#Real-Life Rise & Fall

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[dundeelemonade]

cause like there’s something screwy with my brain or whatever that makes dying in a game scary, to the point that i can’t even proceed far enough in botw to figure out how to handle my first guardian, and i have a long list of games that i own and haven’t played more than an hour of because i just really don’t like dying! and i just want to know how get over that hurdle.

[mathysphere]

Went poking around to see what kinda tutorials are out there on how to use Etsy's API (there's not much) and also to see if anyone's doing any fun stats stuff w Etsy data (doesn't seem like?), and now my recommended videos are infested with How To Earn $999,999 A Month On Etsy With AI ART / Top Ten SEO Hacks YOU NEED / Here's What Etsy Doesn't Want You To Know etc etc etc :(

But it also rec'd a 40min vid of someone poring over an Excel sheet of AO3 data, which sounds WAY closer to what I'm going for, so that's nice

[noecoded]

If you could have any Asmo/reader fic what would be the things you would want from it? like an ideal fic would contain what tropes or AUS or situations or whatever

uhmm anything wellwritten that characterizes asmo similar to the way i do ! i rlly like character exploration , both more serious stuff & just sillycute...anything where asmo is a little cunning and toxic and also gets railed into oblivion.anything where hes a vampire. ill write a tag essay about the specifics

[xtruss]

Griselda Blanco is suspected of being involved in 40 murders across the U.S., including all three of her husbands. At its height, her network was pushing $80 million a month in cocaine. Photograph By GDA/El Tiempo/Columbia/AP

The Real-Life Rise and Fall of Griselda Blanco—Cocaine ‘Godmother’ of the ‘70s

How did a Girl Who Grew-up in Poverty in Colombia Become an International Narcotics Queenpin Pushing $80 a Million a Month in Cocaine?

— By ParissaDjangi | February 2, 2024

The Godmother. The Black Widow. Queenpin. Griselda Blanco’s many aliases and nicknames speak to the notoriety she gained by heading a billion-dollar, blood-soaked drug empire that stretched from Colombia to the United States.

Now the subject of the Netflix series Griselda, Blanco’s life blurred the line between fact and fiction as she clawed her way to a position of power in a violent world. So, who was the real woman behind the myth?

Griselda Blanco’s Rise

Blanco was born in Colombia on February 15, 1943. Her homeland would soon be torn apart by La Violencia, a period of mass violence and unrest which began on April 9, 1948, when popular politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated on the streets of Bogotá. By the time La Violencia ended a decade later, 200,000 people had been killed.

A black and white image shows a car overturned and the the whats left of the build photographers closely photograph the car.

This is a view of some of the destruction that rocked Bogota, Colombia, shown April 15, 1948, in the aftermath of the assassination of populist leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on April 9. This is the corner of Carrera Septner with the burned out Renina Hotel in the background.

Left: A diplomatic car was overturned and burned in the rioting and looting of April 9, 1948, in Bogotá, Colombia. Right: Some of the destruction that rocked Bogotá is shown April 15, 1948, in the aftermath of the assassination of populist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9. Photographs By William J. Smith/AP Photo

Blanco came of age against this backdrop of violence. As historian Elaine Carey pointed out in Women Drug Traffickers, Blanco and her contemporaries learned that “power frequently came through violent acts.”

Growing up in poverty in Medellín, Blanco initially didn’t have much power. She cut her teeth in the criminal world at the age of 11, when she allegedly kidnapped a local boy and murdered him after her ransom attempt didn’t pan out. In the coming years, she added pickpocketing and counterfeiting money to her resume.

Michael Corleone Remembers His Mom, Griselda Blanco. Blanco's son was interviewed for National Geographic's show "Narco Wars."

Blanco met and eventually married Carlos Trujillo, who made a living falsifying papers and trafficking humans. The marriage produced three children but ended in divorce. And by the mid-1970s, Trujillo was dead. Some say Trujillo died from health issues; others claim Blanco was really behind his death.

Making White Gold a Family Business

The disco boom of the 1970s sparked a growing market for illicit drugs like cocaine. By the middle of the decade, Colombia had emerged as the center of the cocaine trade, which brought opportunities for staggering wealth––and danger.

Together with Alberto Bravo, a drug smuggler and Blanco’s second husband, they built a cocaine empire based in New York. They relied on smugglers who wore specially designed undergarments to conceal drugs across international borders.

As the empire grew, Blanco’s relationship with Bravo deteriorated. Though the specifics of what exactly happened remain disputed, Bravo was killed in 1975. Blanco later claimed that she personally shot him in the mouth.

A womon in a dress patterend with overlaping stripes in red black and white lays on a cushion brown cushion cntered around a flowers that fill the background behind her.

Griselda Blanco is pictured in a scene from the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Photograph By Magnolia Pictures/Zuma Press

Bravo’s death cemented the image of Griselda Blanco as the “Black Widow,” a woman who got rid of her husbands by killing them.

At its peak, Blanco’s network pushed $80 million worth of cocaine every month. Her biggest markets included New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Blanco’s cocaine empire earned her the nickname “The Godmother,” Colombia’s answer to The Godfather’s Vito Corleone. Blanco seemed to lean into the mythology. After she gave birth to her fourth and final child in 1978, she named him Michael Corleone in honor of the film’s central character.

Blanco’s Reign of Terror in Miami

Violence was the foundation upon which Blanco built and maintained her empire. It was the oil that kept the engine of her network running––and it transformed Miami into a battlefield in the drug wars.

One of the most public attacks happened on July 11, 1979. Two men, likely at Blanco’s bidding, gunned down a cocaine dealer and his bodyguard in a liquor store at Miami’s Dadeland Mall.

Police say two men in a panel van painted with ''Happy Time Complete Party Supply'' were enforcers for Griselda Blanco. They shot and killed a rival dealer and his bodyguard inside Crown Liquors July 11, 1979. Photograph By David Poller/Zuma Wire

In another Miami incident, Blanco ordered the murder of her associate Jesus Castro, who had reportedly kicked one of her children. But when her hitmen attempted to do the job in 1982, they mistakenly killed Castro’s two-year-old son Johnny instead.

According to Jorge Ayala, one of her assassins, Blanco welcomed the error. “At first she was real mad ‘cause we missed the father. But when she heard we had gotten the son by accident, she said she was glad, that they were even.”

The shootout in broad daylight at Dadeland Mall is widely seen as the beginning of the ''Cocaine Wars'' in South Florida. Photograph By David Poller/Zuma Wire

Blanco’s children witnessed violence firsthand. In 1983, she probably ordered the death of her third husband, Dario Sepúlveda. He was killed in front of Michael Corleone, their five-year-old son, in Colombia.

In total, officials suspected Blanco’s involvement in no less than 40 murders across the U.S.

Blanco’s Fall

Blanco managed to stay one step ahead of the law—for a while, at least. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration worked with informants to track her down and build a case against her.

Officials arrested her in Irvine, California, on February 17, 1985, and the resulting trial sentenced her to 15 years in prison. Nine years later, more charges came, this time for the murders of Johnny Castro and drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo.

Blanco was deported to Colombia in 2004, and lived quietly in El Poblado, Medellín’s wealthiest neighborhood for eight years.

On September 3, 2012, 69-year-old Griselda Blanco stepped outside a butcher’s shop in Medellín. Suddenly, two shots rang out––they had come from the gun of assassins on a motorcycle, which quickly fled the scene. Blanco collapsed. The woman who had forged a bloody path away from the poverty of Medellín’s streets ultimately died on them.

[belboed]

y’know the Thing people have done where they draw the turtles in their outfits? yeah i did that except i have Zero sense of fashion whatsoever

[here-there-were-dragons]

are aether’s wings truly moth-like? putting aside glaring concerns of structural integrity at that scale, that would likely mean they not only would damage to the point of flightlessness very easily and almost none would reach significant age with flight capability intact barring medical, magical, or biological wings-shedding-and-regrowing-seasonally intervention, but also that they would likely never be able to bathe, swim, or come into contact with any amount of water, at all.

[estellamiraiauthor]

Well I guess I’ve been thinking about books and writing because I dreamt that The Stars May Rise and Fall had been made into one episode of a Netflix anthology series that was only partially faithful to the book and somehow made and released entirely without my permission or knowledge.

Because it was a dream, it was vague and I couldn’t tell you what about it was “off,” but it HAD A WIKIPEDIA PAGE that listed “core themes”, and only half of them were anything that came from the book but it still made me unreasonably happy that people were engaged in meta-ish discourse on (stolen, incorrect versions of) my characters.

[alastorss]

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

Alastor's antlers are embarrassingly, pathetically, unbearably sensitive.

He can't for the life of him figure out why—it's not like any of the other transfigured creatures wandering around the underworld were made this way. Most other animal-like sinners don't seem to care about or even acknowledge their characteristics.

Yet here he is, purposefully hiding them away just so that no one will discover his terrible weakness. Oh, what he would give to be like the others if only to ignore their incessantly uncomfortable presence on his head.

Perhaps it was a curse from heaven that made him this way, or karma that he was repaying from his life. Either way, he can't stand being touched.

At least, that's what he thought.

There's no malicious intent behind your hands, no glint in your eye that makes the primal instincts in his head scream at him to melt into the shadows. You're as gentle as can be, fingers running delicately along the intricacies of his antlers and stopping just at the ends of them.

"They're beautiful," you whisper with your eyes blown wide. Your shoulders rise and fall with each rapid breath, probably from the adrenaline of standing so close to an Overlord like this. And Alastor, no less.

Your reliable hotelier. Your first real friend in the hotel. The one whose smile cannot be trusted.

But for some reason, you can't shake the feeling that he's looking at you with pure, genuine appreciation even if his smile is a little wonky.

"Why, thank you, darling!"

He jerks away from you quick as the wind, standing tall once again and towering over you. His expression has morphed into something more strained—you can tell by the way his face creases up as his eyes narrow.

He was the one who decided to invade your personal space while the two of you were arguing. He just didn't think that you would be so bold as to get distracted by his antlers and have the gall to reach out to touch them.

The worst part? The absolute worst part of it all is that no one in all the time he's been in Hell has been gentle with him like that.

Add that to the list of things he despises. Or likes. You're confusing him now.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

You have some nerve, he thinks.

Your hands have found a new home resting atop his head, with your fingers combing through his hair and tracing up and down the curve of his antlers.

It becomes a nightly routine—him on the barstool or sitting in front of the piano and you standing behind him with your fingers tangled in his hair and your chin on his head, perched right between the horns. Others in the hotel have started to raise a brow, but you don't seem to care.

So when you finally decide to break routine, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him, his eye twitches.

There isn't even an audience tonight, everyone else already tucked into bed save for Husk behind the bar who's too busy with a bottle to care. The silence between you is heavy as lead.

"Is something the matter?" Alastor finally abruptly asks, eyes narrowed at you from the side. You shift uncomfortably.

"Why would something be the matter?"

He's not in the mood for games right now. "This is the first time you've sat away from me in months," he observes.

You look at him, surprised by his hostility over this. "Well, Lucifer told me that you don't like—"

"Lucifer," he interrupts, head now whipping to the side so he can fully glare at you. "Knows nothing."

You blink at him, stunned. With the way he's acting, he almost seems... annoyed that you've decided to stop being so handsy?

Silence overcomes you again as you just stare at each other, completely at a loss of words. Alastor finally realizes his snappiness and composes himself once more, exhaling through his teeth.

His smile softens at you, missing its usual edge. You know him like this the best—head in your lap and antlers exposed. It's familiar to you in a way that it could never be to anyone else. At least, you hope that's true.

"He knows nothing," the radio demon says one more time for good measure, eyes drifting shut under the weight of your hands.

Alastor has never liked to be touched before. But maybe there is a first time for everything, and maybe the safety of your touch brings him enough ease that you're the first he admits he can tolerate.

His smile says it all. He's content like this, even if he would deny it with his chest if you ever told anyone else.

"Okay," you breathe. "I believe you."

[writingsbychlo]

BUY ME PRESENTS | draco malfoy

summary; draco loves you, and you love him. he just needs a little push to make things official. OR, draco malfoy fighting for his life when he realises just how much everyone wants his girl.

word count; 8928

notes; this is based on christmas eve, but I'm posted a couple days later! this fic puts us half way through our slytherin boy holidays! I'm not sure how the one I expected to be the shortest became the longest one so far. like, seriously, I know I keep saying this but wtf? why can't I write a short fic?

Dinner had already been served by the time you made it to the Grand Hall, the smells of roasted meats and seasoned potatoes filling the air, your mouth watering as you navigated between the throngs of people. Your seat had been saved, of course. A spot on the bench between Draco and Daphne, and as you neared, your friends noticed, smiles rising and waves in your direction. 

Sinking into your seat, you pressed a kiss to the cheek of the blond boy beside you, his face tipping up to receive it and lips twisting into a smile, attention moving to you as you sat. 

“Good day?”

“Better now that it’s over.” You smiled, a chuckle falling from him, and his hand came to rest upon your thigh, squeezing comfortingly while you helped yourself to a plate of whatever food was left. “What are we talking about, what did I miss?”

“Not much. Just Theo telling us all about Christmas in Italy.” Mattheo rolled his eyes, as though you all hadn't heard this exact same speech since that very first Christmas you’d become friends. Most of the group seemed to have simply tuned it out, laughing and nodding at the correct times as they whispered their own conversations. 

A swipe of a thumb over your thigh as you finished filling your plate with food, and you shifted your attention to Draco. “So, what are your Christmas plans, Dray?”

Shuffling a little bit closer now that your plate was full, his arm moved to lay across your shoulders instead, letting you snuggle up into his side. “Oh, you know, the usual.” 

He smiled, and your world seemed to get a little bit brighter, his lips brushing your hairline as he left a barely-present kiss there. 

“Typical Malfoy-family Christmas. I get to do the tour with my parents, visiting every other rich-arsehole couple they know. Christmas Eve party. The pleasure of my father’s annual ‘you’re growing up now, son, it’s time to get serious about the world’ over the dinner table on Christmas Day. Open some presents I don’t want, on a schedule I don’t like.” He sighed, clearly used to it by now, but it didn’t make it sound any less awful.

“Well,” You smile, nudging him playfully with your elbow. “Maybe we could write to one another, or even get a little visit in?” 

The hope in your voice was evident, and Pansy gave you an encouraging smile across the table. You’d been meaning to ask Draco this question for weeks now, and your last chance had been fast approaching. Since the summer, you and Draco had been hooking up. It was no secret among your friends, or even the students; your affections for one another were hardly contained, but it wasn't official. 

You wanted the labels, the security, and the safety of knowing that he was yours and you were his, and nobody else could come between you. You wanted to be introduced to his parents, be his date at events, to have him be proud to call you his girl. But Draco had been hesitant, avoiding every conversation that might inch into the ‘so, what are we?’ territory, keeping a safe distance from any kind of real commitment. 

It wasn’t enough for you anymore, not by a long shot, but trying to talk to Draco about it only ended up with him shutting it down, or skilfully diverting the conversation and you were growing tired of his games. 

Draco only made a vague noise, neither an agreement nor disagreement, and looked away from you as he picked up his drink to take a sip. “I don’t know… maybe. I can get pretty busy over the holidays, I’d hate to let you down.”

Another skill of his, making it seem like cancelling or delaying or not doing something at all was your idea. He was clearly hoping you’d brush it off, and tell him not to worry about it, but instead, you kept quiet. Not giving him the satisfaction of any easy win, this time. 

