#I'M CHECKING OUT THE EXTRAS AND AS SOON AS I SAW HER I LITERALLY GOT STUPIDLY SOFT CUZ OMFG

[misteria247]

*THROWS EVERYTHING DOWN AND STARTS FLAILING EXCITEDLY*

OOT LINK MARRIED MALON OMFG YES??????????????????

[gguk-n]

Fernando's Protege (Fernando Alonso x Single mom!Reader)

Summary- Alejandro was the next big thing in Karting and he was only 8 years old. He also looked up to Fernando Alonso. Getting to meet Alonso changed not just his life but also his mom's.

Watching Alejandro zip past the strait on the track, Y/N felt a sense of pride. He was only 8 and was a force to be reckoned with. He was fast, agile and most of all humble; which was the reason why he was doing so well. Y/N always taught her son to be thankful and grateful for the opportunities and the success.

Alejandro was a tiny version of her, the biggest similarity being their love for cars. She had passed down her love for racing to her son. When he was born 8 years ago, she did not imagine she would be standing at the track in Madrid watching her son winning his first karting championship. There was a buzz as Alito crossed the finish line. His mom already by his side as he took his helmet off, a big toothy grin plastered on his face. "Momma, did you see? I was so fast" he spoke animatedly while trying to catch his breath. She smiled at him, "Yes, you were carino." while hugging him. "Let's go, you need to rehydrate and then we'll check the kart before we have to go for the debrief." she continued. Her son smiled at her, now sipping from his 'Cars' bottle.

This shared interest of theirs had Y/N working 2 jobs and a freelance gig so that she could make it to his races. But watching Alito smile was more than all she could ask for. As the debrief started, she heard a lot of whispers and murmurs until one of the interviewers compared her son to Fernando Alonso, his idol. That boy really looked up to Alonso; even though he was just a kid he knew how hard his mom worked to make his dreams a reality. He knew Alonso had to work really hard to get where he is, and Alito knew he wanted to be just like Alonso and race on the same track with him. "So, Alejandro, how does it feel to win your first Spanish karting championship?" the interviewers asked. "It's the best. I'm gonna have pizza after this." he cheered. A small smile evident on his mother's lips as she watched him interact. "You've been a force to be reckoned with. People say you remind them of Fernando Alonso." the interviewer spoke. "What does that word mean?" Alejandro asked. "Reckoned means people think you are or might be as good as Alonso in his karting days" the interviewer elaborated. The little boy jumped up and down bouncing on his feet as he answered the question, "He is my idol after my momma obviously" he said while looking at his mom, "I love him and I wanna be like him and race with him one day" he spoke with his voice slightly higher. "I hope you get to do that some day, I think it might happen soon" the interviewer said. They continued with question on race strategies and then Alejandro walked away to receive his trophy.

The interview of Alejandro after the race had started making it's rounds on the internet when people found out how much he loved Alonso and how both of them came from humble backgrounds. It had reached Fernando's PR team who showed it to him. Fernando ended up watching his races and he was happy to have such a talented boy look up to him. As he dug deeper into his story, he found out Alejandro's mom was his team, she was doing all of this alone. He knew how difficult it was; Alonso saw the potential and he wanted to help the family. His PR team ended up contacting Alejandro and his mom through social media and got them tickets to his race in Spain. When Y/N got the dm and the invite, she was over the moon. Both of them were huge fans and this was a once in a life time thing.

On the day of the race, Alejandro was decked out in green repping Fernando and Aston Martin. He was literally bouncing off the walls with the excitement. Y/N packed a small bag with some food and an extra change of clothes for Alito. There was a buzz in the air as she drove them to the venue. Alito couldn't stop talking about everything he would tell Alonso and all the pictures he would take. She parked the car and got Alejandro and some of their essentials out and was greeted by the Aston Martin team at the entrance. They handed them their paddock passes which Alejandro insisted on wearing on his own and asked to take pictures with. They walked towards the Aston Martin hospitality while Y/N tried to keep a tight grasp on the little boy's hand. He waved at anyone and everyone he made eye contact with. She almost lost him when he saw Carlos and sprinted towards him, with Y/N just behind.

"Hola Carlos, I'm a big fan" he chirped. Carlos smiled and replied, "But it looks like you love Alonso more" The little boy looked down before saying, "He's my idol, I wanna race with him one day" Carlos ruffled his head, "Sure you will" he said. I greeted Carlos, apologised for the inconvenience. He brushed it off and even took a picture with Alejandro on his request. She scolded him on the way back about running away from her. Alito apologised and even kissed his mom's hand. They reached Aston Martin without anymore hiccups.

Fernando was waiting to greet them, "Hola, Alejandro" with his hand out for him. "Hola Fernando" he said while shaking his hand. "Congratulations on your win" Fernando said. "Muchas gracias, I wanna be like you when I grow up" Alejandro blurted while hugging Fernando's legs. "I think you'll be better than me with how you're doing" Fernando replied while patting the boy's back. "You must be the mother of this lovely boy, Hi, I'm Fernando" he said directing his attention to Y/N. She couldn't help but giggle, "Hi, I'm Y/N. I know who you, he inherited my love for racing and you" she replied a blush forming at the words she just uttered; hitting herself mentally. Fernando smiled, his eyes glimmering with a playfulness she didn't notice when he spoke to her son. "Well, his mom does have good taste" he said with a smirk. Lance greeted us too, calling Alejandro a protege. Fernando was summoned by the team, "I have to go Alejandro, have fun. I'll see you soon" he smiled at Alejandro; "See you soon, hermosa" he directed these words towards Y/N, shooting a quick wink before he turned around to leave, a flush of crimson kissed her cheeks.

Fernando started 8th and finished 7th. Alejandro really hoped that his idol would finish on the podium but he was happy nonetheless. The day ended with Fernando back at the hospitality after all the post race interviews and podium while the mother and son duo were getting ready to leave. Alejandro handed Fernando a piece of paper, he had drawn him and Fernando on a podium after a formula one race in Spain with the Spanish flag on the top, "You aren't just good at karting, but you are a good artist" Fernando said admiring the art. "Gracias" Alejandro replied. "You should come to see me race, I'm pretty good" he said. "I would love to watch you race" Fernando professed. Now, Fernando turned his attention to the boy's mother, "I don't know if my team said anything, but I would like to help Alejandro reach his dream and exceed his potential." "Your team did say something, but I wasn't sure." Y/N replied while rubbing her hands. "I would like to personally sponsor him but I'll also try to get him sponsors. I know how hard it can be and I would love to watch him reach formula one, if that is his dream." he declared. Y/N smiled, "Muchas gracias, how do I ever repay you for your kindness?" she muttered. "No need to, I'm just happy I can be of help to him." he said while looking at Alejandro who was now busy playing with Lance. Her eyes darted between her son and Alonso. "We should exchange number" he said. Y/N looked shocked, her mouth agape. "So, that I can come to one of his races" he continued. "Oh, yes, yes, one second" she said while pulling her phone out. They exchanged numbers and then said their good bye.

Alejandro had gotten quite after they sat in the car, "What's up, bebe?" Y/N asked her son. "I miss Alonso" he mumbled while wiping away his tears. "Oh no, carino" she said while turning back to hand him a tissue. The little boy's voice came out in quite sobs which racked his body. She pulled the car to the side and climbed back to comfort her son. "It's ok, Alito. You'll see him soon." she comforted the crying boy. "He even gave me his number, we can call him some time later." she suggested which seemed to cheer the boy up.

A while later, Alejandro was competing in the Rotax Max championship in the Mini Max category with help from Alonso who did come to a race. Alejandro was over the moon excited. The two of them had kept in touch after the grand prix. They would call Alonso up every once in a while which lead to Y/N and Fernando also growing closer to each other. With their growing closeness, there were new feelings that had started to take place in both their hearts that neither were aware of. Y/N found herself putting more effort while getting ready before video calls or the race he was supposed to come to. Alito enjoyed his company and Fernando liked having a tiny karting genius. The race which Fernando come, Alito didn't finish podium and was bummed. Fernando cheered him up saying that he didn't finish podium when he came to see him either, so they were even.

After the race, they headed out for dinner. Fernando didn't want the day to end and who was Y/N to say no to him. At the restaurant, the waiter complimented them saying that they were a cute couple, Y/N was ready to correct him but Fernando thanked him. The waiter may have gotten tipped handsomely that night. Alejandro had fallen asleep in the back of the car on the way back to the hotel. Fernando carried him their room. After laying him down on the bed, "I had fun today" he commented. "Me too" Y/N agreed. Fernando hugged her good bye, the hugged lasted longer than between 2 friends, it was like neither wanted to pull away.

The pair got closer to Fernando as time passed. Initially, Y/N used to monitor Fernando and Alejandro's calls, now she would let them talk unsupervised which led to Y/N receiving tickets to the next grand prix and flight. Y/N immediately rang Fernando up, "hey, Fernando." she greeted. "Hi, Y/N" came a groggy voice. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?" she apologised. "No, no. What's up?" he cleared his voice. "Did you send me ticket's to the next GP?" she asked. "Yes, we're back in Europe and Alito told me he is on summer holiday." he replied. "Nando, it's too much. I can't" she protested. "It's ok, hermosa. I wanted to see Alito too. I won't get a refund either. See you there" he insisted. "Ok, see you there." she lamented.

They were at the Spanish grand prix for the second time this time. Every thing felt so familiar yet foreign. Fernando had received them at the airport on Saturday and took them to the hotel. At the paddock, Fernando took the two of them along with him, even introducing Alejandro as junior Fernando. The paddock seemed to love him. All the drivers welcomed him with open arms and the boy was more than excited since he had more than 2 people to talk about his love for racing. Alejandro was a little star at the paddock. Once they found out about his karting history, they gave him more tips and tricks on how to do better. He soaked it all up.

Y/N was stood at the side watching them interact. "He's a natural." Fernando commented. She smiled at him, "yes, he is. I'm happy he has good role models" she said. Fernando found his cheeks heating up. Alejandro walked back to his mom with Penelope, "momma, meet my new friend, Penelope." Y/N shook her hand. "Can we get ice cream?" he asked. Y/N smiled and took them to get ice cream after getting Kelly's permission. The two kids ended up talking all the way to the stand and enjoyed their ice cream back.

While they were gone, "You like her" Lewis commented. Fernando looked at him shocked, "What? Is it that obvious?" Fernando asked. "You haven't spent this much time with some one since your divorce and you're literally going to karting races to help the kid. I mean anyone and everyone knows you are interested." Lewis stated. "Maybe, I'm just being nice." Fernando interjected. "Maybe" Lewis hummed; "But I don't think anyone would mind if you had other intentions. Everyone deserves love, especially the both of you, after all the personal stuff that has led you two to each other." Lewis said. Fernando mulled over his thoughts and Lewis's words.

Race day was hectic. Fernando finished out of points but was still happy to spend time with Y/N and Alejandro. They ended up going out for dinner after and spent a lot of time sat in the restaurant. When Y/N had gone to the washroom, Alejandro and Fernando had a conversation. "Alito, can I ask you something?" he asked. "yes" Alejandro replied. "I like your momma. Do you think I should ask her out on a date?" Fernando asked. Alejandro seemed to think about it for a moment. "Does that mean you would become my papa?" he asked innocently. Fernando's heart swelled up with pride and happiness, he didn't want to pressurise the kid but he couldn't help but feel so important and a part of his life. "If you want me to be." Fernando choked out. "I think momma likes you." he stated.

After dropping the mother and son at their hotel, Fernando plucked up the courage and asked Y/N, "Hermosa" he mumbled, his palms sweaty, lips dry; he drove formula one cars for a living for crying out loud, what was happening to him he thought. Alejandro gave him a thumbs up before excusing himself to the toilet. "Would you like to go out with me, sometime, if you're free?" he asked. She looked at him bewildered. "You know I have a son who I'm raising on my own" she questioned. "yes, I've had the pleasure of knowing the bright young racer." he replied. "We're a package deal. I just" she spoke but was quickly cut off by Fernando, "I asked Alito for his blessing before asking you. If this bumps up my chances, he wanted me to be his dad" Y/N eyes were as big as saucers, "He did not say that" she said shocked. "He did. I really like you, I don't know when and how this happened but I genuinely enjoy your company and I would love to spend more time with you as a man and with Alito as a father figure. I don't wanna take anyone's place but carve out a niche for myself." Fernando clarified. She smiled at him. "I think I would like that. I've been hard on myself especially after everything with his dad, maybe I would like to spend time with you as a woman." she said. "I would love to treat you right and show you off" Fernando said. "I'll keep you on that. I'll see you for dinner when you come visit. I don't really have a sitter here" she said. "I know a great sitter, let's go out tomorrow" he suggested. "who's this great sitter?" she chided. "Carlos, I'm sure he wouldn't mind helping out" Fernando said. She nodded her head in agreement. "I'll see you tomorrow then" she said, while placing a kiss on his cheek. Fernando hugged her and kissed her forehead. "see you tomorrow. Good night, mi reina" Y/N blushed while she waved him good bye. Alejandro was listening in on the conversation, ecstatic about his mom and his idol.

Hope you like it.

[darylbrainrot]

CHAPTER 01: WIP

AIYGIWGWY || GOJO X READER

How would you—a part time guitarist and streamer, react when an upcoming streamer known as gojo admitted to liking your music and streams?

As he sat down on his chair with it dipping with his added weight, he reached to his PC to start it up. He was about 20 minutes early to stream so he had to get his streaming apps ready. He wanted to keep this stream chill, he was probably some background music playing to make his stream calming (as calming as possible with his screams from playing fortnite.) As he made the sudden decision to play music on his stream, he opened Spotify as soon as his computer turned on.

He opened one of his designated playlists for streaming, some relaxing music ranging from different artists. He made sure this playlist wasn't going to get him flagged on his Twitch, something he didn't want to happen again.

He finally had his necessities opened, his discord and Spotify opened on his first monitor, his Twitch ready to stream on his third monitor, and finally his main monitor with his game loading up. When he looked at the time, he had around 6 minutes to spare before starting up his stream. With his extra time, he decided to go out of his room to his shared dorm with suguru to grab some snacks.

As he made his way to the shared kitchen, he just decided to grab a Gatorade and some random candies he had stored for when he was craving them. As he was going to retreat back to his room, he heard his fellow roommate's door open.

"Suguru, you should join my stream please." He said, dragging out the please for dramatic effect.

"Hell nah, ima go to sleep anyway." The black-haired man says with a blank stare, passing Satoru as he makes a b line towards the restroom.

"What the flip man." Sighing as he made it back to his room to start up his stream.

—————————

"BROO, no fucking way he got me. He literally only got me for 50 shield." He said, falling back in his chair as his 2nd place ranking got displayed on his screen. His hands now going through his face, raking through his white hair. The soft melodies of 'Cologne' by Beabadoobee fill the stream when he is quiet. The song finished up when one of your songs replaced the quietness, it was a cover you made of 'Paul' by Big Theif.

This is when his chat started flooding with new messages, ranging from questions asking him if he liked your music to how long he's been listening to you. As his arms finally fell from his hair, he looked at his chat when he saw the flood of new texts.

"I didn't know you listened to y/n's music... of course, I listen to their music, she's like one of my favorite artists." He said after reading some questions in his chat. Snickering at his chats surprised reaction, "I'm surprised some of you guys didn't know this, I follow them on twitter and on insta and I know some of you guys stalk my following and shit" He said as he was going back to the home screen of his game, deciding that it was enough of fortnite for him after playing around 10 rounds.

“Have you seen shes working on a new song? She posted about it on her twitter” he mumbled, reading one of the texts that caught his eye. “Yeah I saw her post, hopefully she posts a clip of her song. I know it’s gonna be good though.” He grins, exited that one of his favorite artist might release a song soon.

"Anyways, ima stopping the stream here, I'm done with fortnite for today. I might stream again in the weekend though, I'll tweet about it if I do." Waving at his face cam as he ended the stream, making sure to double-check it was off. He closed off any extra tabs he had open before shutting down his PC. Once he was finally done with his computer, he stood up and went to scroll on his phone on his bed, finally relieving the ache in his back due to his bad posture.

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Interact with this post to be a part of my taglist.

this isnt proof read so lmk if theres any mistakes D:

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TAGLIST: OPEN

@bakananya, @lysaray, @reagan707, @cccccccccccleo, @samutoru, @sunaluvrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, @sur-i-ki, @rybunnie, @ramchu,

[scented-morker]

Enha when 8th member s/o has a stage accident

8th member au, gn reader (mentions a dress in hee’s part), mentions of electrocution in jw + rk’s, requested!!, 1345 words not proofread

Heeseung

He was internally screaming as soon as he saw you getting ready

You guys always like to give each other fashion shows of your outfits before performing

Like "babe look!" And then strut strut strut pose "slay me!!" 😆😆

But he knew immediately that you did not feel very slayful in your outfit

You were literally yanking it down after every step you took because it was already short and just kept riding up

You give him a "What do you think? 😕"

And he's like "I think you would look really good in a pair of pants 😁"

But the stylists don't have anything else so you have to go out in it

He keeps giving you nervous looks from across the stage

Anytime he crosses in front of you or anything he tries to cover you up or block the camera so you can readjust

Literally texts THE FREAKING CEO like "I'm concerned about the outfits given to yn, she can't perform her best while being so clearly uncomfortable"

"I'm concerned about the entire world realizing you're in love with her, but I guess I can talk to the styling staff 🤷🏻‍♀️"

OKAY BANG PD CALL HIM OUT ON THE SIMPERY LIKE THAT

But you never get an uncomfortably short outfit again... Heelift indeed 😌

Jay

Someone did not think this through 😭

You're doing your killing part in one of the songs on music bank

So obviously the camera guy gets closer to zoom in on you (werk👏👏)

BUT THEN he immediately moves to camera above your head to find Sunghoon and just WALKS INTO YOUR FACE

Ik y'all have seen that wonyo fancam... that's what I'm talking about

You literally make the most horrified face bc THIS MANS CROCH IS IN YOUR FACE

Screw professionalism, you're traumatized 😀

But man jays face is WORSE 😭😭

He's SO MAD like angry eyebrows and everything bc YOU JUST GOT VIOLATED ON LIVE TELEVISION

Walks up to you in the middle of the performance and checks on you

"Are you okay? 🥺"

You're like "yeah, talk after" and go back to performing

At the end when you drop down to a similar pose he goes in front of you 😭😭

It's fine because it wasn't your ending fairy but everyone is on Twitter like "he protects them so well 😭"

He rly does 🫶🫶 and starts a petition to at least get female camera operators next time

Jake

You guys were performing at a festival in the rain (wow so safe)

And everyone has talked before hand about being extra careful so you didn't slip

But it was such a big crowd!!! And it was your favorite song!!!

