretending it was his idea all along. “It’s the unreliability of when customers come in, that’s the problem,” Charlie had explained to me. (“Yes, that’s true. Unreliability is always the problem,” I told Charlie.)

You can’t rely on other people’s testimony when you ask them about Abercrombie Couture.

You have to come to me.

I’ve seen sides of Abercrombie that nobody else has.

“So what’s the dating scene like out here?” Brenda had asked me that first night at Red Lobster, while popping a French fry. I remember trying not to look at Brenda like she was serious. “It’s just men!” I remember laughing to Brenda in front of two tall glasses of milkshake. “It’s just a bunch of men—that’s the only way I know how to put it!”

And then Brenda in her black blazer and black pants laughed too.

Like we were girlfriends.

“I would’ve given you those vacation days, Nina,” Brenda finally said in a whisper. “If I had just understood that you knew what you were doing when you took them—what you were doing to the store—I would’ve given them to you.”

A new sincerity is trying to grow in the air all around us—I can hear its infant-screams, can’t you? (Couldn’t Brenda?) “Oh my God, Brenda. This is about so much more than whether or not I can go on one trip to Cape Cod.”

“That is all this is about to you, Nina, and don’t you pretend otherwise—”

“No, it isn’t.”

“—because you have a fancy boyfriend now.”

“Leave Connor out of this.”

I don’t really know where my life’s going to go after Cape Cod. Colson’s mental health—it causes collateral damage to people (Colson was one of Connor’s three friends that had stayed with us at the lake house). I don’t really think he understands that his actions have consequences on other people. He thinks I’m one of the popular kids who terrorized him in middle school, but the truth is—I’m just a little bit higher or lower on the pecking order than he is. All of us are—all of us down here. I can’t really bring myself to fully hate him for what he did, but then I remember what his life is and I do—I hate him by several orders of magnitude more than I ever hated Brenda. And what Colson and Brenda both have in common, of course, is their dripping self-pity: they’re both absolutely lacquered in it (what is it about competitive social environments that produces so much self-pity anyway, dripping like honey?). I didn’t have too much compassion for Colson when he asked me to feed some of his honey back to him with my fingers. “Money,” I wanted to tell him.

“How much money you have is an easy way to tabulate what your self-pity is worth to me.”

But to be honest, I couldn’t even lift a finger to care.

Cape Cod was only four days ago, but it’s already just another memory now—that’s how all of our weekends are bound to end. Several hundred more of these and then it’s lights out. Connor and I listened to the first season of Serial on the way up, and as we walked through Martha’s Vineyard later that afternoon, we saw fifty migrants from South America file onto a bus bound for a military installation.

There were cameras and cake everywhere.

We’re all participants in this gladiatorial contest to see who ends up in Cape Cod as the sun sets over our lives.

Colson recently wrote a book called A Stick of Dynamite in the American Elite.

I wish him luck.

I have plans for him, you know.

No matter what his next chess move is—I have a plan to stop him. I left Brenda alone in her office that day. I never learned where she went after she was dismissed from Not-Quite Sephora, all I remember is Ashley and Gabby coming over to hug me as I grabbed my purse from the break room, and they both quit two days later. It was because there’s something in my soul that doesn’t like to see other people are in pain—even people without souls like Brenda (Colson doesn’t count because he’s not really a human in my eyes, he’s more like a bad anecdote you shake off)—that I found myself hugging Brenda right before I said goodbye, holding her as she kept saying to me that I’d been like a daughter to her: “Brenda—Brenda, listen to me. My boyfriend has an ex-boyfriend whose stepmom also has a drinking problem, okay? Brenda—are you listening to me? They live in Westport…”

Cape Cod will die.

It’s only a matter of time before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. I sail America’s values like Leif Erikson now—other people have built their homes and comforts here, but I don’t mind. I wonder sometimes what Abercrombie Couture anesthetizes her listlessness to these days—HBO? Unsubtle affairs with younger men? “How long before mundane dehumanization bears fruit?” I smile to myself every day at Nordstrom, as I walk around the counter to deliver my customer’s parcels to them personally.

I see Abercrombie sometimes in the eyes of the women I help at Nordstrom. They’re all moms, and if that’s the final meaning of our lives—then yes, I agree.

Let’s all be moms.

You don’t know the Hell I’ll reign over America’s guilty class in the twenty-first century, but you will soon: I will mother the destruction of America’s guilded gilts into existence. I broke up with Connor this morning. Something about his reaction to Colson’s breakdown in Cape Cod just didn’t sit well with me—he couldn’t see through Colson’s insincerity, and that makes me think he might not have what it takes in this life to go where I’m trying to go. At my new job at the mall, I nibble on old memories like a woman who hasn’t eaten now in years. The last person I ate was my narcissistic mother in Nevada—she ruined my childhood—she was the Leif Erikson of my formative years—but then again?

So was my middle school.

College feels like a million years ago. My sorority sisters are all married with kids now. Mothers will do anything to protect their young.

#MeToo.

2022

958 notes · View notes

bunchesofoats · 2 years ago

Text

DSMP!Coffee Shop AU

Feat — Most, but not all, C!DSMP Characters (C! not CC!)

Contains — Coffee Shop AU aka lots of big, fancy barista words

Notes — I work in a cafe and I thought this would be funny. This is mostly just characters, but I might do another post regarding the L’Manburg Revolution but in Coffee Shop Rivalry form. Let me know if you’re interested in my inbox!

The Dream Team created the Dream Cafe together, it was mostly Dream’s idea so they named it after him- Sapnap and George just decided “why not” and tagged along

Dream is an absolute god at making/remembering all sorts of drinks like the back of his hand, George is adequate at drinks but he usually likes working in the kitchen where there’s no annoying customers, and Sapnap loves working at the cashier to meet new people

Ponk was one of their first customers who turned into an employee due to how much of a regular he was, his expertise is more on drinks like fruit refreshers and teas but he loves helping in the kitchen! He makes absolutely MENTAL lemon bars that even Dream doesn’t know the recipe to.

Similar to Ponk, BBH was also a customer turned employee! He loves working in the kitchens w George (who has no complaints when BBH takes over so he can “go on break”) and his expertise is muffins! Don’t ask how he’s so good with knives though.

Sam is the cafe’s resident fixer upper and is one of the managers (along w the Dream Team), if the espresso machine is broken he’ll either fix it himself or have a 5 page document of replacements with pros and cons of each product

Tommy was a new hire they took a chance on, they didn’t usually hire teenagers but they thought it’d bring in more of a younger audience than their usual old men who order a single black coffee- He absolutely LOVES making lattes, stuffing any leftover sweets in his apron, and hiding food around the cafe from BBH

Thankfully, Tubbo applied as well and was in the same orientation group as Tommy so they became the customers’ favorite pair of troublemakers! When Sam isn’t working, Tubbo is often very helpful with fixing things around the cafe! Though only quick fixes and temporary, they’ve saved them from dealing with cranky customers who want their coffee at a certain time

The managers attempt with Tommy and Tubbo didn’t work exactly as they planned because Tommy then roped in Wilbur to apply, whose favorite type of drink is a single black coffee. He did end up learning to like sweeter things such as lattes after being taught how to make them by Tommy, but he still will ask Tubbo to brew him some "regular" coffee every now and then

Like Wilbur with Tommy, Fundy was told to apply by Wilbur. Fundy is more in charge of Dream Cafe’s promotion. As their social media manager, he deals with their website, online delivery/pickup orders, and can even cover the register when Sapnap isn’t working! He’s usually found working in the cafe’s back office with, surprisingly, not coffee but juice for some odd reason. Something about how he doesn't care for cafe drinks.

Punz and Purpled both applied out of the sheer need for money and the fact that the cafe was close to their homes. They just clock in, do what they’re told, and clock out. No one really knows either of them well except Dream. Fundy has gotten a laugh and a bit of help with website ideas from Purpled though. No one really knows what they do outside of work.

Schlatt applied out of sheer boredom, barely works any shifts or hours, and like Punz and Purpled, no one knows anything about him outside of work. He’s the cafe’s enigma worker, really good at the job but incredibly mysterious otherwise.

Eret, Jack, and Niki all joined at the same time and were all a part of the same orientation group so they created a group chat together (will get back to this later)! Like the Dream Team, Eret works on drinks, Niki in the kitchens, and Jack is on the register!

Lots of chaos ensues, and maybe some unexpected rivalry causing a split?

#dream smp #dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #ponk #awesamdude #tommyinnit #tubbo #wilbur soot #fundy #punz #purpled #jschlatt #eret #jack manifold #nihachu #dsmp #dsmp au #bunchesofoats

44 notes · View notes

damnedparker · 4 years ago

Text

long-lasting

pairing: alex law x reader (gender neutral; no y/n)

warnings: none; more than implied that reader regularly wears makeup. this is just fluff.

summary: alex loves makeup, maybe more than you. so the two of you have some fun.

it’s been a while. i woke up with an idea this morning and had to get it out.

“Look at these!” Flew excitedly out of your boyfriend’s mouth for about the thousandth time in the twenty minutes you’d been in this store. You sighed, more amused than anything, and turned to see what he had been so excited about.

You can’t tell if bringing Alex to a store full of makeup and other beauty products for the first time was a bad idea or not; judging by his excitement, you were leaning towards good. He hadn’t been out of the house to do something in weeks, and you hadn’t seen him this actively excited about anything in a while since the events in his flat months ago. It was good to see a glimpse of happy Alex again, albeit it was much like handling a child. But you loved him for it.

“Look at all the colors…” His breathy statement was full of wonder as if he was seeing vivid colors for the first time in the form of an eyeshadow palette. His hand left where it had been attached to yours like glue since you had arrived, so he could swatch the colors on his hand, which was already covered in swipes of various other makeup products. You wonder if you should have told him he could do that at all.

Upon letting Alex know you had to leave the comfort of your flat, where he had been staying more and more recently, he was visibly distraught. The two of you hadn’t separated from each other for more than work each day, which you didn’t mind, but you got the feeling Alex was finding a lot of comfort being next to you and was a little afraid of being alone. It’s not something you could blame him for after everything he went through, and you surely couldn’t deny him when he asked to come along. He was your boyfriend, and you loved being around him. At first, you weren’t too sure he would enjoy waiting around while you spent forever looking at makeup, but now it seems you made the right decision in letting him tag along.

“Can we get it?” He looked at you with puppy eyes, and you had to steel yourself, shaking your head no. A pout instantly made itself at home on his expression.

“No, Alex, I have a palette just like that one already.” You slipped your hand in his again and pulled him along to get what you actually came for, some refills on daily makeup you needed.

“Why haven’t I ever seen you wear colors like that then?”

“I dunno, just never have the chance to play with them. And an electric blue isn’t exactly business casual.” You shrugged, grabbing your favorite eyeliner off the shelf.

“Well, you should try it, I think it’d look nice on you,” Alex said, almost absent-mindedly, as he was drawn over to the area of lipstick you were about to pass. “You don’t hardly wear lipstick either! Look at all these options!”

“Just not my thing, and it always gets everywhere. By the end of the day it’s gone, so what’s the point?”

“The point is, it’s fun and it looks pretty.” He cocked an eyebrow at you, a grin slowly forming on his face. He then turned back to the display, his eyes brightening. “Look here! It says this kind is supposed to last twenty-four hours! A solution to your complaints!”

“I highly doubt that’s true, maybe it lasts a few hours at least.” You picked up a tube of bright fuchsia to look at the bottle, squinting at the ingredients. At least it was cruelty-free, you supposed.

“Can we get one?” The puppy eyes were on again. You weren’t sure you could last another round of these.

“Alex… I probably won’t ever wear it.”

“Well, not in that color,” he snatched the bright pink from your grasp, turning back and humming at the array of colors. He traced his hand over a few tubes before finally settling on a classic red color, giving a triumphant smile. “This one’s nice.”

“You’re just saying that because that color looks good on you.” Alex frowned grumpily, tucking his hair behind his ear, a telltale sign of the fact that you were right, and he knew it. But you did also like red lipstick on other people, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad on you. You checked the high price tag and mentally went through the costs in your head. While you were doing so, you suddenly felt a tug at your hand, and Alex was on his way to the checkout.

“If you won’t try it, I will!” He said determinedly. Luckily you had gotten everything you needed already, so you let him pull you along to the cashiers. You shook your head and uselessly tried to protest when Alex added your things to his own transaction, insisting to pay for it. Your boyfriend was many, many things, and being insistently generous with his money was one of them.

Once you got back in his car, Alex started ripping open the plastic on the lipstick tube. You watched him ever so carefully apply the red to his lips. He was so tedious you were in the parking lot for ten minutes just watching him put it on in the sun visor mirror. Always the perfectionist; with his outfits, his hair, and now his makeup.

“What do you think?” He turned to you when he was done, flashing a large smile.

“That color does suit you.”

“Thank you, darling,” he messed with his hair in the mirror one last time before shutting it and turning to you again, leaning across the console of the car to press a kiss to your cheek. He reached up to touch your cheek after, running across where his lips had just been. “Whoa, it didn’t get all over you!”

“I guess it is long-lasting, after all.” You shrugged, rubbing your own cheek to find that, yeah, it really didn’t transfer onto you. “Maybe—” You were cut off by a sudden kiss on the mouth from Alex, then another, and another. You let out a chuckle against his lips during the last long one, putting a hand on his chest.

“Still nothing,” he seemed both amazed and slightly disappointed. “Half the fun of lipstick is getting it all over someone else.” You couldn’t say you disagreed, playing with the ends of his hair for a moment while you had a passing thought about covering Alex’s face in lipstick. Cute.

“Well, I have plenty of shitty lipsticks that will do exactly that at home,” You shrugged, then another idea popped into your mind. “How about we pick up some dinner, and I’ll do the rest of your make-up after?”

“I love you.” Alex grinned, attacking you with another kiss before finally starting the car.

Dinner flew by in the next hour, along with a few drinks, and you were back in your bedroom. Alex sat squished next to you on your tiny vanity stool, which was certainly not meant for two, but it’s not like you weren’t comfortable with him nearly pressed against you, currently watching you do your own makeup while he rifled through your small collection, trying to decide on colors he wanted for himself. That didn’t stop him from backseat driving your own decisions, making strong and, honestly, useful suggestions for colors for you.

You were carefully applying your own lipstick, a softer mauve color than Alex’s still present vivid red, when he spoke up again, his chin having found a resting place on your shoulder.

“Can you do, like, a… smoking eye on me? Like super dark and classy.” You had to pause doing your lipstick, unable to prevent the smile from creeping across your lips.

“You mean a smokey eye?”

“Whatever it’s called. I want to look hot,” he mused. “Kinda like when we went to that one party with Juliet? You had all that dark eyeshadow on. You looked really pretty.” Alex hummed, affectionately wrapping his arms around your waist. A bit of heat crept up on your cheeks from his compliment and the sudden warmth of his hug. And the memories of that night. You had work the next day, not intending to be out very late, but Alex sure had kept you up for most of the night, much more compliments flooding out his mouth during your late night.

“You already look hot enough without makeup,” you turned and patted his cheek. He leaned into your touch as you put up the lipstick tube with your other hand, turning back to him with a cheeky grin. “I prefer my men all-natural.”

“Shut up,” he let out a laugh with you, and it flooded your bones with golden happiness. Hearing Alex laugh was encouraging and relieving. They’d been few and far between for the past few months, and it was something you missed. “My turn.”

Putting makeup on Alex was always time-consuming, as he fidgeted a lot, and often had to stop you to say whatever crossed his mind at the moment. You didn’t mind either, used to the way his mind worked. The only times he was ever silent around you was when he was asleep, or when he had been racking his brain about a question for a while, and finally blurted it out to you. You thought it was cute.

Admittedly, you spent a lot longer on Alex’s makeup than yours. One, because smokey eyes were hard as fuck, but also because you wanted him to be happy with it. Regardless, he would be over the moon about whatever you did, but you wanted it to be perfect.

As soon as you were done, you let Alex have the hand-held mirror to look at himself. You watched the happiness creep up his face until he was unable to hold it back. It was contagious, and you wrapped your arms around his middle, leaning your head on his shoulder. His arm fell naturally over your shoulders, squeezing you to him with a kiss to your head. After a moment of quiet, he seemed to get an idea, removing himself regretfully from the embrace to grab your Polaroid camera from your bookshelf. You moved over to your bed as he flopped onto it, snuggling up next to him as he turned the camera around to take a picture of both of you together. One with the two of you smiling, one with him kissing your cheek, and one with his tongue sticking out and you laughing next to him. Afterward, he jumped up from the bed and kneeled over you, encouraging you to pose and let him take photos of you. You tilted your head in amusement.

“Alex, I don’t have much film left.”

“I’ll buy you more, a thank-you gift for my makeup.”

“Alex…” You shook your head, and he put down the camera, leaning over you to give you a kiss. It was round three of puppy eyes, and you were sure you were a goner.

“Please?” He pouted sweetly as he could, his hair hanging down and tickling your cheek. “Baby?”

“Okay, just a few.” You pushed yourself up on your elbows, a wry smile overtaking your lips. Alex always got his way. You were wrapped around his finger, and he was wrapped around yours, although he was more likely to beg you for silly things you normally wouldn’t let yourself do. It was good for you though, he pushed you out of your comfort zone. It was always something you loved about dating him.

A few turned into a few photos of you, and a handful of him as well. Soon, you were both seemingly attached to each other, rolling around on the bed like teenagers with the Polaroids left on the nightstand. Alex pulled away with a grin, adjusting himself to sit up against the headboard with you on his lap. You were a bit dazed, taking a few seconds to come back down from Earth before Alex started giggling.

“I guess this lipstick is only so long-lasting,” he swiped his thumb across your chin, a smear of red confirming what he was saying. You only grinned in return at the mauve streaks all across his mouth, cheeks, and neck. “What?”

“Nothing, you’ve just got a bit of something… everywhere.” You couldn’t hold back more laughter, leaning into him as he started to giggle, too. At a passing thought, you snatched the camera from where it had been half-heartedly discarded next to your pillow. Before he could contain himself and stop laughing, you snapped a photo and tugged the newly printed photo out. Alex’s laughter died down as you re-adjusted yourself to settle between his legs with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, watching the photo slowly develop into view.

“Oh my god, what have you done?” Your boyfriend groaned, with only mirth in his tone. The picture was a near-perfect snapshot of him grinning in laughter, perfectly showcasing the kiss marks scattered all over his face and neck. “My poor, beautiful makeup. It’s all ruined.”

“Actually, I think you look much better like this.”

#alex law x reader #alex law #alex law fluff #alex law let me hold ur hand please #my fics

159 notes · View notes

closedafterdark · 4 years ago

Note

What's your greatest sex fantasy involving mommy eunbi?

You wake up from a quick nap to find a comfortable pleasure radiating from between your legs. Removing the blanket from your body, you find a beautiful busty vixen, nuzzling your hardening cock with her soft cheek.

She smiles, giving a deep kiss on your tip.

“Goodmorning, baby.” she said softly, her tone warm and full of affection despite the fact she was stroking your cock with her face.

“E-Eunbi? What’s going on?” you asked.

“Mommy told you she wanted to get fucked, remember baby? I waited for you downstairs.” It didn’t take you very long to recover from your sleepiness, a woman between your legs does have that effect on you.

“Mommy’s sad you dreamt about sleepingwith that whore Lee Saerom, baby. Aren’t I your only mommy?” she asked, using her cute, small left hand to grab the base of your cock and pump you up and down, watching curiously as you begin to pulse and strengthen in her warm embrace.

“Oh fuck, mommy…” you moaned out, her hand sending the first torrent of pleasure coursing through your body.

“Mommy’s going to use you to burn off her anger and stress. I hope you’re ready, baby.” Eunbi said in a soft, whisper-like tone. You noticed an edge of frustration in her voice. It was safe to say she was not happy you kept her waiting.

“If it’s mommy, I’m always ready.”

A shy smile appears on Eunbi’s face. She gives you several slow, tight strokes before she rises from between your legs. Saerom and Eunbi were only an inch apart in height. While Saerom had longer limbs and a tight, model-like body, Eunbi was on the curvier side of the two. Her thighs were a lot thicker and the obvious difference between the two was no piece of clothing could truly hide the outline of her chest. You held onto her wide hips, rubbing them slowly as you enjoyed her warm, smooth skin. Eunbi has ridden you many times, but you could never truly prepare yourself for the first time she lowers herself onto you.

Eunbi’s shorter hair length doesn’t give off the disheveled look Saerom had whenever you two had sex. She brings her small hand to her face and bites a fingertip, the warm smile on her lips anything but - the cute mole under her eye the only source of relief from her seductive gaze as Eunbi straddles you naked.

She gives you a seductive wink before removing herself from your body. You sighed, slightly disappointed you weren’t currently inside her. Yet you managed to smile, appreciating the curviness of her body and her hanging, full round breasts as she opens up the nightstand and retrieves an object from it.

Eunbi doesn’t let you see what she got from the drawer, instead covering your face with her body until you feel your wrists tied to the headboard of her bed. The soft, silky fabric was wrapped around your wrists. Not too tight, not too loose. Kind of like her pussy.

“So it’s going to be that kind of stress relief.” you said, slightly teasing her as you knew what was going to happen.

“Mommy needs to de-stress. You’re going to get it rough, baby. This just helps make certain I won’t be slowed down while I fuck you.” Eunbi said with a lust-filled smile on her lips.

Eunbi was never the type to enjoy slow, passionate-filled sex. She loved it rough, wanting to be in control and using you for her own pleasure. You certainly held no complaints - not that you ever would. There was nothing hotter to you than a woman who knows what she wants and is not shy to admit it. Those thoughts are short lived, however, as Eunbi raises her body swiftly and in one fluid motion, grabs your cock with her small hand and impales herself on it.

Not a second was wasted. It only takes a second for you to fully be inside her body. Eunbi’s loud gasp at your entrance is short-lived as she raises her body again, doing this several times until she is taking your cock in and out at a rapid pace. Your hard shaft is only slightly visible as it appears and disappears, her movements holding zero regard for you or your comfort.

Expecting her to brace herself on your chest for support, Eunbi surprises you once more by wrapping her sexy, slim fingers around your neck. She squeezes you, applying a firm pressure that slightly constricts your airflow as her large, full breasts bounce up and down while she rides you. Anger and lust filled Eunbi’s eyes, she seemed determined to work out her frustration and anger towards you with each thrust of her hips.

She bites her lower lip erotically, the sight of it seducing you. Eunbi enjoyed moaning loudly and telling you how good you feel inside her, but this time was different. She wanted to show you how hard she wanted it, how hard she wanted to fuck you while you were unable to slow her down to a comfortable pace.

“Fuck, mommy… that feels so good.” you moaned, your body quickly being overwhelmed with pleasure. While it had only been a few hours since a woman was impaling herself onto you, you noticed the differences. Eunbi cared little for how hard or fast she was going, her rough pace showing she only cares about her own pleasure.

“Mommy rides me so well…”

“Shut the fuck up.” Eunbi said, raising her hand to slap your cheek. It stinged - you remembered that she had a slapping kink whenever you two had sex. The act of doing so made her even wetter, this time being no different. Her hot juices surround your cock, adding another layer of stimulation for the both of you.

“You parade that bimbo around me like she’s better… Mommy is the only one for you, baby! I’m going to fuck you until you regret choosing her over me.”

You clenched your teeth tightly as Eunbi stopped pumping her hips up and down, choosing to instead grind herself hard on your cock, swirling her hips around in a circular motion while you were fully inside her.

“Fuck, mommy…” you moaned, struggling to keep the pleasure inside you. You wanted nothing more than to hold onto Eunbi’s wide hips, pacing her in order for you not to cum too quickly. But with your hands tied to her headboard, there was little you could do to stop her.

“You like mommy fucking you like this, don’t you baby?” Eunbi asked, trying her best to maintain her composure. But like you, Eunbi could feel the pleasure building up in her own body. Despite this, she refuses to slow down her pace, her hips swirling against yours while her hot, wet walls wrap around your shaft tightly.

“I love everything mommy does to me…” was your response.

“Everything, huh? Then enjoy mommy fucking you, baby.” Eunbi replied, lifting her hips up and down and riding you at a merciless pace.

Clenching your teeth, you bite on your lip - trying to do anything possible to distract yourself from the pleasure Eunbi was giving you. It proves to be anything but effective as she rides you ferociously, her hips working up and down your body. You feel your cock entering and exiting her pussy with each movement of her body.

“Baby! Oh fuck!” Eunbi screamed as she began to break character. She gradually begins to reach a new level of pleasure, throwing her damp, sweaty hair back while her moans continue on. Her soft hands still wrapped around your neck, Eunbi was hunched over you, her erotic words as close to you as possible. But as she continues to ride you, she straightens her back and removes her sexy hands from your neck before placing them onto your chest. You are given a perfect view of her body - despite seeing it so many times, you could never get tired of her creamy legs, her curvy yet slim upper body, and of course, her full, large breasts rocking up and down while she rides you.

The both of you lost track of time - Eunbi loved riding you; even long after you have already cum. This time would be no different. She uses every muscle in her body to give you the most amount of pleasure possible. It was as if she wanted to dedicate herself to slamming up and down your hard cock. As you noticed earlier, her anger towards you about Saerom was quickly being replaced with gasps and moans of lust that leaves her soft, beautiful lips.