Pansy caught your eye across the table, shaking her head disapprovingly, and shooting a glare at an oblivious Draco. She had been your confidant these last few months, every update and development in your situationship, she’d been informed of. Every decision, she’d been a part of. She was practically as invested as you were, at this point, and she certainly did not approve of his nonchalant behaviour either. 

“Speaking of parties,” Mattheo cut Theo off, clearly having had enough of the annual rehashing of ‘that one Christmas when Theo was eight’ for today, and changing the subject, “Who’s got their dates sorted for the Malfoy Christmas Eve Ball, and who’s daring to go solo and have Narcissa set them up like a matchmaker all night long?”

Chuckles rang out among the group, and Pansy smiled, leaning into Blaise’s side with a love-struck grin. “I think we’re safe this year.”

“I’m going solo, but, I did tell Aunty Cissa that I have my eye on a girl in one of my classes, and I’m seeing how it plays out. So, she’s not setting me up anytime soon, since she believes I’m already onto someone.” Enzo smirked, and Blaise congratulated him for his clever tactics. 

You smirked through your mouthful of food, listening to Mattheo explain his complex excuse, to Reggie mournfully spill the story of how he’s already been set up by his parents witha ‘potential bride to meet’, and how he hopes she doesn’t show up. You laugh with the others as Tom simply raises an eyebrow, knowing that even Narcissa doesn’t attempt to set him up anymore, lest he scare away any more of her friends’ daughters. Theo, ever the player he is, is looking forward to dancing with every single lady he can find, and taking his pick at the end of the night.

“I suppose nobody needs to ask Draco who his date will be.” Mattheo grins, wiggling his brows at the pair of you as you smile, leaning a little further into the man at your side. 

“Hey, who knows?” He chortles, and your eyes narrow a little, “I’ve had plenty of offers. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Oooh.” Enzo’s eyes went wide, the other boys joining in, and Pansy fixed him with a glare. Daphne leaned around you with her jaw dropped at his statement, and you sat up from his embrace, lips pressed flat and a brow raised. 

The boys snickered, ‘he’s in shit’ and ‘someone’s in the doghouse’, but he lived for the spotlight, a drama queen at heart, and he smirked down at you. 

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t look at me like that, babe.” The playful nickname was one he only ever used when joking around. When he was sincere, he was much more romantic; darling, sweetheart, beautiful. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi mum, hello father, meet the girl I’m skipping class to shag! Thanks for paying my tuition!’, I don’t think so.”

The boys all laughed, Daphne scoffed in sync with her sister behind you, and Pansy looked like she’d lunge across the table at any moment, if it wasn’t for her chastising Blaise for laughing, instead. ‘You and Draco can share that couch you’ll both be sleeping on tonight’, she’d said. ‘See how funny you think it is then’.

The words stung as he spoke them, dismantling your relationship down to the bare minimum; to sex and physical connection and nothing else. Like the nights spent talking until the sun came up were nothing, the times you’d held him while he cried, or washed him in the bath when he was so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. Like he didn’t rub your stomach for hours every month when you got cramps, or had a stash of your favourite snacks in his bedside table for whenever you came over. 

You knew that Draco Malfoy lived you, just as much as you loved him. It was evident in everything he did, every kiss and every word. But, he needed a little push.

“I suppose you’re right,” You sigh lightly, giggling along with the laughing boys around the table. “I’m not so sure Lucius wouldn't burst a blood vessel then and there.”

“Exactly.” Draco hummed, and you glanced back to Pansy. She was shocked, only for a second, before taking in the subtle signs of mischief on your face. Her own smirk stretched out in return, and her gaze flickered once to Draco, before back to you. 

A new game was afoot, and Draco wasn’t going to stand a chance.

Slipping your coat from your shoulders, the annual Malfoy Christmas Eve Ball was well underway. Your parents had disappeared into the crowds before you’d even stepped out of the carriage, uncaring of where you were as long as you weren’t causing trouble. They were here to mingle with the other importants, and you were just here to learn the ropes of proper socialising.

The garment was taken from you, your small bag clutched in hand as a ticket was given to you for it, and you brushed down the front of your dress delicately. Pearls moved under your touch, beading along the bodice flat and perfected, and you felt your confidence rise as you looked at yourself once more in the reflection of a dark window. Adjusting the small lace gloves on each hand, you took a step towards the dining room. 

Elegant music was playing from a live band up on a stage, the room was decorated this year to look like a winter escape. Pale and frosty, like a palace of ice, twinkling lights and glittering decor, crisp white tablecloths and ice sculptures. A layer of goosebumps travelled along your skin at the sight of it all, despite the warming charms that took place for the guests. 

Scanning the room, you quickly found your table. The designated kids table, despite you all being legal adults and far beyond such status. You’d all be the babies of the ball until the new generation emerged, no doubt. Moving through the bodies and crowds of people politely, Theo was the first to glance up and spot you, his mouth falling open, and a rush of confidence took over as he raised two fingers to his lips and whistled. 

The sound caught the attention of the others’ chatter fading to quiet as they all turned to look for the object of his cat-calling, Enzo’s eyes widened, Pansy cheered loudly, and even Mattheo looked momentarily speechless. You’d had the same reaction when you’d seen yourself in the dress too, your stylist had truly outdone herself for this one. 

You looked flawless, and you looked expensive, and utterly elegant. Doing a little spin as you approached, a smile broke free on your lips as you stopped before the chair with your name card before it. 

“Merlin, babe,” Pansy started, drawing your attention straight her her, “You’ve got every eye on you tonight. If I was single, I’d be all over you.” 

She winked when you laughed, and Blaise rolled his eyes but smiled, leaning in to kiss her cheek affectionately. 

“Pretty necklace,” She commented, and your fingers rose to the pretty string of pearls and diamonds that you had. 

“It was a gift,” You simply hummed, tugging at your gloves. Glancing at the others, you gave each a polite smile, eyes lingering on Draco as he stared. In any other style, this dress would be scandalous for an event like this. A low neckline, spaghetti straps, no sleeves. Tight and fitted to every curve of your body, and yet the classic designs and vintage nature elevated it to the kind of class Audrey Hepburn would be proud of. 

He looked just as good, a dark suit, a fresh white shirt, a champagne-coloured tie that made the colour of his eyes and his hair stand out and your mouth dried out a little. Silver rings adorned his fingers, the Malfoy signet standing out, clenched so tightly around his whiskey glass that his knuckles were almost white. 

You’d worn soft, golden makeup effects today, a dusting of glitter along your cheekbones and eyelids, a shade of pink on your cheeks and lips that you knew was his weakness. 

“Someone really wanted your attention with that, huh?” Your best friend teased, and your eyes snapped away from Draco, back to her. 

“I suppose so,” You muse, hand coming up to touch one of the beads on your ear, “Since they also got me this lovely pair of matching earrings.”

Pansy made a dramatic show of admiring them, and Blaise gave a funny look, glancing at the jewellery, and then back at Draco, who was frowning. Before you could reach for your chair after placing your clutch down, Enzo was shooting to his feet from beside you, tugging out the chair for you. 

Draco scoffed as you gave him a thank you, settling into your seat, and he glared at the man beside you. Enzo didn’t flinch, however, smirking at Draco as he spoke;

“What? It’s called being a gentleman, cousin.”

Crossing your leg delicately, you’d hardly even removed your gloves, before a tray was coming down by your side, and a young waiter with a dazzling smile was looking right at you. 

“Champagne, ma’am?” Not a planned pawn in your game, but a welcome addition, you smiled sweetly in return. 

“Oh, I’d love some. Thank you.” Taking the single glass by the stem, you lifted it from the tray and the man’s smile stretched wider as you sipped the bubbly, holding his eye. 

“Of course, miss. If you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be at the bar, happy to serve.” His flirting was heavy enough that normally you’d want to roll your eyes, but tonight, you suppressed that urge, playing into it as you bat your lashes. 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Thank you.”

He took the dismissal, staring appreciatively as he walked away, another look over his shoulder to you as you watched him go. 

“Stop eye-fucking the help.” Draco snapped, and your focus moved to him slowly, just to find his icy glare on you. He didn’t scare you, though, all that mean bravado, but you knew what was underneath. 

“I was doing no such thing.” You tut, placing down your drink. “Don’t be jealous, Dray. You look even better in that suit. If you want compliments, just ask. No need to be mean.”

He seemed rather placated by this, his ego settling down, even if the others did laugh at him.

The conversation seemed to continue around you as you settled in, avoiding Draco’s heated stare and sipping at your champagne. The rush of warming alcohol through your veins settled every dancing nerve, and gave you the calm confidence to do what you had planned. Sitting forwards, just enough, you angled your body so that Draco might have the perfect view over your cleavage as you feigned interest in the chatter around you. 

He took the bait, his gaze falling right where you wanted it, the gems of your necklace dangling just over the swell of your breasts, and he licked his lower lip, pulling it between his teeth.

Raising your hands and catching the swinging gem, you toyed with it carefully, letting it run over your fingers. Time melted away as Draco’s gaze flicked between your nimble touch, your lips, and your chest, shuffling in his seat every so often, and gulping at the bubbly in his glass. 

He was on his third refill by the time food started to be taken around, and you took pity on him momentarily, sitting back in your chair and angling away from him, ready to receive your first course. 

As the starters came around, you turned to thank your waiter, surprised to see it was the same man from the bar who had brought you your champagne. You’d given him little thought since he’d walked away, and you’d never spotted him again, but perhaps that was exactly why he was delivering your food now, as he beamed at you and set down the plate. 

Men did love a little attention, after all. 

Reaching for the bottle of champagne cooling in the centre of the table, the waiter never looked away from you as he refilled your glass without being asked. Draco finally seemed to notice as he finished adjusting his napkin, gaze narrowing on the man serving you. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” He muttered.

You pretended to take no notice, smiling at the man and waving your fingers flirtily as he walked away.

“I’m going to get another drink at the bar,” He announced, leaving without his glass and without asking if anyone else wanted one. You knew where he was truly going, if the lock of his jaw and the stamp in his step were any indication. You doubted you’d be seeing that waiter again.

As you poked at your food, Pansy excused herself too, only a few bites into her meal before she disappeared with a wicked grin and no explanation to anyone. Enzo just chuckled beside you, glancing around the room like he was watching all the cogs of a machine in motion, before turning his gaze on you. “You do look lovely tonight, do you know that?”

“Of course I do. I spent days on end trying on dress after dress to find this.” You sighed, admiring the gorgeous piece of art on your body as you set your cutlery down. 

“And is it serving the purpose you need it to?” He teased, voice knowing, and you nodded. Flicking your gaze over the patrons and guests in the room, you searched for Draco, finding him talking politely to one of his mother’s friends at the bar. 

“It is, I think.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.” He whispered, your focus still on the man who truly held your heart, who was making his polite excuse and walking way, back towards you all. His gaze locked on yours, only for a second, before Pansy was calling your name and drawing your focus elsewhere. 

When you looked up to her, she was grinning, a man by her side. “This is Elliot, he’s been wanting to meet you for some time. I promised him I’d introduce you both tonight.”

You offered the best smile you could as his cheeks reddened, and Pansy merely patted him on the shoulder, slinking away as you offered your hand to him. “Lovely to meet you, Elliot.”

“You too. As embarrassing as that introduction was, it’s true. I have wanted to meet you for some time.” He had a kind smile and pretty eyes, and he seemed far too nice to be dragged into your game tonight, but he seemed almost like a willing participant, and you weren’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. As Draco took his seat, Elliot continued, “Pansy has told me so much about you. You know, if you’re free one day before you go back to that fancy boarding school of yours, I’d love to take you out.”

“Yeah? What have you got in mind?” You smile, twisting a little more to face him, and your encouragement only brightens his expression as Draco’s darkens in your peripheral.

“A night in London, perhaps. We could get dinner, and see the opera?”

“She doesn’t like the opera.” Draco sneered, openly staring at Elliot with enough contempt to scare away lesser men. Elliot tugged at his collar, glancing at Draco, and then back to you as you tried to hide your shock at his behaviour.

“The theatre, then?”

Draco looked ready to snap again, and before he could, you nodded, sparing your unwilling partner. “That sounds wonderful, I’ll see what my schedule says. I’ll get in touch with you through Pansy if I can find the time, is that okay?”

“Perfect.” He smiled, sneaking another wary glance at Draco who was not backing down from glaring at him unflinchingly, but Elliot shook it off, bravely. “It was a pleasure to meet you, truly.”

“And you, Elliot.”

Soon after he left, the plates were being cleared. You tried not to smirk as a different waiter, and one who very pointedly did not so much as even catch your gaze, cleared your dishes away at record speed. 

You knew that Draco had something, everything, to do with that. He was jealous by nature, a spoilt single child who did not like to share his favourite toys, and that is exactly what you were betting on tonight.

You stood, taking a lap around the room with Pansy to settle your food before the next course, and to get another drink. She took the opportunity to fill you in on how her first Christmas event with Blaise’s family had gone, and when you returned, you made sure to surreptitiously place yourself behind Draco’s chair. 

You placed a hand on his shoulder, a friendly gesture, squeezing and rubbing enough that your thumb swept over his collar and across his neck. His pulse jumped under your touch, and he tipped his head closer, into your touch. 

As he did so, your heart leapt in your chest. To others, it might look like a friendly gesture but to you, it meant so much more. You were tempted to cave then and there, to live with this being enough, to settle, but you couldn't. You didn’t want this to be it, you wanted to follow this by leaning down to kiss him, to have him smile against your lips in public the way he did when you were alone. 

To arrive at these events together, arms linked, and to stumble out tiredly together too. To sit by him, his hand on your thigh, to rest your head on his shoulder, to kiss him on the dance floor. The thought was enough to push you through. 

He twisted his head, to kiss your hand like he often did when you did this. Carefully, you slipped your hand away just in time, knuckles brushing across the nape of his neck as you stepped away, and back to your seat. 

His sights moved to you, but like a saving grace, the servers began to appear with more dishes, and dinner soon distracted you all. A delicious serving of salmon and potatoes, and the hall fell quiet enough for you to hear the beautiful music playing when chatter fell low. 

Low conversation, drinks refilled, and that perfect mood set across the room, as people took to the tables and quieted down. Your favourite part of the night, usually. Good food, your friends, and a chance to catch up without the usual weight of it all sitting on you. Regulus was talking, telling the rare story that had him caught up in a long conversation where he usually just observed quietly, but your attention was fixed on your lover. 

Until, Theo spoke up. 

“Oh, merda,” He muttered across Reggie’s’ story, his gaze cutting to you alarmingly quickly. “I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Your heart skipped a beat, a flash of panic.

“My cousin flew in last minute for the party, and he wants to speak to you.” Theo’s words soothed your panic, and you offered him a flat look for the dramatic way he’d put it. Taking a sip from your glass, you raised a brow.

“When?”

“Now.” He confirmed, sights lifting to sit just behind you, and before you could even turn, a chair was being pulled up beside your own from another table. Turning your head to the owner, a smile burst across your face at the man sitting before you. 

“Dario!” Your arms were around his neck before you could stop yourself, and he was chuckling as he bundled you into an equally enthusiastic hug. He chuckled lightly, pulling back only far enough to press a friendly kiss to your cheek, and you cupped his face as you parted from him. “You’re growing a beard!”

“My mother hates it.” He chuckled, rubbing a hand over it. As you twisted a little more towards him, he reached down, practically manhandling you as he reached for the edge of your seat by your legs, tugging it sideways to face him. You squealed as the chair jolted, screeching on the floor, tugging you closer as he leaned in. “Sei incantevole.”