So you maybe went a little bit harder than you should have 🫣

... and fell on your face mid performance

I'm sorry but he laughs 😭😭

Like he sees you down out of the corner of his eye

Just 💃🕳 and then nothing

You give him such a dirty look when he laughs bc "YOURE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME STOP LAUGHING!!"

So ofc he runs over after and helps you up + gives you a big hug ❤️❤️

"I'm sorry, you just looked so funny!!"

So you smack him again of course because "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I LOOK FUNNY" 😠

But he kisses your boo boo scraped knees (which of course everyone LOSES IT watching) and looks up at you with a smirk 😫😫

I CANT 😵‍💫

Sunghoon

You pretty much always had to wear heels to perform because you were so much shorter than the boys

But today man you had some BIG STOMPERS ON

Like platforms and big heels, the whole thing

And at first Hoon just laughs at you 😭😭

"You really need all that extra height?" Then he stands next to you and realizes you're still not as tall as him "and it doesn't even work!!" 😆😆

He's having the time of his life until you smack him (except he makes you kiss him after so still a win for him honestly)

But then once you guys are performing he notices that you're not moving your legs as freely as usual 🤔 (we love an observant partner <33)

He gives you a 🤷🏻‍♀️ from across the stage and you mouth back "heavy... and too big"

It's a concert and not a like show performance so he just walks over and TAKES YOUR SHOES OFF 😭😭

Like, bends down, unlaces them, takes them off and sets them by the side of the stage

You're like wow he's so sweet omg 😆 but then he goes "now you're short again" with the biggest smile and then runs away

So much for that... enjoy your sock performance 😻

Sunoo

Honestly it was really bad for you but kinda good for him 😭

You guys were performing at a fan meeting and they were gonna shoot like fireworks out at the end !!

And everyone knew it, but you were in the bathroom when they told everyone the specifics 🫣

So you were out just like casually performing, not really doing all of the choreo

More so just singing and running back and forth on the stage to say hi to everyone 🫶

But then the fireworks shootout 😭 and you were literally RIGHT NEXT TO THEM

And you’re so freaked out and they were so close and loud and you fall on your butt 😁

And the boys don’t realize it at first because they’re interacting with fans

But when you fall the whole crowd gasps 😭😭 and they’re like ????

And then Sunoo sees you on the floor half crawling away from the fireworks THAT ARE STILL SHOOTING OUT

He feels bad but he also thinks it’s really cute (😒)

But of course he helps you up 😁

And then he drags you around with him for the rest of the time

Like no you aren’t allowed to go anywhere by yourself anymore, he is holding your hand and you are going TOGETHER

Jungwon

Listen he is MAD

Like Leader Won was on high alert all day because it's been storming on and off

He was worried someone was gonna slip

But it was 10x worse 😭

You had turned your head to do a part of the choreo and some of the rain water got into your in ear

LITERALLY ELECTROCUTED YOU

It's giving Benjamin Franklin sunbaenim 😻😻

You were center for that part so all of the boys just saw you jump from the shock and then fall into a crouch covering your ears

He is IMMEDIATELY on it, running up to you and taking them out of your ears and escorting you off stage

He lowkey yells at the staff (🫣) bc "the performance should have been cancelled and now Yn's hurt!"

He doesn't want to leave you, but he has to go finish the rest of the performance

But once you're back home, he's not leaving your side

Chilling in a dark room with soft music playing so your ears don't hurt 🫶🫶

He's trending for like a week because of how scary he was 😭

Riki

Riki is the opposite of Jungwon 😭

Like he was having the time of his life performing and then he sees you drop and goes through all five stages of grief at the same time

Runs over "are you okay?!"

Except he yelled and you just got YOUR EARS ELECTROCUTED so you clutch your ears tighter bc it hurt

Once he sees you crying ITS OVER

Literally picks you up and takes you backstage, yelling to any staff in a thirty foot radius that he needs help ☹️

They lay you down in a stretcher and take you out to make sure you don't have like permanent ear drum damage or anything and he's just standing there like 😨

He has no idea what to do with himself

"Can I go with them? Please please please?"

So they let him of course bc he's cute and he WILL NOT let go of your hand for the entire time you're being treated until you're back in the dorms laid on his bed 🥹

He’s so clingy for like a week after because he was just so scared and he never wants to be away from you ☹️

[kangshxrtie]

15 . family dinner . written

prev . main

now you would never admit it to xinyu but as soon as you got dressed, you found yourself staring out your window, waiting for her to arrive. when you saw her car pull up, you hesitated, waiting for her text before heading outside.

after grabbing everything you needed, you stepped outside to find xinyu leaning casually against her car, waiting for you.

"i see you're being a gentlewoman now," you said as you walked up to her.

"i gotta treat my girlfriend right," xinyu replied with a grin, opening the car door for you.

"technically, we haven't started that yet, so i'm not your girlfriend," you reminded her as you slid into the passenger seat.

"you're right. might as well practice, though," she said with a playful smile before closing the door.

you tried to ignore the flutter in your chest as xinyu walked around to the driver's side. shaking your head, you pushed those thoughts away. you couldn't fall for her again.

the drive began in comfortable silence, with xinyu's driving playlist softly filling the car.

"so, about this dinner," you began.

"yeah?" xinyu glanced over at you.

"what do you think it's gonna be like?" you asked. "it's the first time we've all met up since our group split."

"honestly, i don't know," xinyu shrugged. "it's not like we have issues with each other, so it shouldn't be too awkward."

"the fact that we split after we stopped being friends, and now we're all meeting up again now when we became friends again... we really carried the group," you pointed out.

"you know, you're right," xinyu chuckled. "we kinda were the glue."

you both shared a smile before settling into a comfortable silence, the rest of the drive passing quietly with the occasional comment.

when xinyu parked, she turned to you. "do you want to wait for them or get a table?"

"let's just get a table. there's no way everyone will be on time," you told her.

"did you find out how many of us are actually coming?" xinyu asked.

"i didn't, but i'll check now," you replied, pulling out your phone to text the group chat.

“there’s fourteen,” you said, putting your phone back in your pocket. you and xinyu walked into the restaurant, immediately greeted by the hostess.

“hi, welcome! how many today?” she asked.

“fourteen,” xinyu replied.

the hostess’s eyes widened. “fourteen?”

xinyu nodded. “yeah, we’re a big group.”

“okay, we’ll set up the table. you all can wait here,” she said, pointing to the waiting area before heading off.

you and xinyu sat down on the couch at the entrance of the restaurant. the two of you were in silence until xinyu started chuckling quietly to herself.

“are you okay?” you asked, half concerned and half amused.

“it really is everyone minus the other two,” she said with a grin.

“i’m glad they were considerate of that,” you replied.

“this means we have to really step up our game tonight, though,” xinyu said.

“all of our solo practice is gonna come in handy now,” you agreed.

“don’t do anything too crazy, though,” xinyu warned.

“me? i feel like i should be saying that to you,” you countered.

“i’m serious. i know i’m beautiful, but you can’t jump my bones during this dinner,” xinyu joked.

“first of all, you’re literally known for being extra, and let’s not forget you’re the one who kissed me a couple of years ago,” you retorted.

“you said we wouldn’t talk about that anymore,” xinyu said.

“it was my only defense,” you replied.

“i won’t do that to you again…” xinyu leaned closer, “unless you want me to.”

just as the hostess returned to show you to the table, you stood up quickly and followed her, with xinyu trailing behind you.

the hostess seated you and xinyu at the table, placing the menus in front of you. you knew she had arranged the seating because of the plan, but after the recent exchange, you felt a bit nervous sitting next to her.

the hostess took your drink orders, and you and xinyu took the time to look at the menu.

“what are you thinking of getting?” you asked xinyu.

“probably tteokbokki with odeng soup and fried dumplings,” she said, still scanning the menu. “you?”

“i’ll probably get the same,” you said.

“sounds good,” xinyu nodded. “we can share if you want—i mean, if you’d be fine with that.”

“sure,” you agreed. “it’s not like we haven’t shared food before.”

“right,” xinyu said, recalling the many late-night meals you two had shared when you were close.

before you could say anything else, you saw nien, kaede, jiwoo, chaeyeon, and yubin walk in together, so you waved them over.

“hey, yn!” they all greeted as they took their seats. jiwoo, chaeyeon, and yubin turned to greet xinyu as well, while nien and kaede exchanged quick glances but stayed quiet.

“hey, everyone,” xinyu replied, smiling at everyone in return.

“so, how has everyone been?” you asked, as if you hadn’t seen most of them yesterday.

“we’re good,” yubin answered. “classes have actually been kicking my ass lately. i needed this.”

“same. i’ve threatened to drop out at least five times this week,” kaede said.

“it’s wednesday,” chaeyeon remarked with a laugh.

“i know. it’s bad,” kaede sighed.

the small talk continued for a while. xinyu stayed quiet, trying to ignore the odd looks nien and kaede were giving her. you shot them each a look to leave her alone, which seemed to work. you just hoped that people xinyu was on better terms with would show up soon.

your prayers were answered when yooyeon, seoyeon, dahyun, hyerin, and soomin walked in, making xinyu visibly relax as they came over.

“hey, everyone,” soomin greeted cheerfully as everyone sat down.

“hey, guys,” you greeted them.

with the new arrivals, the atmosphere at the table seemed to lighten up, and xinyu now felt comfortable participating in the conversations.

lastly, kotone and yeonji arrived.

“sorry we’re late,” kotone said. “there was so much traffic.”

“you’re good,” yubin reassured. “they haven’t even taken our order yet.”

as kotone and yeonji sat down, the table was finally complete. the waiter came over and took everyone’s orders before heading back.

as everyone settled in, conversations began to flow naturally with people talking to those they were sitting near. that was until soomin interrupted your conversation with yooyeon, catching everyone’s attention.

“why are you and xinyu friends again? i thought you hated her?” soomin asked from across the table.

“soomin!” kotone scolded.

“what! i’m sure we’re all curious,” soomin said.

“i wouldn’t say i hated her,” you said awkwardly, not convincing anyone—hell, even you knew you were lying. “but we’ve talked about everything and agreed to just forget the whole situation.”

“shit is still crazy to me,” nien said.

“i lowkey did miss xinyu, and i’m not gonna lie, we only talked because of the two people that aren’t here, but it’s been really nice hanging out again. i missed my best friend,” you explained to the table.

xinyu looked at you, wondering if this was sincere or if you were doing it for the plan. either way, it seemed to be working on the group, judging by their collective looks of sympathy.

“well, i’m glad we’re all able to be here tonight. it’s been so long,” hyerin said.

“you make it sound like we’re at a family reunion,” kaede said.

“that’s basically what this is,” jiwoo said.

“our group chat was quite literally called ‘family dinner.’ we’re family,” chaeyeon said.

“i forgot that existed,” kaede said.

“we have to revive it now,” hyerin said.

“i don’t know if that’s a good idea,” seoyeon said.

“why not?” hyerin asked.

“because everybody is in there,” seoyeon said.

“oh…” hyerin said.

“do they know about tonight?” you asked.

“i mean, i told her i was hanging out with seoyeon, and xinyu is usually there. i don’t think she cared too much,” yooyeon answered.

“you think they’ll have a reaction?” kaede asked.

“if what nakyoung texted me the other day says anything, then yes,” you said.

“she texted you?” hyerin asked.

“yeah. she was mad that i was hanging out with xinyu, and i told her it was none of her business.”

“we literally told her not to,” yubin sighed.

“it’s fine, though. i handled it,” you waved it off.

just then, the waiter returned with perfect timing, delivering your meals before anyone could continue the conversation. they placed everyone’s food on the table and headed back. you all didn’t talk much while eating.

since you were sharing with xinyu, she played her part as your 'girlfriend' by feeding you. this earned some weird looks from nien and kaede, but you just ignored them. you knew they would have some words for you later.

as you finished your meal, kotone offered you a taste of hers, and you both discussed how her dish reminded you of a similar one you had tried in the past. that led you two to talk about other dishes you’d like to try later.

“i really want chinese. i haven’t had it in a while,” you told her.

“i’m right here, though,” xinyu tried to whisper, but it wasn’t successful as your half of the table heard it.

seoyeon, with an exaggerated sigh, turned to the others. “can i switch with somebody, please?”

“wait, don’t leave me,” yooyeon begged, grabbing seoyeon’s hand.

“don’t leave me either. i disapprove of this behavior,” you said.

“just blink twice if you need to be saved from xinyu,” jiwoo told you.

you dramatically blinked twice, making the majority of the table laugh.

“come on, yn. you know you like me,” xinyu said, leaning her head onto your shoulder.

luckily, everyone stopped paying attention to the two of you at that point, as you were definitely not playing your part right now, literally freezing when xinyu breathed on a sensitive spot on your neck.

unfortunately, xinyu seemed to notice the effect she was having on you and wouldn’t let up.

“i wasn’t kidding. we can sneak away and go to the bathroom… or my car,” xinyu said into your neck.

you moved away from xinyu, feeling flustered. “you know what, i can’t do this.”

“my crew, let’s go!” you shouted, standing up. this caused some people at nearby tables to look at you from the sudden loudness.

“sit back down; we are not leaving yet,” yooyeon told you, pulling your arm and making you sit back down.

“damn, can’t take you people anywhere,” xinyu shook her head.

“seoyeonnn, tell your girlfriend to stop scolding me,” you whined to seoyeon.

“i’m not in this,” seoyeon shrugged, looking away.

“wow. fake,” you shook your head.

you all sat around talking for a while, eventually losing track of time and not even noticing the restaurant was about to close until hyerin spoke up.

“i think we should get out of here soon… i think they’re closing soon,” hyerin told the group.

“i don’t want this to end, though,” soomin pouted.

“we can go to my house,” you offered.

“i’m down. i have nothing better to do,” jiwoo agreed.

the others quickly agreed, and everyone gathered their things to leave the restaurant. since you all were going to the same place, there was no need to linger around the parking lot talking, so you all quickly headed out.

“that went well,” you told xinyu as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“nien and kaede glared at me the whole time,” xinyu said.

“i did notice that. i’ll talk to them,” you reassured her.

“you don’t have to. i’ll deal with it,” xinyu insisted.

“well, they’ll listen to me, so at least let me put in a good word,” you said.

xinyu glanced over at you, her expression softening. “you’d do that?”

“you said you would have my back, so let me do this for you,” you replied with a small smile.

instead of talking more, you two let the music take over, singing along to the songs that played.

everyone arrived at your house around the same time, so you all settled comfortably into the living room. you sat down next to xinyu on the couch, leaning into her, prompting her to put her arm around your shoulder—an action that did not go unnoticed by the others in the room.

“what is going on between you two?” yooyeon teased, raising an eyebrow.

“they’re over here being gay,” chaeyeon joined in.

you rolled your eyes playfully but couldn’t stop a smile from forming on your face. “mind your business.”

“you’re suspicious,” soomin said. you just gave her a small smirk in response.

as the night progressed, the group shifted to a more lively atmosphere when you turned on music and allowed people to get some drinks from your kitchen.

you had spent most of the night cozying up with xinyu, but eventually decided to separate and talk to more people since you were technically the host.

you walked over to where chaeyeon, yubin, and kotone were standing, joining their conversation.

“who are you the closest to out of us three?” chaeyeon asked.

“kotone,” you answered quickly.

“you didn’t even think about it. i’m hurt,” yubin said, placing a hand over her heart dramatically.

“don’t be hurt; you’re my girlfriend,” you said, holding up your hands to make a heart.

“chaeyeon, i won!” yubin cheered.

“nooo,” chaeyeon cried out dramatically. “i knew her first. this is unfair.”

“technically, i knew her first,” xinyu cut in.

“you don’t count,” chaeyeon said.

“you can be my side chick… if you’re okay with that,” you said.

“i can’t believe i lost you to yubin like this,” chaeyeon said.

“how about my wife?” you whispered to her.

“that''s actually so much better. i won the war!” chaeyeon exclaimed.

you laughed before moving closer to kotone, who was just watching the whole thing unfold.

“we were planning on getting malatang tomorrow. you wanna come with?” kotone asked.

“yes, i’m so down,” you agreed immediately but then remembered who you were talking to. “who else is gonna be there?”

“just me, yeonji, and chaeyeon,” kotone said.

“i’m so down then,” you said.

a little while later, you made your way over to nien, deciding it was finally time to talk to her about mending things with xinyu.

“you know, xinyu missed you,” you said, trying to convince nien. “i forgave her, and tonight’s all about us becoming friends again. it’s time for you two to make up.”

nien looked at you, skepticism clear in her eyes. “just because you forgave her doesn’t mean i do.”

“i get it, but please just consider it. i miss us. the xinyu, yn, and nien trio. don’t you miss it too?” you asked.

“a little bit,” nien sighed, her defenses slightly lowering.

“just talk to her for a bit. i’ll keep everyone else distracted,” you offered.

nien hesitated before responding, “you want me to go to a private room with her? i know you’re trying to convince me to get over everything, but that didn’t work out so well for you last time.”

“just don’t let her kiss you,” you joked, “and definitely don’t try to kiss her.”

“trust me, that won’t be a problem,” nien replied.

“i’m only doing this because you can joke about the situation now,” nien said as she stood up.

“thank you for this,” you smiled at her.

nien walked toward xinyu and motioned for them to talk in private. as they headed to the back, you turned back to the group, who had calmed down and were gathered in the living room.

“so, what are we talking about?” you asked as you joined them.

“we were talking about dating within the friend group,” hyerin replied.