“Baby, your cock feels so fucking good…” she gasps.

“Mommy… fuck, your pussy feels good too. It’s going to make me cum soon.”

“Wait, no baby… not like this.” she moaned before she stops riding you, raising her hips and turning her body around while trying to keep you still inside her.

“Fuck mommy like this.” she said, continuing to ride you once more.

Eunbi holds onto your stomach for support as you watch your cock appear and disappear inside her tight, wet pussy lips. They wrapped themselves tightly around you - her slick juices making thick, wet squelching sounds that turn you on even more. Her plump, round ass bounced beautifully up and down your lower body. And were you not tied up, you absolutely would have given each cheek a harsh slap. Eunbi did love getting spanked, after all.

While you were disappointed she cut off her long, beautiful black hair, her shorter hairstyle gave her a more mature image. Her toned muscles of her back glistened with sweat as she arched it. You admired her toned waist that flared out into wide, fuckable hips and her large thighs that were complimented by her round ass bouncing up and down with each impact of your hips against hers. This newfound position allowed Eunbi to ride you even faster than before.

She felt tighter - something you noticed was true whenever you fucked her from behind. And while you certainly wanted her to be on her hands and knees with you in control, you could never say no to Eunbi’s dominant nature. Eunbi loved being in control, she loved setting the pace and choosing how hard she wanted to fuck you. She was never fond of other women talking to you, whether it be a close friend from before you and Eunbi got together or a cashier in a convenience store. The only women she allowed you to be with besides herself were Kang Hyewon and Miyawaki Sakura. Eunbi’s dominant personality was not just towards men - she had women wrapped around her slim, erotic-minded finger as well. While she let you fool around with Hyewon and flirt with Sakura with her permission, your thoughts returned to your girlfriend riding your cock as if her life depended on it.

“Oh my god… Mommy’s gonna cum soon, baby.” Eunbi screamed, getting your attention. Her pussy tightens around your cock even more, making you unable to hold out much longer. You watched her short bobbed haircut sway in rhythm with her body.

“M-Me too… mommy.” you managed to say. You loved Eunbi tying you up but in this moment, slightly saddened she did so as you wanted nothing more than to squeeze her asscheeks and slam them up and down a bit rougher against you.

“Baby… I’m cumming!” Eunbi screamed loudly as she released a long, drawn out moan. You feel Eunbi’s orgasm begin - her beautiful limbs flowing with pleasure as her pussy tightens around your cock.

“Mommy…” you said as you reached your own orgasm. The pleasure was too much for the both of you. You empty hot, thick semen inside her as it courses through the length of your shaft and mixes with the hot juices of her wet pussy.

You pull on the fabric currently restricting your movement, causing the bed to shake as it restricts your bound hands. You wanted to wrap your hands around Eunbi’s quivering body, to feel her orgasm shudder her completely. But she knew her way with knots, a skill you questioned where she learned it from.

Eunbi grinds her wide hips against your cock as she rides out her orgasm. A few soft moans escape her pretty lips as she tosses her head back. Fatigue was quickly filling her, she was unable to fight it any longer. She braces herself on your knees, her breathing heavy and full of exhaustion. She tried to compose herself as best she could amidst the pleasure working its way throughout her entire body.

The two of you do your best to silently bask in the wonderful afterglow of your orgasms. Eunbi straights her back as she looks at you, her eyes half-lidded while her pleasure is continuing to subside. Her mouth is slightly open as she releases one final moan of pure sexuality. As she comes down from her euphoric high, Eunbi’s eyes are fully open and she smiled sweetly at you, her face thanking you for the pleasure you gave her.

“You did so well for mommy, baby.” she said.

Regretfully, Eunbi slowly raises her hips and begins to draw out your cock from her body. She grabs both of her cheeks, spreading them as her splayed pussy lips that were wrapped around your softening shaft are fully displayed.

Both of you moaned as inch by inch of your cock is revealed. It was drenched with thick, white cum - both yours and Eunbi’s. When you are finally released from her body, you see a trail of semen leak out of her freshly fucked pussy and onto your shaft and crotch.

As Eunbi turns around and lowers her head back between your legs, you wonder where she found the energy to do so.

“Bad baby… You know better than to make a mess after fucking mommy. I guess I should clean you up, then.” Eunbi said softly, knowing full well it was out of your control. She maintains eye contact with you, as her tongue collects the mixture of her pussy juices and your semen. You could do little else besides throw your head back as she consumes your bodily fluids.

Once she finishes, she gets back on top of your body and lowers her head, puckering her lips in an attempt to ask you for a kiss. You smile, reciprocating her action as the two of you partake in a loving exchange of your feelings for one another. When she finally releases you from her headboard, you give Eunbi a deep kiss before wrapping your arms around her as the two of you drift off into sleep. The last thing you remembered is her lips draped around you as she tells you she loves you.

“I’m still like, super fucking mad at you for dreaming about fucking Saerom, baby. I understand if it was Hyewon or even Sakura-chan, but Lee Saerom? Ugh. There’s just something about that whore I don’t like.”

The next time you have sex with Eunbi, you find yourself holding onto her curvaceous body as a constant stream of high-pitched moans escapes her lips as your crotch smacks against her round butt while your cock grazes her pussy lips as you fuck her delicious thighs. Both of your hands squeezed Eunbi’s breasts roughly as you pin her body to the cool glass door of her shower.

The screaming hot water cascades over both of your bodies, the rainfall shower head giving her smooth, creamy skin a shiny-like quality as it flowed through her wanton body. Eunbi’s legs shake with each thrust of your cock. Her hair is plastered beautifully onto her face as you mirror her previous actions and use her body as an outlet for your own pleasure.

“Baby… fuck mommy just like that! Oh… keep fucking me!” she said.

Her nails dig into your hips as you feel her thighs instinctively tighten around your shaft. Despite not being inside her, you feel her quivering pussy tighten for you - letting you know Eunbi was enjoying you fucking her thighs just as much as you were. You released her breasts, moving your hands down to her wide hips as you refocused your thrusts.

“Baby… Keep making mommy feel good. Don’t stop!”

You buried your face into the crook of her neck as you continued to fuck her, concentrating on every single thrust in between her thighs. It caused a spike in pleasure both of you could feel in your spines. While you loved fucking Eunbi from behind, you were slightly disappointed to be unable to see her breasts rocking in pleasure. The water beads on her body quickly as you suck some of it off her neck, causing Eunbi to let out an erotic moan.

“Baby…!”

Eunbi was unable to announce her orgasm. You heard a shrill scream of pleasure as her nails claw your hips painfully. Her body quivers from the top of her head to her now curling toes. While you would normally stop thrusting into Eunbi as she cums, you were outside her, meaning you didn’t have to stop.

You loved that Eunbi had no preference when it came to sex - some days she loved pure, animalistic lust, and others she preferred it soft, more natural. Both of you would relish in the fact that no words needed to be said, your bodies would do the talking for you. Eunbi preferred to give and take - while Saerom only wanted to use you as an outlet for her own needs. She turns around and presses her lips against yours, snaking her hand to your cock and stroking you, preventing you from softening on her.

You grabbed onto her wide hips as Eunbi pushed her butt out slightly. You trace the outline of her spine with your finger before admiring her curvy hourglass figure.

“Fuck mommy more, baby.”

Dominant Eunbi was hot, but Eunbi begging you to fuck her turned you on even more.

With your left hand still holding her hip, your right hand lets go as you give her a firm smack on her butt cheek, causing Eunbi to gasp sharply.

“Ahh… baby… Mommy’s been a bad girl. I don’t think one slap is enough.”

You repeat the process, switching hands this time as you spank her other cheek. You are once again rewarded with another deliciously erotic moan. Eunbi bites on her fingertip while you feel her beginning to leak on your shaft.

“Mommy wants you to punish her, baby.”

You stroked your cock before pushing it between her full, round ass cheeks. You thrust slowly between them, the two of you letting out a satisfied moan as her juices and water from the shower have lubricated your shaft to allow you to slide easily between her soft flesh.

“There will be more time to fuck mommy’s ass cheeks later, baby. Right now, I want you to fuck me. Fuck mommy, baby.”

You hold onto your cock once more before spreading her drenched pussy lips, rubbing them slightly. Eunbi however, has had enough teasing as she pushes her ass against you, causing you to enter her body. Her fingers curled, as she felt her breasts pressed against the glass door once more.

“Mommy has been very bad… she will be punished accordingly.”

You wasted no time fucking her. Both of you didn’t want any sort of build up. From the very first entrance in her body you don’t hold back - giving her long, smooth strokes as your cock enters and exits her tight, hot pussy. Both of your desires - to fuck and be fucked make the sinful act even more pleasurable.

Eunbi opens her mouth, releasing noiseless screams as her thoughts melt away. She throws her back as she finally releases audible moans. You take this opportunity to squeeze her chin from behind, lowering your face close to her ear.

“Mommy likes her baby fucking her like this, doesn’t she.” you said while thrusting into her body.

“Fuck! Fuck yes… mommy likes… Oh! Fuck, baby! M-Mommy likes baby pounding her like t-this… Feeling y-your cock inside my tight pussy. Fuck… baby!”

You loved it. You loved hearing how Eunbi pretended to be a sweet, caring person in public - a far cry from the pleasure seeking, foul-mouthed woman she was in the bedroom.You loved cumming inside Eunbi, an act her body reacted to by tightening her pussy even more on your cock.

The two of you are fully absorbed in pleasure, the only sounds of your wet flesh colliding with each other as the uninterrupted streams of Eunbi’s moans cool down the hot shower as you roughly fucked her against the shower door. She tilts her head back, grabbing onto your hips as she pulls you in for a kiss while your cock penetrates her hot, wet pussy repeatedly. Her body is rocked with each thrust of your crotch against her pillowy soft ass.

“Baby…!” Eunbi screamed as she felt her desire and lust reach its peak. “Cum inside mommy!”

Nothing else mattered. All you cared about in this moment was your girlfriend’s wish for you to empty your semen inside her wanton body. Not Saerom, not Hyewon, not even Sakura. Eunbi was the only woman in your life you truly loved. And while she would later tell you her jaw still hurt from how hard you grabbed her chin, the quivering feeling of Eunbi’s body was what you desired most as you curled your toes and emptied hot, thick semen from your cock into her moist cavern. Each stream of your raw cum alleviates the pressure in your bodies and relaxes you both as you internally make Eunbi as yours.

Your own body slightly shudders as the two of you take awhile to recover. You were worried you hurt Eunbi - the two of you fondly recollecting the first times you were intimate. Just as you were about to speak, you hear her release a long, satisfied moan that lets you know she enjoyed the feeling of your cum inside her body and that she enjoyed your roughness.

Her eyes were filled with satisfaction, a softness to them that you usually saw when the two of you would make up over a fight. Eunbi loved you - and she knew you loved her just as much. Despite your incessant claims that you loved her more, she was thankful to have you in her life. As she turns her head and shares another deep, passionate kiss with you, your hand traces up her body and reaches her breast, firmly squeezing the soft flesh. She giggles as her tongue swipes your teeth and lets go. Both of you stared at each other, a look of fatigue in her bright, beautiful eyes that still slightly contained a hint of lust and passion. Her soft smile was one of the many things you loved about her, and as she gives you a quick peck, Eunbi finally speaks.

“Baby… we were supposed to get clean.”

It was Eunbi’s turn to make breakfast.

The two of you used up a lot of energy in a marathon of indulging in each other’s bodies. It was time to refuel yourselves. When you awoke from a nap the two of you took after the shower, the intoxicating aroma of sizzling bacon perfumed the air. You were greeted with Eunbi’s naked body, her cute, round butt visible as the thin fabric of an apron wrapped around her curvy body.

“Baby, I know you’re drooling from staring at my ass.”

It scared you sometimes how Eunbi didn’t need to turn around to know you were undressing her with your eyes. Although this time, she was already undressed and only wearing the apron she bought for your bedroom activities. You wipe your lower chin with the back of your hand, cursing yourself at Eunbi’s sharp skills.

The two of you enjoy the breakfast she made - which ended up being enough food for a family of four. As she raises her coffee cup and sips the amber colored liquid, she lets out a satisfied moan before turning to you.

“What do you want to do today, baby?”

“I’m… not sure. Do you have any ideas?”

“Hmm…” Eunbi said, pretending to think hard. You noticed the change in her expression as Eunbi leaves her seat and climbs onto your lap, resting comfortably on your thighs while wrapping her arms around your neck.

“Why don’t you savor the taste of mommy’s body, baby?”

“Don’t I do that everyday?” you said, pouting and rolling your eyes playfully.

“Baby…” Eunbi whined. You held onto her hips before planting tender kisses on the exposed skin of her chest and swiped the delicious line of her cleavage with your tongue.

“Does mommy want to start her morning off with dessert?” you asked, raising your eyebrow suggestively.

Eunbi nodded, the mischievous glint in her eyes appearing as she sees you catching her drift.

She pulls you closer to her as she nibbles on your lips, her tongue entering your mouth and exploring it. You caressed her soft, smooth skin before your hands rested firmly on her butt.

“Mommy wants her daily protein…” she said softly as her eyes became clouded with pleasure and lust.

You watched her lift her body off your lap as she removes your cotton boxer briefs and tosses them away. She stares at your cock hungrily, a look of satisfaction painted on her beautiful face. She bites her lower lip as your legs spread open instinctively, allowing her to sink her face into your crotch.

A comforting pleasure washes over your body as you feel her lips, tongue and mouth wrapped around your cock. It was truly an amazing feeling, with Eunbi bobbing her head up and down. One of your hands holds onto her coffee cup tightly while the other grips the back of her head as Eunbi takes your cock in and out of her hot, wet mouth.

You spread your legs more, allowing her more room as your head tilts back in pleasure. Every inch of your shaft that enters and exits her lips is coated generously with her saliva. You eventually gathered the strength to look down and find your hand holding your girlfriend’s head that is bobbing up and down. The sounds of the birds chirping and the warm sunlight rays entered the window as you enjoyed a morning blowjob from the love of your life.

You succeed in savoring the pleasure Eunbi was giving you, but knew her mouth made you powerless to resist her for too long.

“Fuck, mommy… I’m going to cum if you keep it up.” you said, knowing full well you wanted to start off a beautiful morning by cumming in her mouth.

Eunbi sucks your cock hard, her lips wrapped around the base of your shaft as she raises her head inch by inch while her tongue simultaneously runs along your underside. They retain a firm hold until the head of your cock is released with a loud pop.

“Cum in mommy’s mouth, baby. Feed me.”

While Saerom was not afraid to tell you guys loved cumming in her mouth and Hyewon didn’t particularly enjoy it, but knew it turned you on, you are reminded why Eunbi was truly the woman for you. She loved you cumming in her mouth, often telling you she needed to start off her day with it. The heavy desires the two of you had for each other fueled the passionate act she was performing between her legs.

Eunbi returned her mouth to your cock, hunger in her eyes as her lips parted effortlessly.

Your tight grip on her pink coffee mug made you afraid you would break it from the pleasure radiating from your lower body. If it were to happen, you know Eunbi wouldn’t let you touch her for a week. As you desperately tried to look for another outlet to prevent the pleasure from releasing, you accidentally looked down to find her massaging your balls while moving her tongue back and forth on the underside of your shaft.

“Mommy… fuck. I’m gonna cum.”

Eunbi’s head bobbed up and down rapidly on your cock as your orgasm finally courses from your head to your toes as you curl them and use both hands to tightly grip the back of her head and push her deeper into your crotch. Your shaft tightens, pulsing inside her mouth as it erupts and sends hot, thick semen into her mouth and throat.

Your body shivers in pleasure as you hold her head in place and your cock continues to pulse and empty your balls into her moist cavern. You didn’t care if she had trouble breathing as her head remained on your base as you savored the euphoric high. Once Eunbi feels your grip on her weakening, she releases her hold on your cock as your legs quiver from the small aftershocks. Looking up at you, her eyes formed half moon crescents. She opens her mouth and reveals her tongue and mouth painted white with your glistening freshly released cum.

She closes her mouth, tilting her head upwards and swallows - taking two gulps to do so as you watched her throat push the semen down her beautiful neck. She opens her mouth again and lets out a satisfied hum as you are greeted with her pink tongue.

Eunbi doesn’t speak a single word, her smile splayed on her slightly pouted lips as she gives you a kiss and carefully rises, turning around and untying the knots of her apron before letting it fall down her beautiful body and onto the floor. She leaves the kitchen and turns around, her plump ass still facing you as she uses her index finger and points it suggestively in a beckoning motion. You watched your girlfriend’s lusty smile as she slowly climbed up the stairs. Gathering strength from an unknown source, you quickly get out of your seat and run towards Eunbi. She giggles, trying - and failing to get a head start before you hug her from behind.

A beautiful start to the day was what you two needed - and how you wanted to spend every waking moment you could on this Earth with Kwon Eunbi.

#asks #izone smut #izone eunbi smut #izone eunbi #izone #kwon eunbi #eunbi #mommy eunbi #eunbig

506 notes · View notes

everlarkficexchange · 4 years ago

Text

On the Hunt

Author: @hutchhitched

Prompt 39: Katniss has been bumping into the same stranger (Peeta) for months. When they get stuck in an unfortunate situation together, she decides to be the first to say hello. [submitted by @eiramrelyat / @taylerwrites]

Ratings/Warnings: T

The first time Katniss sees him, he takes her breath away. It’s from afar. He probably doesn’t even catch a glimpse of her, but her whole world tilts off its axis.

She’s not sure why he stands out to her. There’s nothing particularly unique about him. He’s not short or tall or big or small. He’s not drop-dead gorgeous or ugly like a troll. He doesn’t move like an athlete or sparkle with the magic of a performer. He appears normal in every sense of the word, but that doesn’t mean she can’t see how special he really is. At least she thinks he might be—if she had a chance to actually speak to him.

That doesn’t happen, though. She’s too far away when she sees him picking up a loaf of bread, and she can’t seem to move once he’s left her line of sight. She stays frozen in the freezer section (the irony!) for several minutes. Hopefully, everyone else thinks she’s considering her options in breakfast burritos, but she’s actually involved in an out of body experience that follows the young man from the back of the store to the registers, out the door, and into the parking lot where he must load his groceries into his car and drive away. His life is no different, but hers will never be the same.

It has to be because she’s lonely. It’s been a very long time since she’s been in a relationship. In fact, it’s been so long since she’s kissed a man, she kind of wonders if she’s forgotten how to do it. Katniss has never been that popular, but she’s enjoyed her fair share of attention. She tries really hard not to spiral out in the freezer section, but Christ on a cracker! Something about that specimen of manhood has made her question her life’s choices. Why hasn’t she run into him before now? Clearly, she’s been living wrong.

Except, she hasn’t. She’s done absolutely everything she knows to do to be a good person. She supports her little sister and sends money to her mother who needs every speck of help she can get. She has a best friend who’s been by her side since they both lost their fathers when they were barely teenagers. She helps out at a shelter and donates money to the food bank because she knows way too well how hunger can impact a person’s life. In other words, there’s no reason her weekly grocery trip should result in an upheaval to her world. It’s simply not fair, and she plans to file a complaint to who it is that runs fate and destiny. She has a bone to pick.

Somehow, she finds everything on her list and heads to the front of the store. When she gets there, she unloads her groceries and watches as the cashier scans each item. Digging into her wallet, she’s stunned to find she only has a twenty and the total keeps rising. Mortified, she watches as the number climbs to $34.15.

“I don’t have… I mean, can you take off the…”

Trying to figure out what she can live without until her next paycheck, she surveys the food and toiletries. Almost in tears, she stammers for a few seconds before the cashier speaks.

“Don’t worry. Another patron paid it forward. He left a twenty and asked that I use it if anyone needed help. Looks like you could use some.”

“I— I couldn’t. It’s not right.”

“The guy seemed pretty adamant that I only offer it to someone who could use a break. It seems like that could be you today.”

Katniss nodded slowly. “Do you have any idea who it is? I’d like to thank them.”

The cashier shook her head. “Young guy. Stocky, medium height, ashy blonde hair, blue eyes. Very polite. Named Peter, I think. Something like that.”

It’s got to be him. The description’s too similar to be a coincidence. It seems the guy that froze her in place with his looks is as kind and compassionate as he is special. Now, he’s even more intimidating.

She nods her thanks and takes the change and her purchases. The five in her pocket gives her a little joy, but the feeling of not having money still bothers her. Maybe it’s time to get a credit card. She’s been warned off them for so long that she never applied for one, but now, it might be something she should do. Maybe. It makes her nervous to think she could get in financial trouble with it. She’s been poor her entire life. It might be too tempting to resist.

When she makes it back to her apartment, her attempt to unpack her groceries is interrupted frequently by long pauses in which she fantasizes about finding the guy who’s rocked her world and given her daydreams about all the ways she needs to thank him (appropriately and not so much) for the rest of her life. It’s not unrealistic at all. Totally doable, she decides. After all, how hard can it be to find him again? They live in the same town.

****

The answer to that question is that it’s very hard. Difficult isn’t even the word to describe the problem she has in trying to find the Boy With the Bread, which is what she calls him even though he’s definitely an adult. The person she saw from afar was all man if the stretch of his shirt across broad shoulders was any indication. Still, the alliteration makes her smile, so she continues to refer to him as such.

It shouldn’t take so long, but it does. Months pass, and she wonders if she’s made it all up and imagined the creature that changed her life. She keeps her eyes open in public, scans the local news and social media sites, and seriously considers setting up an online dating site just to see if he’s looking for someone. She’s getting desperate, but then fate smiles on her again.

She’s sitting in a coffee shop, something she hardly ever does, when he walks in the door. She doesn’t normally have time for such a mundane, normal activity that other people her age seem to enjoy all the time. She’s usually working during the day, and she has no desire to consume copious amounts of caffeine after 5 pm when she gets off work. Today, though, she has time. She’s taken a half day to run errands and go to the dentist, and she needs the jolt the espresso will give her to survive her reduced shift.

He ducks through the doorway just as she’s taken a sip of her hot beverage, and she almost chokes on the liquid. He shakes the umbrella he’s holding just outside the door and shoves a riot of blonde curls off his forehead that have shrunken up and frizzed from the rain. It’s adorable.

He’s wearing an emerald Henley and faded jeans that hug all the right places. The sight of him freezes her in place, but that doesn’t stop her from tracking him as moves past her. She’s close enough to see his eyes are blue before he marches across the café and approaches a man sitting alone in the corner. They clasp hands and grin at each other, and the vision in green heads to the counter to order.

She’s dumbfounded. Here he is again after so long, and she can’t think of a single thing to say to him or how in the world to actually approach him without making her look absolutely insane. She racks her brain trying to think of an intelligent topic, but she’s jolted from that when the barista walks to the end of the bar and calls a name.

“Peeta! Chai Latte.”

That’s his name, she realizes, and it’s like the sun’s broken through thick, heavy clouds. It’s just unusual enough to fit him and still feel familiar. He smiles at the woman behind the bar and takes the cup from her. He ordered chai, and she files that information away for future reference. He might not like coffee, which seems important.

She’s pondering a trip to the bathroom just so she has an excuse to pass by him when she suddenly understands that he’s leaving. He and his friend are talking as they walk to the door, and she catches the sound of his voice.

“—we can change that, the numbers will—”

His words are swallowed by the rush of traffic outside, but that silky tone she hardly had a chance to listen to has already taken up residence in the part of her brain that creates unrealistic fantasies. She daydreams for longer than she should. In fact, it’s only the vibration of her phone against the table that reminds her she has to get to her job. What a chance encounter, but now she has a name to go with that face.

****

She’s tried to find him again. She’s googled and returned to the coffee shop when she’s had a spare minute or two. She’s asked around and continues to check dating sites. Nothing. She’s found absolutely nothing. Without a last name, she has very little idea how to find out anything else. Frustrated, she goes about her daily life with a weight on her shoulders that shouldn’t be there. He’s a stranger she’s glimpsed only a couple of times.

Frustrated and full of pent-up energy, she joins a gym. There’s nothing quite like working up a good sweat to ease tension and kickstart her brain, so she spends her free time running the track, lifting, and participating in every hot yoga class the establishment offers. After a month, she’s leaner and stronger than ever, but she hasn’t managed to come up with any ideas that might help her find the guy she desperately wants to thank for saving her when she wasn’t sure how she’d eat for a week.

She’s two laps into her normal ten when she glances down from the elevated track and spots a pickup game of three on three basketball on the far court. Three blonde men face off against three with dark hair, one of whom looks remarkably like her best friend Gale Hawthorne, who she hasn’t seen since he left town for a job almost a year ago. As she jogs closer to the court, she realizes it is him teamed up with his brothers. The blonde men look like siblings, too, but she doesn’t spare them much of a glance. She’s got more laps to go, and she doesn’t want to draw any attention to herself. Gale didn’t bother to tell her that he’s in town, and she’s a little miffed by that.

It’s another three passes by the court before it hits her that the blonde men look familiar. She puts on a burst of speed to get back to where she can see the men closeup and almost trips over her own feet when she spies him. It’s the guy. THE guy. The cashier had said Peter, and the barista had called him Peeta. She stops in her tracks and grabs the railing when someone bumps into her from behind.