“Are you charming me in Italian?” You smirk, a boyish smile on his face as he lounged back in his seat. “What are you doing here, anyway? Theo said none of you were flying in this year! I thought you couldn't make it.”

“I couldn't,” He sighed, shrugging, “But, then I heard that you would be here, without a date, and I knew I just had to make it. So, here I am, la mia bella donna. You think a short flight from Italy would stop me rushing over here to you?”

Your giggle was against your control. Even if he was more like family than a romantic interest, the way his accent twisted around coyly spoken words, was enough to bring a blush to even the most unreceptive woman’s face. “Cut it out, you flirt.”

“You’ll save me a dance later, right?”

“We’ll see.” He rose his brow, and you lifted your glass, taking a sip of bubbly to hide your smile, leaving him hanging. “Depends on how much more of your cheesy flirting I can endure.”

“You mean my wonderful Italian charm?” He teased, pinching one of your cheeks, and deepening the flush he had already created. “Don’t think I don’t see the way I make you blush.

You could only scoff, mouth dry as you tried to think of a retort, and you didn’t miss Theo muttering in Italian behind you, curse words you’d picked up on tumbling from his mouth. 

“Perhaps this can convince you,” Dario reaches for his inner pocket, producing a small, slim box. An excited squeak breaks from you as he hands it over, your fingers brushing the elegant leather, an Italian name embossed across the front. “Open it later, alright?”

You could only nod, admiring it happily, before slipping the box safely inside of your clutch. He took your hand, kissing your knuckles as he stood. A final wink as he offered you hid charming goodbyes, and a farewell to the rest of the table, before returning his borrowed chair to where he had taken it from. 

You watched as your friend left, disappearing into the crowd, no doubt to mingle and socialise as he had always been so good at, before you swung back around in your chair. 

“He taught you everything you know, huh, Nott?”

Theo only shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face. “What can I say, tesoro? We Nott men just have charm. We’ll woo your panties right off.” He winked, the cockiness not lasting long as Draco swung at him, a fist landing roughly on his arm as the Malfoy heir scowled, glaring at his best friend. 

“Cut it out.” He growled the words through gritted teeth, and your hand shot up, rubbing at your lip to hide your grin as Draco made no effort to hide his own emotions. Theo only laughed, rubbing at the patch on his arm he’d taken the hit.

Dessert was served, a beautiful display of ice cream and winter berries that almost looked too good to eat. The key word being almost. You hadn't been able to resist, however, and the first small groan you’d let out as the sugar hit your tongue had Draco’s gaze snapping straight to you. I did not leave, once, after. 

Instead, he watched, through a dark gaze, every curl of your lips around the spoon, every swipe of your tongue to catch the juice of burst berries. If you’d put on a little extra show, just for him, nobody else had to know. 

It was like he was staring right into your soul, so intense, even after the meal was long since finished. Finally, you indulged him once again, turning to look at him and raising a brow. “Yes, Draco?”

“You look beautiful tonight, I am simply admiring.” He let his gaze move across you slowly, making his admiration apparent, and his gaze lingered a fraction of a second longer on your neck. He stared at you with open adoration, the kind of look that told you exactly how he felt, even if he was fighting it, but he was close to breaking. He was close to losing this game he didn’t know he was playing. Then, his gaze flickered over your shoulder, sweet observation morphing. His brows drew together, his open hand slamming down on the table hard enough to make the glass rattle. “Oh, fucking hell…”

Mattheo erupted with sudden laughter, loud and brash, and there was a tap on your shoulder before you could even ask him what had him in such hysterics. A young man you did not know, perhaps a few years younger than you, and glanced around the table to see which of your friends had put this one together. Each seemed to have caught on in their own time, and had a hand in adding to the fun, to watch Draco suffer more, but none of them were laying any claim to this one. 

“I’ve been watching you all evening, and you are beautiful.” He smiled, stuttering over his words slightly, and Draco made no shy show of his disdain, rolling his eyes and making a disapproving sound. “I was wondering if you might grant me the pleasure of a dance?”

“She would dance with you,” Enzo interrupted, before you could speak at all, leaning forward toward the edge of your chair from his own, and you could have kissed him in gratitude for saving you. “But, she promised me her first dance. Isn’t that right, love? And I think now is the perfect time. Let’s go.”

Offering you his hand, you took it, letting him sweep you away without a second’s delay, navigating you both to the dance floor and twirling you expertly into his arms. One hand clasped your own, the other sitting at a respectable place on your waist, your own on his shoulder, and he fell into the well-rehearsed steps of a classical ballroom dance he’d been doing since he could walk. 

You let out a shaky sigh, relief flooding your veins as you looked back to your seat, noticing that the boy had taken Enzo’s rejection well and disappeared, not hanging around and waiting for your return. 

“You’re killing him slowly, like a predator playing with its prey,” Enzo smirked, neither of you needing to clarify who you were talking about, as he brought up his cousin. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” He chuckled, spinning you out before pulling you back in, sharp actions that made you dizzy with their accuracy, and you grinned as he brought you tumbling right back into his arms, perfectly. If he’d been trying to win you over, his dancing alone would’ve had you swooning. “You just show up to a fancy event like this, dripping in diamonds and pearls and looking like a million bucks, supposedly single. You mean to tell me you didn’t know that all these rich London boys wouldn't descend on you like vultures?”

“Not my fault I’m single and hot, Enz.”

He just laughed, dipping you a little. “We do struggle, don’t we.” You wove between people, a happy silence falling between you both once again as he guided you over the floor, back and forth, “Are you, though? Single, I mean.”

“That is up to your cousin.”

“Touché.”

You continued to move, until your feet were sore from all the twirling, clinging to Enzo in fits of giggles as he spun and twirled and dipped you more, hands on your waist as he lifted you through the air, making a show of his dancing. 

He may have seemed altruistic in his gestures, sweeping in to save you and Draco from your dance with the boy, but he was using you too. Enzo was taking every opportunity to show off his moves to every lady around the room watching, a flirty smile on his face between conversations and he glanced around, and you wouldn't be surprised if he received more offers than Theo or Dario by the end of the night. 

As the third song came to an end, and the music fell for just a second, you panted slightly, arm around his neck now, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and a bright smile. “Can we take a break?”

“Tired, already? You only gave me three so far.” He smirked at the way your jaw dropped, your face going hot and you knew your cheeks were red. You untangled yourself from his body, barely making it a step away from his laughter before he wrapped an arm around your waist, tugging you into his side. “Oh, c’mon. I thought the aim was to flirt and make him mad?”

“He’s not even here to listen!”

“I’m practising,” Enzo murmured, steering you towards the bar, and leaning on the wood as he flagged down the bartender. You were quickly served, by a woman who fawned over Enzo as she passed by, and you had to snap your fingers in front of his face to snap his gaze away from her retreating form. “So, how long are you going to make him—”

A tap on Enzo’s shoulder cut him off, and he turned to look, straightening up instantly from his slumped position. As soon as he moved so you could see, your relaxation melted away too, as you found yourself face to face with Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. 

“Lorenzo, I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to you all evening. I want to ask you about your schoolwork.” The impressively formal and deep voice of Lucius Malfoy settled over your skin like fresh snow, cold but smooth, and you shuddered. 

Narcissa only chuckled lightly at her husband’s words, her eyes on you. “You’ve been busy, though. Who is your lovely lady?”

“Uncle Lucius, Aunt Cissa. This is my friend, (Y/n).”

It wasn’t exactly the circumstances you’d wanted to meet them under, but you smiled nonetheless, nerves running wild as you offered your hand to them both, shaking politely just as your parents had taught you. 

“Ah, (Y/n). Yes. I make a point of knowing all of Draco’s school friends, but I’m in business with your father, aren’t I?” Something like a small kernel of sweetness was buried in that statement, his interest in his son’s life, even if he tried to hide it behind formalities, but it wasn’t your place to comment. 

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“They’re very proud of your schoolwork. They were telling me about your latest project. You synthesised a new potion to grow murkweed faster, is that true?”

You were surprised he knew so much, your small project submitted for Herbology was the last thing you’d expected Lucius Malfoy to know of, or take an interest in, and your mouth felt like sandpaper as you tried to form words. “Yes. Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“Interesting.” That calculating gaze scanned over you, analysing you from head to toe, like he could see right through you with a single glance. “That is impressive, for someone of your age. I’d be open to learning more. Are you considering making a future out of your alchemy talents? I have connections that I could contact for you.” 

You were speechless, your stomach going wild with butterflies born of both excitement and anxiety. He smirked, a look that would set you on edge if you weren’t sure deep down that this was in your interests, not against them. 

“Perhaps we can discuss it more soon, when we next see you. With Enzo?”

Enzo’s arm around your waist shifted, a reassuring weight that you were sure had been your only grounding presence for this surreal conversation. He patted your hip encouragingly. “Oh, no, we aren’t…” 

Motioning between you both, Lucius’ brows furrowed, and Narcissa tried to hide her sigh.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Aunt Cissa. (Y/n) isn’t mine, though it is wonderful that you approve.” Before either could question him, or expand on their confusion, Enzo gave your waist a final rub, before removing his touch from you entirely, and stepping towards his family. “Shall we go and discuss schoolwork then, Uncle? You have questions, and I have answers. I hope the ones you want.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss (Y/l/n).” Lucius politely offered you his hand again, shaking it firmly, and that was about as friendly a dismissal as you’d ever get from him, you’d heard. This was only supported by the surprised look on Narcissa’s face, and the beam Enz gave you as he guided his uncle away. 

“I hope to see you again soon, (Y/n). You look wonderful this evening, thank you for coming.” Narcissa murmured, before following her husband and nephew, glancing back at you only once over her shoulder. She knew. The woman was far more cunning than she let on, the true embodiment of a sneaky Slytherin, observing quietly and taking everything in. Her eyes glinted. She knew you knew she knew, too.

Your heart was pounding, cheeks warm as you lifted your fingers to them cautiously. The disappointed waitress placed down two drinks before you, Enzo long gone without his, but you smiled at her with appreciation, fingers shaking a little as you lifted the glass to your lips to take a sip. 

You’d spoken to Draco’s parents. 

They’d liked you. Lucius had offered to put you onto the career path, and Narcissa had complimented your dress. A soft laugh of disbelief slipped free, your eyes sliding closed for just a second as you revelled in the moment. 

It hasn’t been what you’d set out for tonight, but it was far more than what you’d hoped for. Opening your eyes again, to head back to the table and find Draco, you were met by the sight of a stranger leaning before you on the bar, grinning down at you in amusement. “Hello.”

“Hi.” You gave a terse smile, and a single nod. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“I didn’t even get to ask you to dance yet. Saw you out on the floor with the Berkshire boy, earlier, and I thought—”

“I’m dancing with her next, mate. Piss off.” 

Draco rarely sounded that mad, a chill went down your spine as you felt an arm slide around your waist, tugging you back into his chest. “Dray…”

The stranger only scoffed, glaring at Draco as he wandered away, and your hand reached for his forearm on your body. He snatched it away too soon, however, tugging on your hip to turn you around. His jaw was clenched tight, eyes more frozen than the coldest glacier. “Dance with me.”

Not a request, and he didn’t wait for an answer, before plucking your drink from your hand and slamming it down onto the bar, guiding you back to the swaying bodies. Standing before you, you offered him your hand, your hand sitting lightly on his shoulder. He didn’t take the respectable route, instead, his arm wrapped tight around your waist, sweeping you close to his body, and beginning to move you both in simple steps. 

It was several minutes before he relaxed, your arm sliding further around his neck in a more intimate hold, bringing the two of you much closer, swaying slowly. The tension in his body gave way with every step, and with a resigned sigh, he finally spoke, “You met my parents.”

“I did. They were lovely. Very curious about Enzo and I’s relationship.”

His hand clenched on your waist, and you tipped your head at him as his piercing gaze drilled into you. One more move…

“Oh, don’t be so mad, Dray. We’re only shagging, after all. You’ll find a new girl if I get swept away by someone else.”

His eyes narrowed, jaw clenching, and a fire burned in those silver eyes now, melting the ice away with rage. Checkmate.

“You win, alright? I’m not playing this stupid game any longer.” He took a deep breath, and another, fingers twitching on your back as jealousy bubbled under the surface. “For fucks sake, how many pieces of jewellery from other guys are you wearing? Who bought you those earrings, that necklace? I should be the only one buying you gifts. I should be the one spoiling you. You want the Malfoy family ring? I’ll go yank it off my mother’s engagement ring from her finger right now, just take all this off.”

He studied you for a second, confusion growing at the smirk that grew on your lips. Victory was yours, and you leaned in, pressing a delicate kiss to his cheek. Letting the hand from his neck smooth down his chest, his gaze stayed locked on the jewels around your neck, glaring angrily. “No.”

“No?”

“No. It’s pretty. I’m going to keep wearing it all, let it remind you what you have. Next time you piss me off, forget a date, or use the last of my shampoo, I’m going to put it all back on so you can remember how many guys would jump at the chance.” His nostrils flared, but he stayed silent, wisely knowing when to keep his mouth shut. “I don’t want your family ring, Malfoy. Not yet. I just want a proper title, and the respect that comes with it. I’m not your booty call, or your side piece. You don’t want to play games anymore? Then don’t.”

“You already won.” He whispers, his head dropping down to let his forehead rest on your own. “You know how much you mean to me.”

“Yes, I do. But I want the whole world to know it, too, Dray.”

He didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he twisted his head, enough to press his mouth to your own, silencing any more arguments between you both as he kissed you. His lips claimed yours, a tender and loving kiss, showing everyone just how much you meant to him. There was no mistaking the emotions within it, not as his arms wrapped around your body, holding you to him as the pretence of dancing was given up, your hand on the back of his head, fingers in his hair, meeting every push and pull.

When he pulled away, your smile took over, bashful now under his openly adoring gaze, and he stole several more pecks from your lips. A happy sound escaped you as he tugged you in, tucking his face into your neck, and swaying you both to the music. 

“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

“You have, but I’d be open to hearing it again.” Your hand smoothed over his hair, and he chuckled against your skin, leaving a kiss on the crook of your neck before raising to meet your eye. 

“You are breathtaking, darling. I’m in awe. This colour is my favourite, you know.”

“Why do you think I wore it?”

His fingers trailed down your spine, eyes sparkling even more at that revelation. “How about we get out of here? We’ll make our goodbyes to my parents, and head out.”

“Our goodbyes?” You repeated as he took your hand, lacing your fingers together. 

“Yes. From their son and his girlfriend. I think you deserve a proper introduction, after all.”

Tugging you across the floor, he gave you no time to prepare, and certainly, none to disagree, as you smoothed your hair and attempted to control the blush he’d brought to your cheeks. Through the crowds he wove, until he was pulling to a stop just shy of his parents, and Enzo looked as though he could have cried with relief when Lucius’ intense focus was taken away from him. The boy quickly slipped away as both of Draco’s parents turned to face you. 

“Miss (Y/l/n), when we said we hoped to see you again soon, I didn’t realise you’d take it quite this literally.” He murmured, voice as low and calm as always, and your lips parted, a different kind of heat flooding your features. 

“Oh, behave now, Lucius,” Narcissa grinned, her gaze dropping to your clasped hands, before she reached up to her son’s face, pinching his cheek with a smile. “Draco, darling, I’ve hardly seen you all evening.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you Mother, but we’ll be leaving early.” She only gave him a knowing look, ignoring Lucius’ displeased huff, as if she wasn’t surprised at all. 