“seems like i joined at a perfect time then,” you said, sitting down on the couch.

“i’ve only dated once in our friend group and nobody else was interested in her, so like—” you started, but then your mind started rolling, and you locked eyes with yooyeon. “actually, let me shut the fuck up.”

“no, continue that. we’re being open and honest tonight,” yeonji said.

“can i?” you asked yooyeon, who shrugged in response.

“what!” the rest of the group asked loudly, eyes wide with surprise.

“when did you date nakyoung?” soomin asked, turning to yooyeon.

“it was more of a fling,” yooyeon explained awkwardly. “the only person i told about it was yn.”

“did that make you feel weird?” dahyun asked, curiosity piqued.

“honestly, i liked someone else around that time, so i didn’t really care,” you admitted.

“who did you like?” xinyu asked, glancing at you as she and nien emerged from their conversation in the other room.

“how’d it go?” you asked carefully, shifting the focus back to them.

“oh, i still hate her,” nien said, playfully pushing xinyu.

“well, we tried,” hyerin remarked with a shrug.

“she’s lying. we’re besties now,” xinyu said, going back to hug nien.

“my baby!” nien agreed, hugging xinyu back.

“we’re so back,” you cheered as they both sat down, taking their spots beside you.

“so, what were you all talking about?” xinyu asked, curiosity evident in her eyes.

“apparently, nakyoung really likes to keep it in the friend group,” you said with a chuckle.

xinyu tried to stifle her laughter but ended up letting out a giggle. “why didn’t anybody know about this?” yubin asked, looking around the table.

“i only told yn because she told me about her crush at the time,” yooyeon explained.

“who was it?” jiwoo asked, eyes darting toward you.

“you all know who it was,” you said, trying to play it cool.

“oh… it was just that one,” jiwoo said, her eyes looking anywhere but at you.

“was?” xinyu questioned, turning her attention to you.

“yes. it’s definitely gone now,” you affirmed.

“any chance of it coming back?” xinyu asked, trailing her hand over your leg.

“we can talk about that later,” you replied, feeling your heart skip a beat.

xinyu seemed satisfied with your answer and removed her hand, a mischievous smile playing on her lips.

“can we please stop dating within the friend group for the sake of our friendships?” dahyun suggested.

“seoyeon and yooyeon are the only exception,” hyerin chimed in, nodding in their direction.

“as somebody who dated within the friend group, i can agree—that shit is just messy,” you chimed in.

“what about us?” xinyu whispered to you, her eyes full of teasing curiosity.

“what do you mean?” you asked, playing innocent.

“you know exactly what i mean,” xinyu grinned.

“well, i guess we’ll have to see where this goes,” you replied.

main . nxt

taglist ༒ @gtfoiydlyj . @inybits . @baewonlove . @yeetaberry127 . @sananapotter . @happyjuhyun . @nicstumblur . @istphanie . @urmom2314 . @yunalvrrr .

[madelinetess]

So what if he got a little aggressive on the pitch today? Richard played the same way he lived, passionately. And as Zava said before the match, passion can mean both love and crime. Also fruit… and the Christian meaning… The word is actually pretty versatile… But it mostly means the first two things…

Today though, the passion meant that the quiet rage he felt ever since the team discovered that the BELIEVE sign was torn finally found its outlet.

He knew who was to blame and he saw red. Both figuratively and literally... He smiled to himself when he remembered the sound the ball made on contact with the Westham player when he slammed it into him. The red card was absolutely worth it.

He didn't really remember much of what happened afterwards. He knew that Isaac carried him off the field, but everything after that was a blur.

Coach Lasso's locker room talk was short and yet Richard still did not retain a word of it. The bus ride back home was spent sitting in silence, focusing extra hard on not exploding and ruining the already shitty mood of the rest of the team.

One thing however did manage to get him out of his spiral. A pair of blue eyes studying him carefully. Scanning every inch of his tensed up body. Jan Maas, sitting right next to him, was staring at him intently which was throwing Richard off. The French player glared back at his friend.

"There are already clips of you throwing that ball at the Westham Player on the internet" the Dutchman said, his accent seeping into the sentence. "On one hand it was incredibly satisfying and..." he paused and cleared his throat "and entertaining to watch, but he did not deserve it."

"What do you mean!?" A few people turned in their seats to look at them.

"He was not the one that ripped the sign. That was Nate. We should have won this match to show him who he messed with"

"Oi, Jan Maas" Jamie butted in "weren't cha also pissed?"

"I'm not saying I wasn't, this time I indeed played badly. The thing is, we hurt ourselves more than we harmed them." At this point almost everyone was listening in on the conversation.

"I'd say the poor fella that Dickie over here knocked down got plenty harmed" This time it was Colin that decided to comment and more than a few people nodded their heads clearly sharing the sentiment.

"Someone even made an edit of the moment! It's trending now!" Dani exclaimed with that radiant smile of his, and soon after a notification went off on everyone's phone as a link to the aforementioned clip found its way into the groupchat. 

And just like that a little bit of life returned to the not so long ago gloomy footballers, the bus got livelier and the conversations seemed to at least slightly brighten everybody's mood.

The Frenchman however could not force himself to join any of them. He just sat there unmoving, looking out the window, not focusing on anything in particular. 

Once back at their home stadium the whole team got out of the bus, and people all went their separate ways. Richard sat down inside his car and exhaled deeply while leaning his forehead on the steering wheel. 

The silence bothered him, so he turned on the radio, but as soon as the Adele CD Jan had gifted him for Christmas started playing, he immediately turned it off. Rolling in the Deep was not the song for now… However much he loved her, today was not the day… They could have had it all, but he messed it up. And they lost. 

Richard took out his phone to check the time, but was instead greeted by a text notification.

I'm coming over. Bring up some wine.

Why would Jan be coming over today, was he not tired? Was he not frustrated? All that Richard wanted to do now was to sleep off the loss, and maybe the wine part didn't sound so bad right now...

He somehow managed to get himself back home just in time to take a quick shower, throw on something comfy and make the trip to his cellar to pick something for them to drink.

While entering his kitchen he was greeted by Jan, rummaging through the cupboards to find the right wine glasses. It wasn't exactly a surprise, as they both owned the keys to each other's places since the last off-season and met up quite often, however Richard has just recently reorganised his kitchen, so the Dutchman was struggling to find the right glassware.

"In the middle one, the ones behind your usual mug."

"These?"

The man holding the bottle only nodded.

"Where to? The living room?"

"No offence to your really nice couch, but this is a bed-comfort level of conversation."

This was also nothing new. They had conversations where a park bench was sufficient, but they also had the privacy of a living room and comfort of a sofa types of talks. This one? This one apparently required the highest level of comfort that only a bed with an excessive amount of throw pillows could provide.

They both made their way upstairs and once in the bedroom, Richard set up the table for their glasses, while Jan threw an additional blanket on the bed. Once done with their respective tasks they both turned to look at each other.

"So..?"

"You are still angry" Jan said simply stating the obvious. Richard stood next to him quietly sipping on the wine. "I envy your passion," the Dutchman paused for a moment there, smiling softly to himself "but I also know that now you have nothing to target it at, and you will just let it get to your head. So I’m here so that you are not alone with your thoughts.”

“I’m not angry”

“Of course, and Jamie Tartt is not a prick”

Richard rolled his eyes at Jan and exhaled annoyedly, but put his glass down at the table he set up, and sat down on the bed motioning for his friend to join him. The Dutchman followed.

“I am not angry, I’m disappointed. In myself." The other footballer clearly wanted to interject, but the Frenchman continued before that could happen. “I should have played better. Just like you said, we should have proved them all wrong, and instead we threw the game. I am so mad that even Adele didn’t help…”

“Adele?”

Richard leaned back to rest his head against the wall behind them.

“Yes, I have the CD you got me for Christmas in my car. A song played and the words made me feel even worse, so I turned it off and you know I never turn off Adele”

Another shaky exhale on his part was followed by Jan’s hand making its way into Richard’s hair and combing through them. The shorter man, though surprised at first, leaned into the touch.

“I know how much that sign meant to me, and how angry I got seeing Nate tearing it, so I can’t imagine how you felt. I know how sentimental you are.”

The Dutchman’s fingers kept on getting tangled in the other’s hair, running soothing circles on his scalp while Richard listened to him.

“When you were telling me the story about the ghosts from the treatment room you mentioned the sand in the bottle, according to your retelling everyone else brought some object, be it a photo or a pair of shoes, but you brought sand…” Richard nodded slightly and leaned into his friend that was now sitting right next to him with his back also against the wall. “And for my first Christmas here I remember you bringing things that were your family tradition to the Higgins’ Christmas Party… Don’t even get me started on your photo album organisation system…”

At that they both exchanged a chuckle. It was true that Richard liked keeping all his photos meticulously organised in countless albums. Every team outing or a trip somewhere had a separate photo album complete with dates… 

Jan looked at him and smiled warmly before continuing.

“You love with passion and without remembrance… You feel so much… even for the tiniest things… Sometimes I wish I was the sand…”

Realising what he’d said, Jan stopped everything he was doing, and Richard, who was mostly asleep at that moment shot up and looked straight at his… friend? 

Time stood still and Jan sat there, hand still in Richard’s hair, terrified, waiting. The way he felt for so long, out in the open. And then the Frenchman spoke.

“Don’t.” Jan was ready to make his escape, but got cornered by the shorter man who threw his leg over his and was now sitting on his lap caging him between his body and the wall. “Don’t wish for that. I’d much rather have you as a person, than as some grains”

“Do you mean it?” Jan’s blue eyes stared firmly into Richard’s green ones.

“I didn’t drink nearly enough to start speaking nonsense. Of course I mean it.” He was looking at his lips. Then he was no longer looking at them, because they were covered with his own, hidden from everyone else in the world.