“Watch it!” he yells as the jogger passes her. “You’re not supposed to stop on the track!”

She dismisses him with a wave and sprints to the nearest stairwell. If she can just catch them… She bounds down the stairs, three at a time, and bursts into a bustling walkway. She dodges and shoves her way free and streaks around the corner to find—

“Catnip! What are you doing here?”

“Gale!” Sweat drips down her forehead and stings her eyes. Cringing, she swipes her hand across her face and tries not to cry. “Where are—? I thought you were playing basketball.”

He throws her a bewildered look and nods like she’s lost it a little. “We were.”

“You’re done?”

“Yeah? We’d been at it for a while. Are you… Have you been watching me?”

Katniss rolls her eyes, although that’s not really very fair. She had noticed him. It’s not like that’s not the case. “Who were you playing with? I saw Vic and Rory, but the blonde guys… Who, er, who were they?”

The expression on his face would be priceless if she weren’t so desperate to find out the information. He looks like he’s swallowed something very, very distasteful, and she tries hard not to snort with laughter.

“Why?”

She takes in his narrowed eyes and realizes she’s going to have to lie to get what she wants. Part of the reason they haven’t been as close since he left town is due to his sudden confessions of feelings toward her. She’d let him down easy, but things have been strained since then. There��s no need to rub that in his face when all she wants is to find out about Peeta. With a straight face and innocent eyes, she explains, “I think one of them door dinged my car a couple of weeks ago. The gym won’t give out membership information, but if you know who they are… Well, I’d be really grateful, Gale.”

He falls for it when she bats her eyelashes at him. She should feel terrible, but all’s fair in love and basketball. Of all people, Gale should want her to be happy, no matter if that means she’s interested in someone else or not. She’s no damsel in distress, unless she can’t pay for her groceries or something. However, her simpering works, and that’s really what she needs.

“Mellark is the last name. They all have bread names. It’s weird.”

She rolls the name around in her head for a bit. Peeta Mellark. It’s a nice solid name, and now she has more information to help her figure out how to find him. Almost giddy with victory, she stretches up on her tiptoes and kisses Gale’s cheek in gratitude. Backing away before he can reciprocate, she hears him as the distance widens between them.

“Do you want to grab dinner sometime? Maybe?”

“Sorry, Gale! Got to go. Really good to see you!”

With that, she turns her back and slips down the hall to the women’s locker room. She doesn’t bother to shower before grabbing her bag and heading to her car. She’s barely closed the door before she’s on her phone and typing in the name Peeta Mellark. She has a thank you to deliver.

****

Surprisingly, it’s not much easier to find him now that she knows his full name. She unveils a lot of information about his family, but not him. Apparently, they own a few local bakeries that she tries out and loves. Still, Peeta’s family is not the same thing as Peeta, who is remarkably absent from social media and with no online presence. She’s willing to admit, she got cocky, and now she can’t figure out how to recover from it.

“Where the hell is he?” she mutters as she comes up empty. Again.

Frustrated, she runs over all the data she’s gathered about him. He’s kind, compassionate, and thoughtful; all of those qualities were on display at the grocery store. He drinks tea and has a very good-looking friend who he talks to about numbers; that she learned at the coffee shop. He’s athletic and has two brothers he likes well enough to exercise with them; that information, and his last name, came from the gym. It should be enough to go on. It’s not.

She’s at home on her couch and paying bills when it suddenly hits her that she may never see this guy again. Peeta Mellark seems to be a figment of her imagination for all the good it’s done to try to find him. That and the small number in her bank account are both so unpleasant that she decides she’s going to have to break down and do something she’s been avoiding and delaying for a very long time. She’s going to have to open a line of credit. She’ll only use it for emergencies, but she can’t rely on the kindness of strangers to bail her out the next time she doesn’t have money for groceries, let alone car maintenance or an unforeseen medical crisis. It’s been months since Peeta saved her, but the humiliation of not being able to take care of herself still hasn’t faded. Before she can change her mind, she grabs her purse and heads to the bank. The time is now.

“Can I help you?” A bubbly blonde teller named Delly asks, and Katniss takes a deep breath to fortify herself.

“I’d like to open a line of credit. Can I talk to someone about that?”

“Sure!” she practically squeals. “Let me just call someone to help you.”

She’s led down the hallway and past a few desks to a small office. Once ushered inside, she sits and raises her eyes to view the person across from her.

“Oh…”

The man before her is stunning—green eyes, bronze hair, a swimmer’s build. It’s the guy’s—Peeta’s—friend, the one he was with at the coffee shop.

“Ms. Everdeen. I’m Finnick Odair. Want some sugar?” he asks and nudges a candy bowl toward her.

“No, I’m fi—.”

“Hey, Finn. Can you— Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were with a customer.”

She jerks at the sound of his voice. Peeta Mellark is standing in the doorway, and her heart is in her throat. She has a sudden flashback of the coffee shop, when the two of them walked past her discussing numbers… Now, it all makes sense. They work at a bank together. Of course they do. Peeta turns to leave, and she calls out.

“Wait! Stay with me.”

She claps her hands over her mouth and wills herself not to blush, but it’s no use. She’s just asked a perfect stranger to stay with her, and her invitation sounds much more intimate than she means it to. He must think she’s insane. Maybe she actually is. She pushes down a sudden urge to flee the situation and escape to the safety of her apartment.

This is out of her wheelhouse. Shy, introverted, and intensely private, Katniss worries the end of her braid and bites her lip. Every instinct she has tells her to run, but the temptation of him before her is too great. Rising, she crosses to him and holds out her hand.

“Hi. My name is Katniss. You saved my life once, and I’ve been on the hunt to find you for months. Thank you.”

Peeta and his friend exchange looks, and she fights the urge to shrivel back into herself. Finally, he looks directly at her and takes her palm in his. With a smile so disarming she nearly faints, he answers.

“Peeta Mellark. It’s nice to meet you.”

The touch of his hand on hers melts her insides. She dreads when she finally has to let go, but maybe she won’t have to. With a shy smile, she cocks out her hip and looks up at him through long lashes. Her flirting may be a disaster, but it’s all she’s got.

“It’s so nice to meet you, too.”

The flicker in his eyes makes her knees weak. An hour later, she’s left the bank with a line of credit, a phone number, and a dinner date. The hunt is finally over.

#hutchhitched #eiramrelyat #prompt 39 #Springtime Edition 2021 #submission

82 notes · View notes

haberdashing · 4 years ago

Text

Go To The Mirror, Boy!

Post-MAG 200, Martin has an unexpected encounter while going through his daily routine.

on AO3

It hadn't been all that hard for Martin to find a job in this new world, really, even in the middle of London, even without any paperwork to his name. It wasn't the first time he'd had to seek out jobs that didn't ask too many questions, after all, jobs that mostly just wanted warm bodies that did as they were told and paid in cash. They looked at him a little funny, sure, and Martin could imagine any number of reasons why, but he knew better than to pry about the details.

He was starting to get into a routine now. For the first few months he'd brought food from the flat that he was beginning to tentatively call home because it was cheaper than the alternative, but now he'd started eating out on Mondays (as a way to make the start of the work week less painful) and Fridays (as a reward for making it through the week) at some of the cheaper restaurants near his current job site.

Today was a Friday, and on today's lunch break he had decided to check out a little café that had caught his eye a few weeks back, an unassuming hole in the wall that offered a little of everything and didn't charge a fortune for it, going off of the menu out front.

The workers all gave him a warm smile as he entered, and one of them even waved at him--were they all really that friendly, he wondered, or just that desperate for customers? Probably the latter, Martin figured from his own experience working in food service, but it was hard to know for sure.

He looked at the menu and the food on display for a long moment before deciding on a ready-made slice of vegetarian pizza and getting a cup of ice water to go with it, and all throughout the transaction the cashier and the other workers behind the counter kept up with those wide smiles. Honestly, it was to the point where Martin was getting a bit nervous, starting to remember how often in his past a smile had concealed something far worse...

Then, as the cashier handed over his food, they said in a conversational tone, "Boss let you out a few minutes early today, huh? Must be nice."

"Wh-"

Martin didn't have time to finish his thought, though, because right at that moment the bell on the café's door rang out, and in walked... well, in walked himself.

It wasn't a perfect mirror image, truth be told. The man walking up to the counter was missing the scar on his neck, still had hair that was a bright and untainted red (and noticeably shorter than Martin kept it these days to boot), his skin was a bit less pale and his shoulders a bit more slouched... but there was no mistaking that the man walking up to the counter looked uncannily like him, as if they were twins.

Martin knew the reality of the situation, though. Honestly, being twins would be a lot easier to explain than the truth.

Martin took a seat at a table off to the side and began to eat, though he kept glancing at his doppelganger as the man ordered--also getting a slice of vegetable pizza and a cup of ice water, as it happened. Martin wasn't sure if meeting him was a good idea, though the expression on his face (and that of several of the workers) made it clear that he'd noticed the connection, so he figured he would leave the decision up to his other self to make.

The man that looked almost exactly like him didn't hesitate to claim the seat across from him, or to speak up once he'd gotten himself settled.

"...I don't suppose you've heard any weird family rumors about being switched at birth?" The voice was the same as his own, too, and though the man sounded awfully unsure of himself, it was hard to know whether that was a personality trait or just a side effect of the strange situation he'd found himself in.

Martin laughed a little as he shook his head. "Can't say that I have, no. You?"

"No dice." He hesitated for a moment before adding, "D'you mind getting to know each other a bit, in case people end up getting us confused down the line or something?"

"Fine by me. I work a few blocks from here, have for some months now. The name's Martin Blackwood."

His other self let out a surprised exhale, and Martin had to stifle the laugh that started to bubble up in response. "You're joking."

"Don't tell me. Same name, too?"

"Right in one. First and last. What are the odds?"

The odds weren’t that bad, really. Martin should have figured that there would probably be another him out there somewhere in London, working the same sort of menial jobs... but he didn't think sharing that information, getting into how he was from an alternate dimension and had probably helped unleash cosmic horrors into this in one, was his best move here. Instead, Martin just shook his head again and said, "That's wild."

"You're telling me."

The two ate in silence for a moment before Martin worked up the courage to ask his other self a question that had been on his mind since they first locked eyes on one another.

"I wonder if, if we've got anything else in common, like work history, or mutual friends... You wouldn't happen to know a, a Jonathan Sims, would you?"

The other Martin gulped down a bite of pizza, his eyes bulging out. "Jonathan Sims?"

"Yeah, that's the one, is, is that a yes?"

His other self's eyes narrowed, though there was no real fire to their stare. "How do you know my prick of a neighbor?"

"It's... it's a long story, really. So he's your neighbor, then?" A hint of shaky laughter sneaked its way into Martin's voice as he spoke. Part of him wanted to refute that Jon--this world's Jon--was a prick, but honestly... honestly, that wasn't a point he was willing to argue, even if the man had ended up growing on him quite a lot over the years.

"He is, and he keeps sending me these passive-aggressive noise complaints! First he threatened to send an army of cats after me if I didn't stop my dog from barking--I still don't know if that was meant as some sort of bizarre joke or what--and then he offered me harmonica lessons, of all things, but only if I stop playing loudly enough he can hear it through the walls! What's his deal?"

Martin had never gotten a dog, though he had longed to have one of his own all his life, and while he'd picked up a cheap, dusty harmonica at a thrift store once on a whim, he'd never actually worked up the nerve to try playing the thing. Little differences there, facts he quietly filed away for future reference... but that wasn't the most important thing now, was it?

"I don't know if I can explain his whole deal in the course of one lunch break, but..." Martin couldn't help but break out into a grin. "I really think you should take him up on those harmonica lessons."

#tma #tma spoilers #mag 200 #tma 200 #mag 200 spoilers #tma 200 spoilers #the magnus archives #the magnus archives spoilers #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #tma fic #tma fanfic #martin blackwood #personal #my writing #where is jon? is he dead? is he waiting at home for martin? these are good questions

21 notes · View notes

kookiebunnii · 4 years ago

Text

pairing: mark(got7) x reader

genre: fluff for the birthday boy 🥳

word count: 4.3k

warnings: mature language

When Mark had been dating your roommate, you barely spared him a second glance.

Being a college undergraduate meant that you had plenty of exams and coursework to worry about without having to keep track of who Ingrid was “dating” this month. The two of you got along as well as two individuals who kept to themselves could get along. She was rarely home, and when she was, she’d spare you the awkward introduction to her new fling by quickly ushering him into her room. You always told yourself that your living situation could’ve been way worse, so you let Ingrid’s business proceed without much of a complaint.

You couldn’t even remember how long the two lasted, given the amount of fuckboys that had walked through her door. It was a wonder that you could even recall his name, to be frank. Perhaps he left some semblance of an impression because of the way he never walked around like he owned the place like most of Ingrid’s conquests. There were times you’d find an unknown shirt hanging haphazardly across the couch or one of your pudding cups gone missing from the fridge. Despite these occurrences, you disliked confrontation, so you chose to endure rather than address your grievances. While Ingrid had been with Mark, you remember being considerably more comfortable in your own residence.

If someone had told you that you’d be head over heels in love with Mark Tuan only a month after your roommate ended things with him, you’d probably have a good laugh. You were more invested in the comebacks of the boy groups you loved than some boy your roommate, of all people, had once been with. Besides, you were a commitment-seeking gal, and anyone that pursued your roommate was definitely not expecting anything long-term.

The suggestion that you would grow attracted to such a guy would have seemed ludicrous. Yet maybe this is why the saying “not everything is as it seems” exists.

The whole ordeal began relatively innocuously. You were waiting on your hazelnut latte at the university’s central coffee shop, preparing to head to the library for some much-needed studying. Midterms were around the corner, and you had spent one too many days dozing off in lectures to feel prepared. It seemed that most of the student population had the same idea as you, since the café was bustling for a Wednesday afternoon. You tried your best to stay out of everyone’s way, focusing instead on checking the time on your cell phone and planning out your schedule for the rest of the day.

When you finally have your order in your hands, you take a small sip before heading for the exit. Right when that happens, a form in your periphery suddenly rushes in and knocks the hot coffee out of your grasp. Thankfully, or as much thanks as you could offer in such a tragedy, most of the drink cascades on the tiled floor. Only a little of your latte scalds your hand and paints your white sweater with brown polka dots. The disappointment you feel about losing your drink is quickly overshadowed by embarrassment when people start staring and the painful burning blossoms across the back of your hand.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.”

Your offender rushes to grab some napkins, immediately going to work on wiping the floor. As his head is lowered, you try to think of a smart response. Just as you were about to give the rude kid a piece of your mind, he looks up and the words dry up on your tongue.

“Y/N?”

“Mark?” you finally manage, surprised he even remembered who you were.

He quickly hands you a napkin, looking even more apologetic before responding, “Here, for your hand and sweater…I’m so sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“It’s fine,” you quickly reassure, doing your best to clean yourself up. The coffee will likely stain your sweater at this rate, so you decide to simply study at your apartment instead so you can change into new clothes.

This certainly puts a wrench into your plans, doesn’t it?

“Let me buy you another coffee. A new sweater too, it looks like,” he gives you a timidly awkward smile, as if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to do so.

You offer him a quick rise of the corners of your lips, but not much else. It still felt a little shocking and disappointing to be in such a predicament, and you sure as hell didn’t want Ingrid’s ex to be owing you any favors.

“As I said, it’s fine. Really. This was an old sweater anyways,” you grab the hem as you speak, before trying to dodge around him to leave.

When he quickly blocks your attempt to escape, you realize the guy’s reflexes are quite remarkable. However, you wanted to be rid of this awkward situation as soon as possible, so his actions made you purse your lips together in discontent.

“I’m really sorry, Y/N. This really wasn’t the way I’d imagine bumping into you again. Literally I guess,” he shyly runs his hand through his hair, which is now surprisingly dyed blonde. You knew something about him was different, but now you pinpoint it as his hair. He used to wear his natural dark brown locks when he was with Ingrid, so the change catches you off guard. It suits him well though, the way it easily brightens his whole demeanor.

“Don’t worry about it, it happens,” you tuck your hand into your pocket and continue, “Look I’ve really gotta go, I have midterms to study for.”

He promises you that he’ll pay you back as you rush out the door.

It seems that Mark is a man of his word, because the next day, you find a mysterious package addressed to you waiting outside the door. With no shipping label and your name scrawled on the top of the box, your survival instincts tell you that opening it on the living room floor was probably the last thing you should’ve done. However, that happened to be exactly what you did.

The first thing you notice was a small note laying atop a variety of items that were wrapped up with layers of navy-colored tissue paper. Reading through the note causes a bright flush to dash across your cheekbones, as you realize that the suspicious package was from Mark.

Ingrid’s Mark.

You began to slowly examine the rest of the contents with less zeal, hoping that your roommate wouldn’t pop out of a corner and accuse you of having something with her old flame. The neatly-folded white sweater you discovered inside was very similar to what you previously wore before the coffee incident. However, the material was definitely a lot nicer and you spent a good two minutes just stroking the material with your fingers. His attention to detail regarding what you had worn was crazy good, leaving you more than a little impressed.

Moving forward, you found a package of instant coffee—hazelnut-flavored to be exact. You grinned, realizing that Mark’s attention to detail really was impeccable. Perhaps anyone could’ve identified the hazelnut syrup in your drink if they spent five minutes wiping it off the floor, but he had gone out of his way to identify the same flavor for you.

It was kinda cute, actually.

As soon as the thought appears, you quickly shake it out of your head. Mark couldn’t be cute. He couldn’t be anything more than somebody you knew, someone who was paying you back for an inconvenience. He was doing these things because he owed you—even if he wasn’t exactly obligated to go through such lengths.

Before you could try to evaluate your feelings about the matter, you decide to boil some hot water for the coffee you’ve just received. It seems as if the universe is conspiring against you however, as Ingrid emerges from her room right on cue. She gives the box on the floor a quick glance before asking, “Did you order something?”

You tuck the thin pack of instant coffee in your pocket next to Mark’s note. Your fingers tighten across the slip of paper, crushing it into a condensed ball as you spoke.

“Yeah. Just some random stuff.”

“Sweater’s cute,” she remarks, grabbing your gift and running her hands through the material in the same way you had previously. You felt something twist in your heart at her ministrations, as if her touch were contaminating and wearing away what that article of clothing had meant to you.

When she finally leaves after dropping the sweater back in the box, you take the entire box to your room and dump it in a corner of your closet with a slam so you wouldn’t have to see it anymore.

It just so happens that that package from a boy with golden locks would signal the start of a series of frequent disruptions within your day-to-day lifestyle.

Fate probably thought it would be funny to let Mark Tuan slip into your life little by little, for a few seconds each day, just to tease you. You were starting to wonder if the boy was stalking you, given how often you would see him at unpredictable intervals. If you went to the library to study, he’d be there borrowing a textbook from the front desk. If you wanted to buy a coffee and a pastry for breakfast, he’d already be at the cashier paying for his own. If you were rushing to class, slightly late because you’d overslept, you’d almost crash into him in front of your building.

He’d always give you that cute smile with a little wave of his hand to accompany it.

Your life was a grade A joke at this point.

Midterms had long been over by the time you finally took him up on his offer to hang out one-on-one. You had spent a lot of time and effort into putting him off, making excuses for why not a single day of the week would work for you. When November rolled around, all Mark had to do was raise his lower lip slightly in a pout for you to forget why you were trying so hard to avoid him in the first place. You’d never seen the boy purposefully act in such a cute way to get something, but it definitely made your heart leap in your chest.

Even when he took you to a nice minimalistic café to pay for a drink and slice of strawberry cake, he couldn’t stop apologizing for bumping into you during midterms season. You had honestly forgotten about it, but the way he talked about how foolish he felt after the whole ordeal made you smile unconsciously. The consideration he had put into making it up to you stressed him out greatly. He couldn’t stop wondering whether or not you even liked the sweater. Did it fit you alright? Did you actually like hazelnut lattes, or were you just trying something new out that day?

At this point you couldn’t help but laugh. It was such a minute detail, something he really didn’t have to worry this much over, but he had worried nonetheless. It was really silly of him, but also showed that maybe he was more than just trying to play with your feelings. You’re about to tell him how you appreciate the thought he put into his apology gift when you realize he’s staring at you.

“W-What is it? Is there something on my face?”

He shakes out of his reverie and reassures, “No you’re fine. It’s just, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh like that.”

You blink in confusion before playing with your napkin in embarrassment, “Oh uh…I’m not laughing at you. I promise. I just think it’s amusing that you cared so much since I never held anything against you in the first place.”

Looking back into his soft brown eyes is a mistake, because as soon as you do, your heart starts racing again. He gives you a grin of his own in response, brushing his honey-colored hair back to briefly reveal his forehead. It’s stupid how much that simple gesture makes you want to jump his bones.

“I’d say it was a worth it, considering we’re basically friends now,” he says, happily taking a sip of his iced americano.

The assertion makes you hesitate briefly as you ask yourself whether or not the two of you were “friends”. You didn’t know him all that well yet, but a part of you looked forward to doing so. If anything, the only thing holding you back was that he was Ingrid’s ex. She’d probably laugh at you if she found out about your interest in him, and it also meant that you couldn’t be sure who Mark really was. Ingrid was notorious for having her pick among fuckboys, and maybe Mark was just one of them who was really good at hiding it.

It seems that he notices your lack of agreement in his earlier sentiment, so he says, “What will it take for me to be your friend Y/N?”

Using your fork to play with the cream left from your cake slice earlier, you reply, “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t push you further, sensing that your answer probably meant something deeper than what you were able to convey. You feel thankful that he lets the matter go and goes back to giving you an excited puppy-dog look.

“Come on, there’s something I wanna show you.”

Turns out “something” means the ice cream parlor down the street. As he walks you back to your apartment, you can’t help but notice the way he goes to town on that poor cookies n’ cream ice cream cone.

“Are you trying to fatten me up with sweets today?” you muse, enjoying your second pastry of the day courtesy to Mark.

“As if. You look perfect Y/N—nothing a cheat day could do to you.”

It’s like the guy’s a professional sweet talker too, since he barely bats an eye at the compliment. Not something you’re used to, you try your best to not blush obviously at his statement.

God, everything about Mark Tuan was too much for you. He was the epitome of a honey boy.

The walk is fairly interesting, as Mark turned out to be simultaneously a good listener and a good conversation carrier. He’d ask you some questions that you were comfortable answering, listening intently as you shared some details about your studies, your childhood, the things you liked and the things you didn’t. You knew he was paying attention because he’d always laugh along with you, as you recollected some embarrassing things that had happened to you in the week prior.

By the time you reach your apartment door, you’ve forgotten exactly who Mark was supposed to be to you. In his large, tan hoodie with his hands in his pockets, he felt like a nervous boy walking you to your door at the end of a first date.

But could you really expect life to do you any favors just when things started to look up?

The door swings open just as you fumble for your keys, and out steps the last person you wanted to see. Ingrid takes one look at Mark and another at you before a smirk blooms across her bright red lips. Her makeup told you that she was heading to another one of her parties where she’d definitely bring a boy or two home.

“Long time no see,” she addresses Mark first, giving him one of those smiles that probably instigated all those hook-ups she partakes in.

You can’t help but feel overshadowed and uncomfortable. It would hurt you beyond measure to see the two flirt with each other right in front of your eyes. You had half the mind to just push past Ingrid and call it a day, but Mark’s words stop you in your thoughts.

“Sure.”

It’s curt and simple, lacking the flirtatious tone that Ingrid had injected into her words earlier. If you didn’t know any better, it honestly sounded downright bored—as if the speaker couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

Not giving her much to work with, Ingrid turns towards you instead. “Didn’t know you’d go for my sloppy seconds Y/N.”

Your throat feels dry and you refuse to let yourself expect anything different than the reaction your roommate just gave you. Of course, you expected her to make fun of you. It made sense that she would think of you and Mark being outside the apartment as you picking up a boy she left behind.

But why did it fill you with shame anyways?

“As if anyone would. I wouldn’t get involved with one of your boy toys,” the words leave you mouth with disgust, a tone you couldn’t help given the way you were trying so desperately to hide your true feelings. Liking Mark was dangerous and it would mean that Ingrid was right. You weren’t involved with him. You couldn’t be.

As soon as your statement pierces the air, you sense Mark’s form stiffen next to you. Immediately, you’re filled with regret. Did you need to word things that harshly? Even if you could never get to know him beyond being an acquaintance, he had shown you nothing but kindness. He never tried to get in your pants or act like a certified sleazeball like you were insinuating.

When Mark turns around and leaves the two of you standing in the hallway, it’s almost like you’re stuck in a wall of honey. The figurative sticky syrup prevents your limbs from making a move after the blonde-haired boy, as you’re stuck watching him go—watching him hurt over your words. Your throat tightens painfully with the way you try not to cry, fearing that you really ended up harming a boy that didn’t deserve the way you just portrayed him.

For the next 11 days according to your count, you don’t see Mark again. You were used to finding him leaning around the corner, listening to music on his airpods as he waited for a friend’s class to end so they could go play basketball. You had just started to adjust to his daily presence by entertaining the idea that you could start spending time with him. Props to your big mouth and careless words for shattering the prospect to pieces. The sense of guilt you carried was far heavier that the notebooks you lugged to class, and you were hoping—no, praying that you would see that bright smile of his to unexpectedly bump into you again.