“‘We’?”

“My girlfriend and I.” He said, proud and strong, before tugging you forward a little more to stand in front of him. His hand left your own, circling your waist instead, and she offered him a smile at the news. 

“I see.” She smiled, patting her son’s cheek affectionately, before turning that knowing gaze on you. “Now Lorenzo’s evasiveness whenever I asked him about you makes sense.”

“You asked about me?” Your words were a rushed squeak, which only seemed to amuse Narcissa more. 

“Of course, dear. I wanted to know more about you. I’d ask you to sit and chat with me for a spell, but I believe my son might combust if I did.”

“Mother!” He gasped, and Lucius only tutted. 

“Draco.” His father growled softly, shaking his head, and the red on his son’s cheeks only grew.

“You both may go, for now. But I hope you’ll visit me soon, and we might talk?”

“You mean… just us?” Your words tapered off to a near whisper, and Lucius smirked to himself as Draco rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, dear. We’ll have tea.”

You could only nod, bidding your final farewells to them both in a state of awe, before Draco was hurrying you along. Tight hands gripping your waist, lips on your neck as he loved you through the crowds, swiping up your bag and giving you barely a moment to say goodbye to your friends before sweeping you away again. It was only due to the snow falling outside, you were sure, that he allowed you to stop long enough to get your coats. 

Helping you, he lifted the garment onto you from behind, kissing your cheek as he reached around your body to fasten it. His elegant coat was already on, and leather gloves were on his hands as he offered you one. Lacing your fingers through his own, he smiled, tugging you out into the freezing night, and ushering you around the side of the Manor, away from the stream of cars lined up for guests as they left. 

“Where are we going, Dray?” 

“To one of the gardens near the path.” He never turned back, leading you carefully around patches of ice and slippery snow as you moved, the light from the house fading. It was almost pitch black, before he mumbled a small spell, and the garden lights glowed to light, glittering on the fresh blanket of ice. 

Sitting on the grass was an old-fashioned sleigh, enchanted to keep dry, even in the snow, and two reindeer sat happily in the snow snuffling at the grass and scattered food. 

The landscape stretched out far before you both, trees and grass and walls all covered in snow like something from a Christmas card, and the sigh that left your lips clouded in the air before your face. 

“Oh, Draco…” Taking a few steps closer, snow-tipped over the tops of your heels as you stepped off the pathway onto the grass, chilling your feet for only a second, before Draco was following. Scooping you up into his arms, you kicked the ice from your feet with a giggle, your arms looping around his neck. “What’s all this?”

“This is your Christmas present. I didn’t realise that was the kind of ice you wanted instead.” He muttered, eyes flicking down to your neck, as he carried you carefully through the snow and towards the ornate sleigh. As you leaned in to kiss his cheek, he smiled shyly, avoiding your gaze as he became embarrassed, “I wanted to do something romantic for you. We can take the sleigh back to the town, get a cab, and take the jet anywhere you want to go. Pansy already packed a bag for you.”

He placed you down on the edge of the sleigh, letting you shuffle across onto the warmed leather. With another kiss to your lips, he scoffed at your smile. 

“Merry Christmas, my wicked little girlfriend.”

“I can’t believe you arranged all this.” You were practically bouncing in your seat, watching as Draco nervously tugged on the reins, prompting the lazy animals to stand back up, before settling into the sleigh himself. Like they knew just what to do, they took off in a slow trot, tugging the pair of you along through the snow. 

“Maybe if you’d have waited, instead of making me fight for my life tonight, you’d have been surprised.”

His arm was splayed along the back of the seat, and you snuggled in a little closer to him. Curling his arm around you, he pressed a kiss to your forehead, shaking his head and burying his nose in your hair. “If I didn’t make you fight for me, Dray, you’d probably have introduced me to your mother as your study partner. I gave you a little push, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” He muttered, guiding your face up so he could peck your lips. “Who do you think helped me arrange all of this for my ‘lovely lady friend’, hm? I’ve been writing to my mother about having an interest in someone for months now. You underestimate me.”

“You never gave me any other indication!” 

“Oh, please. You walk me like a damn dog, you knew how I felt.” His mouth closed over your own, stealing a kiss, and you couldn't help but smile into it. “I think tonight just proves it.”

The sleigh trotted on as Draco kissed you in the back, beyond thought and reason, your hands tucked into his coat for warmth as he kept you cuddled in close to his side. 

Minutes melted away, the two of you lost in your own world as you jostled and trotted through the fields, back toward the town. Whatever he had planned, it had been in motion for days, and the thought only made you fall a little more in love with him. Perhaps you had underestimated him, but none of it mattered now, not when he was kissing you like you were his only way to breathe, and you had him in your arms, properly, at last.

“So, Pansy knew about your little plan?”

“Yes. I told her days ago.” 

“Hm…” You loved her, and it was perhaps her knowledge of Draco’s actions that made this all the funnier. “So, she knew about your plan, and mine. And still, she made sure to introduce guys to me all night. She played us both just for her own amusement.”

As you thought of her, your fingers lifted to your neck, sitting on the delicate jewellery there, and Draco huffed. Looping his finger underneath it, he tugged lightly. “Can you take this off now, please?”

“Why would I do that?” His pout deepened, glaring at the offending item, and you gave in with an airy laugh. “Pansy, Daph and Tori picked it out personally.”

“What?” His head snapped up, pout gone as his jaw dropped, and he was not laughing like you were. “You let me believe another guy decked you out in diamonds all night! What about the matching earrings?”

“Blaise.”

“The bracelet?”

“Theo and the Notts.” 

At that mention, his eyes narrowed again, searching for your clutch and finding it resting in your lap. “But Theo’s cousin Mario gave you a separate gift.”

“Dario.” You corrected, and he mimicked it childishly, scoffing afterwards. “Well, that part was real. He truly was flirting, and I have no idea what it is, I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Give it to me.” He reached for your bag, a second too slow as you swiped it away from him with a gasp. He didn’t give up, still trying to snatch it as he leaned over you, pressing you back into the seat through fits of laughter, the two of you fighting over the bag until it was pressed to your chest, your eyes wide as you stared up at him, shaking your head. “Give it to me! I’m chucking it, hand it over!”

“No, it’s mine!” He slumped back into his seat, panting for breath and smoothing his hair back down. He was pointedly staring away in the opposite direction, and when you leaned in closer with a chuckle, he leaned away. Grabbing his shoulder, you planted yourself firmly in his lap, kissing the underside of his jaw. “I’m keeping it, but your present is better, I just know it. Whatever it is, could never beat this.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Dray.” 

He gave in, wrapping his arms around your waist, tugging you in closer to his body and pressing a happy kiss to your cheek. “Fine, but I’m buying you a new necklace when we get off the damn plane. I don’t care who bought that one.”

[nereidprinc3ss]

you know the killer doesn't understand

in which spencer is so terrified he's going to hurt you after he gets out of prison that he can barely touch you. an argument ensues.

angst (+ comfort) warnings/tags: established relationship, fem!reader, mentions of violent intrusive thoughts (non-specific), arguing, yelling, use of the word rape, nightmares, happyish ending, mention of showering together, it's a bad time but it's also a good time for us woo i love angsty angst a/n: i miss posting for real so bad i dug up this draft which was mostly finished and polished it up. i think i really like this one and it was based on a request but i lost it:( i hope u guys enjoy this, pls lmk<3

Spencer is by no means happy with his sudden fear of touching you—it makes everything in his life significantly harder and less convenient and he hates that he’s constantly afraid he’s going to break you. He hates watching you hold back from attacking him with a hug when he enters a room like you used to, and he feels terrible every time you ball up on the opposite side of the couch as he reads, waiting for an invitation into his lap but too scared to ask for one (he’ll always hold out his arm for you, though—he’s not cruel.)

You’re adorable in the way you stand at the foot of the bed in your pajamas, arms behind your back like it’s not your bed too, but it makes him feel terrible. This isn’t at all what he wanted for you, and in all honestly he’s thought about ending the relationship because he knows he’s being an absolutely awful partner—but he just can’t bring himself to. Instead, he gestures for you to get into bed, and you curl up under the covers close to him but not against him, and he’ll play with your hair and read for a while because he can’t sleep very well. Eventually he’ll assume the position of sleep, but some sick part of him doesn’t know what to do with the sounds of the city and the fan instead of the sounds of a hundred men rolling and sniffing and shuffling around their echoey cells. He doesn’t understand warmth anymore, or softness, or nice pajamas or fluffy pillows. He’s starting to think he doesn’t understand you. And that’s the worst thought of all. 

So he essentially dozes for the first week, on and off, always exhausted in the mornings but what’s new. When he can’t sleep, he turns his head to watch you breathe—some beautiful, sweet creature dreaming in his bed, unwaveringly loyal to him even though he can hardly stand to touch you for fuck’s sake. You’re beautiful, and it makes him feel better to watch you, even if he can’t touch you. Not now that he knows what he is capable of doing to another person. What if he has some sort of PTSD—PTSS, thank you, Luke Alvez—induced dream and does something terrible to you in his sleep? It’s not like you’re tiny, but he’s stronger, he knows he is, and lately every time you get too close he remembers exactly what it feels like to exert the full force of that strength, and what it feels like when someone else unleashes their own onto him. 

They’re just intrusive thoughts, and in them he doesn’t hurt you intentionally, but he always feels a little bit sick now. He is so, so sick. A bull in a China shop. Spencer knows exactly how breakable humans are—it’s his job to know. If he left so much as one red mark on you by accident, he’s quite sure he’d drill down to a previously unknown rock bottom. And if he reaches that point, he doesn’t know if he’d ever deserve to come back. 

Every day it seems to become clearer that the only humane thing to do is break up with you. But for now he’ll watch you sleep—the delicate rising and falling of your chest, the way you curl in on yourself because you can’t curl into him. In sleep you look so peaceful and content. You never look that way awake, anymore. Not when he’s around, which is pretty much always. At least he can’t disappoint you while you’re asleep. 

Or so he’d like to think. 

Until one night, about a week and a half after he gets home; you whimper in your sleep. It’s so quiet he could’ve missed it, but he doesn’t, and then he watches your smooth brow furrow with worry and he knows you’re having a nightmare immediately. 

Spencer panics—before, he would have woken you up and held you and comforted you until you fell back asleep and it would have been so simple. Now he’s frozen, afraid to touch you but not sure if he can just lie there watching you so afraid and not do a thing about it. 

In the end, you choose for him—and it only takes a few moments. You’re close enough to him that it’s easy for you to close the few inches even in sleep, and maybe you’re slightly conscious but not enough to remember you’re not supposed to touch him. 

He stops breathing as you fold yourself against him, muttering worried nonsense—he catches his name, once—nestling against his chest, one searching arm gently draping over his waist. Every muscle in his body is rigid, and his thoughts—his mind goes… completely fucking blank. 

Suddenly, all he’s known, all he’s ever known, is the smell of your hair, the warmth of you seeping through layers of clothing, and the weight of your arm over him. Everything he ever was ceases to exist, and he’s just this, right now. The person you’d turned to unconsciously for comfort, so sure, so trusting that he would keep you safe. He can feel your breath for the first time in months. Slowly every tense muscle unspools. For the first time in a long time he doesn’t feel dangerous. He doesn’t feel like his entire body is spring loaded and ready to attack at the slightest provocation. Spencer allows himself to hold you, and part of it feels like betrayal because he knows how badly you need this from him while you’re awake but mostly he feels like he could cry. His thumb rubs circles into the middle of your back and your head tucks so perfectly under his chin while he studies the rumpled sheets where you’d been lying a moment ago. He almost feels like sticking his tongue out to gloat at your half of the mattress—haha, look who gets to hold her now—but instead he sighs, shakily, and squeezes his eyes shut. 

You don’t make another sound for hours. 

He’s reluctant to let you go when you begin to stir around six AM, but forcibly holding onto you is so far from what he wants to do that he manages. You roll back over to your own side of the bed, and he continues admiring you from afar until he falls asleep. It’s the best three hours of sleep he’s had in a very long time. 

Of course, you don’t remember it. When you wake up your sadness resumes, and so does the pretending like you’re not sad, but you’re a very good sport—and it helps that he’s feeling much better this morning than he has since he got back. 

“Good morning,” you whisper faintly, still blinking as you watch him longingly from your spot. 

Spencer pushes himself up onto an elbow, and you watch with big eyes as he leans over you, stroking your cheek with his free hand. 

“Good morning. You sleep okay?”

Your brow flickers, and he realizes it’s not a question he asks every morning, and you’re probably distracted by this overt display of affection, but you answer it obediently anyway. 

“I think so. I had weird dreams.”

He hums. 

“About what?”

It’s quiet for a moment as he takes in the exact spattering of microscopically fractured pigment over your irises. Your voice is small when you finally speak. 

“Do I have to tell you?”

That hurts. 

“No. But it might help.”

Coming from him? Ironic doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

You acknowledge him with a small hum of your own, studying him with soft, mistrustful eyes. 

He can’t help it anymore—Spencer leans down and gently kisses you, so tenderly, so chastely, it makes his own head spin. He hasn’t kissed you like that since you picked him up from Milburn. It’s long overdue. 

Which is why he’s not expecting you to start crying. He pulls back immediately, not far, just enough to assess your expression. 

“What’s this? What’s wrong, angel?” He frowns. Your lip quivers in a way that feels like a blow to the chest. 

“That’s not… you’re…”

“What? What is it?”

A fat tear finally traces a path down your cheek and when you speak your voice breaks in the most fragile, devastating way. 

“You’re not being fair.”

He has no neat question to summarize all the bafflement your accusation inspires in his lately cloudy head, but the wildly confused look on his face must be prompt enough.

“I’m trying really hard to respect your space and boundaries and not upset you but my feelings are hurt, Spencer, I don’t know how they couldn’t be. I feel like you don’t even like me anymore. I’m embarrassed around you because I feel like I care about you so much more than you care about me. And then you—and then you wake up one morning and you think it’s okay to act like you love me again but I can’t—I c—” you stop, obviously frustrated—now crying in earnest and lacking the words. “You can’t be mean to me. I know you’ve been through a lot and I’m sorry but you can’t treat me like that. I’m a person, too.”

His chest aches and he swallows down barbed wire.

“I’m not acting like I love you. I do love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything in my life. That’s not an act.”

It’s not an adequate response, but your words are still spinning in his head until he can’t keep up with them. He’s not used to this, anymore. The language you two had developed is so foreign now. 

Maybe he just doesn’t know how to talk to you. 

Resignation—a too-calm recognition softens the stormy look that has brewed on your face. As soon as it’s gone, and you’re looking at him placidly, he realizes he’s afraid. 

“Well, that’s not enough,” you whisper. 

Spencer feels like he’s been shot as you push the covers aside and slip out of bed. And he knows what that feels like. 

“Where are you going?” And then louder, when you don’t hear him because you’ve already left the room, “Where are you going?”

He follows you through the apartment as you march purposefully for the door, slipping shoes on and grabbing your keys and coat. 

You barely look over your shoulder as you leave, slamming the front door behind you. Things shake from the impact. A mini earthquake. 

Spencer is too stunned to follow you. 

It’s not until a few minutes later when he goes to call you that he realizes your phone is still sitting on your bedside table. He stares at it, tasting metal, because he has absolutely no way to reach you or guarantee your safety. There’s no way for you to call him, or anyone, if you get in trouble—and he fears that you’ll retaliate against him by doing something stupid and dangerous. 