Jan’s hands stayed in Richard’s hair, but Richard’s roamed all over his neck, their kiss slowly but surely gaining momentum. There was no trace of the anger or disappointment that marked this day ever since the recording was presented to the team after the first half. The passion however, the passion that has always been there, somewhere under the surface, was now out in the late evening sun, and it was there to stay.

~~~

The ao3 link is here

[theshimadaslovers]

~SO... THIS IS LOVE~

(HANZO X YOU FEM!READER)

Part 5

Author notes: This chapter is a little more funny and sweet👁👄👁

*The fight was over, thanks to Overwatch, if they wasn't there, things would be much worse. The city wasn't entirely destroyed, a lot of civilians got hurt and some of them, unfortunately, well... you know.*

*Apparently, Talon's retreated but Jack didn't want to believe it. About you and Hanzo, but were transferred to a hospital where you finally could visit him. You walk through the hallways and find the information balcony*

You- Excuse me, do you know which room stays the patient Hanzo Shimada?

Nurse- Hanzo Shimada...*she looks at the computer* He is at the B34, do you know how to get there?

You- Yes, thank you very much!

Nurse- Wait, lady! What is your relationship with him?

You- I...*laughs* I'm his girlfriend, sorry the lack of information.

Nurse- *chuckle* It's ok, you're a patient too, right, miss y/n?

You- I just got discharged *sighs* He's a little...worse.

Nurse- I'm sure that he'll be healthy very soon.

You- Oh for sure! *laughs* He hates standing still doing nothing. By the way, who is taking care of him?

Nurse- *look at the screen again and smiles* Dr.Ziegler! She's helping the hospital with the victims of the attack.

You- Oh perfect! *you smiled in relief* can I see him?

Nurse- Sure! She may be there already *smiles*

*you walk fast trying to find his room, suddenly you see Angela just walk out from another room*

You- Angie! *you run to her and she look at you suprised and laugh* Hi!

Angela- You look fantastic, y/n! Who discharged you? Oh! Let me guess...Baptiste.

You- Yeah! *both laughed* I...I wanna know about Hanzo. Is he ok?

Angela- I gave him a extra help with the leg, if you know what I mean~

You- You use your technology to heal his leg, right? *chuckle*

Angela- Ja! And he is much better! But the hospital do bot allow this kind of treatment...

You- What? Why?

Angela- Well...*sighs* The world still have something against Overwatch and our technology. But anyway, I can be a little rebel. *laugh and hug your arm* Come! He can't stop asking about you! Is driving me crazy already.

You- Really? *chuckle*

Angela- Look, we never! Never ever! Saw him like that and I'll always say that to you and...he is very annoying *both laughed* you can't keep distance of him! *walking with you to the room*

You- He is just worried...we had a pretty bad accident there.

Angela- Ana told me... it was horrible and you both had lucky to survive! *she starts to check on your face* You got some pretty bad wounds on the face...

You- Yeah...I know *you smirk taking your hand go the face* Still hurts a little.

Angela- Ooh Hanzo will be so worry *chuckle and step in front of the room B34* We think about but him and you together, but...

You- Yeah, he would be too worry with me... I don't him to see me in a hospital bed.

*Angela agreed and open the door, Hanzo was laying down literally trying to reach his hanging casted leg*

Hanzo- Grr...! Dammit!

Angela- Shimada? *laughing in surprise* What are you doing?

Hanzo- Trying to scratch my thumb...!

Angela- *roll eyes and go to him and get a little glass bottle with a gold shine liquid, dripping one little drop on his feet* Done...

Hanzo- *smiles in relief* That's better...~

Angela- You have a visit.

Hanzo- Visit? *immediately look at the door seeing you, he immediately smiles*

Angela- Well, I'll let you two alone and no escape this time, Shimada *laughs*

You- *enters the room* he tried to escape?! *laughs*

Angela- He said that his leg was fine and wanted to see you *roll eyes and smiles* He tried at least 3 times in a row.

You- Hanzo...*you look at him pretending mad*

Hanzo- I...! *chuckles* I can explain my stubbornness.

You- You better do explain.

Angela- Well, everything is fine with mister Shimada, so, I'm going to work, excuse me~

*Angela gets out the room and close the door. You just keep staring at him*

Hanzo-...what? *he look down to your broken arm, it makes him restless* You...? Are you ok? You're hurted!

You- I'm fine, Hanzo...I already get discharged.

Hanzo- *sighs* I didn't protect you enough...

You- Hanzo, you saved me! *approach the bed* And because of this, you have a broken leg.

Hanzo- Hey *chuckle* Angela is using her "magic" to heal faster sometimes. The owner of this hospital doesn't really like Overwatch.

You- I've heard about it. But...good thing that they accept you here *you hold his hand* You'll get well soon.

Hanzo- *smiles and blush* I hope so...I hate hospitals...I've never being in one, but I hated.

You- *laughs* Yes, I hate too. Jack is not sending us back home yet, they're trying to track Talon.

Hanzo- Honestly? *sighs* I don't care about Talon...I joined Overwatch because of my brother to finally forgive myself...overwatch in not my place.

You- Of course it is, Han...where more would be? Walking like a homeless is not a "place", is not home.

Hanzo- My home...my home is where my brother stays...and you, not Overwatch.

You- Don't you want a ceiling up on your head?

Hanzo- To protect me from rain? *chuckle* I don't need material things to protect from nature. Do you understand, y/n? I will stay in Overwatch, but just because of you and Genji.

You- I do understand... you definitely is not a materialist person *laughs*

Hanzo- Yes, this is a good resume *chuckles* So...*he look at the necklace that he gave to you* You keep it.

You- Hm? *you look down* Oh, of course... I'm glad that I didn't lose in the fall.

Hanzo- *chuckle blushing* You'll be visiting me?

You- Constantly.

Hanzo- Also call Genji to see me, he didn't appear once *roll eyes*

Genji- How could you say something like that, brother?! *act dramatically at the door* After all this years wanting for you...!

Hanzo- *laughs in surprise* When you came?!

Genji- Just arrive~ *close the door and approach the bed* How are you feeling?

Hanzo- ...bored.

Genji- Well, good thing that I'm here with Soba!

You- With what?

Hanzo- Wait, Genji, she doesn't know about the...! *a green small noodle dragon come from Genji's back* You silly...

You- What? *look at Genji and see the animal* What is that...? Is that...?

Soba- *look at you*

You- Genji?!

Genji- What? Oh! This is Soba! You don't meet her?

You- Is that....?! Real?!

Genji- Yes! It is *laughs* is a dragon!

You- .... *you look at him in shock* is a what?

Genji- Noodle dragon~ come Soba! This Y/n! My brother's girlfriend!

Hanzo- My what?

Soba- *fly around you and stop in front of your face* ...?

You- *completely frozed*

Hanzo- *sighs* Genji, you're gonna scare her...

Soba- *sniff* *sniff* *lick the point of your nose*

Genji- *chuckle* She's knowing you, don't worry!

Hanzo- ...Genji, she bite me last time she did that...

Genji- But she naturally hates you, bro.

Hanzo-...right.

Soba- *stares you for a moment and literally wrap around your neck while purring* ♡♡

Genji- She likes you! That's suprising!

Hanzo- *sigh in relief that didn't bite you*

You- ...!! Is really a dragon?

Hanzo and Genji- Yeah, is a dragon spirit.

You- Spirit?!

Hanzo- I have two, Genji have one.

You- TWO?! *Tap your mouth* Two dragons...?!

Hanzo- They're not super real dragon, they're spirit dragons, is a family thing.

Genji- Don't scare your girlfriend, brother! She may not marry you~

Hanzo- Ge-Genji! *blush* I swear, if I wasn't incapable like that, I would punch you right now!

Genji- Hahahaha! Do not lie, brother! You dream about that!

You- *playing with Soba and not paying attention* ♡~

Genji- Show her your dragons!

You- What? Dragon?

Hanzo- No! They're more aggressive and your dragon is...! A puppy!

Soba- *growls to him*!!

Hanzo- *growl back* Bitch...

Genji- Don't curse her like that, she's sensitive!

Hanzo- Yeah, me too!

You- *laughs* Soba is a like a cat! I adore her!

Genji- Ok, Soba! Come here~

Soba- *deny*

Genji- So-Soba...! I'm your owner, come here!

Soba- *Still wrapped around your neck*

Genji- People can't see you here, girl~ Come ooon!

Soba- *Roll eyes going back to him and vanishing into his body*

Genji- For a moment, I thought that I lost her to you *chuckle* She did that with Ana too. So! You're ok, right, brother? Hanging there, almost lose a leg...how do you feel...? *sounding creepy*

Hanzo- *roll eyes* I'm fine, Genji...thank you for the...probably a threat.

You- *chuckle*

Genji- Well, tell me when you both get married ok?

Hanzo- Genji!

Genji- Oh! He snores a lot! I mean, taking that, he's a perfect husband. He clean, he can cook, he can fix things, smart...

Hanzo- *facepalm* Stop...! And I don't snore anymore!

Genji- And he likes to take care of the garden.

Hanzo- What?! I only take care of my Bonsai!

Genji- It's the same thing. He also loves horror movies and romantic one.

Hanzo- Noo, I don't like romantic movies! But I do like horror...

Genji- You watched The Kissing Booth twice!

Hanzo- It was the only thing reasonable to watch!

Genji- Don't lie now...! *points to him* You love High School Musical...

Hanzo- ... I do.

You- Really?

Hanzo- Yeah, is fun...I like musicals. *blush*

Genji- I have so many things to tell you about my brother and make him ashamed~

Hanzo- I'll die of stress...! *passing his hand through his face*

You- *laughs* I would love to know everything, Genji~

Genji- Wait for me! And! I'll find Dr. Ziegler now~ official bye! *gets out of the room*

*Hanzo sighs in embarrassment*

Hanzo- I'm sorry... he's a idiot.

You- *laughs* Is brother, don't worry. Be glad that loves you like that. *approaches the bed and starts to caress his hair* I have to go...

Hanzo- Wait, why?

You- I still need to make some final exams and go home, I'm starving...

Hanzo- Right... I hope Angela can heal me with her magic stick.

You- *laughs* Magic stick, I like that. She'll try her best. Don't be impatient, ok? I'll be out of here soon. *you kissed his cheek and went out of the room*

Hanzo- *blushing hard and chuckle* She kissed my cheek...~ *chuckling*

*That same night, Dr. Ziegler could heal Hanzo with her "magic stick" thanks to Jack Morrison that insist the hospital to let his soldier get healthy to protect the city; it was a little bit like that"

Jack- I don't fucking care if this country have something against Overwatch! I want my soldier healthy! I won't let him laying down there!

CEO- Sargent!

Jack- Strike commander! Or captain like they like to call me...so I demand respect! We saved your asses!

Ana- We need to send him back home, we can't let him here at the hospital! *put her hande on the CEO table* If you let us, for just this time use our medicine technology, just this one time...It would help everybody!

CEO- So this... Hanzo Shimada *read on the paper* Make so much difference for you? Haha! Isn't only a soldier?

Jack- *Punch the table with both fists* This is a fucking FAMILY! You stupid rich people don't know what the fuck is a unit?! We're together!

Ana- Jack! Calm down! Now!

Baptiste- But he's right! Hanzo is family! We can't let him here, he needs to back home with us! He doesn't only broke a leg, he broke the femur and takes too long to be 100%!

Ana- And it won't be the same...he's a ninja, his legs Is everything!

CEO- A ninja?! *laughs out loud*

Jack- *growls in anger* I'm gonna punch him...

Ana- Oh you won't. *sighs*

Reinhardt- Excuse me... *passing trought approaching the table*

CEO- *scared by his size* Gonna punch me? I can arrest you.

Reinhardt- Oh no, you can't. *grab him by the clothes easily lifting his up* Don't you like saving people? *talk in a low and rough voice*

CEO- Ye-yeah...! Pull me down!

Reinhardt- So you'll save my friend, right?

CEO- O-ok! Only this time! Pull me down please!

Ana- Oooh Reinhardt, you're so dramatic ~ *chuckles*

Reinhardt- *put the man back in the chair* Well, that works~

Continue...

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

24 working days until the last day of school. It cannot come too soon.

Some kid stuck a mousetrap in my file cabinet today.

That wasn't even enough to get the principal or assistant principal to come down and check it out. No one ever followed up to allow me to file charges on the kid that was trying to asphyxiate us all by spraying aerosol in a closed classroom over and over again.

I asked the principal to get him out of my class and I was ignored.

My co-teacher is candidate for a PhD and yet she teaches 5th grade.

Talking to her is like talking to a brick wall.

I have taught there for 5 years I know the type of kids that we have and I know how their parents are.

She comes from a prep school where they never get discipline problems because those type of kids aren't allowed to attend.

I like to do my own lessons, I like to do the research myself and usually when I am under pressure to get them done, I come up with my most creative ideas.

She doesn't create anything on her own.

She buys it all in advance from Teachers Pay Teachers.

The previous principal I had for 5 years drilled into our heads that Teachers Pay Teachers was for stupid and lazy people. We were absolutely forbidden from ever using lessons from there.

So I learned to make my own which I was very good at. But I haven't been able to use any of my lessons this year because I am having to be in lockstep with the other teacher and she only uses TPT.

I have been condescended to until I am condescended into submission.

Everything I have suggested has been ignored.

Even though most of what I have suggested is what the curriculum director has asked for.

Somehow I ended up with an extra free period. And instead of actually giving me time to do anything I was told I needed to "go learn how to be a teacher from her." What I saw was her giving High School level notes to barely literate 4th graders some of which did not even know English. No visuals, no photos, no videos, no music, no movement, just 45 minutes of copying notes.

This goes against every single professional development I have ever had in the last 8 years.

But she is candidate for a PhD and the best friend of the principal so nothing is done.

Add to this teaching the covid generation and I honestly think I would probably have better luck teaching felons in prison. I definitely would have felt safer.

Add to this Greg Abbott cracking down on what we can and cannot teach. As it is now they are telling us absolutely do not teach anything extra other than what we are telling you to teach. If it says Identify Martin Luther King's accomplishments then don't go into him being assassinated just talk about what he did. This constrains me even more but I am hoping that if I am alone and unobserved in my room with the door shut I can impart any extra knowledge I feel like I need to without being harassed.

However who knows how long that is going to last. I do know I have already been threatened with being thrown in jail if I teach something that has been pulled out of the curriculum.

So at some point I am going in for my final teaching evaluation of the year.

And I don't know what I'm going to do. If I were to share what my true feelings are I would probably be fired. But at the same time I don't know how much longer I can swallow my ego and let them run right over me for the sake of having a job.

If I wasn't so old and broke down I would tell them to all go f themselves and just leave. But I can't do that because there are very few jobs that I can do at this point in my life and living where I am I'm even more limited. But the Mousetrap thing.... that did not make me happy at all.

This year has it been even worse than covid and I didn't think anything could be worse than that.

And I got in trouble because my lesson plans did not match my co-teachers and I will admit I did miss one of the standards was which was the wrong number. But little nitpicky things like I had put all day long there was going to be a STAAR test next Tuesday and in each of the seven or eight blocks we have to fill out I simply put STAAR test because if we leave one of them blank we get in trouble. Well she only put STAAR test in four of her blanks and in the others she put N/A.

So I got in trouble because I did not put N/A in the same length she did. I really wanted to be extra and say if she misspelled a word am I going to have to go back and misspell the same word so that will match?

[dominustempori]

Not every day an actor you admire gets you to watch one of their movies...

Long post, you've been duly warned.

So if you've seen my more recent blogs, I've been obsessing (a bit, healthily, I assure you) over a certain adventure game series. And from there, I'm doing like I usually do when I want to know more about an actor I REALLY like. Finding other stuff they've done, checking out what social media they use here and there, non-profits they support and promote and what have you...

Enter Alexandra Boyd. Actor, writer, director...inspiration.

Podcasts? Check. Her own personal site? Check. Clips from past British shows she had minor AND major roles in? Check.

Finding out her latest film is a documentary about some of the "core extras," including herself, that were in 1997's 'Titanic?' And the trailer for it looks REALLY good?...didn't see that coming.

Truth: until, like, literally now, I NEVER SAW TITANIC.

I was probably the ONLY teenager in AMERICA that had no desire to go watch it, or had a crush on Leo DiCaprio for that matter.

But...granted, I remembered that other actors I've come to REALLY like over time since I was in high school, they were in the movie: Victor Garber, Bernard Hill, Ioan Gruffud, David Warner...you get the idea. I think I prefer Kate Winslet's performance in "Sense and Sensibility" to her Rose but, eh, I'm a little biased.

And, well there's good reasons why 'Titanic' got so many Academy Awards that year...but I'll be real: I was pretty damn excited when "Return of the King" got all of ITS Oscars for 2003.

Anyway.

Few days ago, I took a chance, hoping I didn't come off as too-much-of-an-awkward fangirl, and shot Alexandra a shoutout on Messenger, saying how amazing it was that she came back for her role as Elaine in Return to Monkey Island. And, kind of offhandedly, mentioned how cool the "Ship of Dreams" (her documentary that's releasing soon) looked, and...how I never saw Titanic but now was kind of inspired to after how many years.

She kindly responded to my message (yay!) and highly recommended to watch "Titanic" at the very least to obtain more of and appreciation for 'Ship of Dreams' when it comes out (I've no idea if it'll be in theaters where I live, but then again, I'm going to ask an acquaintance of mine, who just happens to be the director of a local historical theatre with a small modern cinema next to it, if they could possibly get hold of it. Small city living yo.)

Overall...I liked it. I definitely need to watch it again. Full on experience should be more than my library's letterboxed basic edition on my laptop.

Some scenes and lines...I was all "Oh yeah, right. Uh-huh." Dramatic license sort of getting in the way. Strongest dialogue...maybe not so much? Little cornball in places? Mm, well, putting on the romantic plot in an ultimate disaster movie...kind of lends itself to that sort of thing.

But didn't I LOVE to hate (well, strongly dislike) Billy Zane and David Warner's characters. Which of course is the idea. And I was internally cheering on Kate and Leo pretty much the whole way through. Kathy Bates was probably the best of all the first class passengers that got focused on.

Held my breath and tensed up and...closed my eyes for many of the stunt/action shots once the ship hit the iceberg. That music score realllly helped with that. Once it got to that certain high angle and you got more of the screaming...yeah, that broke me. Knew it was coming but still...hit me right in the feels. And didn't Victor look SO SAD when he realized the truth that his ship's design turned out to be SO flawed. Oh he plays that so well.

BUT I didn't get teary until good old (then unknown) Ioan "My Man Hornblower" Gruffud turned his lifeboat around and desperately called out if anyone in the water was still alive.

Yeah, I liked it. More than I thought I would. Surprised me quite a bit, which is usually a good thing. Need to find me more behind-the-scenes stuff. I'm intrigued, and that's always a good sign that I enjoyed a film.

So TL, DR: Alexandra Boyd basically got me to watch 'Titanic.' How cool is that? Thanks, Alexandra, and cheers!

[chaoticoctopi]

I've been so, so lucky that my primary care physician is a literal angel and has never blamed my health issues on my weight. (My damn insurance has now made my entire local hospital system "out of network" so if I want to keep her I'll basically have to pay out of pocket. Also, almost every doctor and service in town is now out of network. Need a blood draw? Shit outta luck, drive 90 miles one way to get it. Fuck you, United Healthcare.)

My hospital however...

When I went to the ER with crazy pain they found out pretty quick my gallbladder was to blame. "Don't worry, it's not an emergency - you'll get scheduled to get it removed but we don't have to do it right now." Lie 1.

My doc (angel!) immediately gets me forwarded to a surgeon. Surgeon calls me within a day to set up a first appointment within the week. We can schedule surgery for immediately after that. Yay!

Then I get a call back. "Oh, we can't do your surgery here. We saw your BMI and we don't have any of the special extra large surgical tables for fat patients like you." In the ENTIRE HOSPTIAL, not a single table for fat people.

So I get pawned off to a "specialist" surgeon 50 miles away. 2.5 weeks JUST to get my first consult. And then almost TWO MONTHS on a special "liver shrinking" diet before I can get surgery.

No carbs. Zero fats.

I was basically living off (expensive) nutrition replacement protein shakes. ugh.

MEANWHILE the pain has. Not. Stopped. Completely upending my diet hasn't helped. Pain meds haven't helped. I go to the ER multiple times and that doesn't help at all. I just constantly feel like I've got a rotting lead weight in my right chest.

Which, after I beg my doctor for one more round of blood work because nothing is getting better (she told me to go to ER again and I'm like "can you just order a blood draw?!? Nothing else they do there will be of any help and it'll be a LOT less time and expense, not to mention less strain on a small ER during COVID??") I get a call as soon as the blood work has been processed: "yeah, drive yourself to [town 45 miles away that isn't even the biggest town with the biggest hospital where my surgeon is located]. [Biggest hospital where surgeon works at] has no room, but [2nd town] does. Your gallbladder needs to come out NOW."

So my boyfriend drives me an hour away and I check in to this hospital, where my specialist-in-fat-people-surgeries doctor can't even see me.

And they remove my gallbladder, which was FALLING APART INSIDE ME.

My surgeon for that surgery was a "regular" gall bladder surgeon. She didn't give two shits that I was fat. She also didn't give any shits that my liver hadn't had time to "shrink" on the special diet because I was only a week and a half into it.

The surgical table they put me on was EXACTLY THE SAME ONE they use for "regular" sized patients.