Maybe meeting him again was the most luck you were fated to have.

As you doodle in the margins of your notebook, wearing the sweater he bought you all those weeks ago, you formulate an apology plan. If you showed him you were sorry, actually really sorry, maybe he’d forgive you. It wasn’t like you deserved it but seeing him again would sure beat the dreary days you were currently victim to.

Wracking your thoughts for comments Mark had made to you regarding things he liked, you realized he hadn’t talked much about himself beyond seemingly having an affinity of cookies n’ cream ice cream. He did mention wanting to have a puppy if his apartment landlord would allow it though. If it were possible for you to be more depressed, you realized belatedly that he had spent a good amount of time learning more about you than you did about him.

After your classes, you head out to find something for him. It wasn’t like you could afford getting him a puppy, especially since he literally told you he wasn’t allowed to have one, so you searched for the next best thing. It took you a few hours of searching to find something that satisfied your expectations, and you set out to spend the rest of the day preparing it for when you would confront Mark yourself.

Standing outside of his apartment at 9 PM on a Friday night was probably one of the dumbest decisions you ever made, and you made a lot of those. He probably didn’t even know that you knew he lived here. Ingrid had made you pick her up once from a party one of his roommates hosted when she was still with him, and your trusty sense of direction never really allowed you to forget how to get from one place to another. Even if you wanted to turn around and run home straight away in fear, you forced yourself to knock on the door with three quick thumps.

Praying that it was Mark and not one of his rambunctious roommates who opened the door, your wish actually comes true and you’re greeted with the sleepy frame of the honey boy you missed so much over the last two weeks. He’s wearing a thin white tee with grey sweats, as he rubs his eyes as if he can’t believe he’s actually seeing you at his door.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” he quickly runs a hand through his hair, as if trying to hide the fact that you probably just woke him up.

Did Mark always look this good? It’s actually unfair how pretty he is.

Clearing your throat, you gather up as much courage as you could muster before saying, “Yep it’s me. I’m here to beg for forgiveness.”

“What for?” he tilts his head slightly in question before mumbling, “Come inside, it’s cold.”

He gently rests his hand on your shoulder before urging you inside, and the way he touches you sends a shiver down your spine. Trying not to let any surprised noises escape you, you hurry on into the warmth of the apartment. You look around as you take your shoes off, noticing how surprisingly clean it is despite five boys living here. Perhaps your preconceptions need to be changed.

You shyly trail behind his large figure as he leads you into what appears to be his room. Taking note of the light-up rainbow keyboard and gamer chair with scarlet red highlights, you realize that Mark is one of those boys. You almost laughed aloud imagining him as one of those kids that whined “Mom I’m busy!” while playing Call of Duty.

He collapses on his bed unceremoniously with a groan, looking like he was ready to pass out again. Wondering who in their right mind took naps at 9 in the evening, you awkwardly stood in front of him while playing with the ribbon of the gift in your hands.

Opening one eye to look at you, he sits up and pats the corner of the bed closest to him. Wide eyed, you point to yourself before pointing to the same bed corner. He chuckles, and the deep sound sends another shudder through your body.

“Yes, I’m talking to you silly,” he grins, as if he had already forgiven you.

Hurriedly, you plop your butt down on the bedsheets and push your apology gift into his hands. He seems confused at first, messing with the sides of the wrapping paper as he examines what you just gave him.

“I got this for you because…I’m sorry for the things I said,” you relax, shrinking down in sadness before continuing, “You’re my friend.”

He looks at you through your entire confession, hanging onto each word that slips out of your lips. When you stop and slowly look back at him to gauge his response, he gives you a small smile. But it’s only when he grabs your nervous hand in his own do you finally let the small sigh hiding inside your chest escape you.

“I’m more than just someone Ingrid messed with. You know that, don’t you?”

Nodding quickly, he laughs as if admiring the great bobblehead impression you were giving. Your hand in his grasp starts to become unbearably warm, as you bite your lip to keep your dangerous thoughts at bay.

“I thought I knew everything that happened. But I don’t, and I shouldn’t hold that against you,” you admit, slightly losing your train of thought when he begins to gently rub circles into the back of your hand with his thumb.

“Don’t hold that against yourself either.”

You allow yourself to meet his gaze again, and the amount of warmth and comfort you find there almost breaks you down instantly. Perhaps he knew more than he let on regarding the inner turmoil you struggled with by only thinking of Mark as someone Ingrid once had. But from the first time he ruined your study plans to the moment he bought you various sweets until you verbally forgave him, he was slowly disproving those preconceptions. The amount of understanding he offered you made you feel even worse for referring to him the way you did all those days ago.

All along you thought that Mark was bad for you. Perhaps it was you that truly didn’t deserve him.

Momentarily pulling away from your fingers, he begins unwrapping the package you brought along with you. Suddenly nervous, you fiddle with the hem of your petticoat as he slowly pulls out the adorable puppy hat you purchased for him from the mall yesterday. Mark stares down at the hat in his hands, and it’s only when he bursts out in laughter do you finally let your cheeks warm in embarrassment.

“What are you laughing at? I-It’s cute!” You stutter, furiously crossing your arms.

When he finally stops his fit of laughter, he sets the hat on his head in triumph as if he were wearing a crown of honor. Seeing it on him makes you giggle too, knowing that it was somehow possible for the boy you liked to get even cuter than he already was.

“Here, press the paws and the ears move,” you hand him the paws that dangled from the side of the hat and experimentally press one of them to demonstrate.

Mark spends the next few minutes pressing the ears at varying intervals and laughing at his reflection in the mirror.

“You know, maybe I should get upset more often. You’re great with gifts.”

Rolling your eyes, you retort, “Sure thing, honey.”

-----

#got7 #got7 fanfic #got7 imagines #got7 scenarios #got7 mark #mark tuan #mark x reader #mark tuan x reader #mark tuan x you #mark x y/n #mark x you #mark fluff #mark tuan fluff #got7 oneshot #mark ff #got7 ff #happy birthday mark #i love you

123 notes · View notes

undeadsnorlax · 3 years ago

Text

Alone at Midnight, Inside My Mind

@badthingshappenbingo

Ao3 Link

Bingo Card

using the prompt in a metaphorical sense, as opposed to the medical aid sense

Prompt: Crutches

Fandom: Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku

Warnings: a lot of alcohol related issues, including addiction and withdrawal, some suicidal thoughts and body image issues, hurt/no comfort. set pre-Yakuza 2.

Wordcount: 5511

2pm. He could tell it was because his downstairs neighbour was home, attending to the array of plant pots she kept littered outside her door, and playing music on the radio that bled through the crack of the open window.

Daigo squinted in the afternoon light that managed to make its way through the blinds, groaning loudly.

“Fucking hell…”

Suppose now was as good a time as any to start the day. Especially when he felt his stomach rumble.

It took some effort to get to his feet, but soon he was dragging himself into the kitchen, yawning loudly. He needed something quick and tasty, now.

The fridge had nothing but convenience store sushi and days old leftover curry. The cupboards were also pretty bare, half a bag of rice and a ramen cup.

Daigo sighed heavily, setting his kettle to boil before grabbing the sushi. He stuffed a piece into his mouth, wrinkling his nose at the taste of stale rice but ate another without any complaint.

Head to the store. Get some more food, he thought, holding the ramen cup in place as he lifted up the kettle.

The water splashed on the counter a little, narrowly missing burning his fingers, making him forcefully slam the kettle back down once the cup was filled.

Daigo gripped the sides of the counter, closing his eyes as he felt a pulse of nausea rush through his body. If he forced the tension against the surface hard enough, he could stop his hands shaking for just a moment.

Eat noodles. Have a shower. Go to the store.

Opening his eyes again, he ate another piece of sushi, absolutely no taste on his tongue as he chewed it into mush, before taking his ramen into the living room.

He slumped down on the couch, turning the TV on and forced the food down him. He still felt nauseous, but he knew he wouldn’t actually vomit. He already had last night. Doubled over in a bush outside the train station and puked his guts out, despite not having much solids in him. Even now his throat felt sore from it. Classy.

He wasn’t even hungry, really. He was eating out of obligation, feeling his stomach gurgle happily at finally being filled with some kind of food.

As he ate, he noticed his cell phone on the table in front of him, discarded amongst the empty bottles and candy wrappers. It was flashing.

Daigo frowned, reaching over and flipping it open.

Three new answer machine messages.

Who the hell had tried calling him?

Message one - 9:25am

“Daigo, it’s your mother. Pick up.”

Message two - 9:43am

“Me again. Please answer your phone.”

Message three - 10:08am

“Daigo...it’s Mom-“

Daigo groaned, snapping his phone shut to end the messages. Nope! He was not dealing with this today.

He discarded the empty ramen cup and chopsticks with the rest of the trash on the table, storming towards the bathroom.

Shower on, clothes off. He used the toilet as the water heated up, catching the reflection of his upper half in the mirror as he finished.

“Hrmph.”

He ran a hand down his front, resting it on the middle of his stomach and huffed again.

His weight had been up and down the last ten years, though it had obviously settled during his stint in prison, with its shit food and no alcohol. Now that he was out, with all the freedom to indulge in every last inch of hedonism he could find though, he had developed a bit of a gut. Just a bump, but it was…noticeable, it was there. It stuck out.

No surprise really. How much did he drink last night again?

Enough I puked in a bush.

Daigo shifted on his feet, standing up a bit straighter and sucking his stomach in. It didn’t make much difference. He suddenly wondered how visible it was under his t-shirt, glad he usually wore a thick coat to hide himself in.

“Great,” he growled, stepping into the shower. Another thing to feel insecure about.

He stood there, forehead pressed against the wall as he let the water run down the Fudo Myoo on his back.

His hand started shaking again.

“Give me a break,” he said, clasping it to his chest, “A few hours, a day.”

He dried himself off, going back to his bedroom for a clean shirt and pair of jeans – both black, of course.

He also grabbed a heavy hoodie to wear to the store, a way to feel a little more comfortable in himself in a public place.

Wallet, keys, phone. Go to store. Buy supplies.

Daigo pulled his hood up as he jogged down the stairs, immediately blocked from leaving by the downstairs neighbour still gardening.

“Lovely afternoon, isn’t it Dojima-san?” Ito cried, beaming at him. She was older, always so chipper. How did she manage?

As much as he wanted to ignore her, Daigo had been raised with far too proper manners. He still remained casual, grunting a little and rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah, suppose.”

“You came back late again last night,” she added, hands lifting a plant to move to another pot, “Ouma-san went off about it before going to work this morning.”

“Oh, did he now?”

Ouma was the guy around his age in the apartment next door. Always miserable, always bringing a new girl home every weekend that Daigo had to endure hearing fake horribly through his thin bedroom walls.

“I’ll try to be a bit quieter next time, Ito-san,” he mumbled. For her sake, not for that asshole Ouma.

“Or maybe you should stay in once in a while, hm?”

Daigo scowled, jerking his head and storming off toward the store. With any luck the old bag would have gone inside by the time he was back.

As he made his way down the street, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He went to answer but paused, clenching his fingers tight into his palm. Nope. He knew who it was, and what she wanted, and he didn’t care.

His supply run was basic. More noodles, packs of chips and cookies, some onigiri and bentos that could last a few days.

Whilst picking up a few bottles of Staminan and Tauriner, he stared blankly at the alcohol.

His hands still shook. There was such a quick fix to settle that.

He grabbed a six pack of beer and a bottle of scotch and vodka, unable to help a crooked little grin.

The cashier looked at him a little oddly as he set his basket down on the counter. And yeah, he’d admit he looked strange. Sweating and shaky from withdrawal, under his eyes dark and his brow pulled into a near permanent scowl, face otherwise obscured by the shadow of the hood.

“Get me some cigarettes too, huh?” he mumbled, taking out his wallet and avoiding eye contact.

He was a mess.

He stared at the glass case of baked goods, unable to resist the pull from his sweet tooth, and asked for two donuts as well.

He arrived back home rather pleased with his haul. He had enough in him to pack away most of it, before he stared down the booze he bought.

He could...not do this, actually. He could not drink. It was easy, in theory.

He wiped his damp brow, licked his dry lips. His head hurt, despite the slight gloom of the kitchen.

They could sit there as an ultimate temptation. He could ignore them. He could do all manner of things.

But he wanted to drink, that was the issue. That was the whole point. Drinking was the only thing he had that stayed consistent.

He grabbed the scotch and slugged back a long mouthful, feeling everything just melt away. He let out a relieved gasp, the taste strong on his tongue and warming his throat. Felt like a part of him was back. His mind became a little clearer, his mood a little more elevated. He took a shorter swig for luck, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Much better…”

He spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the sofa, playing video games. There wasn’t much else for him to do during the day.

Evening was his time.

When seven rolled around, Daigo got ready. His jeans and t-shirt were fine already, so all he had to do was put on his usual cross necklace to complete the outfit. He spent a while staring down himself in the mirror as he applied a shaky dash of eyeliner around his lid.

Once upon a time he shied away from doing this publicly, but since leaving jail he stopped caring. Wore eyeliner and straightened his hair. Painted his nails black and picked at the polish when he was anxious. Who gave a shit? Anyone dumb enough to say anything soon regretted it.

Keys, wallet, phone. Same routine. He chose his white puffer jacket to wear instead of his hoodie, enjoying the barrier it gave him from the rest of the world.

One quick metro ride later, he was in Kamurocho, just as the town was coming alive in a burst of neon. Daigo lost himself in the crowds, thinking of which bar to hit up first.

He paused for a moment down Tenkaichi Street, staring at the sign for Serena. Place was closed, and had been for a little under a year now.

He knew what happened last year, of course. Heard about Rina through another barkeep. Not that he’d known her well, or spent much time at Serena, but something in his chest ached hearing she was gone in such circumstances.

He soon forgot about it with another glass.

With a weary huff, he decided the Champion District on the other side of town was the best place to start. The bar he chose was quiet, no other customers, and a barman who knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Perfect.

Instead of conversation, Daigo focused on the soft jazz music playing as he nursed his whiskey. He was into heavier tunes, but he needed a bit more of a buzz before going to his favourite rock bar.

He tapped his nails against the glass, tilting his head. Good idea, actually. They did cheap shots and a big array of imports.

He slammed some cash down on the counter before stumbling into the street, glad to feel the slight evening chill on his cheeks.

Down to Pink Street, and into the rock bar he enjoyed. Already feeling at home with the heavy guitar music blasting over the speakers, most of the other patrons dressed in a similar style to him. He’d missed out on a lot of stuff whilst locked away, the slight sways in fashion that happened in such a short amount of time, but he liked knowing he was still on trend within his scene, mostly.

He sat at the counter, giving a half-grin to the girl working there, and ordered himself five shots of vodka.

His earlier drinks had been a warmup, these were the first leg of the race. The second came in the form of a large scotch, some new brand they’d started selling.

Honestly, the start to a perfect night for him, until he heard a small gasp from behind him.

“Hey! Aniki!”

Daigo’s heart sank at the voice, glancing over his shoulder. Five of the guys he usually hung around with were there – or more accurately, they hung around him.

He rolled his eyes and groaned, turning in his seat and glaring them down. He should never had shown them this place.

“What do you want?” he muttered, already knowing the answer.

“We didn’t know you were out today!” Arita cried, leaning up next to him, with that sycophantic look he always had in his eyes. As if Daigo wasn’t out every night.

“Why don’t you join us aniki?” Kubo asked, which actually translated to wanna pay for all our drinks because we’re cheap scrounging bastards?

Daigo groaned again, knocking back his glass and waving the bartender over again.

“If you quit calling me aniki.”

They didn’t, of course. They gleefully accepted the drinks he bought them with more coos of thank you Dojima-aniki. Daigo rubbed the bridge of his nose and ordered himself two double scotches, slugging them back like they were water.

“I was thinkin’ we could go to Dazzle after this,” Arita said, having not left Daigo’s side. He always babbled and talked too much, like he felt he had to fill every silence with his own voice save people be left alone with their own thoughts.

“Why there?” Daigo asked, thinking of all the things he’d rather do more than go to a hostess club, including and not limited to slamming his face into a lit stovetop and drowning in a hot tub.

“I just think the girls there are really underrated, y’know? I like that they have some slightly older gals, I love a mature lady. How about you?”

Daigo shoved a shard of ice from his glass into his mouth and let it melt on his tongue. “Come on then.”

He was paying for two hours and that was that. At least he could get a bottle for himself and work through that, sitting at the edge whilst the others enjoyed the girls’ company.

Dazzle might have specialised in more mature women, but the decor was a nightmare like every other hostess club. Why’d they always insist on so many sparkles, it gave him a headache.

“Um...are you enjoying yourself?”

Daigo lowered his gaze to look at the girl. ‘Mature’ really meant ‘late twenties’, and she was running on the younger side of that.

“What do you think?” he said coldly, swirling his drink in its glass.

She seemed a little dazed at this, glancing back at her fellow hostesses, but kept going.

“M-my name is Nashi. Yours?”

“Daigo Dojima.”

He clicked his tongue, emptied his glass and went to refill it, his shoulders slouching slightly. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so short, you’re only doing your job.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ve had far worse responses.”

Daigo just gritted his teeth. Another reason he hated hostess clubs was he knew how other men treated these girls, saw it himself the times his father brought him along as a teen.

The least he could do was give this lady a nice conversation.

“Well, I’ll try to be a bit better than them,” he said, gesturing with his head towards the others, so loud and obnoxious.

Nashi smiled a little. “They’re not so bad. Your friends are just a bit...out there.”

He scoffed. “They’re not my friends. I don’t really...do friendship anymore.”

“Oh? How come?”

Shit. Of course, when you say something like that, people have questions. Daigo licked his lips in thought, considering how he should phrase this.

“You...don’t recognise my name, do you?”

Nashi blushed a little, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Um, well, you do have a bit of notoriety around town, Dojima-san. I know girls in other clubs, and they always talk about you.”

Daigo did a slight double take at this. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah. You’re a rather…” She gestured at his coat and skinny jeans. “A striking figure, you know. A lot of girls like the edgy emo bad boy look. It’s popular right now.”

“Hm, figures.” A lot of men are also fans…

Daigo sat up a little straighter, gazing Nashi down. “Do you?”

“H-huh?”

“Find me attractive?”

It was a joke, said with a dry smirk, but she flustered, clearly uneasy. Daigo grimaced, sliding up a little closer and putting a hand to her knee.

“Hey, hey. I’m kidding.” He made his smirk a soft smile, broke down the facade for just a moment to put her at ease. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nashi’s eyes went wide, but nodded, brushing down the edges of her dress.

“A-anyway, I...I’ve heard you...were involved with the Tojo Clan. Is that why you don’t ‘do’ friends?”

“Mm. Essentially.”

Daigo gave up on the glass, swigging back from the bottle which got him a funny look from one of the other patrons across the way.

“My only friend murdered my father,” he said, so matter of fact. He hesitated a moment, letting out a short huff. “Well. He went to jail for the crime, at least. He was actually covering for someone else. Either way, I was left without his guidance for ten years, thinking he had betrayed me like that.”

He paused a second, swilling whiskey around his mouth, before continuing.

“I came back to town a few months ago and...he hasn’t bothered trying to find me. Which shows how little he cares.”

“Oh. That sounds...awful, Dojima-san.”

“It sure does, doesn’t it?”

Daigo shrugged, tilting the empty bottle back so he could savour just a few more drops as best he could. “That’s just how my life is now.”

He grumbled a little as he set the bottle down, belching into his cupped hand before draping himself back against the seat.

“Sometimes you gotta deal with the hand you're given,” he added, scratching lazily at his middle, “And unfortunately, I’ve had a poor deck from the start.”

He shut his eyes before letting out a laugh, forced and hollow. “Sorry. I’m not the best at keeping things light.”

How many hostesses had he paid to listen to him whine? Then he thought how they were probably all used to it, which made it even worse.

“Well, given your circumstances…”

Nashi glanced back at her co-workers, the barely hidden looks of disdain towards the rest of the crew and their boorish behaviour.

“I’d much rather talk to you though,” she said, reaching over to grab another one of the bottles along the table, gesturing toward his glass, “You’re nice.”

Daigo swallowed, nodding in approval as she filled it to the brim. His head pounded, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the music or the cravings.

“If you say so.”

The glass was empty in a flash, and filled just as quick.

“You’re good at this,” he purred.

The bottle was empty by the time the waiter came by. Daigo had just enough mental capacity to dig through his pockets and pay, giving Nashi a shaky smile and a pat on the knee.

“Thank you for tonight. You’re great.”

His friends, on the other hand, all started to whine as the waiter began to urge them into finishing their drinks.

“Aw, c’mon aniki, let’s hang around a bit longer!”

“If you want that, pay yourself, ya cheap fucks.”

Daigo stood up, a bit too quickly as he felt the room spin. He stumbled to the side slightly, wincing as he contained a belch that very much tasted of vomit. Nope! No puking tonight. Keep it all inside.

“I’m outta here,” he mumbled, resting a hand on any available solid surface to keep himself steady as he left.

He blanked out the cries of the others as he did. He’d wasted enough time with them tonight, and he was craving something else.

“Burger,” he mumbled, squinting as he glanced up and down the street, “Pffft...that way.”

This was always the worst part of the night. Trying to sober up enough so he could keep going, or at the very least get home in one piece. Stumbling through the streets and trying not to crack his skull open.

It wasn’t just food he craved though. He felt...itchy. That was the only way to really explain it. The desire to go wild, start a scuffle. Really earn that reputation he supposedly had.

To hell with staying in one piece.

But first, Smile Burger.

The fact that the poor worker even understood what he said through his slurred words was impressive and soon he was curled up against the window, feet pulled up on the chair beside him as he made his way through a burger that tasted like the finest wagyu steak right now.

All the while, he kept his eye out.

Yeah, it felt shitty to target people for a fight like this, but he made sure it was a fair fight. Usually a few guys, who looked like they could take a hit as well as throw one, maybe even have a chance if they weren’t facing someone running on adrenaline and too much booze.

He cocked his head as he focused on a table nearby. Four men, mid-twenties, definitely young yakuza from some family. He couldn’t see any lapel pin from where he was sat, but they were perfect.

Childishly, he picked up one of his fries and threw it in their direction. It hit the back of one guy’s head, and he looked around puzzled. Daigo just threw another, chuckling as it hit him again. A bit too obvious, as he was spotted this time.

“What the hell’s wrong with you dude?” one of the four cried.

“I dunno,” Daigo said, stuffing a bunch of fries in his mouth before flinging another their way, “Target practise.”

This one hit a guy in a striking red sports jacket right between the eyes, and Daigo could barely contain the full-on cackle he let out at the expression he pulled. It was almost too easy.

He grinned when one came over and jabbed him in the chest.

“Outside. Now.”

“My pleasure.”

He followed them into a nearby side street, hands in his pockets and head held high. He liked an audience sometimes, but a private fight was fine enough.

The biggest one of them threw the first punch. He was expecting it, crossing his arms over in front of his face to block it, before kicking out at the guy’s ankles.

The whole fight was messy. The little gang clearly had never been in a proper fight, had no form. They kept punching poorly, wincing with any that managed to hit as they stung their knuckles.

Not that Daigo was any better. He was still far too drunk, but that was half the fun. Stumbling about and getting in a rough hit that frightened these kids who’d never experienced this before. He just wanted the thrill, the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Anything to feel something.

Daigo landed a punch on that guy in the sports jacket, right in the middle of his face. It sent him flat on his ass, skidding down the street slightly.

“Come on!” he groaned, “Grab him, idiots! We outnumber him!”

A moment of pause. Daigo tried to catch his breath, but ol’ sports jacket was right. He was outnumbered.

Two of them grabbed his coat and pushed him back against the wall, holding him there. The third punched at his gut, over and over. Daigo gritted his teeth, tensed his stomach for every punch.

He knew he could get out of this, easily. The guys holding him were hardly doing much, weren’t even gripping his actual arms, just the sleeves of his jacket. It wouldn’t take much to duck and slip down, then send them crying home to their mommies.

“Come on!” he hissed, baring his teeth.

But he wanted them to hit him.

“That all you got?”

He wanted them to hurt him.

Sports jacket guy had gotten back on his feet now, face already starting to bruise. His fist met the middle of Daigo’s face hard, harder than they’d been hitting before. It stung, a lot, which is exactly what he wanted.

Not that it solved anything.

It never did.

“Oi!” They all froze, turning toward the entrance of the street. Daigo, semi-dazed, managed to look too, and felt his stomach drop.

Kashiwagi's expression, initially a scowl, changed the moment he saw him, shaking his head and blinking a little. “Daigo?”

He sighed heavily, storming over and waving his hand at the little gang. “Shoo. Don’t let me catch you boys doing shit like this again, you hear?” “Y-yes Patriarch Kashiwagi.”

They scurried off further down the street, leaving Daigo to stand up straighter, rubbing his nose. He groaned a little as he saw the streaks of rusty red on the back of his hand, sniffling heavily. “Great.”