He only just manages to stop himself from calling the police and asking them to start looking for you. Only just recognizes it to be an overreaction. 

Besides, he’s not feeling particularly fond of the criminal justice institution these days. If it came down to it, he’d trust himself and his team over the cops any day.

The team. They’re always a resource. If worst comes to worst, he thinks, robotically making coffee as he tries to talk himself down, and she doesn’t come home before dark, I’ll call all of her closest friends. If she doesn’t come home before the morning—the thought makes him feel sick—I’ll deploy every fucking resource at my disposal. 

Maybe that’s an overreaction, too, but he has to find a way to self-soothe somehow. Planning makes him feel better. Being prepared for the things you never see coming makes him feel better. It’s impossible, of course—but the illusion of control is stubborn and so seductive. 

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. 

At around 2 PM, he receives a couple of texts from Garcia that are a massive relief. 

Penelope: She’s at my apartment

Penelope: BE NICER TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!

The series of emojis that follow (including an octopus?), he doesn’t even try to decipher. He simply drops his phone and sighs deeply into his hands, releasing an extreme amount of paranoid tension that had been tying him into knots. Lately, he’s had this sense that everything is fleeting—that the things he takes for granted are painfully, violently impermanent. It doesn’t take anyone with a degree to figure out why he’s been feeling that way, but it’s so all-consuming he’s not sure how to cope with it. Just a few days ago, he’d been wondering how to break up with you. Now he’s asking himself how the fuck he thought he’d be able to do that when he’s barely functioning after a few hours without you.

It’s a question he still hasn’t answered by the time the front door opens at 10 PM. It’s clear by the deer-in-headlights look on your face that you hadn’t been expecting him like this—leaning over the counter, half-empty mug by his hand, staring at nothing in particular and waiting for you to come home. Neither of you have changed clothing since this morning—not that you could—but you look apprehensive as you close it behind you, never facing away from him. The whole thing is like a teenager being caught sneaking back in by a weary parent. 

For a moment the silent confrontation stretches into the horizon, a non-specific point as neither of you seem inclined to be the first to talk. You just watch him watching you—leaning against the door rigidly as if you can’t get far enough away. But he’s too tired for this. Too worn out. 

“How’d you get home?”

You swallow. 

“Penelope.”

Spencer nods slowly, rolling his bottom lip between teeth and finally looking away. 

“You really should have brought your phone.”

You scoff, peeling yourself from the door. 

“Of course that’s what you’re worried about.”

It’s the same situation as this morning, but in reverse—him following after you down the hall as you storm toward the bedroom. 

“Wh—should I not have been? You scared me—” he says your name, barely catching the door before it can slam in his face. “I was worried about you.”

“Why?” you face him, laughing bewilderedly as if the situation were at all funny. A kind of manic energy crackles from the surface of your skin and in your eyes that renders him unable to think of a reply. “Because you thought I would get raped and murdered and then you’d be sad?”

“Yes!” Spencer yells, eyes widening as he fails to contain his frustration any longer. “That is fucking exactly why I was scared!”

You step forward, getting in his space. It jars him, momentarily—he wants to get away from you. Being angry and so close to you is terrifying. What if he lashes out? What if he hurts you? He’s seen crimes of passion. His blood is freezing in his veins. 

“Of course you didn’t give one single fuck that I left you. You didn’t think for one fucking second that I might be tired of this. That wasn’t what you were scared of at all.” For every inch you near, he backs away. Another scorned, bitter laugh from you that feels like poison coursing through his entire circulatory system. You notice everything, eyeing him up and down as he cowers from you. “What is this, Spencer? If you hate being near me that much, just fucking break up with me.”

You’re close enough that he can see the tears welling in your eyes, but he’d know they were there even if he couldn’t observe them. He would hear it in your voice. He would feel it. But he can’t do anything about it. Right now, he’s paralyzed. 

“If the only thing holding you back is wanting to spare my feelings, just fucking do it. This isn’t better. I don’t give a fuck if it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too, but I’m not just going to ignore it anymore.”

There’s no more room. The wall is at is back. 

“Honey, please back up,” Spencer breathes. Last time his back was to a wall, he’d been gagged and beaten. Don’t lash out. She never hurt you. It wasn’t her. 

“Don’t tell me what to do!” you shout, as tears begin to spill over your cheeks. “Either break up with me or stop telling me to go away!”

At that moment, as you break down and your words become muddled with sobs, you raise your fist. 

Spencer watches it approach his shoulder as if in slow-motion. 

On instinct, he catches your wrist.

There’s a lull as he waits for something to explode, for something to go terribly, deeply wrong—

But it doesn’t. 

He realizes his grip is gentle. He realizes you’d never actually hurt him like that. He realizes how little resistance he’d found when he stopped what was sure to be nothing more than a petulant, petty bump against his shoulder—a maneuver that wouldn’t have hurt in the slightest. It was nothing more than a desolate, childlike display of feelings bigger than you know what to do with. 

In the second that it takes him to realize all of this, to realize he is not endangering you in the slightest, nor you him, you’ve begun to truly sob. Standing just inches from him, head angled down as he holds your wrist carefully, you are the picture of a girl who has been running on empty for a very long time and has nothing left to give. Spencer twines his arms around you, tucking your head under his chin and slowly rubbing your back like he’d never forgotten how to hold you. It stuns you, and the tears pause for just a second—before you’re wrapping desperate, weakened arms around him and sobbing even harder, albeit silently, into his shirt. 

“I don’t want to break up,” he whispers, his own voice shaky with understated emotion. “I’m sorry. Please don’t say that. I don’t want that.”

“What’s wrong with you?” You cry, a desperate plead caught between sobs that wrack your body against his against the wall. And he knows it’s not an accusation. It’s not an insult. It’s a question borne of confusion and fear. It’s what a child might ask a sick dog while tears stream down feverish cheeks. And it’s completely appropriate, considering he never tells you anything anymore and he’s only just realizing how scary that must be. Spencer is back from prison but you may as well still be living alone for all that you know about him. He tangles a hand in your hair and holds you against his chest, breathing you like nitrous oxide. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers. The room beyond blurs as he stares at nothing, focused only on the tingly euphoria of feeling you under his hands clashing with the ever-present and crushing shame that he couldn't do it sooner. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you—to be sorry.” Shuddering breaths and gasps still cleave your sentences in half, and Spencer listens so intently he thinks there might be harmonics hidden in the layers of your voice. He clings to every syllable like you’re wielding the word of god in a five-foot-something body. “I just miss you so m—much. I want you to—to love me.”

“I do,” he promises immediately, lips pressing to your ear. “I do love you. So much. So much.”

When you don’t respond, he’s not exactly surprised. He almost asks what he can do, what you need—but is quite sure that’s not the right move. Instead he doesn’t say a thing. Only holds you.

Later, you’ll pull back and he’ll swim in your teary gaze, and then kiss you. He’ll trace silent apologies into every inch of your skin under the torrent of the shower, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make you understand. But for now, for the first time in months, you’re holding each other, and that’s all either of you need.  

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Rising rockstar Eddie sees Steve at one of their shows and falls for him hard and fast.

Little does he know, Steve is also moderately famous...he's in a boy band. Imagine something like Backstreet Boys or NSYNC.

Jeff knows. Gareth knows. Freak knows.

Eddie doesn't, and Steve doesn't tell him. No one tells him.

They walk past a billboard with Steve's band, and Eddie squints at it. "Hey. That guy looks like you!"

And Steve just laughs, "haha, yep, sure does! So where are we eating, babe?"

People don't recognize Steve much on the street because he dresses differently in real life. So Eddie is blissfully oblivious to the true nature of his boyfriend while CC and all their friends make bets.

And he always bitches when CC hum Steve's band's most recent hits. "Really, Gareth? Pop? Traitor."

But the second he learns who Steve is in his professional life, he sits down, listens to their whole discography, and actually memorizes some of the songs, because pop or not, his boyfriend is a pro, he's really good at what he does, and then he makes CC record a cover of his favorite Steve song (and also maybe because Steve tells him he composed some of it, and Eddie's so proud).

From that point, if someone shit talks pop in his presence, he frowns at them and says: "I'll have you know, my boyfriend's in a boy band! And you wish you were as successful as him, you sorry excuse for a musical elitist."

[ninibeingdelulu]

Calmness ✧

Plot: Ken and you have a real daughter.

A/N: kinda short :(

Soft evening light filtered through the den, casting everything in that warm, nostalgic glow you'd come to associate with pure contentment over these past few blissful years together.

Ken's attention remained transfixed on that vintage baseball game rerun flickering across the flatscreen.

Body settled deep into those overstuffed couch cushions with one leg casually crossed over the other in peak middle-aged dad repose.

But it was the tiny, swaddled bundle cradled against his barrel chest that held your rapt fascination from the archway.

Soaking in every precious detail of their serene tableau with an overflow of maternal adoration swelling in your breast.

At just three months old, your newborn daughter remained utterly oblivious to her surroundings - cherubic features smoothed into perfect repose while bronzed lashes fanned over porcelain cheeks.

One little fist tucked up beneath her chin while the other tiny starfish hand rested atop Ken's broad pec, rising and falling with each of his steady rumbles.

Her doting father absently brushed the pad of his thumb in soothing circles over the minuscule knuckles. Never once taking those transfixed mahogany pools off your slumbering miracle's face as if committing every microscopic shift to eternal memory.

That singular worshipful reverie you'd immediately recognized and fallen hopelessly in love with all over again these past few weeks.

The exact same soul-deep look Ken once bestowed solely upon the orphaned kaiju he'd raised before watching her depart for greener pastures - now magnified tenfold through his unbreakable connection to your shared offspring.

A permanent reminder of the family you created together from that cosmic loneliness.

"She's not at all like Emi was , is she?" You murmured, footsteps barely audible across the plush carpet until dropping onto the open cushion space beside him.

Ken responded with only a low rumbling hum from his broad chest while immediately unfurling that sheltering arm around your shoulders.

Cocooning you into his solid, familiar warmth until your cheek smooshed comfortably against the firmness of his shoulder. Close enough to press a wandering caress across your tiny miracle's silken crown.

"No - she's not. She's ours." A meaningful pause preceded Ken's soft, gravelly rasp ghosting across your hairline. "Our daughter...our real baby that you gave me, sweetheart. One I'll guard with my life the same way I do for you always."

Melting into the tender, possessive squeeze encircling your trim waist, you craned your chin up against his collarbone to receive that lingering brush over your puckered lips.

Ken's soulful gaze locked onto yours - swimming depths of protective ferocity tamed only through utter reverence for the two solitary souls anchoring his universe now.

The unspoken mantra of doing anything to safeguard the loves of his life until extinction itself.

"You've already given me more than enough happiness to last a trillion lifetimes, babe. Thank you," he whispered hoarsely against your skin.

"For being everything I could've dreamed during those cold, empty decades..."

You stifled the tiny sniffle by reclaiming his questing mouth in a searing, needful communion - conveying through satin caresses alone just how desperately you treasured this man and the profound sanctuary of family he'd bestowed upon you.

Your Ultraman, protector, partner, and living legacy of insurmountable love all in one. Cradling you both to his gallant hero's heart for eternity.

[lovebugism]

i feel like eddie doesn’t seem himself as “hot” but obviously you do. you’re on your way to a pool party and steve’s and he walks out in just swim trunks asking if he looks okay (they were thrifted and he’s just making sure they fit correctly okay 🥹). y’all barely even make it to steve’s because you can’t get over how GOOD this man looks.

you're so real for this anon. ty for requesting :D — the one where eddie munson has no idea how pretty he is (established relationship, hurt/comfort, cw for mentions of body insecurity and allusions to smut 18+ | 1.1k)

Eddie stands in the corner of your bedroom, before the full-length mirror propped against the wall, and pokes himself once in the stomach. The pale, pudgy skin there dips under his pointer finger before bouncing back in place. He can’t stop looking at his tummy, which sits just barely over the hem of his swim trunks. 

It’s hardly noticeable. Nothing anyone else would bother looking twice at. But to him, it’s so distressingly obvious that the sight alone makes his chest ache.

“Do these look okay?” Eddie mumbles absentmindedly, not looking back at you as he runs his ringed fingers under the elastic edge of the plain black shorts. The gesture is obviously an anxious one — like, if he does it enough times, maybe he can stretch it out a bit. (It hasn’t quite worked for him yet.)

Your silence is palpable and hardly encouraging. 

Eddie looks at you over his shoulder, deep brown eyes glimmering with melted chocolate and distant worry, half-hidden behind his wild curls. He finds you lying in the middle of your bed — with your head in your palms and your feet kicked up behind you — staring right at him.

Your eyes meet. You blink hard, face burning as your glazed-over gaze regains its life once more. “Hm?” you hum, then clear your throat.

Eddie’s lips quirk faintly upward. A mere flicker of a smile at your coyness. “I asked if these looked okay.”

You look him up and down to admire his form, (which you’d been doing the entire time, in truth, only now you’ve got the go-ahead for your unabashed leering.) 

Your boy is a tower of milky white quartz — full of lanky limbs, fading tattoos, and dustings of sparse hair. As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson was carved by Michaelangelo himself. A hand-crafted sculpture lost to time who somehow wormed his way into your heart and Forest Hills trailer park alike. 

Your eyes trail from his pretty face, to his long neck, to the black widow tattooed on his collarbone. They land finally on the happy trail below his belly button that disappears into his swim shorts. 

Your breath catches in your throat. You swallow hard and try to come up with something to say as your brain short-circuits.

“Yeah. Yeah, they look— they look great, Eds,” you stammer, rising from your lounged position on the bed to sit along the edge of it. You squeeze your thighs together when a dull throbbing settles suddenly between them. “Do they fit okay?”

Eddie, unaware of your blossoming desire, turns away. He looks back at his reflection, and his eyes fall immediately to his stomach. He runs his pointer fingers under the hem of the shorts and pretends it does something. Though, it doesn’t change how much of his torso is on display just now. Or how pale his lanky legs are after being hidden all summer season.

“I think so,” he murmurs with an unconvincing waver to his voice. He shifts his weight on his bare feet and caves. “I don’t know— I think I’m just gonna change.” 

You rise from the squeaking mattress. The oversized tee you’re using as a makeshift cover-up floods your smaller form. You catch the boy’s wrist before he can reach for the clothes he left in a pile on your floor. 

“You promised you weren’t gonna wear jeans!” you protest in a playful whine.

Eddie meets your pout with a more exaggerated one — brows twisted, nose scrunched, mouth snarled.  “I know, but I hate these,” he says with a louder whine.

“I don’t want you to get heat stroke and die,” you confess, mousy and obviously sarcastic, as you fall into the boy’s bare chest. 

You wrap both arms around his waist and rest your chin on his sternum, blinking up at him with pretty, glittering eyes. You can smell the floral shampoo in his hair from here, and the musky cologne on his neck you bought for him last Christmas.

Eddie cups your cheeks with softly calloused palms. “Good to know,” he quips with a lopsided smile that he then kisses you with. The crooked grin tastes faintly of nicotine and boy — a nostalgic feeling more than a real flavor.

“I’m serious, Eds,” you tell him with a stern glint in your eyes, chin bobbing against his chest with every word. “They look great on you, okay? Cross my heart.”

His chest sparkles at the compliment. Warms so much it starts to hurt all over again. 