I was put through WEEKS of pain and fear and frustration JUST BECAUSE I WAS FAT. I had to spend almost a week in hospital for what should have been a very short-stay surgery because my gallbladder disintegrated as they removed it and caused pancreatitis, and I had to stay admitted with zero food for days to make sure it cleared up.

Because my local hospital pawned me off because I was fat.

My hospital has done multiple emergency surgeries on my boyfriend with no questions asked and not an eye batted.

WE WEAR THE SAME SHIRT SIZE.

Fuck fat phobic doctors and the systems they work in

one of the most evil parts about me being told that i needed to lose weight before i could get my diseased gallbladder removed was that without telling me at all whatsoever, the physician's assistant who was responsible for my surgery consult silently gave me a referral for bariatric weight loss surgery. she told me that i'd have to get my gallbladder removal surgery with that department as well because they're used to working on bigger bodies.

she told me this, but that's not what she meant. she wanted me to get bariatric weight loss surgery all because i told her that i have poly cystic ovarian syndrome and that it's hard for me to willingly lose weight. when i called the bariatric surgeons about scheduling my consult for my gallbladder removal, they were extremely confused and were like "well is this for bariatric surgery or the gallbladder removal?"

without my permission, without me asking, the physician's assistant silently signed me up for weight loss surgery that i never consented to. i never once mentioned wanting this surgery. i never once mentioned that my weight is affecting my health or bothering me. this person saw this as a mandatory step in order to get the surgery to remove my diseased organ. as if there were no other options. i never want to get bariatric weight loss surgery because i know it will completely devastate my health. this PA was so stuck on my weight. she could not get over it, she was literally obsessed. she did not care about my health, safety or well being, she was just obsessed with her hatred of fat people

she saw my weight as a higher priority than my diseased gallbladder. she was so stuck up her own ass that she was convinced that my weight was doing more damage to me than my gallbladder was. she wanted to keep blaming me for eating a high fat diet (i'm a vegetarian- i don't eat a high fat diet) and mocking me for being fat. she literally saw me being fat as a bigger issue than the fact that i had a literal rock stuck in the neck of one of my organs. if you ask me, if the surgeons and anesthesiologists have problems working on fat patients, that's a skill issue on them. that means you're a bad surgeon or anesthesiologist and you need to try to improve your skills. this is a literal skill issue, it's not the patient's fault that the medical professional fucking sucks at their job!

i can't describe to you how evil and insidious that is. the fact that she looked at me and went "oh my fucking god it's your weight that's the problem just go lose weight you fat asshole" just showed how much disregard she has for her fat patients. it's like she relishes torturing us or leaving us to be sick or die. there's no reason to behave this way. there's no reason to FORCE someone into weight loss surgery. my health is NOT being negatively impacted by my weight- gallstones are not caused by being overweight, and you can't give yourself gallstones. no matter how much fat you eat you can't give yourself gallstones- this is something that happens outside of your control

i hate medical professionals who are proudly fatphobic. they wear the fact that they let people remain sick and die as a badge of honor. like they're doing the world a favor. like staying sick or dying is better off for the patient. like the patient somehow doesn't "DESERVE" to be in good health. fat people DO deserve to be in good health. we DON'T have to "EARN" surgeries or life saving procedures. we are alive and human just like everyone else. this qualifies us for being cared for medically, no matter what. leave your prejudices at home. you can't just kill fat people because you don't like that we exist.

[frogsandfries]

I'm glad to see you guys noticed my absence 😜

I nearly died, but both my bead packages were at my sister's place when we got in.

I had asked my sister if I could borrow a hard side carrier for my cat; she forgot. I kept forgetting to get one. Anyway, my girl got put in the backpack. She eventually worked her way out, and she was absolutely chill, so my sister and I agreed that she could stay out for a while.

We hit Oklahoma, and it was getting late and stormy. My sister put on the wipers and the first time, the motion for my cat's attention; cool, something for her to check out. The second time the wiper moved, my cat flew into the air.

I still feel really awful about my response, but we were in a moving van with a trailer on the back. I didn't need something worse to happen. I grabbed her scruff and, feeling blood already trickling down my arm, drew her limbs in. She had flipped out of her harness at some point; there's no way I was getting that back on without an even bigger fight than normal. I had to get her back in the bag and as soon as possible, I needed some aspirin and neosporin.

It took forever to get to a Casey's. Fun side fact for you, Casey's appears to have at least two different brandings. I'm from Wisconsin. There aren't any in at least any in New Mexico that I saw, but in like Oklahoma and Iowa, they've got the same house/barn shape sign, but just the word "Casey's" in like......a casual/decorative font. Like this:

In Wisconsin, at least, Casey's signs look like this:

Anyway, the point being, I got in the bathroom, cleaned up the fucking blood, considered buying literally eight dollar neosporin, decided on just a Casey's mt dew. Get up to the register; guy in front of me wants a shower.

Cashier: Will that be all?

Me: *exhausted nod*

Cashier: Have a good [night, trip, whatever]

Me: *looks up, confused*

Cashier: (repeats) Have a good night

Me: *exaggerated nod of understanding; takes my free soda back to the truck*

I also had another interaction of me being disoriented from my travels. When we finally, finally, finally reached Dubuque, I bought a soda and a slice of pizza, but there are three items I'm being charged for. Since when does Wisconsin have a deposit on cans?

Nope. Iowa. Iowa has a deposit.

Earlier: We're pulling into some random gas station in southern Iowa. I have no phone service because I also didn't factor that into this process and don't ask me why.

So I'm completely, absolutely disoriented. Anyway, one of the fucking tires on the fucking trailer busted. The rubber part, the hub cap, the axel. Fucked harder than.... anyway. Fucked.

It takes about twenty minutes for Budget Rental to get us towed to the place across the street. Awesome, great, fine. They get the trailer in and remove the busted stuff. Then they report that they can't fix it. Basically, we should get a motel. That's not in the budget and sure as fuck not acceptable for about fifty reasons, least of all being, Ialready had to take Friday off because of scheduling issues and I'm not paying extra for a motel that allows pets with money I don't have. So we start bothering their fucking vendor for a resolution. Get us a new trailer, where's the new trailer. Three hours, eighty minutes, they're almost there blah blah blah. Bullshit. Every time, each time we spoke to someone, bullshit.

Finally, I lost my fucking temper. The fucking tow yard we're practically stuck at is closed. It's getting cooler and later and we're fucking stuck. Both my cats are getting pissed off and tired and they haven't been to the bathroom, they don't want to eat. It's humid and gross. My cats are stuck in the car with a puppy who doesn't know that no means no.

I start chucking stuff from my sister's vehicle into the truck. As the stupid fucking truck finally pulls up with the new trailer.

Look. I do not blame the people with the trailer.

We should have just shelled out the about four hundred dollar difference for Uhaul.

[evandarya]

Heat

{Read on AO3}{Part 1}

"I don't know what scares me more, Dickie. That you invited strangers to Bruce's private stretch of beach for a bonfire, or that they agreed to come." Jason said. They had been hauling logs around for half the day, building what could easily be a small beach hut that they were going to set on fire. Not that Jason was against fires, far from it, but they had only met Jazz and Danny and Dani-with-an-i the day before. Jason would love to get to know Jazz more and figure out why the Green reacts to Danny the way it does, but this seems forward, even for Dick.

"I'm good with people." Was Dick's only answer. 

"You're a class A manipulator, that's  what you are." Jason shot back. 

"Well, you know what they say: "Mansplain, Manipulate, Malewife." Dick hoisted the last log onto the pile and brushed the dirt from his hands. 

"What?" Jason asked, bewildered.

"It's a meme. Don't you ever go on the internet?" 

"Yeah, for research, not memes."

"Oh my gods, don't tell Tim that, you'll break the little nerd's heart." 

"Whatever, what time are they supposed to get here?" Jason asked as they headed back to the beach house.

"They should be here soon. I told them the pizza will be here at eight." Dick checked his watch.  "I bought enough to feed an army of Flashes with enough left for midnight snacks."

"That delivery driver is going to hate you," Jason said with a grin.

"I tipped them 50 percent, so they shouldn't be too mad," Dick said, knocking the sand from his sandals and stepping into the house.

There was a knock on the door and Dick answered to find Danny, Jazz, Dani, and a delivery woman each holding a warming bag. 

“Hey, Dick,” Dani said with a smile. “When you said you were going to have enough pizza to feed an army I thought you were exaggerating.” 

“I never exaggerate about food,” Dick said, thanking the delivery driver and waving everyone in. The delivery person unloaded the pizzas and took her warming bags back. Dick slipped her an extra twenty, which she tried to refuse but Dick slipped it into one of the bags. 

“Richard! Did you remember to order a veggie pizza for me?” Damian asked as he came into the kitchen. Tim almost bowled him over when he stopped dead at the sight of Dani. “Hello, Danielle. It is nice to see you again.”

“Don’t stop in the middle of the walkway brat, Tim said, pushing around Damian to check the pizza boxes. 

“Hey, Dames! I think I saw a veggie and a plain cheese on the order slip,” Dani offered cheerfully. 

“We didn’t know what kind of drinks you liked,” Danny said, setting his backpack down and unzipping it. “So we got a bit of everything.” Danny pulled out three two liters of soda from his backpack and set them on the counter. Jazz set her own bag down and pulled out a jug of sweet tea and a two-liter of lemonade.

“You didn’t have to get anything!” Dick said. “I made juice and tea.” 

“Your tea is too sweet, Dick,” Jason said, taking a slice of pepperoni pizza from one of the boxes and biting into it. “I’d like tea, not diabetes.” 

“Diabeetus.” Danny and Tim said at the same time. They met eyes and both looked away with a blush. 

“Fine.” Dick fake pouted. “Let's eat so we can start the bonfire.” 

***

Tim had never been to a bonfire before. He’d been to housefires and fires caused by explosions, some he set off himself, but he’d never really sat in front of a fire for the fun of it. Dick had run off almost as soon as the fire was lit, saying something about going to get marshmallows, but he hadn’t seen his brother since. Dani and Damian were sitting side by side on a log across the fire from him, holding a quiet conversation. Dani laughed at something Damian had said and Damian blushed in response. Jason and Jazz had disappeared pretty quickly, claiming they wanted to go on a walk, but they left holding hands, so Tim figured they wanted some alone time. Danny was sitting on the sand next to him, drawing some intricate symbols in the sand. Tim watched him for a moment, enjoying the heat from the fire. It was a nice contrast from the cool sea breeze blowing across his neck and back.

“What’s that?” Tim asked. Danny froze and a red flush crept up his neck that had nothing to do with the fire. 

“Just, ah. Nothing, really.” Danny said, obliterating the symbols with his hand. “Just, it’s kind of embarrassing.” 

“Is it like a secret code or language or something?”

“No, more like a summoning script,” Danny said. 

“To summon what?” Tim asked. He knew summonings were real, and if Danny was involved in magic, well, that was something the Justice League would be interested in. 

“The Ghost King,” Danny said, waving his hands around in a way that was supposed to be spooky before laughing.

Tim laughed, too. It felt nice. Danny had an easy casualness about him, something Tim couldn’t help but feel drawn to. Danny leaned back against the log Tim was sitting on and stretched his arms out, brushing Tim’s leg as he did so. 

“This is nice,” Danny said, gazing up at the sky. “Back home I don’t have time to just look at the stars anymore.” 

“You can’t see the stars where we live, too much light pollution,” Tim said, gazing up as well. “I never have been able to pick out constellations.” All the bats knew enough about the stars to navigate by them, but picking out shapes from the thousands of stars up there was never Tim’s goal.

“It’s not hard, once you know how to find them,” Danny said, pointing up toward the sky. “In the northern hemisphere, you can always find the Big Dipper. You see those four stars in kind of a square with three more heading off to the side?” Tim looked but he couldn't see where Danny was pointing, so he slid off the log and sat closer to Danny. Just so he could follow his finger as he traced the different constellations in the sky. And if the places where their arms touched burned a little hotter? Well, that was because of the fire.

***

“So,” Jason said. He wasn’t sure what to say. Should he bring up the fact that the pit reacts to her brother? Then he’d have to explain the pit to her. Or maybe he should just ask where they are from, and look into it later? That's a normal question, right?

“What brings you to Florida?” Jazz asked before he made a decision. 

“Mandatory Family Bonding Time,” Jason said. “You?”

Jazz laughed, full and loud. Jason was glad it was dark because he didn’t want her to see the heat creeping up his neck. “Our parents are here for a conference. They wanted Danny to come to help them out and I knew if I didn’t come, too, they would make him work all weekend. Then Dani heard about it and invited herself along, too.” 

“Was Dani not invited to begin with?” He wondered aloud. 

“Dani’s not technically our sister, she’s more like a cousin, so she doesn’t live with us.” Jazz said. “But she and Danny are close, they have a lot in common. He feels responsible for her, so he’s always treated her like a little sister.” 

“Do your parents treat her like a daughter?” Jason asked. 

“No, to them she’s a distant cousin.” Jazz looked out toward the ocean, thoughtful. “They aren’t bad parents, but they get caught up in their own work and everything else falls by the wayside.” 

“That's why they were okay with you going to a stranger’s beach house for a late-night bonfire?” Jason asked with a grin. 

“Are you a stranger?” Jazz asked. “I thought we had got to know each other pretty well yesterday.” Jazz stopped walking and turned to face Jason, her hand resting lightly on his chest, looking up at him with those soft teal eyes. Before he knew what he was doing he leaned forward and met her pink lips with his own. 

The kiss lasted for only a few seconds before he pulled away. Before he got too far Jazz pulled him back down into a deeper kiss. One of Jazz’s hands snaked up to rest on his neck, keeping him exactly where she wanted him. He could break free, but why would he want to?

***

Damian was used to the heat. Growing up in the desert had made him used to it. He didn’t understand the appeal of a bonfire. Campfires to keep warm and ward off predators, sure. But the fire Grayson had made was too large and required too much wood and put off too much heat to be comfortable. An issue Drake and Fenton didn’t seem to share as they sat cuddled up on the sand. 

“Come on, Dames, let's go before they start kissing,” Danielle said, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. They walked hand in hand along the beach. Danielle seemed to have a destination in mind, so he allowed her to lead him. They were quiet for a long time until Danielle broke it. “I’ve never been to the beach before. I’ve been almost everywhere in the country, but I’ve never thought of going to a beach.” 

“Does your family travel a lot?” 

“No, Danny and Jazz have school and jobs.” 

“You don’t have school?” He had been taught everything in the league, but Father still made him go to school. 

“Let's climb up there,” Dani said, pointing to an outcropping of rock. There was an obvious and well-worn trail leading to the top. 

"Who do you travel with, if it isn't your siblings," Damian asked as they started up the trail.

"I go alone, most of the time. Sometimes Cujo comes with me."

"Your parents make your siblings go to school, while you are allowed to travel alone?" Something was wrong with this family if that was the case.

Dani gave him a look over her shoulder that he couldn't quite grasp in the darkness. "You know I'm not actually Danny and Jazz's sister, right? Their parents aren't my parents. My father is their uncle."

"And your father is okay with you traveling alone?" 

"Not exactly, but the less he knows about me and where I am the better. He isn't exactly nice." They had reached the top of the cliff by this point and Dani walked right to the edge overlooking the ocean, unafraid of falling. "It's beautiful." 

Damian couldn't spare a glance at the water, instead, he watched Danielle's face, happy and calm, and made a vow. No harm shall come to Danielle as long as he could prevent it.

[s-brant]

Cherry Bowl (3/8)

(gif: @kiekiecarrera) (PART TWO) (PART FOUR) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: When Kie cancels their plans together, Y/N asks JJ on a date to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In. Unsure of how to navigate his first ever date, JJ seeks out advice. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t go as planned, and both parties are left shaken by miscommunication.

Word Count: 10.6k

Warnings: Smut, public sex/exhibitionism, sexual choking, angst, depictions of mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and implied/referenced abuse.

A/N: Welcome back to Tokens! Slight trouble in paradise is brewing for these two lovers, so buckle up and read because it’s gonna be a rollercoster for a little while after what happens in this chapter. I hope you all like it, and if you did, feedback is very appreciated. Have fun!

"I'm just saying that oatmeal raisin is superior to chocolate chip, why is that such an egregious crime, Kie?"

The lunch room is filled to the brim with students going to town on questionably cooked frozen foods, soggy tater tots, and sugary drinks from the vending machines despite the Obama-era posters on the walls advocating for healthier school lunches that never seemed to make their way to Kildare County High. The extent of their healthy lunches extended to a serving of overcooked canned green beans served with the worst slice of doughy pizza known to human kind, so it was sort of contradictory.

Y/N sits across the table from Pope and JJ, the latter of which being the one who launched into a full-fledged debate with Kiara about which type of cookie was better.

The clear cling wrap sits, unfolded, on the table with one of her stickers neatly placed on the back of it. As consolation for his epic loss yesterday at the beach, she paid an extra .75 cents to get him it when she arrived first to their shared lunch period—one of only two class periods they have together, the other being gym. He was still in line when she peeled a surfboard sticker off of her sheet and placed it at the center of the wrapped up cookie as if to remind him of her triumph over him in the waves.

"Thanks, hot stuff," he said, voice somewhat quieter despite the fact that hardly anyone was in the cafeteria with them. Then his smile dropped into an deadpan expression as soon as he saw her choice of sticker and looked back up at her. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never in a million years. I'll be gloating about it until I'm elderly."

"That's my girl."

The sound of the constant chatter surrounding them from at least two hundred other people drowns out the memories of yesterday that threaten to haunt her when she watches him debate with Kie. The mere recollection of their night in the back of the van has her reaching to pull the collar of her cropped tee up to assure that the hickeys remain hidden on instinct, and he catches the action out of the corner of his eye. It has him fighting a smile.

Kie quips, "Maybe on another planet, but, here, I think we can all agree chocolate chip is better, right Y/N?"

Y/N's eyes widen around a forkful of mushy "green beans" at the sound of her name being said bringing her from the depths of her memories.

Usually, she's quick to jump in and give her two cents on whatever stupid back and forth they're all having, but her mind was elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Kie and Pope, she was mentally reliving every second of getting fucked in the van last night, so her attention to detail when it comes to the Chocolate Chip vs Oatmeal Raisin case isn't all too sharp.

"Uhhh," she stops for a second, looking at the half eaten chocolate chip cookie in Kie's hand, "If I say chocolate chip is better, can I get a piece of it?"

Kie's face lights up at her words, and she's already pulling off a generous chunk of the baked good to hand off to her. The sound of a certain someone whose lap Y/N's legs are outstretched onto from beneath the table scoffing distracts her from the first bite.

"I know you prefer oatmeal raisin, you traitor," JJ says.

Their brunette friend's brows scrunch.

"Why is she a traitor?"

They try to keep from making any faces or giving anything away, but Y/N has to stifle the sound of her choking on her mouthful of cookie at the question. You'd think one of them came out and asked if they were dating or something with how she reacts, and she feels JJ squeeze her ankle in a non-verbal way of telling her to hold it together. It was her idea in the first place, yet he's a lot smoother with keeping it under the radar.

Under it all, the aspect of keeping it a secret does unnerve him to a degree. He doesn't think he'd be brave enough to communicate it, especially not when their relationship remains undefined, but the darker side of his mind wonders...

He shrugs, saying, "Cause we were friends first. Duh. Other than John B, I've known her the longest."

None of them stop to acknowledge the identical aches in their hearts at the mentioning of his name. They skip right over it like it never happened. After the funeral a few days ago, they've filled their quota on mushy-gushy sad talk for the next week and a half.

The real reason is something far more complicated than him having a claim staked on her loyalty through having the longest friendship. It's something tied up in days of slowly getting pulled into one another's worlds like the tug of gravity itself, in how he has to refrain from slipping his arm around her waist in the hallway or kissing her goodbye after a sleepover at the Chateau. But until she gives him the go-ahead, he won't let it slip to anyone.