“Daigo…”

Kashiwagi sighed again, rubbing at his temple. “What are you doing?” “I’m just...I’m just out.” Daigo sniffed again, scrunching his nose. “Just finished dinner.”

“You know what I mean…”

Kashiwagi looked around, then grabbed Daigo by the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s talk in the office.”

Daigo went to argue, but it only took one stern glare, the kind the older man had given him his whole life, for him to clench his jaw and follow.

Kashiwagi led the way toward the Millennium Tower, hand on Daigo’s shoulder the whole way. It felt so patronising, like that time he accidentally broke a window at the Dojima Family offices when he was ten, and Kashiwagi had done the exact same gesture, marching him to his mother.

“Nice upgrade,” he still said, gazing out the wide window of Kashiwagi’s office once they arrived, “From that little place on Tenkaichi.”

“Well, we make do. I’m second in command now.” Kashiwagi set down the plastic convenience store bag he’d been carrying on his desk, letting out a small, bemused exhale of air. “It’s not all bad. Now come on. Why were you fighting?”

Daigo clicked his tongue and shrugged, staring at the blinking lights below them.

“Daigo…” “I just was, okay?”

He gave a dismissive shrug, walking across the floor toward a cabinet, throwing the doors open. Kashiwagi watched him with tired eyes, slumping down in his chair. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight.”

“How did you know that’s what I was looking for?”

“Your breath reeks of it, kid. Your whole body does.” He took out a bento and can of coffee from the plastic bag, raising a brow. “And I know what you’re like, especially lately. How’s being a free man by the way? Haven’t seen you since you were released.”

“It sucks ass.”

Daigo slammed the cabinet door shut, opening another and grinning as he saw half a bottle of whiskey there, as well as some crystal glasses. He heard Kashiwagi tut loudly as he slammed both down on top of the cabinet.

“What did you expect?” he scoffed, pouring a very large measure, “Mom told me the news the moment I got out. What Nishikiyama did. That it wasn’t Kiryu. He hasn’t even come to see me, to apologise for it.”

He knocked the glass back, the sensation warm and familiar down his throat. “Hardly feel free. Just not in jail anymore.”

“What happened to the boy I knew?” Kashiwagi asked, walking over and placing a hand on Daigo’s shoulder once more. This time it was gentle, kind, attempting to be comforting. Not Kashiwagi-san, one of his father’s men, but Uncle Osamu, his mother’s best friend.

Daigo scrunched his nose up, taking another slug of whiskey. “You say that like I’ve ever been cheery.”

“Well, okay, you’ve always been a serious young man, but…”

He just shook his head, moving his hand away. He grabbed the whiskey bottle in the process, making Daigo let out a pathetic little whine.

“I’m not going to enable you any more than I have,” he said firmly, before adding, “I mean it though. You don’t need to throw your life away like this.”

Daigo didn’t reply, because he didn’t like the real answer. There wasn’t much of a life to throw away. He was doing everyone a favour with this.

“You bring me up here just to lecture me old man?” he growled, narrowing his eyes.

Still looking for someone to fight. Kashiwagi would wipe the floor with him, he knew that, but he didn’t care. He also knew he wouldn’t get that kind of satisfaction.

Didn’t mean Kashiwagi wasn’t frustrated with his attitude. He closed his eyes, clenching his fists and let out a deep exhale from his nose. “I saw your mother today. She’s been trying to call you all morning.”

“I know.” The empty glass was set down heavily, with a grunt. Daigo dug around for his phone, holding it out so Kashiwagi could see the countless missed calls and texts from her on the home screen. “I know what today is.”

“...and is that why you’re-”

“You know I’m like this anyway.” He stared at the texts, all similar in tone - Daigo, please call me. Daigo, it’s important. Are you okay? He got them most days from his mother. She was trying so hard. He didn’t want her to. He would rather she forget about him. She deserved that much.

Kashiwagi wasn’t looking at him, staring up at the ceiling as he thought of what to say next.

“I understand that...none of us could have predicted the extent of what your father was like.”

Daigo did a double take, noticing Kashiwagi immediately cringe. At least he knew what he said was stupid.

“Sorry, that was-”

“Yeah. It was.” Daigo looked up, head cocked to his shoulder. “Anyone could have guessed, really. We just pretended otherwise, because somehow he seemed to be the only thing keeping the Tojo Clan from completely falling apart.”

He was up in Kashiwagi’s face now, feeling his chest clench tight. He was working himself up over nothing, over that bastard. He hated it, but thinking of what his father did to get himself killed, the kind of man he was, it made his skin crawl.

“He deserves to spend every birthday after what he did having the most miserable time in hell,” he said with a hiss, noticing his voice wobbling, “I know it. You know it. But Mom refuses to let go-”

The slap felt cathartic, for both of them. Daigo shut his eyes and nodded as his cheek stung. He deserved that. He was trying to provoke that kind of reaction and got exactly that.

“I take back what I said. That boy you were is still there. An insolent brat,” Kashiwagi said, walking back to his desk, “Daigo, one day, you’re going to have to grow up. You can’t keep doing this until you die.”

He threw a semi-sympathetic look over his shoulder, but Daigo mostly felt it was piteous. That’s what he was. A pitiful, useless mess.

“Go home, Daigo. Call your mother. And for everyone’s sake, don’t have anything else to drink tonight.”

Daigo sucked in through his teeth and nodded again as he walked toward the door.

“...good night, Kashiwagi-san.”

No response. Yup. I deserve this.

He made his way home in a daze, everything working in automatic. Kashiwagi’s words kept echoing in his head, over and over.

You can’t keep doing this until you die.

Because that’s what he was trying to do, wasn’t it? Die. Suicide by hedonism. He was born already holding the worst hand life could deal, and he was never going to get anything better. After his father was killed, the one tiny scrap of potential good he could have in his life was gone, even if that prospect was a life of crime.

So why not? Why should he grow up when there was nothing to grow up for?

The moment he was inside his apartment, he slid down the door, staring blankly ahead. He’d needed that talking to, he needed a few really, from people who were currently pretending like he didn’t exist. That’s what he really needed. For Kiryu to talk to him, apologise for ruining his life, try and talk some sense into him. He always knew what to do.

But it was like he didn’t exist. Kiryu didn’t care. Kashiwagi tried to care, but knew he was a lost cause. Who did care?

Daigo opened up his phone again, staring at the missed calls and sighed. That’s who cared. Mom.

He should talk to her. He knew he should. He was an awful son who loved his mother very much, which is why he knew she deserved better. She was trying despite knowing she’d made mistakes, but he just couldn’t let that go.

He hovered on her number, ready to press the button to call...but instead he tossed his phone to land on the couch, walked to the kitchen and wrapped his fingers around the neck of the vodka bottle still on the counter.

He licked his lips, swallowed heavily...but let go, pushing it away.

“You win this time old man,” he grumbled, picking up an energy drink and the donuts he’d bought earlier in the day instead. Kashiwagi could never be allowed to know that though.

He knew this self-control wouldn’t last long. Come morning, he’d be shaking again, a hangover banging in his skull, and he’d be dragging himself towards that bottle like it was the source of life.

The same thing every day.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

He couldn’t have it any other way.

#dojima daigo #ryu ga gotoku #trope: crutches #badthingshappenbingo #undeadbthb #highly recommend reading the end notes on ao3 for the buckwild place the inspiration for this came from

10 notes · View notes

sunsetinmyvein · 4 years ago

Text

Mayhem

A/N - So, it was too late to incorporate any of this into I Know That I’ll Lose, but let it be known that Matty getting a puppy did not go unnoticed by my writing inspiration. Have this adorable thing.

Matty adopts a puppy, Matty ends up back at the pet store more than he expected. Short, fluffy Matthew Healy x Reader sorta thing.

It had been three days since Matty brought a new puppy back to the studio. Three days of a black fluff ball romping about under their feet any time they tried to move from one room to another. George had tried to convince him that it wasn’t a great idea to get another dog considering how little time he spent at home. But he regretted missing out on the majority of Allen’s childhood and he was bound to London for the foreseeable future, so he figured now was as good a time as any to get a puppy. Things were going pretty well so far - Mayhem adjusted nicely to the new environment and he was a (mostly) welcome addition to the homely space of the studio. The only issue was that he didn’t seem to be eating much. Or… at all. On the first day it was easy enough to assume that he had already been fed at the pet store and wasn’t hungry, the second day could be put down to settling in nerves, but Matty was beginning to get concerned that he still didn’t seem to want his food. Perhaps it was the taste? He figured that all dog food probably tasted fairly similar from brand to brand, but maybe not if you were the target audience.

“I’m goin’ out, George.” He shouted over his shoulder as he grabbed his keys and slipped his wallet into his pocket.

“Where?” His friend’s voice called back down the hallway.

“Pet store to get Mayhem food. Make sure he doesn’t destroy anything.” He answered, about the pull the door shut behind him before he heard George continue.

“He’s not my dog, Matt.” He replied, the mild annoyance seeping into the tone of his voice.

“You own stuff in here too.” Matty half-sung back. “Bye!”

The shop he had gotten Mayhem from was only a few minutes down the road. As he stepped up to the counter, he rehearsed one last time in his head what he had come in here for. He didn’t want to seem like a bad dog owner, like it was something that he was doing that was resulting in his pet not eating. But he was quickly beaten to the punch as the cashier turned to face him. She gave him a curious look before the recognition flashed across her face. “You came in and bought the black cane corso the other day, yeah?” She asked with a friendly smile. He nodded in response. “What was it…” She frowned, clearly trying her best to remember. “Matthew?”

“Matty’s better.” He answered, finding himself returning the smile.

“And Mayhem, right?” She asked. He was mildly impressed that she remembered so many details from a fifteen-minute interaction.

He laughed lightly, “Yeah, that’s it.”

“How’s he going?” She asked with excitement.

He went to start going on about how cute and playful he was - as he had to anyone else who asked - before catching himself. “Well, that’s actually why I’m here.” He started, pulling his mind back to the reason that he had walked in. “He just doesn’t seem to want to eat the food that I had at home?” He asked hesitantly.

“Oh, that’s no problem. I’ll show you what we were feeding him here.” She said as she quickly stepped around the counter and started walking towards the dog food. “It’s a bit more expensive, but it’s better quality and more palatable to most dogs. That’s why we use it for the dogs here.” She explained to Matty as she led him through the store.

“That’s fine.” He shrugged. “As long as he likes it, the cost isn’t an issue.”

“Wish there were more dog owners like you.” She huffed under her breath, earning a quiet laugh out of him in response. After a quick scan of the aisle, she picked up a fairly large white bag and handed it out to him. “He was eating this stuff when he was with us and seemed to enjoy it.”

“Thanks. Hopefully he still likes it.” He chuckled as he gratefully took the bag.

“I’ll put it through for you.” She added, nodding back in the direction of the counter. Matty followed behind closely as he clutched the dog food closer to him. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was just because he hadn’t had much in the way of human contact with anyone other than George for the last few weeks, but this felt… oddly nice. If he didn’t have a starving canine at home, he probably would’ve made an attempt to drag out the interaction. But, he did. So, he paid for the dog food, and continued on his way.

* * *

Thankfully for Matty, Mayhem took to the new food very well. He was eating regularly as soon as the old stuff was out of his bowl. And for a while, things were great with the pup - he took naps on the couch with his owner, he stayed in his crate at night without complaints, he only stole small amounts of food off of low lying, unattended plates - it was all going swimmingly. However, it was clear that there were still a few teething problems. Quite literally.

“Hey! Drop that!” Matty yelled as he chased Mayhem under the table.

“I told you-” George started from his seat on the couch as the dog squirmed his way through the chair legs and continued running through the house with an amp lead in his mouth.

“Shut it, George.” Matty shouted back, trying to right himself too quickly and smacking his head on the underside of the table. He stared daggers into the back of the drummer’s head while he regained his balance before running after his dog.

“You can’t keep letting him chew stuff every time we have to shut him out of the room.” He continued as the duo suddenly ended up in front of him when Mayhem tried to (unsuccessfully) fit himself under a couch.

“He’s fine.” He tried to reason through gritted teeth as he picked the puppy up. As soon as his paws were off the ground, he let go of the lead. But alas, there was no saving it, his needle-sharp puppy teeth had already done their damage.

“No, he’s not. That’s the second thing he’s wrecked today.” George argued as he picked up the cord and wound it up. “Just put him in his crate.” He suggested.

Matty held Mayhem up to make sure that he hadn’t hurt himself by chewing on things he wasn’t meant to, sighing in relief when he seemed fine. “But he shouldn’t have to be holed up in the crate just because we don’t want him making noise in the room with us.” It didn’t seem fair to this poor dog to have to spend half of the day cooped up just because he had production work to do.

“Well, you have to do something.”

“I know, I know.” He snapped back, pulling the dog closer to himself as he tried to think of other ideas. He was just bored, not being naughty on purpose.

“Because if he moves onto anything of mine, I’m not gonna be happy about it. Mayhem might be meeting Allen sooner than planned.” George said with a pointed look.

“I’ll just get him more things to keep him occupied.” Matty said, the idea quickly making more and more sense the more the gears turned in his brain. “I can go get him those puzzle feeder things, and those toys that you put peanut butter in, and chew toys. I’ll go get him a bunch of that shit.” He said as he put his puppy back on the ground, who instantly bounded off happily to go destroy something else.

“You better go soon because-”

“I know. I’m going right now.” He nodded as he grabbed his keys off the coffee table.

He hadn’t really expected to be back in this pet store three times in eight days, but here he was. Again. Feeling like a terrible dog owner. Again. He walked up to the counter, seeing the girl that had served him the last two times stocking shelves with her back to him. Matty cleared his throat, trying to politely get her attention. “Erm, hi.” He smiled as she turned around.

“Hey, Matty!” She grinned back. “Didn’t expect you back so soon. How can I help?”

Fuck. She still remembered his name and he didn’t even know hers after what was now three interactions. Was she just good with names or was there just not that many customers coming through here? He supposed probably not at the moment. His eyes quickly scanned over the name tag on her uniform, committing it to memory. Wait, shit, she asked me a question. “I need a chew toy, something to keep Mayhem occupied if I’m out or busy.” He finally answered.

“Ah, is he getting bored?” She asked with a curious look.

“He must be, because he chewed through one of my guitar leads.” Matty chuckled, trying to make light of a bad situation.

But the look of shock on her face blew any attempts of that right out of the water. “It wasn’t on, was it?” She asked with a clear sense of worry.

“Thankfully, no.” He answered with a shake of his head.

She let out a relieved breath. “Good to hear.” She nodded, stepping around the counter and starting to walk into the store. He supposed that was his invitation to follow. “Poor buddy could’ve done himself some serious damage.”

The two of them stood in front of a wall of various pet toys and the sheer amount of variety was borderline overwhelming to Matty. He was rather glad that he had sought out help. She turned to him as she grabbed a couple of options off the hooks. “Was it expensive?” She asked.

“The cord wasn’t, the guitar is.” He huffed. “But the cord is easy to replace. I just don’t want him deciding to chew on my other equipment.” He added quickly. He didn’t want to come across as angry about what was realistically quite a small problem. It just needed fixing sooner rather than when George decided to wring his neck over it.

“You play other stuff?” She questioned.

“I play a lot of things.” He shrugged casually, not wanting to make a huge fuss about it. Matty enjoyed that these interactions were about his dog rather than the aspects of his life most other people chose to focus on. Not that he could blame them, his career took up the majority of his life, but the change was nice.

“A man of many talents.” She noted.

“And a master of none of them.” He laughed.

She turned to him, handing him a selection of chew toys. “He’s probably starting to feel his adult teeth coming through and wanting some stuff to gnaw on. Something like a rope toy or soft plastic might be good, or even a rawhide treat.” She explained. “You could maybe get him bones as well.” He nodded as he intently listened to her advice. “Or if you were after things to keep him occupied, you can also get some puzzle toys. But those usually require treats to dispense for the dog to want to play with them”

“Yeah, can I grab some of them too?” He said eagerly. It took about ten minutes for her to show him all of the options available, Matty relishing in the chance to have some casual chit chat in between aisles. By the time she had shown him just about everything a puppy could use to kill time, he had a shopping basket full of options to entertain Mayhem. Surely this would be enough to keep George happy. “Thanks for this.” He said with an appreciative smile as she began scanning them through the register.

“It’s no problem. Always happy to help out if it means an animal is gonna be better off.” She beamed back at him. He was suddenly hit with the reminder that he enjoyed their interaction the last time he was here, and he was enjoying this one more. But the little voice in the back of his mind was quick to mention the puppy who was probably chewing through a soundboard at the moment.

“Hopefully I can get these to him before he works his teeth into something else.” He added sheepishly.

“Well, I’ll let you get out of here then.” She handed him the heavy bag of pet toys. “I’ll see you soon.” She said with an expression that Matty probably would’ve called humorous. Was that a joke? Clearly three visits in one week wasn’t usual. But he figured she probably wouldn’t have been as friendly to him if she minded that. And he couldn’t really say that he felt bad about it.

“Apparently, at the rate I’m goin’.” He laughed back over his shoulder as he walked back to his car. A nagging feeling sat at the back of his mind that he was probably going to be back here pretty soon.

* * *

The toys did the trick for keeping Mayhem away from any expensive equipment. And for keeping George off Matty’s back (for now). Between things to chew on and things to solve, that puppy barely had time for cuddles and naps. That didn’t stop him from trying to push his luck on occasion, though. Matty was sitting at his desk in the middle of an interview when he spied Mayhem about to wrap his teeth around one of his shoes. “Hold on a second, let me just shout at my dog.” He said offhandedly to the screen as he pushed himself back to get a better view of what he was trying to do. As soon as he called out to him, Mayhem bounded over like nothing had happened. “I’ve got you loads of toys, you don’t need to chew that.” As if completely understanding his owner the puppy picked up the rope toy that was sat at the base of the coffee table. Matty eyed the rope toy that Mayhem was chewing on, thinking back to the girl at the pet store. It had been a week since his last visit. Would it be weird if he went back again? It would definitely be weird if he went there and someone else was working. It would defeat the whole point. He tuned back into the interview, the thought of going back for social reasons playing on his mind as he carried on.

After an hour the interview had wrapped up. It was just before three in the afternoon, the pet store would still be open. Matty quietly picked up his car keys, hoping to make a silent escape. But he had no such luck. “Where are you going?” George asked with a frown over the back of the lounge.

“Uh, out.” He shrugged, trying and failing to be nonchalant. His best friend just stared him down until he answered properly. “The pet store.” He eventually confessed.

George had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew the answer to the question he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t help himself, “What for this time?”

Matty paused for a moment, trying to think of a reason to go back. “A new bed.” He answered with a firm nod.

“That bed’s fine.” George gestured to the practically new bed sitting in the crate.

“He’ll need a bigger one soon.” He reasoned with himself more than anyone else, making his way to the door before he could talk himself out of it.

“Why’re you really going?” He heard George ask, the snigger underlying his question echoing down the hallway.

“I’ll be back soon. Bye!”

Within fifteen minutes Matty found himself standing at the - now fairly familiar - counter of the pet store. Despite his bad luck getting out of the house, he was fortunately facing some good luck now. “Back again?” She asked, frowning at the man in front of her curiously.

“I, erm, need a new bed for Mayhem.” He knew it was a poor excuse for coming back in here, because with her memory she’d likely know that he bought one when he picked Mayhem up. But maybe it would be enough to get him by. “He’s taken to thinking that the couch is his.” She seemed fairly unphased by this, just nodding along.

“That’ll happen if you let him sleep on it.” She said, cracking a bit of a smile.

“You’re very knowledgeable about all this dog stuff.” Matty said casually as he tried to strike up more of a conversation.

“Well, I work at a pet store.” She reminded him.

“That’s not-” He stopped, taking in a breath as he tried to get himself back on track. “Do you have one of your own?”

“Yeah! I’ve got a golden retriever.” The vibe of the conversation instantly shifted into a territory Matty was much more comfortable with. She seemed a lot more excited to chat now that he’d brought up her own pets. He was happy to move things away from awkward ground and onto some stuff he could be a bit surer about.

That works. “I’ve heard that those are a really friendly breed.”

“Oh, Roscoe’s got an amazing temperament.” She nodded.

“Mayhem needs another dog friend like that.” He started with a sigh, “He’s so high energy that most dogs don’t want a bar of it.”

She raised an eyebrow at the obvious hint he was dropping, but decided to step around it for the moment. “He doesn’t do well at dog parks?” She asked.

Matty shook his head, “I think it’s all too overwhelming. He gets overzealous and then other dogs snap at him when they don’t want to play that much.” Which, in Matty’s defence, was true. When he took Mayhem to a dog park two days ago, his dog spent most of his time chasing a tennis ball because the other dogs didn’t want to put up with a puppy. “Maybe he’d do better in a one on one environment.” He shrugged.

She couldn’t help the laugh that came out at his lack of subtlety. “Oh, really?” She asked, trying to recompose herself. Matty supposed that was probably his invitation to just cut to the chase.

“Would you be up for it? I could meet you at the dog park down the road sometime next week.” He suggested, trying his best to keep his cool. She thought about this for what felt like a solid minute but he was sure it was probably only a few seconds.

“Sure.” She nodded eventually. “Tuesday morning?”

“I’m sure I could fit that in.” He grinned back.

There was a brief moment of silence where Matty just took in the moment of success until he took his cue to leave before he blew it. “Well, I’ll see you then.” He said as he went to step away from the counter.

“Wait,” She said, stopping him in his tracks as he turned back to her. Shit, what did he forget? “You came in here for a dog bed, didn’t you?”

Oh, no. “Uh, erm, yeah, I suppose I did.” He mumbled quietly as he scratched at the back of his neck. “I’ll go grab one.” He nodded, making his way to the back of the store. After quickly berating his own idiotic memory he grabbed a slightly larger bed than the one Mayhem already had and brought it back up to the counter. He was fairly sure he’d just undone any good work that he had worked towards. Handing the bed over he tried his best to at least be a functioning human being until he got back to his car.

“Hopefully this keeps him off the couch.” The cashier said as she handed it back to him, the humour of the situation pretty evident in her eyes. “And let me know what time on Tuesday.” She added as she passed him a piece of paper with her number on it. Thank fuck for that.

* * *

George had of course given Matty a hard time when he came home and revealed the details of how he nearly came home without what he had left the house for. However, Matty couldn’t really have cared any less, because it still ended up working out all right for him. Very few texts were exchanged other than the ones to arrange an exact time to meet up on Tuesday. He got there fifteen minutes early, sitting on a bench with his puppy in his lap as he tried to calm down his racing mind. He had decided to buy her a coffee on the way as a small gesture to say thanks. Once he had done so, he realised he had no idea if she even liked coffee and suddenly regretted the whole plan. But he had two coffees now, so he might as well offer it. Surely it would still be seen as a nice thought? He needed to calm down. Maybe he shouldn’t have had a coffee.

“It’ll be fine.” He told himself as he took in a deep breath. “Won’t it, buddy?” He asked as he nudged Mayhem. His dog looked back up at him with his large brown eyes, giving no indication that he was nervous. “Well of course it will be fine for you. At the end of the day you still have a small fortune of pet supplies to go home to.” Matty huffed as he ruffled Mayhem’s ears. His dog seemed very happy about this development.

He heard her call his name before he saw her, turning to see a large golden retriever bounding his way. From his position on the bench, he and Mayhem came nose to nose as the new dog ran up to introduce himself. It hadn’t been intentional but it definitely worked very well for their first meeting to not overwhelm the poor puppy with height differences. When the two dogs seemed to have no hostility between them, Matty put Mayhem down on the ground. As soon as his paws touched the grass the two of them were off. He half kept an eye on his dog running amok as he turned to the girl sitting next to him.

“This is for you,” He said as he held out the second coffee. “as thanks.”

She let out an appreciative noise as she picked it up. “You didn’t have to get me this.”

“I wanted to.” He corrected.

“Well… thank you.” She nodded, flashing him a friendly smile. So far so good.

After twenty minutes of playing, the two canines were finally starting to calm down a bit. “They’re getting on really well.” She noted, taking the last sip of her coffee.

“Yeah, it’s good to see.” He agreed with a nod. “Allen was so much easier to socialise, but he was a much calmer puppy than Mayhem is.” Matty said with a sigh.

She paused for a moment at that, considering what he had just said. “An old dog?” She asked.

“Uh, no, he’s not that old. He’s about five.” He answered.

“You have another dog?” She frowned.

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned that in hindsight. “Well, sort of, I co-own him with my mate Sam. He doesn’t live with me.” He tried his best to talk his way around it, but he knew exactly what was coming next. It was gonna come up sooner or later, he supposed.

“Why didn’t you just socialise Mayhem with the dog you already have?” She questioned.

“Because then I wouldn’t have had an excuse to ask you out for a coffee.” He answered honestly.

She laughed loudly, but didn’t seem upset by this information. That was good. “You could’ve just asked me out for coffee as opposed to going to all this trouble.”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that?”

#Matthew Healy x Reader #Matty Healy x Reader #Sunsetinmyvein

96 notes · View notes

wlntrsldler · 5 years ago

Text

Shawarmas (Bucky Barnes Imagine)

The first time Bucky saw Y/N was at the Shawarma place that Tony loved so much. He sat sandwiched between Thor and Steve, laughing carelessly at the jokes that Sam told. The team took over the small restaurant, barely having enough space to walk around without bumping shoulders.