And it’s not that he thinks you’re lying, he just wishes he believed you more. Or that he could see himself through your eyes or something. They always get so squishy around the edges when you look at him — with an adoration he doesn’t know he deserves.

“You’d tell me if I look like an idiot, though, right?” he wonders, half-joking.

“I tell you you look like an idiot all the time,” you deadpan, equally half-joking.

That gets a laugh out of him. “Fair enough,” the boy nods with a quiet chuckle.

“But I like these. Seriously. You should wear them,” you advise firmly and step back from him. Eddie mourns the warmth of your body when only your hands reach out to touch him. “And you can blame them for making us late…”

Eddie’s brows furrow at the mischievous lilt in your voice. “We don’t have to be at Steve’s for another, like, fifteen minutes,” he insists with a breathy laugh that gets caught in his throat when your hand dips under the hem of his swim trunks. “Oh?” he hums with a crooked smile.

You nod with your bottom lip trapped between your teeth. The fuzzy hair of his happy trail tickles the soft skin of your fingertips. His skin is soft and warm and inviting. Your hand starts to ache with the longing to feel him completely.

Eddie forgets how to breathe when you cup his stiffening cock in your supple palm. His eyes go heavy as his pink mouth falls softly agape. “Oh…” he repeats, deeper and more far away this time.

You grin in the face of his distant pleasure, which you seem to give him with little effort now (like a total fucking minx.) Eddie’s chest twists at the roguish twinkle in your eye. He knows he’s surely in for it now, but he doesn’t mind it. He yearns for it, really.

He only hopes that Steve won’t mind either — when the two of you show up at his place a half hour or more late, mussed with an obvious pleasure and reeking of it just the same.

[reidrum]

you say ‘what a mind’ | s.r.

A/N: she’s back and with fluff! (?) exams were really putting me through the ringer but i missed posting so i fixed up this draft i had, i hope you enjoy :D ive been listening to sabrina 25/8 since she dropped so hopefully song inspired fics coming soon 🤞🏽

summary: you get really excited about something new you learned and spencer gets really excited about you

wc: a short n sweet 1k

cw: none, tooth rotting fluff

_______________________________________________

With Spencer's extensive knowledge of just about everything, you had assumed that there wasn’t much you contribute to his abundant learning.

You maybe weren’t three-PhD’s smart, but you were smart, averagely speaking. But you knew Spencer was smart, and truth be told it intimidated you. He never made you feel bad about not knowing something, ever. Anytime he gets to talk to you about anything his face lights up like the night sky.

There was, however, one time you had come home all excited to explain a concept from class that finally clicked for you. And the first person you wanted to tell was Spencer.

He watched you bound up to him with a spring in your step, bright eyed and wide cheeks as you told him, “I have to tell you about what I learned about today, it finally made sense to me. Like it felt like a real life light bulb final puzzle piece fitting type moment!”

He smiled warmly down at your eager face, “Alright angel, lay it on me.”

“Okay, I know it’s a little stupid it’s taken me this long to get it, but it’s—“

The call of your name sternly yet fondly falling from Spencer’s lips interrupts your self deprecating preamble, “Hey, we don’t do that, remember? We talked about this.”

Your rants almost always started with some self deprecating remarks, and he would always frown and try to interject and shut them down, to which you’d wave him off under the guise of, “If I stop, I’ll forget!” You were smart, but stubborn to a fault. He loved you for it, but it was hard for him to see you not understand the value you held, the value that your voice and your words and your opinions held. The value that he knew with all certainty you possessed.

A sheepish blush rises on your cheeks as you mumble, “Sorry.”

His fingers trickle closer to yours and wrap around them firmly, bringing you to sit on the couch next to him as he pulls your legs over to rest on his.

“Don’t be sorry, baby,” he says saccharinely, “We’re working on being nicer to ourselves right?”

You nod, he smiles softly back at you and continues, “Okay, tell me what you learned today.”

You start on your long explanation of the inner workings of the nervous system and its intricacies, explaining details and anecdotes that really showcase the inner workings of how your mind processes information.

Spencer can’t help but stare at you in deep fascination, complete with an awestruck smile and glimmering eyes.

He’s met hundreds of scientists, specialists, celebrities even, and listen to them talk about their research in extensive detail and with expansive knowledge. Hell, he’s had to do it himself with his three doctorates.

But as he sits in front of you, watching the person he’s most fond of on this planet watch you talk with so much speed, conviction, passion, with your hands move with purpose and excitement, he truly swears he has never been more in love with you than that moment.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask cautiously.

“You,” he moves closer, “Are so intelligent, did you know that?”

“Spencer, I’m not in the mood for jokes plea—“

“No, my love. You are brilliant,” he moves closer to be an inch away from you, placing his hands on your cheeks, “The way you process information is fascinating. When I watch you explain things to me I can see you organize it in your pretty head. It is actually mesmerizing watching you absorb knowledge the way you do. You’re like, a beautiful puzzle all undone, but by the forces of nature you’re able to put yourself together and bear the finished product to me, to anyone.”

Your eyes tear up, “Spence…what the fuck.”

He chuckles softly, “I mean it,” he holds you firmly, planting you in the roots of his belief, “What a mind you have, darling.”

It’s enough to make you tuck your head into his chest, obstructing his view from your imminent tearfall.

“You can’t just say things like that.” you mumble against the soft fabric of his shirt.

Spencer instinctively wraps his arm around your torso, letting the other hand take purchase in your hair, gently stroking it down, “Why not?” He speaks softly.

“Because…I might think you're like, in love with me or something.” You joke.

His laugh rumbles through his chest and into your rested head, “Would that be so bad?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s going to be another whole moon cycle before I have another a-ha moment like this again. I’ll have nothing to impress you with.”

Spencer smiles and sighs, squeezing you tighter against him, “You always impress me.”

You groan, “Ugh, you don’t have to say that to make me feel better.”

“You do know that you’re really smart, right?” you open your mouth to argue but he cuts you off, “You always underestimate yourself, but you’re really one of the smartest people I know. And I know a lot of smart people.”

A deep sigh leaves you, but he continues, “And you don’t have to believe me. I’ll believe it enough for the both of us. You and your brain are remarkable, so when you come to me with your a-ha moments thinking I’ll be impressed with your spark of knowledge, just know that I am impressed with you, but it’s more because I get to see you realize just how capable you are yourself.”

The calming motion of his fingers through your hair tether you back to this world, your insides fluttering about like butterflies in an open field. It was hard not to believe his words when Spencer was always so kind to you. It was always so easy for you to play it off like you didn’t deserve it.

But Spencer knew wholeheartedly that you did deserve it, that you were even entitled to it. And he’d spend the rest of his life reminding you. That, you knew for a fact.

“I love you,” you say softly, “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me angel, I love you too.” He mumbles in your head, his hand trailing down your sides in comfort.

[yieldtotemptation]

REPUTATION ft. Minji

minji x male reader smut

9k words

“So, you’re the one,” Minji says, an accusation to make you look up from your drink. “The one they warned us about.”

Firstly, you didn’t plan for this (you never do).

The night began, as always, with the best intentions. You promised your manager that you would follow his instructions to the letter: show face, smile for the cameras, and then slip out before the real party kicks in and you find yourself knee deep in scandal. Again.

And (if you were extra good) you would end the night by scrolling through the greatest hits on your contacts list, looking for a fellow insomniac needing to past the time, needing a bed to share.

A normal, everyday kind of night.

But yet, here you are now: cornered by the girl on everyone’s playlist, all fierce determination and pouty lips wrapped up in a tight black dress.

She doesn’t bother with an introduction—no, that would be silly—instead she just stands there, looking pretty, expecting your full attention.

You quirk an eyebrow. “I require a warning?”

There’s a smile there, just a hint, playing at the edges of Minji’s mouth, like she’s in on a secret that you’re not privy to. “Beware of male seniors. Specifically,” she adds, tilting her head to the side, raising her hand, peeling one finger off the drink she’s holding so she can point a single glossy nail at “you.”

“Hm,” is all you have to say, playing coy, like this is all news to you. Like you’re not aware of your own reputation, of the things you’ve been accused of, the things your company has scrambled to cover-up, the things you’ve actually done.

“So,” she says, so carefree, so easily charming. It’s all an act, of course, a meticulously curated ‘cool girl’ image, something well-rehearsed and played a thousand times before on a thousand lesser men, a tightrope walk between relatable and unattainable. “Should I be worried?”

You know what she’s really asking for: an assessment. Do you find me attractive? Do I tempt you? Am I the type of girl worth risking your career over?

And so, you take her invitation and do the one thing that always gets you in trouble. You look. Look at her legs, long and toned and smooth, begging to be wrapped around your waist. Look at her thighs, creamy-white and barely covered by the hem of her dress. Look at her chest, the soft swell rising and falling with every breath, her collarbone glittering with the sweat of excitement.

Look higher—at how effortlessly perfect she looks, as if she wakes up every day looking like the ideal type of every man and woman in Korea. Oh, there’s make-up, it’s subtle but it’s there, playing up her best features: the height of her cheekbones, the almond curve of her eyes, the fullness of her lips.

She’s so undeniably, obviously gorgeous: a bombshell wrapped in the guise of a girl-next-door.

It’s no wonder she’s so fucking popular.

You give her a non-answer, “Depends what they’ve been saying about me.”

Minji takes a sip of her drink, her eyes never leaving yours, her full pink lips curling around the straw as she sucks in the sugary liquid. It’s a deliberate move, so casually erotic—borderline pornographic, in fact—designed to make you want to grab her and kiss her and prove everything they’ve been saying about you right.

But she’s busy assessing you, you can tell, trying to reconcile the rumours with the reality—Can you really make a girl like her lose control? Make her beg? Make her forget about her image, her obligations, her entire life outside of your cock?

“Word gets around HYBE quick.” Minji’s eyes narrow just a smidge, she’s biting down into her bottom lip, and it has you imagining all sorts of things you’d rather she was doing with her mouth. “The girls at SM can’t stop talking about you. The guys at JYP hate your guts, so that says a lot.”  She smiles at that last point, before listing off, “fuckboy, heartbreaker, group-wrecker, industry villain.”

It’s funny, hearing your dirty laundry aired out like that, and you can only shrug, give a casual smile as if to say ‘who, me?’. It’s admittedly a practiced move, one you’ve used to get out of sticky situations before (you may have even used it as an ending pose once). “Is that what they told you?” You ask, nodding in the direction behind her.

Minji follows your gaze, glancing over her shoulder, the wall of noise and flashing lights of the club framing her face, painting her skin with a rainbow of neon shadows.

There’s her bandmates, doing a terrible job of spying, a trio of worry and concern and gossip: they’ve found their little bunny, and she’s been caught speaking to the big, bad wolf.

She muses, “we’ve all heard the same rumours…”

“And so you came to… what?”

Minji takes a step closer, close enough for you to get a whiff of her drink; one of those sugary mixes, deceptively sweet, but just as strong as the one in your own hand. “To find out for myself,” she answers, “to see if you’re really as bad as everyone says, to see if it's all hype, or if there’s actually some truth to the legend.”

“Legend,” you repeat, trying the word out on your own tongue (it sounds sweeter on hers). “That sounds a bit much, don't you think?” you ask, trying to ignore the way she’s leaning forward now, letting the top of her dress dip, revealing just enough cleavage to stimulate your imagination. A simple gesture, so perfectly choreographed that you'd think it was incidental if you didn't know better, if it didn't have you picturing what it would be like to rip that dress off her, to expose her bare tits, to grab, lick, kiss, and—

She’s giggling out loud now, like she can hear every single filthy thought racing through your mind. “I think I'd like to be the judge of that.”

There’s an alarm bell going off in your pocket, the vibration of your phone buzzing with messages—who else but your manager, demanding to know why you haven't gone home like a good little idol yet, begging you to please, please not make another mess.

But you ignore it and take another sip of your drink, savouring the burn of the cold liquor down your throat, giving you a moment to consider. You’ve got Minji figured out, you think. It's nothing you haven't seen before (nothing you haven't dealt with before). The dream girl, the ‘ideal type’ who’s growing tired of maintaining a perfect image, looking to see how far she can push, how much she can get away with (how much you’ll let her get away with).

Because she’s probably never been told no in her life. Because she's used to getting what she wants with a bat of those lashes or a pout of those lips.

In a way, coming to you is safe, because if the worst were to happen—if you were to get caught—no one for a second would believe that one of the nation's precious daughters was the instigator.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, cutting through the din of the club like a knife, making you believe that she just might be telepathic. “You're thinking: she’s just another innocent idol playing at being naughty for just the night, but the second things get too wild, she’ll be out of here faster than you can say ‘Dispatch’.”

“Because you’re not like other girls.”

“Please,” she scoffs, dismissing the idea entirely. “I always see things to the end.”

“Alright then,” you say. She’s thrown down the gauntlet, and you’re going to pick it up, if for nothing else than to see just how far she’ll go. "Shall we do this here? I'll rip off your clothes, nail you in the middle of the dancefloor in front of all our friends and peers?"

She’s grinning now, not backing down, in fact she’s moving closer, like yes, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. “From what I’ve heard that would be tame for you. Is it true, what you got up to at Inkigayo?”

“That was in a parking lot.”

“And at M Coundown.”

"Under the stage.”

“Music Bank?”

“The staircase, of course.”

“See,” Minji’s whispering now, close enough that you can hear her over the thumping bass of the music, her breath warm against your ear, “you are a man-whore.”

“I have a name,” you reply, dryly.

“That’s nice.” She’s touching you now, her hand sliding up your chest, fingers playing with the buttons of your shirt. “Wanna hear me scream it?”

Your phone is still buzzing, and you know that you should be walking away. It would be the right thing to do: it’s far too public, she’s far too popular, and getting caught leaving hand in hand with her would be nothing short of an announcement that will hit the top of every social media platform by sunrise.

But it’s too late—it was over the second you locked eyes with her from across the dancefloor, when she caught you staring, blatant and unabashed, lingering on the way her ass bounced, mesmerised by how her hips swayed to the beat. 

You just had to let her know she was wanted.

"Look," Minji says, her hands sliding higher now, fingers idly adjusting the collar of your shirt. "There's no angle here, no game. I'm not looking to get caught or land in a scandal, and I'm definitely not looking for love or a boyfriend or whatever fairy tale shit you sing about. I just want what all the other pretty idols are getting."

She's forward, no shame in saying exactly what she wants, daring you to dispute it, but all you can do is cock your head to the side, and flash a smirk of your own. "And what makes you think you're my type?"

Minji laughs, her teeth glinting in the neon lights—you both know it's a very, very idiotic question. "Please," she says, rolling her eyes, "I'm everyone's type."

Another glance over her shoulder, where her bandmates have been pretending not to hover, and now there’s a new face in the mix: Yunjin. Her eyes narrowed to slits, her arms folded, and her jaw is clenched so tight you can almost hear her teeth grinding from here. Unlike the other three, she’s not playing the concerned friend card; she’s the pissed off mother bear, ready to pull Minji away from the walking, talking red flag.

And so adds to your stellar reputation.

Minji notices your eyes flicker in that direction, and looking back at the group with amusement, she takes it as the cue she's been waiting for. "We better get out of here before they take your head off."

It's inevitable, really, this is how it always ends up: the sweet, innocent idol lured into the jaws of the industry monster. But you can’t help it, not when she’s looking at you like that, like she wants to be eaten alive.

You know the score, you’ve danced this dance before, and you’ve got a role to play. The only thing left to do is to take her hand and lead her out of the chaos—through the throngs of familiar faces, not giving them a chance to register what you're doing, or who you're with, or what's about to occur, again.