Pope speaks up from beside him, "You literally met her twenty minutes before we did."

"Still counts. Technically, I did meet her first, so her betraying Team Oatmeal Raisin is enough to be tried for treason in Pogue Court."

"Pogue Court isn't a thing."

He crosses his arms after he pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"It is now. You can be tried for treason for breaking the rules. Rule number one is that all Pogues have to admit oatmeal raisin is superior."

He's about to ball up the cling wrap to throw away later when the surfboard sticker catches his attention again. It's the same color as his board, which he'd like to think is a result of her being an evil mastermind that went out to get this sticker sheet for the sole purpose of teasing him, but he's the one who got her the sheet as a gift for her birthday, so he knows it was pure coincidence.

Last second, he peels the sticker away from the cling wrap and looks down to place it over the top of her yellow converse that were once a vibrant, paler color when Big John got them for her, but have since turned into an ugly mustard/dirt-dusted color they heckle her over.

"What are the other rules?" Y/N asks.

One of the hands holding onto where her feet are casually planted in his lap, something that they've done long enough that their friends won't see it as anything odd, slides down to caress the stretch of skin beneath the frayed hem of her dark jeans. Something she didn't know about him before whatever it is they have together started was that he constantly needs to be touching her. She can't say she doesn't love it though.

Pope answers, "The oatmeal raisin rule is not official"—a pointed glance at JJ—"But I'd assume the rest of the rules of Pogue Court would be no lying and no macking."

"So, basically you two break almost every rule except the oatmeal raisin one, and I lie," JJ says and turns to look at her, "How does it feel to be better than everyone, Y/N?"

"Pretty good, not gonna lie."

He keeps caressing little circles and tracing up and down her skin beneath the flared out pant leg of her jeans while he swipes his phone off of the table top without attracting the attention of their friends, who continue on to a new topic. She isn't too focused on what it is. She only picks up that it has something to do with a class they're in that's more advanced that hers, so she promptly checks out of the conversation.

Ever since John B died, she hasn't been performing too well in school. She tries, truly tries, but her mind outright refuses to absorb any of the information. When she reads her assigned reading, she hovers over the same paragraphs over and over until she shuts the book in a huff and hides it in her backpack again. Losing someone you love has a surprising amount of side effects.

Her phone buzzing in her hand brings her away from the impending cloud of doom that often accompanies any thoughts of John B, and when she taps in her passcode, her brother's birthday, a message bubble appears with a banner displaying JJ's contact name.

JJ (Derogatory) ur a good liar. prob could've fooled me if i weren't the one macking on u

Their eyes meet for a second across the table, then he watches her thumbs move to type a response.

Kief Princess Little do they know I break every rule now that I've switched sides on the cookie debate. Kinda impressive ngl.

JJ (Derogatory) triple threat, baby

JJ (Derogatory) thanks for the cookie btw

She smiles to herself, so wrapped up in their own world that she doesn't notice everyone in the room starting to pack up their stuff in anticipation of the bell that is due to ring any second now.

Kief Princess Had to repay you for last night somehow ;)

When she glances up to see his reaction, she watches his chest rise with a particularly large inhale, and he chews on the inside of his lip in thought.

JJ (Derogatory) strategically bringing up last night so i'm turned on in physics? ur an evil mastermind

Kief Princess I try.

Kief Princess Apparently whooping your sorry ass at surfing isn't the only thing I'm good at.

She hears him scoff.

JJ (Derogatory) first of all, ouch. second, u barely beat me

Kief Princess I'm happy to challenge you to a rematch. I have plans with Kie tonight, so I can't till this weekend. All it'll prove is that I am the rightful winner, but we knew that already.

JJ (Derogatory) what r the stakes this time

Kief Princess No sexual favors. If you beat me (fat chance) I'll formally rejoin team oatmeal raisin.

JJ (Derogatory) :( sex makes it more fun but i still accept those conditions

JJ (Derogatory) team oatmeal raisin needs u, even if ur a traitor

Kief Princess Why bet sexual favors if you're just gonna fuck me after anyway?

JJ (Derogatory) good point

The sound of the bell ringing echoes through the cafeteria, and they both pop their heads up from their phone screens to see everyone, including Pope and Kie, already packed up and raising from their seats to scurry off in the direction of their next classes. Meanwhile, their stuff is all bestrewn across the table, particularly JJ's belongings.

The sight of Kie walking away makes Y/N ask after her, "We're still on for tonight, right?

She stops with Pope's hand interwoven in hers. The look on her face when she turns would make you think she got caught doing something she wasn't meant to. Something like forgetting about the plans they made last week to watch Fear Street together. The Cherry Bowl Drive-In is premiering the first two movies as a double feature for the horror movie buffs of Kildare, so they decided to get tickets. Kiara shares a fondness of horror movies with her. Since gory movies make the boys squirm, though JJ pretends they don't, it's their own thing.

"Actually, Pope and I were gonna go to the beach. I'm sorry."

JJ knows she's more upset about it than she lets on, but Y/N simply gives the pair a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

The sound of JJ behind her makes them laugh on their way out, diffusing the minor tension lingering in the air from the awkward encounter, "Use protection!"

After their friends offer them a goodbye, they gather their stuff quite leisurely, not really caring about being late.

It's something they've talked about before here or there: her feelings surrounding Kiara and Pope's sudden relationship. It's not as if she harbors any ill feelings for them, she doesn't, but the ripple effects of their pairing on the group, and more importantly the girls' own friendship, couldn't be clearer from her perspective. Between the missed hangouts, forgotten plans, and the convenient way she never seems to have time to hang out with her and JJ unless Pope is there too, it's been building up for a month now.

What makes it sting the most is how close her and Kie used to be. They didn't hit it off immediately the way she and JJ did as children until her thirteenth birthday when no one she invited showed up to the party Big John helped her set up in the yard of the Chateau.

She was the one who rallied the boys together to walk to ask their school friends from the year above to come hang out for an hour or two, promising a slice of the wonky-looking but delicious strawberry cake her and John B spent the morning crafting together. She can remember the sound of their high-pitched laughs and the cloud of flour that hung in the kitchen when they high-fived over the finished product like it was yesterday. In her heart, it was yesterday.

That night was when she fell in love with her friends, and that was when she first knew Kiara was her best friend. They wove friendship bracelets on each other that night and wore them for years until they withered away. No one had ever done something like that for her before. Not even JJ.

"You okay?"

Feeling his hand on her arm, slipping down to take her hand for a moment in the seclusion of the empty cafeteria, makes her glance up at him with a distinct sorrow washed over her features.

You know what? Screw this. Why should she be torn up over Kie and let it ruin her excitement for the double feature tonight? There's no way in hell she's letting her best friend ditching her for her boyfriend get in the way of her plans.

"Do you wanna go on a date tonight?" she asks him abruptly, then adds, "To the Cherry Bowl with me instead of Kie?"

The question sparks a pause in his mind, a halt of hesitation in which he worries about her avoiding having to answer what he asked, but he attempts to play it cool and not fuss over her outwardly. There have been times where being treated like that has made her feel suffocated, so he doesn't want to risk it. When she's ready, she'll talk about it, and if she takes too long and buries her feelings, then he'll intervene. For now, he tries to keep his face neutral despite the frown tempting his lips at her disappointment.

JJ looks around once more before throwing his arm around her shoulder to walk her out.

"You bet your ass I do."

What is a person supposed to act like on their first date that's not actually a date cause everything between them is the same, but kinda is a date because they called it one? If you ever find out, please find JJ and tell him because he has no clue.

Pope wasn't too much help in the Instagram group chat he made for it seeing as his and Kie's relationship is too fresh, John B isn't even alive, so he's out of service for advice unless there's Ouija Board he can borrow, and, thankfully, Kiara was his savior.

Their phones began blowing up as soon as he reached his class after lunch period ended. He couldn't under any circumstances let it be known that this mystery girl he had a date with was their friend, but thankfully Y/N already had the alibi of going to the Drive-In alone. All he had to do was make up a fake date scenario and get basic advice.

danknugstickiestickies added kiara-c and popeheyward to the groupchat

danknugstickiestickies named the group HELP ME

danknugstickiestickies i have a date with this chick i met on the beach when i was out with y/n last week. i need ur advice

His phone screen lit up with the notification that both of his friends were typing, signified with the three dot symbol bouncing in the bottom left corner as he thought it through. They couldn't possibly figure it out, right? They'd been careful, he'd been respectful of her wishes, and they'd been too busy together to notice anything new with them. He figured it would work. It was a risk, sure, but it was worth it to him. He didn't want to fuck this up with her.

Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even treat it differently than any of their other hang outs. It's not like they haven't been romantic or sexual with each other. They've done everything but go out on an actual date, so why was he nervous?

kiara-c ummmm

popeheyward Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ELABORATE!!

kiara-c did hell freeze over? since when does jj maybank go out on dates??

danknugstickiestickies renamed the group hell froze over

kiara-c very funny, I'm laughing so hard 😐

popeheyward Do we know her?

danknugstickiestickies don't think u do. she moved here last week and hasn't enrolled in school yet. her name's steph

popeheyward What about Y/N though?

kiara-c ^^

JJ's chest muscles tightened with the question prompting a rush of anxiety that made his breathing feel slightly harder. He glanced up at his Physics teacher, who was essentially dozing off behind his desk with his hand in a bag of chips and an educational video on the projector as an excuse to not teach, and looked back down at his phone without the added stress of possibly getting his phone confiscated.

Pope's message might as well have been a sucker punch. Forget butterflies, he set a wasp’s nest loose inside of his stomach to tie it into knots and flip it every which way. His neglected textbook served as a prop for his phone to lean on as he set it down to think.

Did they know? As far as he was aware, they were getting away with it. No evidence, concrete or circumstantial, was there to prove it. At least the stress of the situation killed any chance of him being turned on by her reminder of last night in their messages. This shit was boner repellant of the highest degree.

He played stupid. Better to let them volunteer whatever information they had before he went in saying anything incriminating that they didn't already know. If anything would sour the experience of their first date, it would be him accidentally making their strange in-between relationship public behind her back.

danknugstickiestickies ?? what do u mean

Three dots bounced in the bottom left corner of his slightly cracked phone screen.

popeheyward ...

kiara-c I mean, you don't see it?

danknugstickiestickies see what

popeheyward I guess we were wrong, but all of us always thought you two had some feelings going on.

"You don't say?" JJ murmured sarcastically to himself under his breath. "Never crossed my mind, Pope."

danknugstickiestickies bro that's jb's little sister

kiara-c so?

danknugstickiestickies forbidden fruit? making john b roll over in his grave? do those ring a bell or am i speaking in tongues

He was already a proficient liar in real life, but, fuck, it was easy in text messages. There's no chance at deciphering facial expression or tone, just a plain message with no room to budge. Thank God he didn't do this in person with them. He could've survived, but it wouldn't have been as quick and painless as the group chat was.

kiara-c jeez, sorry

Pope didn't voice it, but he noticed something.

He looked up from his phone and stared off at the wall in thought in his AP European History class. It piqued his interest that JJ simply said she was off limits, forbidden fruit as he put it, but did not outright deny having feelings for her. In fact, he didn't even address the question. He made excuses for why he shouldn't have feelings for her, but he never said he didn't have feelings for her.

Kie did not notice. Not because she wasn't smart enough to either, but because she was too busy hiding her phone behind her backpack to think too deeply about it. Her teacher was one of those teachers that would flip shit if they saw a cell phone turned off and faced down on the desk, let alone being used by a student during a lesson.

In his classroom across the hallway, JJ bounced his leg up and down beneath his desk in an absentminded urge to release the built up energy the anxiety produced in an over abundance.

popeheyward Our bad then. Even John B thought y'all were sus lmao.

Since when was that a known fact? Could he tell? Did he talk to Pope about him and Y/N before he died? Either way, it wasn't the time to pry about it.

kiara-c yeah you guys honestly could've fooled me if you wanted to

danknugstickiestickies well thank u, glad ur invested in our friendship but

danknugstickiestickies please help, i have no fucking clue how to act on a date and this girl is too cool for me to screw this up

That was when they finally dropped the interrogation session and started offering up tips. The best ones came from Kie, which made sense to him since women are more likely to know what other women like than two dudes who share one collective brain cell and never had real relationships.

Rule One: Be ready to pick her up five minutes early.

He wasn't ready to pick her up five minutes early. His bike broke down by the time he made it halfway down his street, so he had to push it back up the road and into the yard before setting off on foot to reach the Chateau quickly enough. And by quickly enough, it means he got there five minutes late, not early.

Rule Two: Compliment her after you get in the car.

She tossed him the keys to the Twinkie from across the hood, not giving him the chance to open the door for her, and it wasn't until they were setting off down the road that he remembered the next piece of advice he was given.

Side-eyeing her in his peripheral vision, he tried to find something to compliment her on specifically rather than the general compliments about her being pretty that she never fully believes when he says them. He was intending to say something about the skirt she had on, but when he chanced a glance over at her, she caught him and asked—

"What is it?"

Sent into panic mode, JJ blurted out instead, "I like your shoes."

He could've bashed his face against the steering wheel twenty times right then and there at the utter absence of reaction on her part for the next few uncomfortable seconds. It wasn't that it was a bad compliment. She appreciates any compliments at all...but her shoes were hidden from his view. Not to mention, they were the dirty, mustard yellow converse that the Pogues bash on a daily basis.

She laughed, lifting her leg to expose the sneaker on her right foot, and asked, "These? Dude, you roast me for these all the time. You and John B said they look like Big Bird shit on them."

The skin on the apples of his cheeks scorched hot with embarrassment, and he was never so glad that the overhead lights in the van were burnt out until that moment. He would've died on the spot if she saw him blush like that, face flushed pinker than sunburn. All he could do to save himself was murmur something about the color growing on him and keep driving in the direction of the theater with his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel he fantasized about banging his face into.

Rule Three: Insist on picking up the check.

In this case, it meant insist on buying the popcorn and drinks, and he miraculously managed to drop his wallet somewhere along the way when he ran over to the Chateau, so when he stepped up to the makeshift concession stand with her standing at his side, he felt around for his wallet in his jeans to no avail.

His thoughts echoed back to him, You gotta be fucking kidding me. Seriously? Is this actually happening right now?

"JJ, it's honestly fine," she said softly as he leaned over to search back of the Twinkie for the wallet. "We can look for it on your street right now if you want. It has your ID and stuff, you don't want a stranger to have that. We don't need to stay—"

It took all of his control to not shout it in reaction when he said, "No way. You've been waiting for this, and Kie ditched you, so I ain't ditching you too. We're staying."

His wallet could go kick rocks.

He came too far to be dragged down by the old leathery piece of shit anyway. Would he go out and search for it tirelessly the second the date ended? Hell yeah, that fucker had twenty dollars and his debit card in it, but he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her or ruining her anticipated movie night by taking her out to search the streets with their phone flashlights for a wallet they might not find. He'd wait till the movies ended, take her home, then haul ass around the Cut searching for it after.

Thankfully, he found a couple bucks crumbled up in his front pocket while she scavenged for coins in the glove compartment, and they came up with enough to buy a water bottle and small popcorn to share together.

Rule Four: Don't have sex on the first date.

And it may sound easy enough to not act like a complete Neanderthal for the length of two movies, but the girl makes it pretty damn difficult if he's to say so himself.

That's what led him here, laying in the back of the sideways-parked Twinkie in the farthest corner of the outdoor theater with her practically on top of him. In any other instance, he wouldn't be opposed in the slightest, but with the cursed fourth rule in mind, he isn't too thrilled with the feeling of her hand rubbing up and down his thigh.

It isn't even meant to be sexual. They're constantly touching one another this way. She'll even slip her hands up under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin or when he asks her if she can get an itch on a part of his back he can't reach, but for some reason his brain is short circuiting right now.

The thing is, when Kie and Pope said he shouldn't do it on the first date, they meant it for his and Steph's made up circumstances, not his and Y/N's full-blown relationship without labels. When you've had sex with someone as many times as they have with each other, the hesitancy on the "first date" is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. But JJ, trying to follow the advice given to him to the letter for the sake of being the date she deserves, doesn't think about it that way.

It shouldn't be this nerve-wracking. They've been best friends since they were children, they've been flirting since they found out what basic attraction was in the first place, and they've been forming this relationship ever since John B died. Why can't he relax? Why is this so different compared to how easy it felt between them yesterday on the beach or today at lunch?

Rule Five: Be yourself.

It takes him another few moments of laying here with her before he realizes quite abruptly what went wrong in a quick flash of a thought that brings the fifth rule back to him. The problem wasn't the bike, or the weird compliment about her Big Bird sneakers, or the lost wallet.

The problem is him. The problem is that he's trying way too hard to make this something it isn't. The part about them that he adores so dearly is how they never have to try when they're together. With any other girl or guy, they'd have to fake something or act a certain way, yet when they're together, they can simply exist and everything is runs smoothly. That's not to say they don't disagree or bump heads, they do, but short of those outlier moments, it's easier than anything else they do in life.

His eyes flicker away from the screen for the first time since the movie began, which, by the way, is gruesome enough at times that he had to divert his eyes to prevent himself from seeing it happen. They land on where she lays, completely content with the night in spite of its mishaps, with her head propped up on the pillows they brought from the Chateau.

He wonders if she can tell he's acting differently. Surely she must notice. She's the type of person that typically never misses a thing, perfect for the gold hunt they went on in the summer with picking up the clues and helping her brother unravel the mystery, so maybe she noticed how flustered this date has him. Does it bother her? Does he bother her?

With a confirming glance back up at the movie to see nothing important happening, he can't fight the urge to speak anymore.

"Can I tell you something?"

His voice appearing through the darkness of the shut off van after spending the past half hour in complete silence makes her jolt at first before realizing who it was. Though she loves horror movies, she can't claim to not be affected by them. The night she falls asleep after watching one, she often finds herself compelled to turn a light on and keep her feet from dangling off the edge of the bed. It's worth the fear, though.

When she turns to look at JJ, there's a warm smile on her face. She's cuddled into his side with a hand placed casually atop his thigh, caressing with no purpose or intent, and her movement halts when the light from the movie on the projector allows her to see the expression on his face.

Anxiety has become an increasingly significant presence in his life with the recent events in mind; John B and Sarah, the four-hundred million dollars they lost out on, and dodging his father whenever he sneaks home to switch out the backpack of clothes and personal belongings he keeps at the Routledge house.

It manifests itself in jittery nerves, stomach pains, shortness of breath, and, at worst, panic attacks striking either at random or in response to a specific trigger. It's one of the few things he still tries to hide from her, and she tries not to push him too hard with opening up about it.