You were working the register, your hair restrained under your hairnet and that God-awful yellow visor that they made you wear as your company uniform. Bucky had a full view of you, smiling to yourself once you overheard the conversations the team was having. You chuckled to yourself softly, not wanting to be seen eavesdropping on the team, but Bucky noticed.

He wanted nothing else but to introduce himself and talk to you but he had forgotten how to talk to women, being frozen for over 70 years and all.

Next time, he thought to himself. He knew there was bound to be one. Tony loved this place, after all.

Bucky was starting to raise suspicion from the team. Every time someone mentioned wanting to go get something to eat, Bucky would perk up and suggest the Shawarma place. It worked the first two times, for the most part, and he was so excited to see you again.

The first time was a Monday night. Steve, Nat and himself had finished a day-long training to make sure they weren’t getting rusty, a comment that Nat took to offense and brutally took apart the electronic dummy that Tony sent off to train them. Needless to say, Tony didn’t appreciate it and vowed to never suggest that Nat was getting rusty ever again.

Bucky was the first one in the car and the first one out once Steve put the car in park at the shop’s parking lot. He smiled at the familiar neon sign outside of the restaurant, not wanting to wait another second to see you again. Once he entered, his smile faded when he realized you weren’t working that night. The man behind the register was not nearly as beautiful as you with his greasy hair, patchy beard, and what seemed like a toupee clipped on the company visor.

“Geez, Bucky.” Steve laughed once he entered the establishment. “Didn’t know you liked Shawarma this much.”

“Yeah, right.” Bucky mumbled, trying not to show his disappointment as he fell in line behind the last customer. Bucky, Nat and Steve got their food to-go, Bucky’s request, and ate on the way back home.

The second time was after a successful mission. The whole team was bruised, tired, and most of all, hungry. Tony suggested that they just get food instead of trying to cook. The team agreed, wanting nothing else but to fill their stomachs with food that didn’t come from the pre-packaged meals in the ship.

“How does Shawarma sound?” Bucky asked, apprehensively.

The first person to be suspicious was Steve. He looked at Bucky with a cocked eyebrow, knowing that they just got Shawarma with Nat, who was assigned to a different mission and therefore was not with the group, two days ago. Bucky flashed him a shy smile, shrugging shoulders, as if saying, “What? I just like Shawarma.” Steve let it go and chimed in, “I’m okay with that.”

Tony patted Bucky’s back, “Good call, Old guy.”

“So, should we start heading out?” Bucky jumped up, his body suddenly feeling a burst of energy. “Which cars should we ta-”

“No need,” Tony yelled from across the room. “They deliver.”

Everyone else was too tired to notice Bucky’s sigh of disappointment, except for Steve.

Bucky realized that if he mentioned the Shawarma place you worked at one more time, the team would personally chip in and buy him his own DIY-at-home Shawarma maker just to get him to finally shut up about Shawarma. Even Tony, the original lover of Shawarma, was getting tired of Bucky mentioning it.

He decided that he would go in the shop, alone, to save himself the embarrassment of confessing his little crush on the cashier. Bucky took a deep breath and readjusted the cap he was wearing over his freshly cut hair before he entered the shop. He wasn’t used to having hair so short. It reminded him of his hair back in the 40′s.

His heart stopped when he saw you, smiling graciously at the middle-aged woman who was reciting her order. Even under the shade of the visor, you seemed to glow. You hair was down, no hairnet in sight. He saw just how long it was, going past your elbows. He saw that you had two ear piercings on one ear and only one on the other. Bucky also saw that you had a tattoo above your ear, right before where your hair grew. He was so enchanted by your presence that he didn’t even notice that he was the next person.

“Hey, dude,” the man behind him tapped his shoulder. Bucky turned around, a bit irritated that he would interrupt the trance that he was in. “She’s been calling you for like three minutes now.”

Bucky’s cheeks reddened, mumbling an incoherent, “Sorry.” He walked up to the register to be greeted by your smiling face.

“What can I get you today?”

Bucky had never been that close to you and his heart started beating a million times a minute because of it. He stumbled over his words when ordering his usual, mentally scolding himself for being so nervous. He thought he made an absolute fool of himself in front of you. If he couldn’t even tell you his order, how was he supposed to strike a conversation with you that went beyond wanting a large Dr. Pepper with his order?

Bucky felt like he blew his only chance with you. Because who would really want to give a chance to the blubbering man who couldn’t even say his order properly?

He stopped bringing up the Shawarma place to the team, not wanting to go back and embarrass himself in front of you for the second time. It had been a week since that last encounter but it was still fresh in his mind.

Tony was throwing a birthday party for Bucky that night, despite Bucky’s protests that everyone he knew was either dead or about to be dead, with the exception of Steve. Tony dismissed his concerns and reassured Bucky that his party will be grand. Knowing that no amount of complaints will ever stop a Stark party, Bucky just put on his best suit and the “Birthday Boy” sash that Tony insisted he wore.

“So as everyone knows,” Tony spoke into the microphone, catching everyone’s attention. “Today is Mr. Bucky Barnes’s birthday and to celebrate that, I decided to get our favorite place to cater tonight’s event. Shawarmas for everyone!”

Bucky’s eyes widened as he saw the Shawarmas being wheeled into the compound. He was torn; He wanted to see you but at the same time he wished that you weren’t working his party, especially because he was turning a hundred-something years old. And if his moment of foolishness and absolute awkwardness wasn’t enough to turn you off, he was certain his age would be the last straw.

“She’s here, you know.”

Bucky jumped at the sound of Steve’s voice. He blushed, “What are you talking about?”

Steve chuckled, placing a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, “Pal, you know I’m not stupid, right?”

He groaned, realizing that Steve caught on to his little crush on you. “I don’t know how to talk to her.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Bucky that I know.” Steve stated. “Bucky, take a deep breath and just talk to her. She won’t bite.”

Bucky nodded, knowing that Steve was right and started making his way over to you. I can do this, he repeated to himself.

“Hi.”

You looked up from your station to see a nervous Bucky, fidgeting with his fingers and giving dry laughs to fill the silence between you two. “Hi, what can I get you?”

“My name is Bucky.” He blurted out. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for, dumbass, the voice in his head hissed. “What’s yours?”

“Y/N.” You smiled. “Nice sash, birthday boy.”

Bucky had completely forgotten the embarrassing sash he sported, complete with goofy pictures of the Avengers and himself surrounding the words “Birthday Boy.” He wanted to kill Tony for that. “Thanks.”

“You like Shawarmas a lot, don’t you?” You laughed, starting to create his usual order.

Bucky’s eyebrows raised in surprise as he watched you prepare the order he always gets, “You remember my order.”

“You’re a bit hard to forget.”

Bucky’s heart swelled at your words but then realized he had a metal arm. Of course he would be hard to forget.

“Yeah,” He continued. “The arm is hard not to notice.”

“Not talking about the arm but you have a point.” You responded, sliding the plate towards him.

“What were you talking about?”

You blushed, debating if you should flirt with him. What’s the worse that can happen? “You have the nicest eyes I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to forget that.”

Now it was Bucky’s turn to blush. Had it been 1940 all over again, he would’ve maintained his composure and swept you off your feet with a subtle, yet corny, response. But his mind went blank. All he could do was utter a broken, “Thank you.”

By the end of the night, you had accepted that you misread Bucky’s signs. He was indeed interested in the Shawarma and not you. After you complimented his eyes, he walked away after muttering a “thank you” and didn’t speak to you for the rest of the night. You kept your head down, too embarrassed to look up, in fear that he would be looking right at you, laughing at your attempt to flirt with him.

Bucky was cursing himself for not making his move. He had the perfect window to. He watched the guests leave the party and slowly but surely, the Shawarmas were being finished.

By 11PM, you and your co-workers started packing up, getting ready to leave. Bucky watched as you started to take apart the equipment, panicking because he knew this was the last chance he could have. He knew he couldn’t face you outside of the party, not after two failed attempts.

He took the last sip of his drink and made his way over to you. “Y/N!”

You looked back and saw Bucky, reaching out for you. You turned to your co-workers, “I gotta take care of something. I’ll meet you in the truck.”

Bucky stopped in front of you. This is it, Barnes, make it count. “Would you like to go out and get some food with me?”

It took you by surprise. You didn’t expect him to ask you out, especially after he walked away from your attempt to flirt. You watched his eyes shift from your face to his feet, worried glances, thinking that you would reject him. You couldn’t help but get lost in the blue of his eyes. You meant it when you said he had the prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen.

It took you all your might to not melt when he was staring at you at your job a week ago. His small smile as he stared at you, lips slightly parted, chest rising up and down, slowly, and his metal fingers toying with the hem of his t-shirt. He was a sight to see.

“Y-you don’t have to say yes.”

You didn’t realize how long you were enchanted by his eyes until he spoke up again. “What? Huh?”

“I said you don’t have to say yes, YN.” He sounded defeated.

“No, no.” You shook your head and watched his face drop with even more discouragement. Your eyes grew wide once you realized what you said. “No! I mean, yes, I would love to go out to get food with you.”

You saw him sigh in relief, “Oh thank God.”

You reached for the pen in your pocket and grabbed his human arm, scribbling down your phone number. “Call me, yeah?”

Bucky gave you a small nod and watched you wave goodbye before you joined the rest of your co-workers.

Fuck, Bucky thought. Where the hell am I supposed to take her if the only place I go to is the one she works at?

122 notes · View notes

detectivejay-chuckles-halstead · 5 years ago

Text

Jay Halstead x Reader Imagine

Description: Your and Jay’s lives are turned upside down by an unexpected surprise.

Words: 8185

Warnings: Pregnancy

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Your and Jay’s relationship had been no secret when it started, and you’d been told to end it as soon as Voight found out. There was something there, though, something that you wanted to hold onto. So you told Voight in no uncertain terms no. Either he let it continue, or you left the unit. He wasn’t happy with you, giving you all the grunt work, splitting you up from Jay. Eventually, though, he realized neither of you let it get in the way of your jobs. In fact, he’d told you he’d never seen a stronger partnership. And that was that. It just took six months, and nearly broke you up. Instead, you both had come out stronger and with a more solid relationship.

It was a tough case. A baby was found in a duffel bag next to the lake, nearly dead, barely holding onto life. It got to you, but you never let your emotions get the better of you on a case. This time was different, and you couldn’t figure out why. As soon as you and Jay got in the car to go back to the district to begin figuring out who did this, the waterworks started. He looked over at you, confused and worried.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, hand resting on your shoulder. You rummaged in the glovebox to find a napkin, knowing the two of you had them stockpiled from late nights and early mornings of shared meals in the car. It didn’t take you long to find one, wiping away the tears and blowing your nose.

“I’m fine, Jay,” you assured him. “Let’s just catch whoever did this.” He gave your shoulder a squeeze before starting the car and heading back to the district.

-----

Over the next three weeks, it had happened two more times. A case had made you openly cry at work. Jay had been fretting over you, which made the mood swings go in the opposite direction. At the same time, you wanted to jump his bones every chance you had. Not that he had any complaints. This was one of those times.

“Jay, how many times do I have to tell you, I’m fine!” you reminded him for the hundredth time that day when you got back to his place. He’d been trying to keep you away from the crime scenes, not sure if you were going to burst into tears or not.

“I’m not saying you’re not,” he responded, which got a stern look in return. “I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, okay. I’m just worried.”

“I don’t need you to be worried about me!” You saw the look of hurt on his face, so you took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down. You’re blood pressure was probably high, and you knew that wasn’t a good thing. “I appreciate that you care, but you have no need to worry.”

“Okay.” You smiled and nodded, squeezing his hand. Just looking at him made you want him. Your eyes flickered from his down to his lips and back, you brought your bottom lip between your teeth with a smirk. “What?” he then asked, smiling, before your lips were on his roughly, your hands in his hair.

He didn’t protest, hands sliding up the back of your shirt, undoing the clasp on your bra. It was so familiar, but never did it feel boring or repetitive. You pulled back, breaths coming fast and heavy, quickly getting rid of his shirt. There was a split second before he did the same, your bra falling to the floor as well. It happened so fast from the time you first kissed him until you fell into bed with him, need growing and ever present. Every one of his touches sent electricity through your body, fueling your need for him. It was like sparks, something you’d never felt before.

“If we keep going like this, you’re gonna break me,” he joked as you fell back onto the bed with a satisfied sigh.

“You’re not gonna break,” you assured him, turning your head to the side to look at him through half lidded eyes. He pushed your hair out of your face, making sure to get the pieces that were sticking to your skin.

“I beg to differ. I swear, we’ve been going at it like rabbits recently.” Your brow furrowed. “I’m not saying I don’t like it, because believe me. I like it.”

“Good save, Halstead,” you said, kissing him again.

-----

“I think you were upset with her. I mean, she cheated on you, man,” Jay told the suspect, trying to sympathize. The two of you played good-cop-bad-cop pretty well, and you got the short straw of being bad cop, your arms crossed over your chest. “So, you went over to her house and you saw another dude there, you lost it. I get it. I mean, if my girl was cheating on me and then I saw another dude at her place. Well.” Your stomach churned, even though you knew he was just trying to get the guy to confess.

“Even if I did it, which I didn’t, you don’t got anything on me,” the suspect reminded the two of you. That was your cue to pull out the file, slapping the pictures down in front of him on the table, one by one.

“I’ve got a partial fingerprint match on the door handle, on both sides. The murder weapon at your house. A dead ex that you had beef with. And a dead man who just happened to be seeing your ex.” You caught sight of one of the bloodier pictures, stomach churning again. “At this point, we can pin it on you. If you confess, help us understand why, we-” You cut yourself off, swallowing. “We.” That was it, you couldn’t do it, rushing out of the interrogation room to the trashcan in the hallway.

You heard the door open and shut, footsteps behind you as Jay held back your hair. Your lunch was out of your system and you were just dry heaving at that point. His free hand rubbed soft circles on your lower back as you held onto the trashcan until your knuckles were white.

“I’ve got you,” he assured you as you coughed a couple of times. A hand came next to your face, offering you a cup of water. You took it, looking up at Voight with a groan as another wave of nausea rolled over you.

“I want you to go lay down on the couch in the break room,” Voight told you. “Halstead is going to finish up this interrogation, get that confession, and then drive you home. Understood?” You nodded, pushing yourself into an upright position before sluggishly walking to the break room, feeling both men’s eyes on your back and quiet whispering between them as you walked away.

You’d fallen asleep on the couch, waking up when Jay gently shook your shoulder. When you opened your eyes, it was to his pretty face. He leaned in, kissing you softly.

“My breath smells like vomit,” you warned him, but he didn’t seem to care, kissing you anyway. “Time to go home?”

“Time to go home,” he agreed, helping you up. “You feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling better.” You still took the opportunity to lean into him, his arm around your shoulder. “I don’t know what that was all about, though. One minute I’m fine, the next…” You trailed off, not sure what to say about it.

“Well, let’s go home. And I’ll make you some soup or something, okay?” You just nodded, walking out with him to the car. Whatever was going on with you, you weren’t one-hundred percent sure it was just some stomach bug.

-----

“I’ll take just two large black coffees,” you told the barista at your normal coffee shop. Jay was waiting for you in the car so that the two of you could head to the district for work that day. The barista looked at you funny when you ordered.

“One of those isn’t for you, is it dear?” She was an older woman, probably in her mid-sixties. You’d seen her most day’s you’d came in, both with and without Jay.

“Yes, one of them is for me,” you laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke, but her brow furrowed in response to your laugh. “My order hasn’t changed in over a year.”

“Well, coffee isn’t good for the baby.” That got you stop in your tracks, looking at her with a lot of confusion evident in your face. “Honey, you’ve been glowing the past few weeks. Plus, I’ve noticed how you’ve been hanging off that man of yours recently. You really didn’t know you’re pregnant?”

“Can you just get those coffees please?” you asked, leaning against the counter. There was no way you were pregnant, right? Yet, it made sense. How you wanted to jump Jay every chance you got, the crying, the mood swings, getting sick in the middle of an interrogation. She didn’t say anything else to you when she handed you the coffee, and you went back out to the car completely quiet. Jay seemed to notice pretty quickly that something was up.

“You feeling okay, babe?” he asked as you set the coffees in the cup holders.

“I need you to stop at a drugstore on the way. Any one, doesn’t matter,” you answered, keeping your hands in your lap and not touching the coffee. He still looked worried, but didn’t press further as he began the drive to the nearest drugstore, parking on the street.

“You want me to come in with you?” You just shook your head no as you got out of the car, slamming the car door shut behind you.

You didn’t think you’d be standing in the aisle in front of a few rows of pregnancy tests. Which one were you supposed to pick any way? Nobody had ever told you what kind of pregnancy test was the best one to try. Did it even matter, if they all did the same thing. Instead of pondering and looking at boxes, you just grabbed the first one you saw before making a beeline towards the cashier. You hoped whoever it was didn’t say anything to you, not wanting to deal with the awkward conversation. You paid, shoved the test -- wrapped in a plastic bag -- in your coat pocket before going back out.

The ride to the district was quiet, Jay not asking any more questions despite getting a lot of side-eye glances from him. You still didn’t touch your coffee. When you got to the district, you grabbed his hand, pulling him into the locker room.

“I need you right now,” you told him, getting a smirk. “Not like that you perv.” You pulled the pregnancy test out of your pocket.

“You think you’re pregnant?” he asked quickly as soon as he saw the box.

“I don’t know. Maybe. It would make sense. And then the barista at the coffee shop told me I was glowing and that coffee is bad for the baby. It got me to thinking. Plus, I’m late, like really late, but I’ve never been regular so I didn’t think anything of it. I just...I need you here, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, taking a seat on one of the bences. You let out a sigh before going into one of the stalls, taking the test. You sat it on the sink, setting the timer, and then sitting next to Jay.

“I know we haven’t talked about a baby,” you told him. “Do you even want kids?”

“Of course I do,” he answered. “And sure, maybe we haven’t talked about it, but I know I wouldn’t want to have kids with anybody else.” You just held his hand, waiting for the timer to go off on your phone. When it did, you didn’t move, not sure if you wanted to know. It was limbo, and you were able to ignore the possibility for as long you stayed sitting.

“Together?” he suggested softly. That was a good idea, standing up with him as you both walked over to the sink. With shaking hand, you picked up the test. Two lines. You were pregnant.

-----

“Why can’t we tell anyone?” he asked you for the millionth time, which was really starting to give you a migraine on top of the one you already had.

“Because Jay, I don’t want to be put on desk duty yet. I’m not ready for that. Plus, it’s too early. I don’t want to tell anyone until I’m out of the first trimester,” you answered for the millionth time. You rested your head against the cool window as he drove. “Can you drive any faster?”

“I could, but I won’t.” You knew he was excited for this baby, and didn't want anything to happen to you. But it was stressing you out even more. You weren’t a ticking time bomb, or made of glass, but he seemed to think you were.

“Pull the car over,” you told him. He didn’t just kept driving. “Jay, pull the damn car over.” You gave him a stern look, with tears in your eyes, which got him to pull over. You were just so damn frustrated.

"What's up?" he asked softly.

"Where do I start, Jay?" You really didn't have the answer to that. "I'm pregnant, not an invalid. I know you care and are worried, but I need you to cool it, okay?"

"Wh-?" You cut him off before he could ask a stupid question.

"Jay. Just listen to me," you told him, turning in your seat to look at him, knowing you guys were already going to be late to work. "I love you. I love that you care." You took his hand in yours. "But I need you to support me, not coddle me, okay? You can drive like a normal person. You can let me stand up without having to be next to me. You can let me keep doing my job. And in a couple months, I will go on desk duty, I promise. Just, please, tell me that you understand that?"

"I just don't want anything to happen to you or the baby," he reminded you, which was sweet. You just had to stop him from going overboard.

"I know, Jay. And I'm not telling you not to worry about us or to not care. I just need you to cool it a bit," you replied. He nodded, leaning forward and kissing you softly.

"Let's get to work," he mumbled against your lips. When you pulled back, both of you had a smile. As he drove, it was at an actual speed and not grandpa style, which you knew was him understanding what you said.

-----

"Sergeant," you said as you walked into Voight's office, Jay right behind you. He shut the door before Voight had the chance to respond.

"Is there something the two of you need?" Voight asked. You couldn't help but chew on your bottom lip, not sure how to say it.

You were far from ready to tell Voight, but both you and Jay needed to head out early for a doctor's appointment. Voight had to know to approve it, and you were terrified he'd put you on desk duty as soon as he found out. Jay's hand was on your lower back, feeling his thumb rubbing gently. Usually, if the two of you were anywhere near Voight, it was a hands off rule. Not this time.

"Sergeant, we both need to leave for a couple hours around one," Jay told him, getting a furrowed brow and confusion from the older man.

"Is there a reason two of my detectives -- the two who are in a relationship -- have to leave for a couple of hours?"

"We know how bad it sounds, sir," you assured him. "But it's not for anything untoward. Sergeant...Hank. I have a doctor's appointment today. I need Jay there because well…"

"I know you're pregnant, Y/N," Hank cut you off. That was a bombshell, not sure how he knew. He seemed to sense your own confusion. "I remember when Camille was pregnant with Justin. Saw it with you over the past couple months."

"Sergeant, I won't let this get in the way of my job. And I'll go on desk duty as soon as my doctor tells me to," you quickly said, getting Voight to raise his hand to cut you off.

"You'll go on desk duty at five months," he corrected. "If you leave the district for any reason job related, you wear a vest. And Halstead stays with you at all times. Got it?" You figured he'd have his own rules, but it sucked. It made sense though.

"Yes, sir," you answered, Jay nodding in agreement. The two of you left his office, sitting at your respective desks.

It was a slow day, mostly just catching up on paperwork. You'd been popping mints like candy to help keep the nausea at bay. Recently, the morning sickness had gotten worse, and you were really just trying to keep it together. Jay had noticed your mints had run out, tossing you a brand new pack from his pocket.

"You're the best," you told him before you noticed the time. "Ready to go?"

You didn't know what to say as Jay drove to the office. This was the first of many upcoming appointments, still trying to wrap your head around the fact that you were pregnant. You quietly filled out the paperwork, a new kind of paperwork you'd never seen before. Jay looked over your shoulder as you did, smiling as you filled out the 'Father' section of the paperwork.

"What's on your mind?" he asked you when you sat back down.

"It's just a lot, Jay," you answered, leaning your head on his shoulder. "This wasn't part of the plan. Not for a while at least. But I'm happy it is with you."

"I am too. We'll figure this out, one step at a time," he assured, kissing the top of your head.

"One step at a time," you agreed, closing your eyes as you waited.

"Y/N," the nurse finally called, a clipboard in hand and with a smile. You hesitated until Jay stood up, offering you his hand.

The two of you followed the nurse to an exam room where she took her vitals, and did a quick assessment. Then, she handed you a gown to change into, saying the doctor would be in shortly. Jay didn't say anything the entire time, arms crossed over his chest and leaning back in his chair.

"Hi, I'm Emily Jackson," the doctor said as she walked in with a smile. You shook her hand. "And you must be Dad," she said, directing her attention at Jay. That got him to smile. "Are you ready to see your baby?"

"Yeah," you agreed, laying back on the table. Jay stood up, standing beside you and holding your hand.

"Well, let's do it." She got everything ready, and you looked at the screen of the ultrasound machine. "So, by the looks of it, you're about thirteen weeks, which is a little further along than I'd like. From your paperwork, you just found out in the last week, right?"

"Yeah. I've never been regular. And with the stresses of being a cop, it was easy to overlook the symptoms," you told her.

"It's not uncommon. We're going to make sure to start prenatal vitamins today. Measurements look good. Baby's moving around a little bit. Do you want to hear your baby's heartbeat?"

"Yes," Jay answered for you, squeezing your hand. You were already tearing up from seeing the baby on the ultrasound screen. You heard Emily hit a couple of buttons and then you heard it. Your heart skipped a beat, tears beginning to drip down your cheeks as you looked over at Jay.

"That's our baby," you managed to say as his hand stroked through your hair.

"That's our baby," he agreed with a smile. You could see tears glistening in his own eyes. The two of you looked back over at the screen.

"I'll print off some of the pictures for you guys. Go ahead and get dressed. Take your time. One of the nurses at the front desk can get those to you, get you the instructions for prenatal vitamins, and get you set for your next appointment, okay?" she told you as she stood up, handing you some tissues.

When she left, you turned back to Jay who was wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

"At least I'm not the only one crying this time," you joked with a smile as you used the tissues to wipe your eyes. "I feel less crazy."

"You're pregnant, not crazy." He kissed you softly, whispering against your lips, "We're having a baby."

-----

The next week, the team had caught a case. It was a home invasion gone wrong, two college kids dead. Voight had kept you and Jay in house for most of it since it seemed pretty cut and dry. That was until the suspect told Atwater and Ruzek that it was a neighbor's idea, being under the assumption that the victims were from wealthy families.

"Y/L/N and Halstead, go to this neighbor's house and bring him in for an interview," you were told. "And don't forget what we talked about."

There was no way in Hell Jay would let you forget, going downstairs to get ready. He helped you strap on your vest, feeling like it weighed twenty pounds heavier now.