Not like anyone could stop it now, anyway.

"So, this is how it happens," you hear Minji murmur as you lead her out of the club, through a hidden metal door, and into the cold, night air.

-

Minji tastes like gin and lime cordial, her lips sticky and sweet against yours, her arms around your neck, her back pressed up against the back-alley wall. There’s something in the way she’s kissing you—giggling between breaths—like she can’t believe this is happening, like she’s getting away with the crime of the century.

Her hands are in your hair now, tugging gently, the cool metal of her rings pressing into your scalp, begging you to kiss her harder, to burn the memory of your lips onto hers. Your tongues meet in a dance that’s more battle than ballet, and she’s matching you move for move, her teeth nipping at your bottom lip, her nails scraping down your neck.

She’s eager, she’s pressing her chest against yours, making you feel just how hot she is. But yet, there’s still that annoying voice in your head, the last shreds of your conscience, telling you to give her that final out, to let her walk away with her dignity intact, go back to her members and tell them she just had to get some fresh air.

So, you pull back, tearing your mouth away from hers, giving her room to gasp for air, to let the world come back into focus, and you ask her, loud and clear, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Minji’s panting, breaths coming in short gasps, little puffs of steam out into the winter air, and she smiles. It’s a wicked little grin, equal parts surprised and thrilled, like you’ve just passed some kind of test she didn’t think you knew existed. “Are you asking for my consent?”

You balk at that. Your reputation can't be that bad. “Is it so unbelievable that I'd ask?” Even though you already know, deep down, she’s not going anywhere, there’s a power in hearing her say it. Saying that she wants you, specifically, to ruin her.

“No, it’s just…” Minji starts, looking up with those big, dark eyes, and you can almost see the gears turning in her head, trying to figure out how to play this, before ultimately landing on the word, “nice.”

She pulls you back towards her, kissing you again, those soft, pillowy lips of hers meeting your mouth in a kiss that’s so inappropriately sweet, like she’s sealing a deal with sugar rather than ink.

“Yeah,” she whispers, her voice steady, sure. “I want to do this. More than anything.” Minji tilts her head back, exposing the column of her throat, inviting you to kiss it, to suck, to bite. “I want you."

You don’t need any more convincing than that. Your hands are on her body, running over the curves of her hips, the dip of her waist, the swell of her chest. And she’s leaning into your touch, needing to feel more of you, wanting you to explore her. And you do, greedily, feeling her breath hitch when you graze her nipples through the fabric, feel her hips jerk when you trace the line of her panties.

“Are we going to—gah—go back to your place?” Minji tries to ask, her question punctuated by a moan as your fingertips dance over the smooth skin of her inner thigh, the hem of her dress whispering against your skin.

You’ve already made your decision—you're not taking her home, you're not taking her anywhere with a bed, or even a chair. You're going to have her right here, right now. There’s no need to answer her, you just let her work it out for herself when you push her back against the wall, when your thumb finds the slick, wet heat between her legs.

“Here?” She gasps, turning to look down the darkened end of the alleyway, at the distant streetlights, at the crowds of people oblivious to what’s about to happen beneath the shadows.

“It’s not the dancefloor, but it’ll have to do,” you murmur, leaning into her, pressing your lips against her cheek, her jaw, her earlobe.

“B-but, what if—” Minji stammers, but you’re busy toying with the lace of her panties, nothing more than a mere formality at this point, only existing to get wetter, to be unavoidably ruined by you.

“What if someone finds us?” You finish her question, nibbling at her ear. “Then we’ll just have to make sure we leave them something to talk about, won’t we?”

She’s shivering at the thought of it—the headlines, the think pieces, the whispered scandals that will follow you both for weeks, maybe months, maybe forever. But you can feel her resolve hardening, her spine straightening, her body arching towards yours, and she replies, “Then don’t hold back.”

The challenge is clear: she’s embracing the thrill of the forbidden, the rush of potential disaster, the heady feeling of need overshadowing the fear of getting caught.

You don’t disappoint. Your fingers slip under the soaked lace, and she’s sensitive, so, so sensitive. She’s staining your fingers, needing only the smallest amount of pressure to garner a reaction. You tease her, drag your finger across her tender folds, dare to skim over her clit, torture her with anticipation.

Whatever concerns she has evaporates as you kiss down to her collarbone—you’re going to leave a mark—and she’s already asking for more, “Please.”

She’s whining, parting her legs, desperate for you to do more than just touch her, needing you to rip through her panties and take her.

“You're right—I don’t care,” she sighs into the wind, handing her fate over to you. “I need you. Now.”

That's all you need to hear, everything you've ever wanted to hear someone as seemingly untouchable as Minji say to you. You pull down her panties, needing an extra tug as her slickness sticks them to her thighs—she’s so fucking wet for you—and you draw a circle around her entrance with your finger.

“Right there,” she cries. She’s much more honest when she’s desperate—gone is the posturing, the taunting, the act—she’s just a girl who needs to feel something real. So, you give it to her—push your finger inside, gliding in smoothly, a perfect fit around your digit.

Only knuckle deep but she’s already got you like a vice, squeezing around your finger like she’s trying to keep it captive—so wet, so tight, so fucking good. Her nails dig into your shoulders as you push in another finger, stretching her just enough to make her gasp, just enough to make her fulfill her promise to cry out your name, “Fuck—!”

Her pulse is racing like a runaway train, hammering against your lips—you’re pushing both fingers all the way inside her now, sawing them in and out of her, making her groan, making her repeat your name over and over again.

You’re in her ear, “you’ve got to be quiet, Minji.”

But she’s not having it. “Make me,” she laughs, daring you, another challenge she’s putting down.

You kiss her hard, replacing the laughter in her mouth with your tongue, muffling her cries as you fuck her with your hand, you’re going to ruin her now. You curl your fingers up to hit that spot that makes her toes curl in her sky-high heels, making her gasp, her head thunking back against the wall.

She’s trying, she really is, to keep it in, but she still needs you to keep her standing, to hold her up as your fingers delve deeper; to keep her from melting into a puddle all over your hand.

Still, you’re relentless, feeling her out, learning her rhythm, her reactions, the spots that make her sigh and fall apart. You know you’ve found it when her breaths turn harsh and ragged, and she’s rolling her hips against your hand, and there’s that noise—the sweet, slick sound of her pussy swallowing your fingers whole—and she’s whining into your mouth, “This feels so—”

“Hot,” you finish for her, watching as her cheeks flush a delicious shade of pink, her pupils blown wide, those angelic features of hers contorting with every thrust of your fingers. “You’re so fucking hot, Minji.”

And she is, she’s hot, she’s so hot around you, against you, her hips bucking at the praise, and she whimpers, your name a staccato prayer on her lips. “More,” she demands, but she’s tripping over her words—“more—please—how does it feel so—”

“I’m going to make you cum now, Minji,” you state, your voice low and sure, your fingers continuing their persistent rhythm inside her. She nods, panting against your neck. “And after that, I’m going to fuck you and make you cum all over again. Until you can’t walk straight. Until you forget every other name but mine. Do you understand?”

Her eyes flutter closed, and she nods again, a whine escaping her throat, and she’s biting her lip so hard it’s going to bruise—another mark she won’t be able to explain tomorrow.

You lean in closer, whispering, “Good girl.”

You’re finger-fucking her in earnest now, her body moving in sync with your hand, the alleyway walls echoing with the slap of skin and the wet sounds of your digits plunging into her, your knuckles smacking against her clit. She’s trying to keep it together, trying not to scream out loud, her eyes squeezed shut tight as if that could hold back the orgasm that’s barrelling down on her.

Her breaths are coming out in little pants, and you know she’s close, so close, she’s nearly crying. “Just your fingers—fuck—it’s just your fingers,” she’s repeating it in disbelief, like it shouldn’t feel this good, not yet, like she needs the mantra to keep herself grounded as your hand lights up every nerve in her body.

She’s there, right on the edge, only needing that extra push, that pressure in just the right place, just waiting for your word to send her spiralling over. “Cum for me now, Minji.”

And that’s all it takes.

You hold her steady, fuck her hard with your fingers, rub at her clit, and she’s clenching down, all tiny shakes and choked gasps, her eyes snapping open and then squeezing shut as she reaches the precipice.

"God—fuck—I can't—"

It hits her hard and fast and all at once—her whole body seizing around your hand, her cunt tightening, her hips thrusting forward, needing more friction. Her mouth opens wide, but you trap her lips before she can make a sound, kissing her fiercely, tasting the sweetness of her release on her tongue, feeling the tremors of her orgasm travel from her core to the tips of your fingers.

Her hands are all over you, her nails digging into your shoulders, leaving little half-moons in your skin as she clutches you closer, her tongue dancing with yours as if her life depends on it. You keep going, not letting up until she’s fully ridden the wave, and it’s a sight to behold—Minji coming apart against a dirty alley wall, her legs trembling like they might give out at any second.

When she does finally go still, when her breathing starts to even out, you break the kiss, pulling away to look into her eyes, searching for the usual signs of regret or embarrassment that often follow these kinds of moments. But she’s looking at you with something else entirely: a mix of awe and excitement, like she’s just experienced something she never knew existed.

“You okay?” You murmur, the question more of a formality than anything, because she looks absolutely anything but okay. She looks fucking amazing, a breathless, boneless mess against the wall, her chest rising and falling rapidly with every inhale.

Her eyes are still glazed over, wide and dark, her mouth slack and swollen from your kisses. You can see her trying to process what just happened, the reality of it all, but she’s still too lost in the aftermath of her orgasm to form coherent thoughts.

“Yeah,” she breathes out finally, nodding shakily. “I’m—yeah, I’m good.”

You withdraw your hand, giving her pussy one last gentle squeeze before pulling away, and she whines, a high-pitched noise that makes you twitch.

She’s flushed, her hair a mess from your hands, her lipstick smudged, her dress hiked up around her waist, panties around her ankles. The way she’s looking at you now, it's worship, like you're a secret that she’s just discovered and is desperate to keep to herself. “I fucking knew it,” she says. “The rumours were true.”

You smirk, wiping your hand on the side of your pants, watching her struggle to stand straight. “Ready for round two?”

Her gaze flicks downwards, to the bulge in your pants, and she nods, swallows hard. “Yeah, I—fuck yes.”

There’s no hesitation now, no pretending she doesn’t know what she’s signed up for. She’s all in, and you want her, here, now, because that’s what you do—you take what you want.

You kiss her again, deep and greedy, one hand on the wall behind her head, the other gripping her tight, keeping her in place as you grind against her, letting her feel the hardness of your cock, everything she’s been waiting for.

“Please, don’t stop,” she pleads, and you don’t—you can’t.

Not now, when she’s letting you tug down on her dress, letting it pool around her ankles like a discarded secret. She’s a vision, standing in the cold, stark alley in just her heels and her underwear—and there’s her tits, perky and perfect, begging to be touched.

You don’t even bother with the bra, you just yank it down, the straps snapping and the fabric falling away to reveal her nipples—pink and stiff and so fucking tempting. You can’t help yourself, they’re practically calling for you to taste them, so you draw one into your mouth, feeling her gasp against your ear, her hand sliding into your hair, holding you against her chest.

Her skin is hot against your tongue, and you suck, and bite, and lick until she’s whimpering, until she’s pushing herself into your lips. Your hand is exploring the rest of her naked body—running down her stomach, tracing the lines of her abs, feeling her stomach muscles clench with every breath she takes. She’s so tight, so toned—it’s like you’re touching a sculpture, or a personal playground made just for you.

“Oh my God,” she whimpers, “so good, so, so good, how does it feel—?”

Her words cut off as your teeth graze her nipple—she’s so reactive to every touch, and it has you wondering—has she ever been touched like this before? Has her body every truly been explored like this, pushed to these heights?

“You want more?” You murmur into her chest, your fingers returning to her wet folds, your thumb reintroducing itself to her clit.

“Your cock,” she says, sucking a harsh breath through her teeth. “I want it, I need it—please—I’m ready for it.” It’s that word—please—how it rolls off her tongue, the desperation in it, how it makes her sound so needy and vulnerable.

“Then take it,” you command, breaking away from her chest, stepping backwards to give her room to do exactly what she's been begging for.

Minji doesn’t miss a beat, hands gentle but determined, her fingers at your belt, fumbling with the buckle, loosening the zipper. She’s hungry for it, for this moment of truth, to verify for herself—what’s been talked about in whispers and rumours, what’s been taunting her all evening.

Your pants hit the ground, and she’s staring at your cock with wide eyes, and for a second you can almost see the doubt creeping in. But she swallows it down, and with a soft grip, wraps her small hand around you, stroking you from base to tip.

“So this is it,” she says, taking the full measure of your length, her thumb smearing the pre-cum over your head. “This is the cock that ruins idols. They said it splits women in half.”

You chuckle, but she’s completely ignoring you, well, ignoring all parts of you that isn’t your cock. Her hand is tentative at first, working its way up and down, feeling you grow harder by the second in her palm. You can feel her wonder, her excitement, a hunger matched only by the ache in your cock.

It's the way she’s not saying anything, just touching, feeling. Not that you mind the quiet—it's intimate, just the two of you, the sound of her breaths, your heart beating in your ears, and the distant thump of the world you left behind.

She’s gaining confidence now, her strokes more deliberate, a smug smile gracing her lips as she watches how you react to her touch. You bite back a groan, not wanting to give away how much she’s getting to you, but fuck, she’s getting good at this. She’s clearly learning on the job, eyes keen to see just how you like it—how fast, how tight—how to make you fall apart in her hands.

It’s time to reign her in, you’re heading into deeper waters now. You grasp her wrist, stopping her, ignoring her pouts and whines. “Not yet,” you say, “I’m going to split you in half with my cock now.”

That makes her grin. She does this thing, this cute little twirl, spinning around on her heels to face the wall, and posting herself up against it. Her legs spread wide, giving you a perfect view of her splayed pussy, glistening under the dim neon light. She’s got her hands above her head—she’s putting herself on display for you, like your own private Mona Lisa.

A look back at you and she catches you gawking—eyes glued to her ass, her pussy—and she winks. “Are you just going to stare, or do I have to make you fuck me?” She says it so casually, like she’s back at the bar ordering another drink. “Hurry up, please. I need it. Inside me. Now."

No more waiting, no further invitations needed—there’s teasing, and then there’s both of you craving it, dying for this.

You’re behind her in an instant, pressing her into the wall, her cheek against the cold brick, her juicy ass up in the air. You guide your cock to her entrance, the head nudging against her—she’s soaked, pussy drooling on your tip—and she gasps, looking back at you with those doe eyes, all wide and innocent—like she hasn’t been begging for this since the moment she looked in your direction.

“Fuck Minji, you're so fucking wet for me,” you say, running your cock down her slit, coating it in her juices, “so needy for me, aren’t you?

“Yes,” she whispers, her voice strained, like every moment without your cock inside her is torture. “I want it all. Every fucking inch.”

The first push is a slide into heaven—she’s tight, so fucking tight, so, so wet, like she’s never had anyone else—like she’s been waiting just for you. She’s teary, gasping, and you feel her body tense, but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t dare ask you to stop. Instead, she arches her back, pushing herself back onto you, urging you deeper.

“God,” she’s chanting now, feeling inch after inch sliding into her, “it’s so—it’s already making me so—”

It’s slow, deep, fucking, stretching seconds into an eternity, stretching her pussy out with your girth, stretching her to fit you, to keep you, to never let you leave. It’s careful, almost tender at first—let her set the pace, let her show you how much she can take.