She abandons the movie for the time being and rolls onto her side to face him, upper body propped up on her elbow as she examines his face with downturned features.

"Of course," she says.

The words left unsaid are, "You can tell me anything. Whenever you need someone to listen, or to talk to about shit, you can tell me." He's heard her say it enough that he doesn't need to hear it now to know it's true.

There's a pause, then—

"I feel like I fucked this entire date up," he starts to ramble and cuts her off before she can think about saying what she wants to, "and I know it's okay to you. You have way too high of a tolerance for my bullshit, and I've been trying so hard to make this perfect, but all that did was screw it up."

She's left quiet for a second, taking it all in.

Maybe if he hadn't been so anxious about it, he would've realized what was wrong with his bike when he rode it home from school, or he would've noticed his wallet fall out of his pocket. The point is, he wishes he hadn't let the label attached to this freak him out so much. He isn't sure why it does, but it does.

But she doesn't do what he expects. She isn't drowning him in reassurances and, "It's okay's" because she knows he doesn't care for them much. When he, the most stubborn person she knows, apologizes for something he did, he doesn't want it to turn into the person accepting the apology coddling him.

Y/N sighs.

"Is that why you've been acting so different all night? I scared you with the whole ‘date’ thing, didn't I? It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be."

What she doesn't know is that he wants it to be a date. He wants it to be a date so badly, he risked Pope and Kie finding them out for the sake of getting some proper advice on it, and now he's caught up in the same game of tug and war in his mind that always occurs when he wants to tell her the truth about his feelings for her.

Part of him doesn't understand why he doesn't outright say it. With every other girl he once showed interest in, he had no issues in letting them know he wanted them, but this is different. This isn't simply wanting someone, he thinks he's fallen for her. But whenever he says he's gonna grow a pair and tell her after all this time, he chokes. Involuntarily, he's reminded of his parents. Other than his friends saying it platonically, the only people to tell him they loved him were them, and with how they treated him, he sure as hell doesn't think that is love.

From his dad's brutal physical abuse to his mom's abandonment, he's too timid to tell her he loves her because of what could happen if she loves him back. Everyone else that has said that to him has either hurt him, died like John B did, or abandoned him.

He won't let that happen with him and Y/N. What they have, albeit undefined and codependent, is safe. It's the only thing he has left. Maybe it isn't right, and maybe he should open up about it to communicate the correct way, but somewhere in the misshapen logic of his mind, he correlates love to abandonment. And he doesn't want that to happen with her.

There are two sides of him at battle inside his mind. One side, the side that wants to do right by their relationship and actually communicate his feelings for once in his life, wants him to tell her everything. The other side, the side that responds based on the history of his past, wants him to hide it all.

"Will you be mad at me if we don't call it a date?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

The heavy sensation inside of JJ's chest nears a point of vitriolic violence against him as he starts to realize what he's doing to her, clearly letting her down, but he can't stop himself. Like a passive witness watching himself from outside of his body, the instantaneous trauma response to the sudden confrontation of his true feelings for her guides his actions without his permission. It shuts down any protest he has.

The sound of the movie fills the gap of silence between them the entire time. It’s a variety of bloodcurdling screams and disgusting sounds that would've made him gag if he weren't as distracted.

They can make out each other's faces through the darkness, but barely. It takes a flash of bright color from the film or a nearby car's lights turning on for them to fully see one another. Without the other knowing, they both put masks of calm and collected coolness on their faces despite the feelings raging beneath the surface—more so on his part than hers.

"Maybe," he says, pausing, "we should just keep things the way they've been."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a soul-crushing amount of disappointment weighs her down. She said it was fine if he doesn't want it to be a date—and it is, she would never hold it against him—but that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. Things have been going so well, she almost thought...If tonight went well, she was thinking about no longer keeping it a secret, but if he said he wants things to stay the same, then maybe he isn't as ready for it as she is?

Meanwhile, JJ is on another page entirely.

She's embarrassed of being with you, a familiar voice in the back of his head croons. She's gonna leave just like everyone else does. If she doesn't even wanna tell your friends, why should you pretend you're dating?

The internal comments are the type that cause him to physically grimace when he's alone. Intrusive thoughts are just that: intrusive.

Sneaking into the guarded sanctuary of a person's mind, they set out to convince them the opposite of their reality. The only thing is, where most people's minds are guarded sanctuaries with walls of impregnable defense, his mind is the equivalent of a fortress blown to smithereens. The castle walls lay in rubble, the guards no where to be seen, and the path for these thoughts to slip past and straight to the vulnerability of his mind is left wide open.

In the privacy of his room, these thoughts attack him the most at night when he tries to fall asleep—when things get too quiet. With nobody around, when they get this bad there's nothing he can do except break down. It builds from the mere anxiety of attempting to force the thoughts away to full-blown panic attack mode. The more he resists them, the more aggressive they become. He'll gasp for air with tears streaming down his face, hitting his head with the heel of his hand as if that'd do something to stop his relentless mind.

But he can't afford to react in front of her, so the extent of his reaction is a subtle twitch of his face that she cannot see in the momentary darkness before the movie switches to another scene a second later. In a way, it does make the thoughts go away to have her here preventing him from spiraling alone. Having to focus on her keeps his mind away for moments at a time until the thoughts ease their grip on him.

When she hasn't answered for a while, he asks, terrified that he did something bad, "Are we good?"

The question seems to wake her up, snapping her out of the lonely direction her thoughts went into when he "rejected" her. It takes every bit of common sense she has left to force herself to understand that this doesn't mean he doesn't want her. He does, and not calling this a date doesn't mean they won't be together in the way they have been since John B's death, but she isn't perfect. She gets as unsure and insecure as he does.

As if the cloud of doom was lifted off of her, she makes her face lighten where she lays on her side next to him. Seeing this expression makes his chest feel less heavy, and he could let out a sigh of relief at the realization that he didn't break her heart and stomp on it. He should've known. Y/N is the sweetest person he knows, so she never would've flipped shit over him not wanting to label this as a date. That's not how she is.

And he's partly right. It isn't how she is. She would never hold it against him if he didn't want something further with her since she got herself into this position by pursuing him with his reputation with girls in mind, but she can't ignore it. Whether she wants it to or not, it had its affect on her as soon as he said it.

She leans in to kiss him, their lips meeting in the middle with the faint taste of popcorn salt mingling at the soft peck.

When she pulls away, she brushes the hair back from his face and says, "Don't worry. Nothing can change how I feel about you."

She has no clue what it feels like to hear that from her.

Despite the turmoil they unknowingly share beneath the surface due to this conversation, he could cry hearing her say it. It doesn't feel real to him that she feels the same way he does about her, because nothing could change how he feels about her either. That’s why he manages to work up the courage to repeat it back to her, and, for now, this is the closest he's physically capable of coming to telling her the truth.

"Ditto," he says.

It isn't what she wanted, but it's close enough, and if she dwells on this any longer, she might start getting too emotional and let the urge to tear up become too strong. Why does she have to be this sensitive? It's no secret that it's remarkably easy to make her cry, but this is insane to her. When all of this began with him, she didn't give a shit about him not wanting a label. She understood him, and she understood that he doesn't do this kind of thing, so why has it changed? Why doesn't she want to keep it a secret anymore? Why does she want this to be a date when she knows he doesn't want it to be?

Pulled by an invisible string back to him to silence her mind, she leans in to kiss him again with a hand cupping the back of his neck to guide him the rest of the way to her.

It shouldn't be laced with any sexual intention. She should be kissing him simply because she wants to, and, in a way, she is. Their kisses and touches are never lacking the motivation that is their underlying connection and mutual feelings for one another, but this is not the same. As he kisses her back with as much confidence and passion as always, she is reeling from the conversation that reminded her too much of a breakup.

It takes another minute of this for the kiss to heat up, their breathing becoming shallower in the moments they part to inhale, and she is undeniably the one instigating when she officially crosses the line between casual and sexual by crawling onto his lap. It's not hard for him to pick up on when their innocent moments take a turn. She's easy to read in that regard, and this has happened a multitude of times with them, so the shift of a mini make out session turning into something more is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

If he knew how shaken she is on the inside, he'd never want this. And the same would go for her if she knew what he was thinking before this. Neither of them wants to admit what they're feeling.

With her legs seated on either side of his hips, she kisses him like it's the last time she'll ever get the opportunity to. Her hands wander wherever they can, pulling at his shirt and feeling him up as his hands guide her hips to move against his in a steady grinding that she has no issue partaking in. It's an eagerness he hasn't seen from her in weeks. She's never un-excited when it comes to being physical with him either, but this is another level. The last time a girl was all over him like this, it was desperate touron at a party a few months ago.

In the span of time it takes her to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone could see them and reach to pull her skirt up until it bunches around her hips—no one can see them, by the way, since they got here late and were forced to cram the van into the back corner of the lot with no street lights illuminating the path—his brows raise at her presumptuous behavior. Not that he's one to complain, however, seeing as he's typically the one doing what she is.

Their next kiss clashes their teeth hard enough to make them wince, but he loves it. It makes him smirk into her parted mouth, alive with both the feeling her reassurance provided and the fuzzy-headed high that often finds him when they're together in this way. Incomparable to past flings or the high related to any drugs, she is the peak of everything to him. It's no contest.

His chest stutters against hers with a bout of amused laughter, asking within a brief pause in what feels like the most JJ thing he's said this awkward night, "Two for two in the Twinkie. What's gotten into you?"

Y/N's hand dips between where their bodies move together to unclasp the closed buckle of his belt in one smooth motion that has it falling apart with a clinking noise.

Her features are set with a look that tells him she means business. Whatever it is that sparked this, he wonders how the fuck to make it happen again another time. She's begged for it before, but never taken control so dominantly, and he can't deny what the role reversal does to him. The evidence is obvious in the distinct hardness she feels pressing up against the hand undoing his jeans.

"I was hoping it'd be you," she says, voice breathless and airy from the constant contact in a way that makes it ten times hotter for him.

If there were any chance of him not being in the mood prior to this, which wasn't the case anyway, it's gone now. He never wants to hear her say she doesn't deliberately try to tease him ever again.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

JJ surges forward to capture her mouth with his, this time with no intention of pulling away to breathe or speak again. No, he'll let himself get lightheaded and dizzy if it means he can stay with her for as long as possible.

With the circumstances of it all, them being visible to someone if they happened to pass by the open door of the van, they move at a pace quicker than usual. She's immediately helping him shimmy his jeans and underwear far enough down his hips to free his dick from the confines of his clothes, making him sigh out a breath of relief when her hand brushes against him in the process.

There's no opportunity to slow down, it has exploded into a full-throttle speed race that neither of them can halt.

His hand blindly flies out beside him to grope the floor of the van for the set of keys he tossed carelessly to the side once the movie started, eyes shut in the midst of the hot, messy kiss they share. His fingers find the fabric of one of the blankets they brought in case they got cold, then drifts again and lands on her Big Bird sneakers until he feels the sharp metal of her keys meet his calloused palm.

After the events of last summer, she bought a switch blade to keep on her key ring alongside the keys to the van, HMS Pogue, and Chateau. She may not like violence or weapons, seeing as she was a skeptic of JJ keeping the gun alongside her friends, but she saw it necessary. Between Rafe, Topper, and Kelce, how could she leave the safety of her and her friends up to chance knowing what some of the kooks did to them not long ago? What happened to Pope on the golf course alone was enough to make her skin crawl.

Right now, though, the knife flips out from the pressure of his thumb pushing the button to release it. He holds it out away from her at first to assure it doesn't nick her in the process, then uses his other hand to tug the side of her panties that hugs her hip far out enough to press the sharp side of the blade onto the inside of it.

She can hardly believe what she's watching as JJ cuts the delicate maroon underthings from her body as if he were doing something so normal, like it's something he's done before. Her forehead is pressed against his, her mouth parted both in shock and in a need to pant for oxygen, and she watches the knife ruin her favorite panties. The stitches come apart with a satisfying ripping noise that can hardly be heard over the sound of people reacting to the movie in the background.

Other customers of the Cherry Bowl Drive-In are too glued to the screen as a beloved character is chased down, reacting in shouts when she's seized by the killer and shoved onto the table of an industrial bread slicer, so they remain wholly unnoticed.

The lace, now ripped in half, dangles on the tip of the knife when he lifts it away from her, tosses it aside, and presses the button once more to retract the blade. It clatters to the floor, but is in no way forgotten with them resuming in a desperation to keep going until they both satisfy the need clawing at them from the inside. But her sense of need is different from his, and even with the fresh memory of him with the switch blade in mind, she's still somewhere else the whole time.

Her mind is faraway, muted through layers of sadness, anger, and disappointment as he reaches between them to line himself up to her entrance. The sensation of him running his cock, hard and messy with a few drops of precome, through her dripping pussy to coat it in her slick arousal is enough to make her moan pathetically. Yet when he's about to guide himself inside of her, she stops him.

"Wait, wait, wait," she breathes out rapidly, heart pounding so hard she can feel herself pulsating between her thighs, "Condom."

They were so antsy to get to it, they almost forgot.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, and his eyes flicker from where they were trained between their bodies to glance back and forth around the van before it hits him. "I lost my wallet..."

But right when he thinks their public rendezvous in the back of the Drive-In is over due to his unfortunate mistake, she shakes her head and slips away from her perch astride his lap to crawl over to her bag.

She fumbles with the old tote bag and plunges her arm in to sift through the hodge podge of things that are purely Y/N in nature—stickers, glitter pens, a half-eaten bag of candy, etc—for the square foil package she decided to toss in before she left just in case. She usually doesn't keep them on her because he never fails to have one, but, thankfully, she had the random instinct to bring it tonight.

The only thing to bring her out of her cloudy, malevolent storm of feelings when she settles back onto his lap with the condom wrapper ripped open for him is him saying, "So you planned this, huh?" with his mouth tipped in a familiar self-satisfied grin.

She didn't plan it. In fact, she threw herself at him the second she sensed him withdrawing from her and can't stop herself despite the fact that she constantly feels two seconds away from letting a tear slip down her cheek. If that counts as "planning it", then sure.

"Maybe so," she answers, cool, calm, and collected—the antithesis of the truth.

They usually don't lie to each other.

They're thrown right back into it without any other hiccups once he rolls the condom on, and he takes in a shaky breath at her hand wrapping around him to align their bodies up. Before she can do anything, though, he takes chance to swipe the blanket he found a moment ago and wrap it around her back to keep her covered in case they get caught.

Y/N sinks down onto his cock with her lip caught between her teeth to stifle the sound that threatens to escape. JJ, on the other hand, doesn't bother concealing the sound of the groan he makes at the sensation of having her wrapped around him like this. The tension in her entire body from the anticipation and the looming threat of being seen by someone has her squeezing him so tightly, he can't help but be a little louder than he should.

Her soft palm slaps over his mouth with enough pressure to force his groan to quiet itself, and she watches his pretty blue eyes widen in reaction to the dominant action. Who is this girl and what has she done with his sweet, submissive Y/N? Don't get him wrong, he is very turned on by it, but it's unlike her to take the lead this way. He can't figure it out.

"What's wrong, angel?" she asks in a whisper into his ear, her hand over his mouth and her hips starting to slowly rock against him, "Watch the movie."

Once the words leave her mouth, she drops her hand, just in case he wants to stop and can't say anything because she had his mouth covered, and JJ is pretty sure he's died and gone to heaven.

He doesn't watch the movie, not at all, because he's too busy watching her. For someone losing their mind internally, she does not let it show, nor does she let it distract her from what's happening. If anything, the distraction in this situation is the sex, not what's going on inside of her head.

There's a moment of adjustment and going as slowly and gently as possible while waiting for the dull pressure of feeling him inside of her to fade away, but, for the most part, she doesn't waste any time. As soon as she feels comfortable enough with the ache between her thighs giving way to a spark of pleasure when she grinds her clit down on his pubic bone, she starts to ride him at a better pace than the initial slow movements of her hips.

She raises herself up and takes him again inch by inch, enjoying the sense of fullness she gets from having to fit him in spite of the slight discomfort at first, and she could swear that he'll leave bruises in the shape of his handprints with how tightly he clutches her hips. It's all he can do to prevent himself from moaning or saying something, ever the vocal lover she's come to know.

Unless his mouth is preoccupied like it was on the beach yesterday afternoon, JJ is usually impossible to shut up, especially in this context. With him always whispering dirty things to her, whether it be praises, pet names, or plans on what he wants to do to her, she has come to find it breathtakingly hot. He could likely get away with saying something if he wanted to, but he isn't sure he wants to risk it. If he opens his mouth to spew something filthy to her, he won't trust himself not to make a louder, different kind of noise that won't fit in the with background audio the other moviegoers are listening to.

The wet sound of their bodies colliding that fills the space of the van is drowned out by the loud and violent sequence occurring on the screen far ahead of them, and hearing it makes her bounce herself on him a little harder. She's fueled on by it all, and, strangely, what happened before she practically pounced on him is the main contributor.

Similarly to the nature of his intrusive thoughts, the harder she resists the memory of how it felt when he told her he didn't want this to be a date, the more forceful it is in its return. Her eyes trail down to watch where they connect with her forehead pressed to his, then she's thrown back into the feeling of helpless disappointment and insecurity. His head tips back against the window with his bottom lip dropped open and his brows furrowed just enough to create a crease on his forehead, and she's bombarded with the look of relief on his face when he realized he didn't have to be tied down to her with a label.

It makes her want to get rougher, harder, and she doesn't even care if it'll make her sore later on. She presses herself down so far every time she slides down on his cock, her teeth draw blood on her lip with how hard she must bite it to remain quiet. The pain of her hipbones rubbing against his doesn't even matter to either of them at this point. They're both too lost in the pleasure that has begun to take control of them to care about something as minuscule as that, or the burn in her thighs from the repetitive physical strain.

She grabs his wrist and brings his hand between them, flattening hers overtop of it and pressing down on the base of her abdomen in the midst of the increasingly feverish thrusts.

"Feel you here," she murmurs to him through a quiet moan, hoping he can hear it over the movie, and pushes down on his hand for emphasis. And if the way he reacts by cursing under his breath tells her anything, it's that he picked up on it. "JJ..."