"If I wear one, you wear one, Jay," you tried to tell him, but he just laughed it off.

"I'll be fine. You're the one with the precious cargo." You huffed, but didn't press it further, pulling your flannel shirt over the vest, buttoning it up. "Can I at least drive?"

"You're funny, Y/N," Jay told you, kissing you softly. "Let's go get this guy."

The two of you got in the car, you bringing up the fact that neither of you had a spare room in either of your apartments. He just brushed it off, for now at least since you weren't backing down.

When the two of you got to the neighbor's place, you weren't expecting him to open fire on the two of you as soon as you got out of the car.

"5021 George. Shots fired at police. Send backup. Plain clothes officers on scene," he radioed grabbing his backup vest out the backseat and throwing it on.

You peeked up over the car when the gunshots stopped, Jay following suit. The two of you made your way up to the front porch, your hand on his shoulder. You could hear police sirens in the distance, knowing it wasn't going to be long before backup showed up.

The two of you breached the door, guns ready. He took the left, you took the right. The two of you were clearing each room. Your hand was on the doorknob of what you assumed was the bathroom. That's when shots rang out again. This time, though, the wind was knocked out of you as you hit the ground hard. It felt like you couldn't breathe as the door flew open, the neighbor running.

"Y/N!" you heard Jay call out as you tried to breathe. "5021 George, roll an ambo to our location. Suspect has shot a cop, he shot my partner," Jay radioed, seeming to be torn for a split second between chasing the suspect and helping you.

"Go!" you coughed, looking him in the eye as you did. He listened, running after the suspect. The edges of your vision began to get hazy, but you didn't feel any blood. At the same time, all you could feel was the pain each time you breathed.

When you tried to sit up, it made it worse. Someone fell to their knees next to you, hearing Jay's voice and feeling his hands on your chest and stomach.

"Talk to me," he told you, undoing your flannel to see that the vest stopped the bullet.

"Hurts to breathe," you groaned.

"Just stay down okay? The ambo is on the way and they'll get you to Med," he then assured you. You just groaned again, not wanting to go to Med or have Jay fretting over you anymore than he already has been.

-----

Will was standing in front of you as you sat on the bed at Med, clipboard in his hand with a stern look at Jay who was sitting in the plastic chair next to you.

"When were you gonna tell me I'm gonna be an uncle?" Will asked with a smirk.

"Why do you think I set up that dinner for next week?" Jay answered. "So?"

"The baby is fine, no worries. The vest was the only thing that caused damage, a few bruised ribs, two cracked. A lot of superficial bruising. No strenuous," Will cleared his throat at that, causing you to blush, "activities. Desk work for the next few weeks."

"Until she goes on maternity leave," Voight corrected from the doorway. "Can I have a minute alone with my two detectives, Doc?" Will nodded, leaving the two of you with Voight.

"Sarge, I'm fine," you assured him, but he wouldn't let you say anything else.

"Yes, I know you're okay. However, we almost lost the guy because of Halstead hesitating," Voight told you. "So, from the time you get back from your three week medical leave, and I'm enforcing that pretty hard, you will be on desk duty in Intelligence until you leave for maternity. Which, I am enforcing at eight months. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," you answered before the rest of the team filed in with gifts. It seemed like the baby was out of the bassinet on this one.

-----

The bruising had started to turn an ugly yellow on your chest, about to come off medical leave. You were going crazy, not sure if you could handle being cooped up for much longer. Sure you'd made your way around Chicago, doing some shopping, hanging out with some friends, whatever you could. But not having Jay around sucked. It was different when you were going home with him on those late nights, instead of waiting up for him.

You noticed the baby bump that day. It was barely there, but you noticed it. You'd spent most of the day on the couch, watching bad TV and eating ice cream, sending Jay a text to bring you some more.

It was getting late, the sun having set hours ago. You'd been falling asleep on the couch, blanket pulled up over you when you first felt it, which woke you up pretty fast. Your hand rested on your stomach as you felt persistent cramping. You knew it was far from normal.

The first thing you did was call for an ambulance. Jay wasn't there, and you were scared. The second thing you did was call Jay, not getting an answer. The ambulance got there, getting you loaded up. You couldn't help but cry, telling them you needed to get ahold of Jay.

That's when you called Voight.

"Y/N, why are you calling so late?" he asked. You could hear the bustle of the bullpen in the background, so you knew they were still at the district.

"I-" You sniffled. "I need Jay."

"We're in the middle of a case," he reminded you, which caused a choked off sob. "Are those sirens?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I need to talk to Jay." There was a brief pause before you heard the phone exchange hands.

"What's going on?" Jay asked, worried, which caused you to cry some more. "Talk to me, please."

"I'm in an ambulance. Going to Med," you told him.

"I'm on my way, okay? You're gonna be okay." The phone hung up, and you were shaking, not sure what was going on.

Natalie was your doctor when you got to Med, rushing you into a room. You could see an ultrasound waiting in the room. As soon as they got you moved over, your shirt was rolled up, and Natalie did the ultrasound.

"Is-Am I?" You didn't know how to ask.

"You are not having a miscarriage," Natalie said calmly with a smile. "But we're going to make sure everything is alright and figure out why you're cramping. Okay?" You nodded. "Is Jay on his way?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he should be here. He...is Will here?" Natalie nodded motioning at a nurse to get Will for you.

"Hey, Jay just called me okay?" Will said as soon as he stepped into the room, grabbing the gown for you to change into. "He's almost here, going as fast as he can." You couldn't help but sniffle, grabbing the tissue he offered to you.

"This is all my fault," you managed to tell him. "I didn't want to tell people. I didn't want to go on desk duty. Then I got shot and now...now there's something wrong with the baby, Will. And it's my fault."

Will brought you into a hug, letting you cry it out. That was until Jay came in, switching out with his brother. You didn't have to look up to know it was Jay. The way he held you was different, safer. You felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.

"Let's get you changed into the gown, okay?" Jay finally said.

"I'm sorry," you told him as he helped you get your shirt off before tying the gown for you.

"This isn't your fault," he assured you, sitting in the chair next to your bed.

"But it is." You were insistent about this. If you couldn't keep a baby safe inside you, how were you supposed to do it when the baby was actually there.

You didn't say much else the entire time you were there. It was a mix of silence and soft crying. Jay didn't say much either, but he held you when you cried and held your hand when you weren't.

"So we have all your tests back," Natalie finally said with a smile. "You're healthy. The baby is healthy, okay?"

"So then what happened?" Jay asked, curious.

"The stress of getting shot didn't help. Stress can cause cramping. Also, it's honestly leaning towards round ligament pain since your body isn't used to a growing baby. It's one-hundred percent completely normal," she answered. "I had it when I was pregnant with Owen. If I wasn't a doctor, I would have thought the worst too."

"Do I...Should I take more time off work?" you asked.

"It wouldn't hurt," she answered. "I'm going to let you and Jay talk about that though. Medically, I don't see it as necessary, but if you decide to take more time off, I'll sign off on it. For however long."

You nodded, at least knowing that it was normal. When Natalie left, you heard Jay sigh, looking over as he rubbed his face with his free hand.

"Do you want to take more time off?" Jay asked you.

"Had you asked me this morning, I would have said I wanted to go back today," you answered. "But you heard Natalie. The stress doesn't help."

"Yeah, babe. But she also said it's some kind of ligament pain and it's normal," he reminded you. "If you come back to work, I can keep you company for a good portion of the day."

"You mean keep an eye on me?" you corrected, hoping he didn't go back to overprotective dad mode.

"Y/N," he started but you cut him off.

"I'm going to take another couple weeks off, Jay. I just don't feel ready." He nodded, handing you your shirt. You weren't going to lie, you still blamed yourself despite the constant assurances it wasn't your fault. Maybe that would change.

-----

"Jay," you said one night, two months later. You'd gone back to work finally, which made Jay happy. Though, you were more tired after work than usual. Probably from growing a human inside you.

"Hmmm?" he asked, hands rubbing your feet. He had magic hands in your opinion. It didn't help that your feet had been swelling if you stood up for too long.

"Give me your hand." You'd rather he didn't stop rubbing your feet, but you knew this was important. You pressed his palm to the side of your ever growing belly, watching his face, knowing it might take a minute. But when it did, you saw the light in his eyes, the amazement and wonder on his face.

"Is that?" he asked, looking at you. You just nodded. It had taken a while for the baby to start kicking where Jay might be able to feel it, usually it was your back, bladder, or kidney.

"That's...wow," he told you. "That's our baby."

"That's our baby. That's your baby," you further stated with a smile, your hand resting on top of his. He didn't move his hand, and the baby kept slowly kicking the same spot.

"While the baby has your attention, I wanted to ask you something." He hummed in response, knowing you had his attention, even if it didn’t seem like it. "I was thinking we could find a place, our place. I don't want to try and get a baby back and forth. And neither of our places have a spare room for a nursery." His hand didn't move from your stomach, but he looked up at you.

"Are you suggesting we move in together?" He asked, still smiling.

You bit your bottom lip, nodding. He nodded too, the both of you smiling until he kissed you. It was nice.

"I love you, you know that?" you said, cupping his cheek. He kissed you again in response, knowing that was his way of telling you he loved you too.

-----

It didn't take long for the two of you to find a nice two-bedroom in Humboldt Park. It was nice to have two detectives' salaries, that was for sure. You'd been slowing down a bit, six months pregnant, taking a toll on you.

You'd began nesting too, despite how much you tried to suppress it. It involved your and Jay's days off at different stores, getting furniture, decoration, and paint for the nursery. When you felt like you had everything you needed, you and Jay began getting everything together.

"Do you really have to be in here as I paint?" Jay asked. You'd sat yourself on the floor, legs crossed as you ate a bowl of ice cream. He'd tried kicking you out, saying the fumes would be bad, so you'd made the counter argument of the fan blowing out of the open window.

"Yes. I have to make sure you do it right," you answered, watching him.

His shorts had spots if pastel yellow from painting, so did the white t-shirt. You could see the muscles of his back and shoulders, so defined as he reached up to paint higher. You moaned softly, spoon loosely hanging out of your mouth.

"You liking what you see?" he asked when he looked over his shoulder at you with a smile, catching you staring.

"Mhm," you agreed.

"Do you want me to keep painting?" You weren't sure, torn between the options of jumping his bones or eating ice cream. "We can put the ice cream in the freezer for later."

"Help me up," you told him with a smile, setting the bowl on the floor.

"Next time, maybe a chair?" he suggested, taking a hold of your hands and pulling you up with a chuckle. As soon as you were up, you were kissing him.

-----

It had taken the two of you -- mostly Jay -- an entire weekend to get the nursery set up. It was hard to keep your hands off him, many breaks. The doctor and all the pregnancy books had told you it was normal to have a boost in sex drive in the middle of pregnancy. They didn't lie apparently.

The two of you stood in the doorway, looking into the room. He stood behind you, hands on your stomach as you leaned back into him.

"We did a good job," he told you, chin on your shoulder.

"You mean you did a good job." He laughed kissing your cheek.

"You supervised. And made sure I took much needed, fun breaks." You wanted to slap him, but you didn't. He could be snarky when he wanted to be.

That night you woke up, shaking his shoulder after debating it for twenty minutes. You couldn't sleep.

"Yeah?" he asked, eyes closed and half asleep still. Which got you shaking his shoulder again. He rolled over, looking at you with half open eyes. "Can I help you?" he then asked with a smile.

"Can you go to the store?" you asked, feeling kind of bad that you woke him up now that he was looking at you.

"What do you want me to get?" He sat up, knowing he wasn't going to get out of it now that you'd woken him up.

"Mashed potatoes, peanut butter, pickles, and hot sauce," you answered.

"Please tell me you're not eating it all together?" That got you tearing up, feeling like he was judging you. It wouldn't be the first time you started crying over seemingly nothing.

"Sorry, sorry," he said as he got up, getting his pants on. "I'll be back soon, okay? Mashed potatoes, peanut butter, pickles, and hot sauce." You nodded, getting up with him because you had to pee.

When he got back, you weren't feeling it. Plus, he'd taken long enough for you to start eating the leftover Chinese food from that afternoon.

"I'm sorry, Jay," you apologized when he put everything away, looking exhausted.

"It's okay, babe." He kissed you, sitting down next to you on the couch. "I knew what I signed up for when that test came up positive."

"Antonio warned you, didn't he?" you asked, getting a laugh and a nod as he leaned his head on your shoulder, hand on your stomach. You couldn't help but smile, knowing there wasn't anybody else you'd rather be doing this with.

-----

You didn’t care whether or not you found out the sex of the baby before the birth. It wasn’t something that was overly important to you, as long as it came out healthy. Jay was the one who wanted to know, letting Kim take reign on setting up a gender reveal and baby shower. It was a nice day in April, having just started warming up. You still dressed in a floral long sleeve shirt and a pair of maternity jeans.

You could remember hating going shopping for new clothes when your clothes no longer fit. You’d tried putting on a pair of jeans to go to work, not able to get them buttoned. Jay had walked in on you sitting in your underwear and tank top, crying on the bed. It was enough for you to call off work, Jay taking you clothes shopping the next day.

However, when you and Jay were out at the store, you saw the shirt, adding it to the cart. You knew Kim was planning the gender reveal and baby shower soon, so you took the opportunity to get something nice.

The day of the gender reveal, Jay drove you to the park where Kim and Adam had already set everything up just a couple blocks away. You didn’t have any family left, but everyone that was there were your new family. You’d found them, built it from the ground up, and you couldn’t be happier.

“Y/N!” Kim yelled as soon as she saw you and Jay. It looked like half the district was there, as well as quite a few people from Med and from Firehouse 51 that you’d visit quite often for one reason or another. It was nice, being liked enough for so many people to show up for you and Jay.

“Badges or Bows?” you asked Kim, leaning into Jay, his hand rubbing gently on your lower back.

“I know it’s very gendered, but that’s what this is for. Hopefully, badges either way,” Kim assured you, bringing you into a gentle hug.

“Thank you for this,” Jay told her, hugging her once she was done with you.

“Any time. Now, let’s socialize and then we’ll get to the reason we’re all here,” she suggested, getting a nod from both of you.

Jay stayed by your side the entire time as everyone congratulated the both of you, hands on your stomach. You felt like a party favor by the end of it, having to ask people to stop putting their hands on you. They were understanding at least, not arguing it all with smiles. Towards the end, Kim pulled you and Jay to the front of the crowd, Trudy holding the black balloon. Kim was the one to hand you and Jay two safety pins.

“Whenever you guys are ready,” she told you. You couldn’t help but smile at Jay as he counted down from three. The two of you both hit the balloon with the safety pins at the same time, pink confetti falling over the both of you.

“A girl,” he said with a smile, and a bit of amazement. He’d been so sure it was going to be a boy. At least he didn’t seem upset over the outcome, seeming to be pretty happy about it. The party continued for a couple more hours, eating some cake, laughing, having fun. By the end of it though, you were exhausted.

You were so glad you wore tennis shoes, sitting down on the couch and kicking them off. It took a little bit of maneuvering to get your shoes off, sighing when you did.

“A girl,” Jay said as he sat beside you, hand on your stomach, kissing next to his hand softly. At this point, you were glad it was just you and him, not feeling like you were being paraded around. Your fingers combed through his hair with a smile, the baby kicking softly. “We didn’t even talk about girl names.”

“We didn’t, but you were so sure it was a boy,” you reminded him. That got Jay to chuckle, sending vibrations through your stomach. “Do you have any ideas?”

“No, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” he assured you before he pulled back from your stomach to kiss you. His stubble scratched against your skin softly, your hand cupping his cheek as you felt the roughness against your palm.

“Do you think you could rub my feet?” you softly asked, chewing on your bottom softly. “It was a long day.” That got him to laugh again. You didn’t think you would ever grow tired of his laugh.

“Of course, babe.” That made you happy, Jay helping you get your feet up onto his lap before he started working on your feet. Leaning back against the couch, you already began relaxing, one hand resting on your own stomach with a smile and eyes closed.

The closer you were to the end of your pregnancy, the more nervous you got. Yet, it was so exciting. You could already see Jay holding a small bundle with a tired smile on his face. And you could not wait.

-----

Voight made you go on maternity leave at eight months, just like he’d told you nearly six months ago. That didn’t stop you from showing up at the district with lunch for Jay towards the end of the pregnancy. He’d texted you telling you it had been a rough day, so you’d thought it would be a nice surprise. It was difficult getting up the stairs, Trudy coming up to your side to make sure you made it.

“Thank you, Sarge,” you told her with a smile once the two of you reached the bullpen.

“You’re looking like you’re ready to pop, Y/N.” You just laughed and smiled, walking over to Jay’s desk.

“From the hot dog stand down the street,” you told Jay as you sat down with a groan, sighing once you were down. Jay smiled, pulling out the hot dog.

“Y/N,” Voight said with a smile. “Maternity leave treating you good?”

“I feel like a whale right now, Sargeant. And feeling like I’d climb the walls if I wasn’t so big,” you answered, hands resting on your stomach again. “Plus, I missed this place a little too much to stay away.”

“That’s what maternity is for,” he reminded you as Jay ate. “But, I do expect you to bring that baby by occasionally. Have you guys come up with a name?” Kim seemed interested in this conversation, you noticed as she stopped working.

“You’ll find out when the baby comes.” You and Jay had thought of several names, knowing you’d decide on one when you saw her. “I should probably get home, needing to get a few more things ready for her.”

“I’ll walk you out to the car,” Jay told you with his mouth full. You couldn’t help but smile, wiping the bit of mustard off his bottom lip. “Thank you, babe.”

“Any time,” you assured him, letting him help you stand up. Your hips were killing you, groaning as you stood. “I will say, I am ready for this pregnancy to be over with, Jay. Your daughter has been playing soccer with my bladder all day.” At first you didn’t notice the wetness, until Jay looked at you confused.

“I noticed.” When you looked down, you knew it wasn’t your bladder.

“Jay, my water broke.” He was about to take the last bite of his hot dog when you said that, cramming it in his mouth.

“Sarge, I gotta go,” he told Hank, getting a nod. Jay grabbed his jacket, walking you downstairs slowly. You were not looking forward to the contractions starting. Honestly, the only thing you were looking forward to was holding your daughter in your arms.

-----

You felt tears pricking your eyes as the next contraction hit. They were getting sooner and more painful. Jay was sitting beside you, pushing your hair out of your face, helping you breathe through it.

“This is your fault,” you gritted through your teeth, squeezing his hand harder. “You are never touching me again.”

“Baby, it will all be worth it when our daughter is here,” he assured you, your head falling back on the pillow with a sigh. You felt a cool cloth against your face, looking over at Jay. He had a small smile at the corners of his lips, and you knew he was excited. It was just painful in the process. “Do you want some more ice chips?”

“Yes, please,” you answered, repositioning in the bed. You’d opted out of the epidural, wanting to have a natural birth. A part of you was regretting your decision, three hours of labor so far with minimal dilation progress. The last time they’d checked, you were only three centimeters dilated, another seven to go.

You wondered if getting up and walking would help a little bit, but you waited until Jay was back. It didn’t take him long, handing you the cup so you could pop a few ice chips in your mouth. It was cool, feeling a little bit better. You were hungry though, that was for sure.

“Help me up,” you requested. Jay seemed more than happy to oblige, helping you stand up before looping his arm around your back. You leaned into him, holding his free hand as the two of you walked around the room.

“You’re doing great so far,” he whispered to you before pressing a kiss to your temple. “I’m right here.” You knew he wasn’t going anywhere, and you didn’t think it was possible to love him anymore.

-----

It took another sixteen hours before a cooing bundle of baby was in your arms. You were sweaty and tired and hungry, but all of that flew out the window as soon as you saw big blue eyes staring up at you. She looked just like Jay.

“She’s beautiful,” he told you, pushing your hair back again before kissing you with a smile. “Thank you. She is the best thing you could have ever given me.”

You couldn’t tear your eyes off your daughter, your finger brushing over her cheek softly. You’d been holding her for seemingly forever when Jay finally took her from you. Honestly, you just needed to sleep, and he seemed to recognize that. Getting situated in bed, you looked at the two of them, Jay walking around the room with Melody Grace situated in his arms. You could tell already that Jay was going to be a great father. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

#jay halstead #jay halstead imagine #jay halstead x reader #fanfiction #oneshot

738 notes · View notes

candychronicles · 4 years ago

Text

it’s just me // r. tanaka

A/N: this is my sfw piece for the HQHQ discord secret santa for @ryunosukescutiepie ! hope you enjoy!

CHARACTER PAIRING: Tanaka Ryuunosuke x Reader

WORD COUNT: 1,649

WARNINGS: just pure fluff

SYNOPSIS: what’s supposed to be a lazy day in bed turns out to be so much more.

the morning started out like any other-Tanaka got up early, placed a gentle kiss on your head and made his way to the door, dressed and ready for the day. he wasn’t always a morning person and you often had to wake him up when you first met him in that measly college dorm. a lot had changed since you first laid eyes on the hot headed bald guy with the biggest heart you had ever seen, but what never changed was his pure love for you.

once he graduated with his degree in exercise science and started working as a personal trainer, he got better at getting up earlier and earlier, so early that he now needed to start being quiet so that he wouldn’t wake you up in the morning, not that you truly minded, for any time with your love was time well spent, but sleeping in was really nice too.

when he had finally left and you slowly stretched the sleep from your body, you engaged in your own morning routine, cleaning here and there, taking a nice long shower and pampering yourself with a face mask. since it was your day off and Tanaka had what you presumed was a busy day of training and working on his own goals, you planned to spend your time relaxing, maybe reading a good book, maybe napping the day away, maybe finally going through your closet of clothes that was desperately needing cleaned out, but he had other plans.

babe, sent you some money, go get your nails done for me, yeah? treat yourself on your day off :)

you read the text with a small smile, not minding your lazy plans being ruined at all as you quickly hopped up from your bed to get ready for the day, clapping in excitement. it all became a bit of a blur as you rushed around the house, grabbing shoes, your purse, chapstick, sunglasses, anything you could think of that you might need on your trip out. only once were you satisfied did you finally leave, locking the door behind you as you practically skipped your way to the car, humming to your own tune.

the nail salon had your name down already so you didn’t have to wait as they ushered you into a comfy chair, chatting with you about how lovely it was to have such a good man in your life and how lucky you were to find someone so willing to do sweet things like this for you. you blushed and gushed your way through the story of love, talking about the first time he met you and practically ran you over trying to say hi to the time he first told you he liked you, practically screaming it in your face as he was too nervous to be coy about the whole situation. each and every moment you had relived in your head brought you more and more aware to the fact that you were madly and deeply in love with Tanaka Ryuunosuke and there was nothing you could do about it.

after a fresh set of lilac and periwinkle nails, it was off to a boutique store you frequented, Tanaka claiming he had purchased something for you there that he wanted you to pick up to wear to a date tonight. you weren’t sure where the spontaneity came from but you weren’t going to complain as you made your way into the shop, waving hi to the cashier and picking up your item, a stunning yet simple gold dress made with pinched fabric and a soft satin finish.

it was already almost dinner by the time you finished getting ready, hair set in loose curls, a pretty blush across your face, not only from the makeup but also from the warm giddy feeling that spread from the tips of your toes to across your nose. you had not felt this nervous to see your boyfriend in a long time, preferring to spend your evenings relaxing on the couch, pigging on take out and snuggling in the bed over anything, but this was special and completely out of the blue. you again, weren’t complaining that your relaxing day was getting turned over, but it still made you confused for what prompted such a grandeur adventure.

Tanaka had sent you directions to a quaint restaurant that you two frequented often, saying he had rented out the back gazebo for a private night of wine and dine. your mouth curled up into a smile once again as you had read his text, excited for the night and what was to come as you made your way once again to the car, this time more slow and relaxed as you focused on your breathing and not tripping in your heels.

the gazebo was beautifully lit with twinkling golden lights that matched the color of your dress, flowers blooming in the grass around the enclosure, roses set in an elegant bouquet off to the side of the table and your handsome lover clean shaven and donned in a tux. you chuckled to yourself as you watched him shoot up from the table, clearly just as nervous as you, before he rushed to your side, babbling about how beautiful you were.

“Ryu, it’s just me, yeah?” you soothed, watching him catch his breath, a blush scorched across his skin.

“feeling better?”

when he nodded, you reached forward to place a chaste kiss against his lips, grinning against the kiss as he practically melted in your touch.

he gently guided you to the table, pulled your chair out and scooted you in before rushing to the other side, smiling from ear to ear as he stared at you.

“thanks for coming baby. i-uh, i know this was very last minute but you know i’m spontaneous with my plans sometimes and i just wanted to treat you to a nice dinner so here we are.”

“thank you my love, it’s been a really good day so far. i was surprised and a bit nervous to be honest, but i’m just excited to be able to spend this time with you,” you confessed, twiddling your thumbs under the table to hide your anxiety.

“it’s just me, remember? nothing to be nervous about, at least i hope,” he joked, leaning back against his chair with his own cheeky grin plastered to his face.

the rest of the night went relaxingly, soft music playing from the speakers above, the twinkling lights adding a calm ambience to the scene. food was served hot and fresh, the wine kept flowing and soon you two were just a bit tipsy, not enough to make fools out of yourself but enough that you two felt at ease once more, eased enough that Tanaka felt his confidence flow back into him once again.

“hey, uh, would you stand up? maybe we can dance? i think this is our song.”

you quieted down and perked up, straining to hear the music before you beamed in excitement at recognizing the sweet melody. quickly, you stood up, wobbling on your feet from not only the wine but the heels as well, but Tanaka, steady as ever, grabbed your torso, giving you some purchase in the topsy turvy world.

“you’re always my knight in shining armour, huh?”

“i’m here to save the day, whenever you may need it!” he exclaimed, letting go to give you a thumbs up before placing his hands correctly, one on your waist, the other grasping your own hand to start a gentle sway with you.

you two stood, head against his chest, heartbeat and song blending into one, for what seemed like hours as the song faded away and he pushed you off, just in the slightest. you stared at him in confusion for only a moment before your hands flew to your mouth and tears began glistening in your eyes.

there he kneeled, ring sparkling in the glittery lights, hands outstretched as he looked you square in the eyes, no fear or hesitation to be found.

“i have loved you since the day i first ran into you, and since then, we’ve been running into things head on together. you may think i’m your knight in shining armour but you’re my rock, my home, the person i can go to when nothing in this world seems right because you can and will always keep my safe. i know i can be reckless and people still see me as a punk but you’ve stuck by my side without a single complaint, cleaning me up whenever i get into a mess and setting me straight, forgiving as always. i wish there was more i could say or do to prove that i will always love you, but this is the best i could come up with. so, will you marry me?”

before you had a chance to register what you were doing, you threw yourself down and against him, crying into his arms, telling him ‘yes’ over and over again. he immediately reciprocated, kissing your temple and cradling you, telling you how much he loves you before shakily pulling you back to put the ring on your finger.

“as your knight in shining armour, i promise to protect you from all evil, no matter how big or small.”

“as your rock, i promise to keep you grounded, through thick and thin.”

“does that mean we’re married now?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“not yet, we’ve got to do the whole wedding thing first, Ryu.”

“right, well, lets get on that then! i don’t think i can spend another day not being your husband. what about tomorrow?”

you laughed at his enthusiasm, tears streaming down your face, but as you stared at his own, you realized you didn’t want to spend another day not being his wife either.

#tanaka x reader #tanaka ryuunosuke #tanaka ryunosuke #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu

13 notes · View notes

closer-stars · 4 years ago

Text

Destress - Jongho

Member: Jongho Genre: Fluff Requested: Yes @barsformars Word Count: a lot??? Content: Hang out with Jongho. Note: Kind of just wanted to write something a lil random as per the prompts and this came into mind. aaaa mild creative blocks are sucky. y/n and jongho are friends (but are feelings there? hmmmm big think)

The cycle of sleep, train, sing, dance, eat, shower, repeat gradually wore him out that it was Seonghwa’s suggestion to have you bring him out and about for the day. “Just stroll around the city or a park... Jongho needs a change of scenery and possibly a different face and voice.” He joked lightly to you over the phone.

So now, here you are doing your best to persuade him to walk with you around the city. “C’mon! Accompany me to my errands.” You plead, hands clasp together, as your bottom lip juts out for added effect. It’s a white lie. You actually had a different plan in your head and you just needed him to give in.

“Don’t give me that look.” Jongho says softly as he leaned against the wall. When his members pull the same look, it did nothing. With you, it’s a little tricky to keep a straight face. He wants to break into a smile, amused and endeared by your antics to get him to do your wishes. For now, he wants to see just how much you wanted him to go out with you.

With his words, you huff, cheeks puffed out in mild annoyance at his unwillingness to break. Other ideas breeze through your mind, wondering which one will make him cave. You catch his eyes widen a little and it’s already obvius that he knows what’s running in your mind. “Jongho~ Please come with me~” Your voice taking on a sickly sweet tone, smiling so brightly at the male. His resolve shakes a little but not enough for him to move. You sigh and for once Jongho’s a little alarmed. Was he too hard on you?

“I’ll buy you coffee.”

“Iced americano?” Now you’re talking his language.

“Yes.”

“Deal.” So he hops off his bed and as he gets his valuables, you look at Mingi in exasperation. This guy really had the guts. Once he’s ready, the two of you are now out, dragging his ass around the city.

The first stop being his usual coffee. He was lucky you also liked coffee, though not as strong as his. For someone who likes branded fashion, he was a sucker for free food. More so if it was your money. “How do you even handle Iced Americano?! That’s just water, ice and espresso shots.” You complain to him as you watch the staff make your orders.

“I could say the same for you. How do you like yours so sweet?” There’s a teasing tone in his words and it makes you shoot him a look.

“Excuse me! Just because it has vanilla sweet cream doesn’t mean it’s that sweet!” You whine. Your defense makes him laugh lightheartedly. He’s thankful though. Besides him, you were the only one who likes their coffee strong and not as sweet as the frappucinos his hyungs usually get. Once your orders have been served, as tradition holds, the two of you exchange drinks to take a sip. Both of you make a face at each other’s order.

“Anyways, where to next?” He asks, pulling the door open for you. Oh right, you said you had errands that you wanted him to accompany you. So you think fast again as you gnaw on your coffee lid before taking a sip. Eyes dart around, looking for a passable excuse.

You gesture to the shop across the street. You forgot that they had a jacket you’ve been eyeing lately but never got yourself to check out. That is, until today. He hums, acknowledging the store and lets you lead the way. You go through the items on the racks, looking for that one jacket. Once successful, you raise it near your frame. “Hey Jongho, what do you think?” You ask, as you eye yourself on the mirror. A thoughtful pout on your features as you bounce between buying it or not.

“You’re cute, but you’re not that cute” He say softly, once he takes a good look at how the jacket looks against you. It was a good jacket, he had to admit that. Maybe not something he’d see in his closet but it was definitely a piece he could see in yours.

You look at him through the mirror, unsure if you heard what you heard. “What?”

He doesn’t seem to hear your question though. With his free hand, he looks through the other colors on display. “Try this one.” He hands you another version, taking the one from your hand as he lets you look at yourself with his choice. Your eyes never leave his content features, as you try to find a way to ask him again. But you’ll have to ask him that later, for now you need to see what he sees when it comes to your fashion taste.

In his mind, he finds this jacket a lot cuter on you now.

It’s times like this that remind you why you often go to him for fashion advice. This color actually looks better on you as compared to the initial one. “Jongho, your mind. I like it.” You praise him as you fold the jacket over your arm as you make your way to the cashier.

“I can pay for it.” He offers as he follows you. His free hand already reaching for his wallet.

You give him a look that dares him to go against you. It seemed to work as he instead pouts at you before taking another sip of his coffee. After paying for your new jacket, you flash him a toothy grin, resulting into him chuckling at your delight. He’d like to think he’s part of the reason for that happiness. “So where to next?”

Right. You were never good with lies anyways so you decide just come clean with it. “I kind of just wanted to get you out of your dorm and studio for a day.” You start, guilt clear in your voice. “I know you like what you’re doing, you just looked so burned out the past few days...” you trail off, eyes anywhere but on the male next to you. “Even your members were already concerned for you.” You’re not sure of how to end your statement, much less where to take it so instead of saying anything else, you just taking a long sip of your coffee.

Your words do make him think for a moment. He thinks back to the past few days, weeks even; the burden of catching up with everything he had to put on pause, the full speed of their promotion preparations, everything. He could see why you and his members were starting to worry. Could he get mad at that? Not really. He’s actually grateful that all of you look after him even if he wants to be viewed as dependable. His hand reaches up to ruffle your hair, not something you like but you understand it as his way to express affection.

“Well, persuading me with coffee was a good move. Still, where do you want to go next?” The male asks and your eyes snap to his direction. To be honest, you were expecting him to be disappointed at the very least but he seems alright with it.

“You’re not mad? or even disappointed?”

“I can understand why you guys did what you had to do so no, I’m not.”

A few seconds of silence pass over the two of you. “Can we go to the stream nearby? It’s pretty at night.” He notes the color of the sky: vivid purples and deep hues of red. It won’t be too long until he sees what you meant by how pretty it would be at night, so he lets you lead the way again.

On your way to the stream, you raise the question of what he had said earlier. “What did you say to me earlier while looking at the other jacket?” You press, wanting to know if what you heard was right.

Jongho seems adamant in giving into your insistent question. “What? I didn’t say anything.” He says with ease, though the tip of his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip says otherwise.

“Yes you did! You said something earlier while I was trying on the jacket.”

“What do you think I said then?” He asks, finding entertainment in your insistence. You pout at his question, unsure of how to word it.

“Something about being cute.” You give in, you’re starting to doubt if your ears were right.

He pokes your puffed cheek. “Mhm, the jacket you chose earlier didn’t look that cute on you but the one you have in the bag will look cuter on you.” It was your turn to be speechless, a few steps behind the male who didn’t seem to find any big deal in his words.

You weren’t wrong when you said it would be pretty at night. It’s beyond pretty for his standards, it’s something he thinks that’s only possible with editing. Yet, even with that kind of editing, it can’t fully encompass the beauty. Lights lit up underneath the small waterfall, making the water look as if it were shining brightly against the night sky. The water that passed under a small bridge was lit in various colorful lightings: it looks as if it was straight out of a Korean drama, especially with the various greenery on both sides. Though couples were sprinkled everywhere on both sides, none of you seem to mind it. Instead, the two of you caught up on life, all while eating street food being sold nearby. The two of you take photos of each other against the lightings and scenery, giggling to each other when someone takes a blurry, candid photo of the other.

“At least I have a new photo to use for my social media.”

“Please don’t forget to pay for my services.” He jokes. “It’s around 500,000 won.”

“Hey!” He laughs at your complaint, raising his arms in defense before you land a flurry of whacks on him. You notice the way his body seems lighter, away from all the stressors and you couldn’t help but smile a little to yourself.

“On a serious note, I had fun today, even if it wasn’t much, I liked it.” He says, watching a couple take a selfie, their features lit by the multicolored lightings.

You, on the other hand, look at the water that passes by near your feet. “Always welcome, Haribo. I’m always just a message away if you need to get away from stress.”

The nickname makes him laugh again, his shoulders raising in the process. “Still Haribo in your eyes huh?” Jongho has told you recently that people have been calling him jelly bear lately but it seems to you that it’s always going to be Haribo. A quick glance at the time results in a soft sigh. Good things do have to come to an end sometimes. “We should head back soon.”

You look at your phone. “Ah, you have a full schedule tomorrow.” You mumble, a small part of you wishes that you could prolong this moment but it rarely works in your favor. You knew what his job entailed and while you understand, you couldn’t help but think that it sucks sometimes. His hand appears in your line of sight and you look up at him, smiling down at you. With a playful roll of your eyes, you take his hand, pretending to tug him into the stream. You pull yourself up with his help after seeing the flash of surprise in his eyes.

“Got you there. Also since each shot you took is 500,000... each shot I took of you is 750,000.

“Why are you so expensive?”

“Someone has to match your standards and taste, right?”

#ateez scenarios #ateez fluff #jongho fluff #jongho scenarios #my writings #ateez jongho #ateez fanfiction #was thinking of the cheonggye stream while writing this

43 notes · View notes

chasseurdeloup-retired · 4 years ago

Text

Suffering in Silence || Jared and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Downtown PARTIES: @themidnightfarmer and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: If you give a mime a lift...

Being stuck inside sucked. A lot. Kaden was running out of Meerkat Manor episodes to watch and even then, he was getting bored. And the stripes hadn’t faded even a little. Nothing had worked, not even a tiny bit of bleach (which was objectively a terrible idea). He needed a drink, but more importantly, he needed to smoke. And he was out of cigarettes. He could ask Regan for a whole lot of things, but a pack of smokes was not one of them. No way was she encouraging his bad habit. A six pack of beer? Maybe. “Cancer sticks”? Definitely not. There was only one thing to do, then. He slapped on some of the foundati-concealer-whatsit that was vaguely skin colored on his face, grabbed a scarf, some gloves, and made sure his outfit covered every inch of his skin that he could. When he’d walked to the liquor store, the sky was clear and sunny. He could feel sweat beading at his temples as the sun beat down on him and his very concealed outfit. Kaden may have bitten off more than he could chew and got two six packs, a few more bottles of wine, and a nice gin on top of the box of marlboros. “You got it?” the cashier asked as Kaden tenuously balanced all the alcohol. The weight wasn’t a problem, hunter strength. The volume, a little more so. “Got it,” he said with a grunt as he pushed out the door, trying to give the man a friendly nod that probably looked more terrifying than anything else. As soon as he was out the door, two whole steps down the sidewalk, the sky opened up and rain poured down from the sky. Oh no, he could feel the makeup dripping away, into his eyes, and he struggled to keep his balance. “Putain de merde,” he said to himself, but it was barely a croak.

Jared was just doing his weekly shop, filling up on things he needed as well as what he guessed would cook alright in his new instant pot. As always the nymph had passed over driving his truck into town and -now that his tractor was all patched up- was gleefully housing his shopping into the cab. He may have been taking up four parking spots, but there were so few shoppers at this time of day he wasn’t worried. He’d never had any complaints before. Although this was likely due to the fact no one in town had ever seen him drive his truck, they likely thought all he had was the tractor and the horses. Pushing his last bag in Jared readied himself to go, patting down his pockets just to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything inside. In the few seconds it took for him to do this the rain started. The clouds had rolled in without him noticing, but seems everyone else had cleared out fast. The store closed for lunch just as the rain started to pelt down on the sidewalk. Hauling himself into the cab double speed Jared looked out over the rapidly emptying parking lot, only to spot a mime, a sad looking mime staring up forlornly at the sky as if the look in itself would halt the water. It was a tragic sight, and Jared took pity. Pushing open the back window of the cab he called out to the sad mime. “HEY, NEED A LIFT?”

It was going to be a long, awkward walk, but Kaden was sure he could do it. At least the stack of liquor was mostly coving up his face, right? And he had hunter strength, it’d be fine. Hunter balance wasn’t exactly a thing, but he had everything in hand right now and it was mostly steady. The wine bottles wobbling would certainly not fall as he continued his pace. A voice called out and his instinct was to hide his head behind the tower of alcohol in his arms. Shit, shit, shit; they all leaned to the left so he angled himself towards them, righting and steadying the whole thing. That was too close. Hopefully they didn’t see that. Or they weren’t talking to him. Only. Oh. They were talking to him. He caught a glance of the guy in the tractor staring at him, looked friendly enough. At first, Kaden tried to say “No thanks, I’ve got it,” but nothing came out but hoarse whispers. What the fuck? He tried again, same result. Alright, fine, he shook his head no and tried walking again, only now his heart was racing. Why couldn’t he speak? Was he turning into a-- No, that wasn’t a possibility. No.

In his panic, Kaden felt his toe catch on s bump in the sidewalk and he stumbled, doing everything in his power to keep the stack of liquor upright. Fuck, that was close. Too close to seeing all his recent purchases fall and shatter on the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tractor was still there. With a heavy sigh, Kaden turned to the guy and said “Fine. Thanks.” Not that he heard most likely, not unless he had hunter hearing with how quiet and frail Kaden’s voice was at the moment. He walked to the tractor and looked at it confused of where to even start placing his items. “Uhhh, help?” The words were more mouthed than anything. Putain, he needed to get home and fast. He didn’t need anyone he actually knew seeing him like this.

He waited patiently for the guy to turn around and decide what to do. From Jared’s perspective, the tripping looked like a theatrical pratfall. Miraculously keeping the items balanced at the last second was impressive and the nymph wrongly attributed it to the act he thought was being put on. He spared a moment to cheer when the mime caught his balance again, clapping a few times and laughing in appreciation. He supposed mimes who wore their gear out to the shops were really dedicated to their craft, so of course they’d put on a show as soon as they knew they had an audience. After the second pratfall Jared figured maybe they truly didn’t want to get a ride and readied to move on. The nymph fussed with the windshield wipers, only spotting the mime had come closer once they were right at the doors. Jared jumped in surprise and swore a little. As much as he didn’t condemn mimes like the rest of the town seemed to, the make up was rather a shock out of nowhere, especially as it looked like there was some sort of real skin tone melting off of it in the rain. “Decided to get a ride after all huh, bud?” And with that the farmer threw open the cab door and climbed down. He gave the mime a grin and took the top most box from the stack in his arms and slid it into a safe spot under the seat inside. This followed by the next and then he gestured the mime in and out of the rain. “You’ll have to sit on the boombox, sorry about that bud. Never needed another seat.”

“Thanks,” he shouted, but it was still barely at full volume. The mimes who did this to him were dead the second he had a chance to hunt them down. This was a level of humiliation that Kaden hoped he never got to repeat. He was fairly certain this might be worse than Regan and Blanche laughing at him in unison. Still, he was grateful that this guy was helping lift the stupid boxes into the stupid tractor. And it was nice to climb out of the rain and into the covered cabin of the tractor, even if he did have to awkwardly situate himself on top of the boom box, trying to find a spot for his legs around the boxes. Maybe if he was lucky, he’d either never see this farmer kid again or the next time they did see one another, Kaden would be wholly unrecognizable. Then it dawned on him. He should probably tell this guy where to go. “Nine hun—“ His voice was still shallow. What the hell, was something caught in it? He coughed and tried to clear his throat, pounding his chest with his fist, hoping to dislodge whatever weird phlegm might be making him hoarse. “Nine—“ Fuck, it was just as bad, maybe worse. He looked around for pen and paper, anything to write on, but there was nothing. Putain. With another heavy sigh, Kaden tapped on the kid’s shoulder and pointed to the left. Guess he’d have to direct like this.

Once everything was all squared away, and the mime was sitting down as comfortably as could be expected. Jared hauled himself into the cab and situated himself in the chair, moving only slightly into the mimes space to pull the back window closed again, securing them away from the rain. The nymph thought for a moment he’d heard a sound from the mime and looked over at him curiously, but it seemed to only be his imagination as instead of mouthing any longer, the mime elected just simply to point. Jared started up the tractor and nodded away. “Don’t worry I totally know where you’re headed with all the booze.” In his mind, and once he’d given the mime a once over there was only one place he could be going. There were many mime based establishments in town, but for some reason all the layers of clothing screamed that those layers were abnormal. In that perhaps what was underneath was not safe for the public eye of a store. This had to be one of the mime strippers. Starting the engine up Jared pulled out of the empty parking lot and started towards the place. “So, had to stock up huh? Ran out of beer? Is one box enough?”

Kaden tried his best to hold on to something, anything, as the tractor rolled down the way. This was completely and utterly ridiculous. Oh well, at least the town wasn’t too big, it wouldn’t take long. Kaden was about to tap and point to the next turn when the kid pulled up to something and stopped the vehicle. His brow furrowed and he tried to ask why. There was no voice that came out. Not even a croak. Just air. He tried to scream with everything that he had, but only silence came out. It was like his vocal cords were paralyzed or cut out or something, it didn’t matter because he couldn’t speak. Kaden looked out the window to see how far he was from home. Maybe this was close enough. He pressed his head against the window and peered out. The Stripe Club? Kaden tapped on the kid’s shoulder and started aggressively gesturing his arms in an “x” shape, shaking his head no. If he couldn’t scream no, he was going to do the next best thing. He tried to point ahead, out the front windshield, away from here. There had to be something to write on here, there had to be. There was a slam on the window and Kaden jumped. There was a hand on the window. A white gloved hand. Attached to it was a mime, smiling. Another slam on the other window. Another mime. Kaden gestured “no” and “go” again as enthusiastically as he could manage and reached over to honk the horn. “Go!” he tried to shout, still wordlessly.

Jared was confused, very confused as he rolled to a stop and the mime didn’t immediately start to gather their many layers of clothing about themselves ready to hop out and make a dash out of the rain. Unfortunately for the other man, the nymph was a little slow to pick up on things, even this early into mushroom season. Sometimes he was extremely observant and tuned in with someone, but more times than not lately -especially given how his week had been going with what had happened at Pats- he was dottled. “Not here? The cafe maybe? Does the cafe serve alcohol?” Still so wrapped up in the others appearance that he couldn’t fathom the man was simply a person with stripes. Jared also jumped at the sudden sound, but he missed the initial fear that he perhaps should have felt. “You’re friends have come to get you bud, were you playing coy with me?” He laughed. But finally. FINALLY. The panic registered. The horn sounded and the nymph was jolted out of the early mushroom season haze that had taken him over unnoticed and he came back into reality. Foot on the gas the tractor jerked forward twice before ramping up enough momentum to move. “Not friends then, but...you’re a mime?!”

Kaden wanted to yell Not the fucking cafe! but it was useless. What if he just pulled the kid out of his seat and drove away himself? Tractors couldn't be that hard to drive, right? Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to, the tractor roared into action and started to pull away. The relief he felt was short lived as more hands started to cover the windows. How? How? Were they hanging onto the tractor somehow? Or floating? Oh god, they had to be floating, their terrifying painted faces tilting and moving in exaggerated expressions. Kaden considered cowering in the back, covering his head and shutting his eyes and just hoping he woke up safe in his bed, but somehow, some part of him knew this was actually happening. How could he tell this kid that these were monsters trying to kill them without a voice? While he was covered in stripes and face paint? He refused to mime it. And they didn’t have time for that. He settled for drawing his finger across his throat and then pointing at the fuckers outside. That might paint a picture, right? Kaden reached out and tapped the kid’s shoulder and aggressively pointed forward once more. Please, please take the fucking hint, kid.

The rain continued to pour, but it didn’t seem to impact the mimes stuck to the outside of the tractor at all. Jared started to speed up as more hands started to seem to glue themselves to the tractor, the faces appearing afterwards out of the gloom like it was a thick fog and not just a heavy downpour. The nymph swore and swerved in the hopes that it would have some of the mimes fall off, but no dice. If anything the image got worse. One mime seemed to have slipped, but their body was keeping up with the vehicle, one gloved hand adhered to the windshield, like a flag in the wind. He didn’t have a clue what was going on, but the mime in the cab was making….death threats? Fuck what had he gotten himself into. Was this some sort of ruse? Was this a mime mob hit or something. He had nothing to offer them and he said as much as he continued to drive and swerve. “I don’t have anything for you, fuck. Are you trying to steal my tractor? Please don’t I just spent the rest of my savings on fixing it.”

“I don’t want your fucking tractor!” Kaden attempted to say. And hey, that was a whisper! Barely audible, but that was an improvement, right? He still wasn’t sure that the kid heard it, but things seemed to improve the farther they got from the mime strip club. He looked back and saw that the last mime was struggling to hold on. Just one more good fast turn ought to do it. But they had to get out of here and fast. Merde. How in the fuck could he tell this guy where to go? He was clearly clueless and navigating wouldn’t work. Why didn’t he have paper and fucking pen? Maybe he could text someone and ask for a p-- Oh. Oh. Kaden reached into his pocket for his phone and furiously typed into the notes app, shoving the phone at the kid and pointing at what was written there, “900 Peaberry.” Putain de merde, if the kid didn’t understand after this he was just going to walk in the fucking rain.

Over the top of the noise the rain, tractor, and his own racing heartbeat was making Jared had no chance hearing the barely audible whisper of the mime sitting to his left. One mime left, flapping in the wind ominously, so the nymph pushed the window open with one hand and peeled the mimes glove off. In a terrifying fashion the glove came off with another identical glove underneath seen for only a moment before they’d turned a corner and the mimes were gone apart from the one sitting to his left. He swerved in surprise when a phone appeared under his nose, but squinted at the screen and then back at the only mime left. “This is where you were going? Okay. Okay cool. Fuck you’re not like those other mimes right? What the hell just happened?”

As the tractor swerved and careened away from the oncoming onslaught of mimes, Kaden tried to hold onto the inside of the cabin and the seat, attempting to maintain his balance while peeking back to see if the last of the mimes were gone. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw they were safe. For now. And it looked like the kid was actually taking him home. Putain, he would never leave again. Not until he didn’t look like a reject from a Dr. Seuss book. “Yeah this is--” His voice was still hoarse. Fucking hell, you had to be kidding. Kaden nodded enthusiastically instead and then offered the kid a shrug. It was about all he could manage apparently. Kaden felt relief wash over him as he saw his building drawing closer through the rain. Home. So close to home. Kaden tapped the kid on the shoulder and then pointed at the building and gave him a thumbs up. Once he rolled to a stop, Kaden practically threw himself out of the tractor and started quickly gathering his things. Shit, she should have bought two boxes of lights at this rate. He was going to need them.

Jared and the mime finally seemed to be on the same page, and he pulled to a stop in front of the desired building at last. The nymph pushed the shopping over to the door and looked down at the mime in the rain. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be giving a mime a ride ever again, but he smiled anyway. “Hey bud maybe next time drive to the store so you’re not struggling like that.” He then paused, wondering idly if mimes were allowed to drive, it seemed like they should be allowed but he had no idea of mime law. “Or at least a wagon and an umbrella just in case.” He finished before giving the guy a small wave. He was going straight home. Straight home to reflect on himself. Maybe he should stop being so friendly. It didn’t seem to be doing him any favours anymore...

#suffering in silence #wickedswriting #writing #chatzy #jared #themidnightfarmer

11 notes · View notes