He reaches out to grab her by the throat with his free hand and tug her forward to kiss him, as if something inside of him snapped in response to her doing that. The motions of her jolting up and down throws the already messy and uncoordinated kiss off-kilter, but they don't mind. It has them separating every time she lifts up, producing this heady little head rush from from them breathing in each other's air without actually letting their mouths meet in the middle.

Though they're trying their hardest not to alert anyone outside of what's happening, it didn't occur to him until now, when his eyes catch John B's old bandana swinging back and forth where it's secured around the rear view mirror.

They're worried about moaning while the entire fucking Twinkie is rocking with their movements. Well, at least it makes good use of the corny sticker he gifted John B last year as a gag gift. He tried to peel it off after JJ snuck it onto the side window to no avail. So, now Y/N is stuck with a sticker on her car reading, "If the van's a-rockin', come on in, we like orgies," rather than the more common phrase.

It almost makes him start laughing, and he prays no one takes that shit seriously, 'cause he is never intent on sharing this breathtaking girl. Ever.

Y/N isn't anywhere near laughing like he is, in fact, she's finding it difficult to keep herself together. She feels her eyes sting with the promise of tears, and she's never felt so pathetic before. Is she seriously about to cry during sex? Is she really that girl that is so ill-equipped to handle rejection, she can't get through it without tears?

She won't cry. Perhaps if he sees how glossy her eyes have become in a rare moment of good lighting, she can blame it on the hand around her throat putting pressure on the sides of her neck.

The worst part about her being near to crying is the timing of it.

The emotion of what she feels mentally mixes with the swirling, building sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach that tells her she's close to going over the edge, and it's so overwhelming. Was she imagining that their friendship had changed? More importantly, is this all she'll ever be to him? Sex is the only thing she's sure of with him, it's the only thing that doesn't require deeper emotions, and when the ground beneath their fragile relationship felt shaky...

He can feel her starting to unravel, and he knows that he'll come before she does if he doesn't do anything now, so he decides to take control.

JJ pulls the hand he had resting on her abdomen away as though he were burned by it, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her body against his and using the hand around her neck for leverage to thrust up into her, effectively reducing her to a teary-eyed, moaning mess atop him. They both stopped caring about making noise the second he began to fuck her like this.

She cries out in ecstasy at the sudden change in pace and depth that has him hitting all the right places. Every time he thrusts up into her, just as rough as she wished for, the tip of his cock nudges into that perfect spot inside of her that makes her incapable of silencing her moans. This time, it's JJ that puts his hand over her mouth, letting the one he had around her neck move away to keep her from alerting everyone around them of what's happening.

There's nothing she can do to stop her climax as it barrels through her in its initial sweeping wave of bliss to contrast the venomous doubts in her mind. She's never felt such conflicting, yet powerful feelings before—the intensity of the physical pleasure that makes her whine into the palm of his hand, then the part of her mind replaying every word he said in their conversation before this.

Her body is rigid and tense through it all, squeezing down around his cock with the involuntary spasms of her orgasm, and he can't help himself anymore. All it takes are a few more frantic thrusts for him to bury himself inside of her one last time and spill into the condom, uncovering her mouth so he can drown out his own groans into a kiss.

Their skin sticks to their clothes on the inside with sweat from the exertion of their actions, and he can feel her stomach tremble where it presses up against his with each undulation of her hips that meet his as he rides it out.

But even with the added distraction of the sex, she can't rid herself of the feeling that started plaguing her as soon as things went awry. That was why he was acting weird all night. He must have been so worried about her thinking this was anything more than their typical hangouts that he couldn't bring himself to act normally.

She forces herself to look happy when they pull away from the kiss, panting, and JJ, unaware of what she's been thinking, doesn't notice the small deception.

Tag list: @gabiatthedisco

[deputyjuyeon]

JUMPSHOT ✢ HYUNJAE┇13

how y/n got her flowers pt.1

❊ warnings: profanities

wc: ±480

the other day after going to the mall..

Y/n pov

"Y/n, Hyunjae, we're gonna head home first yeah? You two have fun," Yujin linked her arm on Wonyoung's, "But don't do anything stupid kay?"

Hyunjae chuckled and waved, smirking at her comment.

"Wait that means I gotta go too. Yujin wait up!" you panicked, imagining all the possible scenarios that would happen if you hadn't gone home with the two of them.

It wasn't late at all, they'd just finished lunch, but you were desperately trying to avoid being alone together with Hyunjae.

But wait.. don't I like him? You're probably wondering. Yes, you do, that's exactly why.

"Y/n, Hyunjae literally lives two floors below you," Yujin's sudden glare made you startle.

"It's one floor actually," Hyunjae added.

"That's even better!"

While keeping her gaze stuck on you, Yujin reached for her phone and sent a text message.

A ring was heard from inside your pocket.

Frowning at Yujin's text, you blurted out, "But he wants to go somewhere else first no?" you turn to Hyunjae only to be disappointed by his answer.

"No, I can take you home," his eyes turned into crescent moons and his cheeks looked extra adorable that you felt like pinching them.

You melted from his smile till you realize you weren't standing straight.

Hyunjae was quick to catch you in his arms. Concerned, he asked a million questions, "Y/n, are you okay? Are you not feeling well? Should we go home? Do you need me to carry you?"

Holy shit. You're so fucking gorgeous.

You were still out of it. You couldn't hear anything or see anyone but him. Your faces were merely inches apart. You experienced a light tingle when his breath came in contact with your lips. Your heart skipped a beat—maybe even two. Good thing you hadn't forgotten how to breathe.

"See, I think it's pretty alright to leave you both together. We'll be going then, bye!" Yujin saw her chance to escape and she did, leaving you two together at last.

The both of you turned to Yujin while you were still in Hyunjae's grasp. Soon, you two realized that the position you were in was awkward and he let go, still making sure you were feeling okay.

"Are you sure you're alright Y/n? We can go home right now, if you want."

"No, it's okay, I'm okay. You still have a place in mind?"

"I think there's just a park outside. Wanna go? You're a hundred percent sure you're fine right?"

Nodding to his question, you take a few deep breaths to prepare yourself for whatever this boy could do to you. Be it puking from a single smirk from him or passing out just because the Lee Hyunjae is walking together with you, alone, because he wants to.

Yeah, I'm fine. As long as your pretty face doesn't stare at me for too long.

❊ synopsis: for years of being a basketball prodigy, everything seemed easy for you, but things change when you need to take on a whole new challenge on the court: to face 12 men with immaculate talent for sport and unbelievable good looks.

❊ pairings: fem!reader × tbz!ot12 (this is the path for hyunjae's ending! if you'd like to read other's endings, check out the masterlist at the end of the post!)

❊ a/n: don't really like this chapt but what can i do 😭 also its been a while since i posted a written chapter and ive gotten suckier UGH i hate this

❊ taglist: send an ask or a message to be added in the taglist! (or if you're shy form's here 😉) @suzy-rainbow @jaerisdiction @zvae @mingiandbaconjam @friendshipbear @minsikluv @sunjae1924 @plonys @givememunjang @svtfilms @s0ngk4ng @grassbutneo @stealanity @sanghak-enthusiast @jumilzzz @sofie296 @hidejeon @justalildumpling @paralumanniluna @planethyuka @moonieric @skylions-den @djmalikzayn @en-sun @sunwoahkim @taem-min @i6hoons @yunkiwii @allorysayshi @theskzvibe @en-boyz @teti-menchon0604

❊ permanent taglist: @cottoncandy-kiwiin @wooyoung-a @grassbutneo @justalildumpling @kyswoo @yourjaylaks @cloudykyu @zvae @taem-min @en-sun @allorysayshi

❊ can't tag ☹: @yannew @liahjyeonz @jujucloudz @princessmingiuwu @my-summer-night @fluttering-tbz

↺ | masterlist | ↻

[dragon-kazansky]

Dangerous | Helmut Zemo

AU! Race car driver Zemo 😎

Gender neutral reader

Collage by @realremyd

[Masterlist]

[Previous chapter] - [Next chapter]

Part 4

Zemo stared at his phone which he had sat on his desk. His car has been fixed up and he was about to go test run it, but his mind wasn't focused on the car. All he could think about was you.

Sam pokes his head into the office.

"Ready for the test run?"

Zemo looks up, acting as if his mind hasn't been elsewhere, and nodded. He glances at his phone once more before leaving with Sam.

You hadn't contacted him and he was missing you. He had no idea it would be this bad. It had been a couple of days since you had left and he was wishing time had paused that day, anything to spend a few extra minutes with you.

He looks at his car. He needed to put his racing mind on. He grabs his helmet, and gears up. Once he's in the car, he is in racer mode.

When you stepped off the train, your friend was waiting eagerly. She squealed as she ran over to you and pulled you into a hug. You chuckled as she nearly caused you to fall over.

"I've missed you!"

"I was only gone a couple of days," you chuckle.

"I know, but still. Something super amazing has happened and I'm about to lose my mind!"

"What is it?"

You both begin to leave the station, you eager to hear what is so exciting.

"Remember Tony Stark?"

Of course you did. You had literally seen him that weekend, racing.

"Yes."

"Well-"

As you exit the station, you come to a stop. Right in front of you is a limousine. Sleek, black, and expensive looking.

You look at your friend in shock.

"Explain."

Tony Stark climbs out of the limo before she can. You stare in shock. What was he even doing here? Shouldn't he be off training for the next race? Why was he here?

Your friend skips over to him and he places an arm around her.

"What is happening?"

Your friend smiles away, leaning against the billionaire beside her. Maybe you were imagining this. Tony Stark could not be here.

"Y/N, this is my boyfriend."

You are so sure your brain malfunctioned right there. You drop your bag and try to figure if you actually heard that.

You friend laughs as she grabs your bag and puts it into the limo.

"For real?" You ask, looking at Stark.

"For real." He grins.

"Come on, we'll take you home," your friend urges you into the limo. You cannot believe this is happening.

Once you're all in, your friend gives the driver your address and you all set off. You can only stare as she practically drapes herself over his lap.

You feel so confused.

The car was filled only with silence for the reminder of the ride. It was awkward and suffocating, but there was nothing you could say.

When the limo stopped outside of your apartment, you climbed out. Your friend got out too. You pulled her off to the side.

"How? When? How long has this been a thing?" You ask, rapidly firing out your questions.

"He asked me out. That night a couple weeks ago. At the party. The one you didn't come to."

"And you're only mentioning this now?"

"He asked me to wait, so I did. Then a couple days ago, he called me and said he was ready for to tell people."

"A couple of days ago? Friday?"

"Yeah."

You glance back at the car. Friday was race day. Was that a coincidence?

"I'm your friend, why didn't you tell me?"

"I promised I wouldn't until he said I could. I really like him Y/N."

"Do you? Are you in love with him because he's amazing and loves you? Or because he's your favourite pro racer and billionaire?" You narrow you gaze at her.

Her jaw is clenched, eyes hazy with tears.

"That's not fair."

"It's very fair. I don't think you've thought this through."

She let's her tears fall, drops your bag at your feet, pushes you back, and then climbs into the car. You watch the limo drive off before you pick up your bag and go inside your home.

Something didn't sit right with you.

You throw your bag on your bed, deciding to unpack later, and slump down on your sofa. Your mind flickered to Zemo.

You hadn't contacted him. You could have done so on the train. You grab your phone and send him a message.

You: Hey :) I hope I didn't keep you waiting.

You put the phone down and wait. He was probably busy, but you would wait. Closing your eyes, you could almost imagine being back in his car, speeding down the road like crazy. You missed that feeling.

Life was too slow now.

You yearned to be a part of Zemo's lifestyle. You wanted to be beside him, cheering his name, watching as he wins against Stark.

Speaking of, you would have to make arrangements. You needed to check your work schedule and make sure you had that weekend off.

You didn't want to miss a race.

You feel asleep with those thoughts. The wind in your hair, laughter filling the car, Zemo looking over at you with a smile. He was right there in your dreams.

Zemo had done several laps up and down the runway. He would take it down to the track tomorrow to test it out proper, but for now it was in great condition.

The moment he changed out of his gear, he went to collect his things from the office. Picking up his phone, his heart leaped with joy when he saw the text.

You: Hey :) I hope I didn't keep you waiting.

He smiled at his phone and immediately saved your number.

Y/N❤

It felt right to put you in his phone like that. He mentally scolded himself for getting carried away, but he didn't change it. He left it like that and replied.

Zemo: You did, but I'll forgive you. You can make it up to me when I see you next.

He smiled as he tucked his phone away and prepared to head home. On the drive home, his mind turned to you again. There was a silly grin on his face. He would take this third race as a sign. If you showed up, he would take you for that drink, and maybe something would happen. He was not ready to let you go just yet.

A thought crossed his mind.

What if he visited you before the race? He would surely be able to get you to give up your address to him. You would with the drive up. Maybe next could take a peek into your life.

Would you like that?

Never before had he questioned himself so much. When it came to you, there was doubt in his mind. It's not as if you were his anyway. Friend? Yes, quite possibly. Nothing more.

Yet, he yearned for it.

Would you enter his world if invited you? Perhaps he would keep that question up his sleeve until the time seemed right.

It wasn't until he was at home that he got a reply. You must have been busy.

You: That's fair. Assuming I make it, of course.

He smiled at your response.

Zemo: I'll be disappointed if you don't come. I may need your luck again.

You: Yes, because that went so well last time.

Zemo: My losing was no your fault. I blame Stark.

There was several minutes of silence before your next response.

You: How is the car?

Zemo: In working order. I'm going to tinker with it some more. I won't stop until it's up to standard.

You: You must be very busy then.

Zemo: Not too busy that I can't talk to you.

It was so easy to be all bold when you were communicating by text.

You: Cute, but I'm not falling for that ;)

Two could play that game, it seemed.

Zemo: May I ask you something?

You: Of course

Zemo: Where do you work?

You: Why? I can tell you now, it's no where as cool as your job.

Zemo: I want to know more about you.

There was another pause before your response. This one was a little longer than other and Zemo wondered if he had crossed a line.

Then you replied.

You: At cafe, it's called The Redwing. Nice enough place, but not as exciting as your job.

The Redwing? He had heard that name before. Sam came to mind as he thought about it. Zemo smiled.

Zemo: Sounds interesting to me.

You: If you say so. No fast cars here though, just people wanting coffee.

Zemo: I want to hear more, but perhaps some other time. I should eat before I fall asleep on my couch. See you soon?

A couple minutes go by, and then:

You: Maybe ;)

He smiled a smug grin as he put his phone down. He would see you soon, you just didn't know how soon.

Seemed like Zemo had a call to make.

@ajeff855 @moonstuffsteve @sky-writes-stuff @lieutenantn @lostghostgirl94 @friday18eo @yaskna @my-blood-is-maple-syrup @gingerwriter97 @lunamooney2406 @wilder-fangirl @nectav @whovianayesha @thesuitkovian @cathrin2405 @deathtothepatriarchy @belle82devart @dxrksxul06 @killeromanoff @alex-the-nb @latenightartist-author @hb8301 @goddessofmischief03 @xxidontwikeitxx @themeanestlittlewitch

[senyuuno]

Order- 1 peppermint tea, 2 chocolate chips, and 1 mocha for 4 people please. WAIT? LEGIT HAIKYU CAFE?

A/N: Sure! (I'll base your orders on their taste, aight?) And yes, I try my best to understand your orders. Haha.

I hope you feel better soon, by the way. Cheerio~ Back to Main Masterlist

Coffee's and Tea's

Kuroo Tetsuūro

(Peppermint Tea)

You know how peppermint tea could be spicy but not to that point that you'd tear up, right?

Kuroo would be like that. He'd have that mint taste.

As the first manager of their generation, you always have to check their attendance and keep on track with them. And he's running late.

"The Captain is still not here, Sensei." You told Nekomata. His head turns around as he searched for the raven-haired boy until Kenma spoke.

" Y/N, he said he'd arrange his locker first."

"Maybe he's done? I saw him going to our clubroom, Y/N-chan!" Lev said in a wide smile that made Kenma flinched.

"Got it. I'll check on him, Sensei," you said and gave him a bow before leaving.

You widely open the clubroom door and-

"Wai-Y/N!" He shrieked. You were puzzled.

"Practice is about to start," you said, unfazed by his appearance-him, without his shirt on.

His eyes went round when he saw you just looking at him without any blushy reaction.

"Kuroo-san? Aren't you gonna change? The neighboring school is waiting." You pointed out.

Almost scoffing when he saw you turn around. He immediately took big steps as you were about to open the door again, and he smoothly placed your back on the closed door.

"You know, I don't really pay much attention to my body but as a girl..." He paused. He would inch his face closer to you as he tries to make you blush.

"... weren't you suppose to be shocked or something? Act all mushy or what?" He said almost in a whisper.

Your warm palm sends shivers to his spine once it's been placed on his bare upper torso. He almost groaned.

"Yep! Nice body, Captain! You should be proud!" As you gave him a thumbs-up not minding the space between the two of you, you widely grin.

He broke out in a low but amused chuckle.

"Damn, why won't you just give in?" He backs up and scoops his jersey.

"You go first, chibi-chan. I'll be fast."

Sugawara Koushi

(Chocolate Chips)

We all know he's sweet.

He'd always greet you and sometimes wait for you in front of the gate since your house was in a different direction.

Suga would always kiss your forehead before parting the room because you were in a different class. Daichi and Asahi find it cute and angelic.

"Suga, aren't you gonna change?" Daichi asked upon seeing Suga, still in his school uniform.

"No. I excused myself from Coach and Sensei." He explains.

"Suga-san, good afternoon! Eh? Are you not playing?" Noya asked while approaching the gym.

"I'll pass for today. Okay, see you!" He waved off.

"Tell Kageyama to report to me tomorrow!" He said while still waving off.

"Will do!"

"I heard Y/N was sent to the clinic." Asahi said.

"Ah! That's why."

He treats you well and if you are sick, he will treat you extra well.

"I'll take you home for today." He said in a soft voice.

"Sorry that you have to do this," you weakly smiled at him.

"Well, I'm a capable boyfriend after all." He smiled back at you.

Oikawa Tòru

(Chocolate Chips)

This boy. He's got the taste of sweetness, alright.

Actions? Cuteness and dorkyness? He's got all that.

If you're busy, he'd send photos of him during practice and probably all of his teammates.

"Y/N, let's go on a date this weekend," he said just after you packed your things. The both of you alone in the classroom, since you have to do the daily journal.

"How about asking your girlfriend instead?" You answered as you put on your bag and started walking outside, Oikawa trailing beside you.

"Shut it, I'm literally at the point of tearing up you know?" He said and pouted.

After locking up you looked at him unbelievably-"You broke up with her? Damn, she's a real beauty and you just have to-" he cut you off.

"She's the one who broke up with me."

And you're just like-"Oh. I see." This made him scoff.

"Why you gotta be like that, Y/N~ Come on just one date!"

"Don't wanna. I'd be dead before I knew it." Saying this made him roll his eyes-"I promise to protect you from my fangirls," he trailed on.

"Ew, you cringe."

Anyways, he's handsome and got the attitude so just give it to him.

Kozume Kenma

(Mocha)

The taste of mocha (for me) has that hint of bitterness yet still good to drink and savor.

That's just how Kenma is.

When he's busy playing games, you think that sometimes he forgot that you're with him and you can't help but feel lonely.

And you just grab his attention by saying-"I'll get food from the conbini nearby."

But today is different.

He's playing something new, a game you haven't heard of. It has been going for a few hours now, you're already done with your homework and you're just waiting for him to finish so you could chat or eat or something else.

"Kozume, still not done?" You've been asking that for the last few minutes but his only answer is either shrug or none at all and you're already full of it.

With a grumpy look, you fetch your things up while murmuring-"If you won't give me attention then I'm done here."

You gave him a look before going out of his room. You stayed in front of the door for a few minutes while contemplating if you're going back or going home. After all, your boyfriend is sensitive. You sighed.

"Well, it's his fault this time," murmuring as you get down and approaches the door. As you reached for the knob, you heard a rushed footstep from your back as one hand grabs your wrist.

"What?" You annoyingly asked.

"You're going home?" He asked as he started at your things.

"So? You're playing right?"

"I'm done already."

He looked at the time on his phone then back at you-"I don't think it's safe outside at this time." You just stared at him.

"S-so... what I-I'm saying i-is..." He tightly grips your wrist but not enough to hurt you.

"S-stay over?" He looks embarrassed.

You flushed. It's his first saying things like this to you and you can't help but agree.

Why does he know how to soften you?

"Fine." With just one word, his eyes lit up, and raise his head.

"Okay." He smiled. His hand untightening, making its way to yours as he intertwines it.