She’s moaning, low and guttural, and you wrap one hand around her waist to hold her steady as you thrust into her, let her get comfortable with your size, make her tits bounce with every pump, make her legs shake beneath her. And then there’s that lip bite again—she’s trying to keep quiet, but little moans are escaping her, getting lost in the night.

You ease out, then push back in, setting a steady rhythm that’s got her rocking back onto you. Minji seems like a delicate little thing, but there's a strength to her, a suppleness—she’s meeting you thrust for thrust, her pussy like pure velvet around your cock, gripping you tight, trying to milk you.

Hand finds her chin, tilting her head back so you can kiss her again—long, deep, tongue-filled kisses that make her whine and buck against you. She’s slowly, but surely adjusting to you now, her body learning the rhythm of your cock, getting used to being so completely filled.

It's in the way she's moaning into your mouth, like she's never been fucked like this before, never had someone so big, never had a cock so demanding of her tight little cunt. But she's so eager for it, her pussy so warm and welcoming, swallowing you up with every thrust.

It’s not normally like this—you’re not normally like this—but something has you asking between kisses, “You okay?”

She laughs, pushing herself back against you, pushing her cunt down on you, taking you deeper, burying your cock to the hilt. “I’m not going to break, I promise,” she says, looking over her shoulder, needing this. “I need you to fuck me—no holding back—I can take it all—everything you’ve ever given anyone else, all those other girls. I can handle it.”

“Show me.”

It’s throwing gasoline on a fire—she's asking for it, burning for it. You fuck her like you mean it—pull out all the way, force it all the way back in, hard, deep, rough. A shriek and she's wailing now, true to her word she’s taking it, taking it all, utterly lost in each perfect push into her cunt. She’s so beautiful like this, so open and raw—gone is the perfect idol, she’s just another girl getting fucked in an alley by some guy she just met.

Both hands are gripping into her hips, holding her in place, holding her upright, feeling her walls clench and release around you. Marks are going to be left there too, your fingerprints on her skin, bruises that she’ll have to hide with makeup tomorrow.

“So good—so fucking good—just—“ Minji can barely make out full sentences, let alone words as you fuck her, as you own her. “Harder! Fuck! Rougher!"

It’s like a drug, this power, watching her come apart for you, knowing you’re the one making her feel this way, knowing she’ll let you do whatever you want, whatever you need as long as it makes her come apart. And you’re feeding off of it, her words pushing you closer to the edge, letting her need for you drive you, unlock that primal part of your brain. Fucking her like this, so filthy and wrong and everything you love about this life.

You pick up the pace, driving your hips forward—"harder—fuck—harder"—until she’s shaking, her legs giving out, and the only thing keeping her on her feet is your cock and your arms.

“Fuck—I know what they said but—fuck! Is this what they all felt?” She gasps out, “is this how it always feels?”

Your lips on her neck, her hair sticking to your face, the scent of her perfume, of her, intoxicating. “It doesn’t always feel like this,” you answer, you grunt. “But you do. You feel so fucking good, Minji. So fucking perfect for me.”

“You're so big,” she says, her voice trembling, “I feel so—fuck—full.”

It’s not just the way she’s clenching around you, how she’s now able to take every inch of you like she’s been fucking you her whole life—it’s how she says your name, like you’re the only one that could ever make you feel this way, like you’re the one who ever will.

You grab her tits, squeezing them, seizing them, pinching and twisting her nipples between your fingers. All it does is make her beg, “fuck—I love it—how rough you are—” needing more of everything you have, “your hands—your cock—please don’t stop, don’t ever stop—I can take it please—rougher please—fuck!”

Something cracks inside you, and your hand comes down on her ass, the sound bouncing off the walls like a gunshot. Minji jolts, yelps, but the noise is quickly swallowed by a moan, a squeezing of her cunt around you.

“Fuck that felt—”

You do it again, and again, each slap a little harder, a little more punishing, the sting making her flesh jiggle deliciously with every impact. She doesn’t retreat, she’s slamming her ass back down on you, slapping her cheeks against your waist, needing to feel more.

“Gah—fuck—harder!”

She can’t help herself, minutes ago she could barely handle your size, now she can’t hold back from crying out for more pain, more excruciating pleasure.

Each smack, each groan, each breath that’s ripped from her lungs is a declaration of your power, of her need. And you revel in it, your hand coming down on her ass, leaving a trail of red marks against her creamy-white skin.

“More, please, more,” she calls for it, calls for the sting, the heat, her pussy clamping down on you, walls pulsing with every hit, her body needing the release that’s building up, inevitable and intense.

Her ass is nothing but a canvas painted by the strokes of your hand and the relentless pounding of your cock, and you can’t help but admire your handiwork, you're struggling to suppress the urge to lean down and kiss each spot you’ve marked.

“You’re going to be so sore tomorrow,” you say, your teeth grazing the shell of her ear.

“I know,” she answers, her voice a whine, a plea, a moan. “But this is what I wanted—to feel—to remember this—this moment—getting fucked like you own me—because you do—so don’t hold back—don’t ever hold back.”

You’re both sweaty, panting—you can feel her orgasm building, like a storm in the distance, thunder rumbling closer and closer until it's right above you, ready to break. And there’s your own, too, that delicious pressure at the base of your spine, the promise of release, coming at you just as quick.

But you’re not going to let her get there—not yet—not when you’ve got her like this, pliant and open and so in need. You lean forward, your chest pressing against her back, and slide your hand down, reaching around to find her clit.

It’s slick and stiff and wanting, and Minji screams—a high, keening sound that you want to hear again and again. You’re playing with it, swiping it with your thumb in tight circles, feeling her clench around you with every pass.

“I’m almost—God that feels so good—I’m almost!”

But you stop, pull out of her, abruptly, making her cry out, making her turn around, a mess of emotions on her face—desire, confusion, awe.

“What are you—” Minji tries to ask, but you’re spinning her around and pressing her back against the wall. Her leg comes up, wrapping around your waist, but you take it and lift it higher, testing the extent of her flexibility, throwing it over your shoulder.

She’s right on that edge, you can see it—her pupils dilate, her mouth opens in a silent scream, her body tenses, her cunt melting around you. But you weren't going to let her cum like that, not without watching her face, not without seeing the moment she cracks and shatters.

Now you’re face to face, chest to chest, her eyes needing yours to anchor herself to, needing to know what you’re going to do to her. No time for breaks—in one, deep thrust you're all the way back inside her, making her scream with the suddenness of it, the shock, the bliss of being so perfectly filled.

She groans, weeps with each pump into her, and she’s smiling through it all. “So—” she asks, struggling to form intelligible sentences. “How do I—fuck—how do I—mmmph—compare to the others?”

You grunt, barely registering the question, your mind clouded by the spasms of her cunt around you. “What others?”

“The other girls—God—the other idols,” she says, strained. “The ones you’ve fucked before—the ones you’ve ruined—how do I—aah—compare?”

You kiss her again, a bruising, punishing kiss that steals the question from her lips. You don’t need to answer that. You’re showing her. You’re fucking showing her how she compares, how she’s the best, the tightest, the wettest, the most eager. You’re showing her how she’s going to be the one they whisper about in the halls of HYBE and beyond, she'll become the story that will be told as a warning, about the sweet, innocent idol ruined in a dirty alleyway.

Your world is spinning around you now—there’s your hand on her throat, a gentle squeeze, just enough to make her eyes water, to make her breath catch. But she’s not scared, not with the way she’s grinning, not with how she’s grinding her hips to meet yours.

“Fuck—make me scream—” It’s a plea, a demand, she’s so stunning, so tortured in her need for it, “do whatever you want to me, whatever you need—just—make me cum harder—God please—harder than any of them ever did.”

Any care you had for getting caught, about the consequences of what you're doing—where you're doing it—dissipates into the ether. Nothing exists outside of the race to her orgasm, outside of your hips recklessly pounding into her, reducing her to moans and shakes and trembles.

“Cum for me,” you growl, “right here, right now, Minji—cum for me again—show me that you’re mine.”

“I was made for you,” she says, and it’s not just the heat of the moment talking, it’s something else, something deeper. She’s not just saying it to get off, she’s saying it like it’s a revelation, like she’s been waiting for you, for this exact moment.

“Prove it.”

It hits her like a fucking truck, and Minji’s screaming, filth belted from her mouth and into the night, her pussy quaking around your cock, her whole body entering into seizure. You keep going, riding out her orgasm, feeling her cum on your cock, feeling her body go rigid, her muscles tense, it’s those abs, so tight, it’s those absurdly strong contractions that have you falling after her.

“God—fuck, I—can’t believe—can’t believe—”

You’re fucking her through it, not giving her a moment’s reprieve, not letting her come down from that high, because you’re not ready for this to end, not when she’s so helpless. You hold her tight through it, let her shake, rattle against you, let her nails dig into your arms, let her cum drench you.

“Fuuuuuuck!”

It’s too much for her to take, and once the storm has finally subsided, Minji is just a ragdoll in your arms. Her legs are limp, held up by your grip alone, still trembling from the aftershocks of her orgasm. Her makeup is ruined, a mix of sweat and your kisses, leaving dark streaks on her cheeks. Her hair, plastered to her forehead, her eyes half-closed, and there’s her body—marks of your teeth on her chest, her breasts, the bruises of your fingers around her hips, the mottled red of her ass, a map of your dominance painted on her perfect skin.

It’s not just the physical marks you’ve left on her; it’s the way she’s looking at you now, awe, desperation, realisation that it’s all true, every rumour, everything they’ve said about you—and she’s the latest filthy chapter in your story.

But you’re not done yet, you haven’t finished. You’re pulling out, and she’s whining, making your cock throb with her pleas. You guide her to the floor, to her knees, her dress puddled around her, the cold concrete biting into her skin.

You’re standing over her, looking down at her like she’s a prize, your prize. “Open your mouth,” you tell her, and she does, without hesitation, without question.

You grab your cock, still slick with her juices, and stroke yourself, watching her tongue dart out to lick her lips, watching the anticipation build in her eyes.

It’s the sweetest, most erotic sight you’ve ever seen—Minji, the girl that's everyone's type, the girl who could have anything she wants, anyone, on her knees for you—tongue out, mouth wide open, waiting eagerly for your cum.

And then you do it—you let go, shooting ropes of hot cum, painting her face, letting it dribble down onto her chin, onto her chest, onto her toned stomach, covering her until she’s a sticky mess of lust and desire. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away—she loves the feeling of it, shivering as your hot cum hits her skin.

She holds position through it all—knees on the ground, eyes closed, a serene smile as if she’s just been blessed. And when you're done, when your cock is finally spent, she looks up at you with a grin that's pure sin.

Minji takes a finger, dips it into the mess on her chin, and tastes you. It's a bold move, it’s messy, it’s wrong, it’s perfect. There’s the glimmer of triumph in her eyes, the knowledge that she's made you do something so raw, that she made you lose all control.

For a second there’s nothing but the sound of your ragged breathing, the come down from your euphoric high. Minji speaks, still shaky from the orgasm that ripped through her. “That was—” she pauses, searching for the right word. “—incredible. Fuck!”

There’s a rush of arrogance, a smug smile of satisfaction at her confession. “So, do I live up to the legend?”

Minji wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing your cum across her cheek. There’s a glint in her eye, like she’s got a secret that she’s dying to share. “More than I could have ever imagined. You’re not just a man-whore, you’re a fucking artist.”

You laugh at that, as you tuck yourself back in, smoothing down your shirt, trying to compose yourself, pretending like her words don’t mean anything to you, like you don’t take pride in the validation of every girl you fuck.

“How do I rank?” she asks, the question coming out of nowhere, and you blink down at her, your brain trying to catch up. “I mean, out of all the idols you’ve fucked?”

“Rank?” you repeat. "I don't keep a list, that would be..." You trail off, realizing what you're about to say, and now it’s her turn to laugh.

“Crass?” she supplies. “I know, but I’m just curious.”

“You’re fucking fantastic, that’s for sure,” you reassure her, making her giggle, the laughter bubbling up from her chest like it’s the best compliment she’s ever heard. “Why—do you keep a list?”

Her smile falters for a moment, but then she’s grinning again, looking even more wicked with the cum pasted across her face, and it makes you want to bend her over and fuck her all over again. “Of course I do. And you’ll be happy to know that you’re number one.”

“That’s good to know.”

But then she says, “Of one.”

And you freeze. The air around you turns to ice, and she’s looking up at you with those big, dark eyes, and you realise what she’s saying, what she’s just admitted to you. You’ve taken her virginity, and she’s looking at you like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

“You were…” you start, but she cuts you off.

“Don’t,” she says, her voice firm. “Don’t make this something it’s not. I wanted this, and I wanted it to be with you. I told you: I can handle it all.”

But that doesn’t stop your mind from racing, trying to process what she’s saying. You had your suspicions—she was so tight, so new, so untouched—and now she’s yours, in a way that no one else can claim. You wiped away her innocence, and she’s not running, not crying, not regretful.

The weight of it settles in your stomach, a strange cocktail of pride and guilt. You’ve ruined her, in the best way possible. You’ve claimed something precious and pure, and she’s given it to you willingly, eagerly.

“Fuck, Minji,” you start, trying to find the words. “If you had told me, I would’ve—”

“You would’ve what? I lost my virginity by having filthy, mind-blowing sex in a dark alley with the best cock in all of Korea,” she says, pridefully, with her entire chest, fully believing every word she's saying. “Can you really tell me your story was any better? I bet whoever it was with didn’t scream like I did. Or cum so hard she couldn’t see straight.”

You cast your mind back to the past, and you have to concede the point. “I see what you mean. But still—” You feel like you should say something, but what? It’s not like you can apologize, not when she’s looking at you like that, like she’s just won the fucking lottery. “How does it feel?”

“A-ma-zing,” she draws out, rising to her feet. “Everything I’ve ever heard about, multiplied by a million. You might’ve ruined sex for me completely.”

You watch as she puts herself back together, sliding her panties back on, tugging her dress over her head and down her hips. She’s smoothing her hair back, trying to fix the mess you’ve made of her; wiping at the cum on her chin, her cheek, trying to erase the evidence of your encounter, trying to put the mask of the sweet, innocent idol back on.

But you know better. You know what’s hiding beneath that polished exterior.

“Come home with me,” you find yourself saying before you can think better of it.

Minji turns to you, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and there's that hint of challenge again. “Why?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “You want to cuddle and fall asleep together? Wake up, have breakfast in bed?”

“Yeah,” you nod, honestly. “After I’ve fucked you senseless again, of course. But yeah, come home with me.”

“That would be nice,” Minji says, a soft smile on her face. It's surreal, this moment, so at odds with the grimy alleyway and the smell of sex sticking to her skin. She looks so pure now, in complete contrast to how roughly you were fucking her just moments ago. Her innocence wasn’t lost, it was just painted with a fresh coat of your sin.  “But—you know I can’t. They’re waiting.”

“Worth a shot,” you shrug, not bothering to hide your disappointment.

And then she produces your phone, holding it out to you. “You need to be more careful with your things.”

“When did you—”

“Now you’ve got my number,” she says. “You’re welcome to do whatever it is you want with it. But I’m hoping you use it.”

You take it out of her hands, swiping away the string of missed calls and messages, the digital proof of how much trouble you’re going to be in come morning. But for now, it’s irrelevant. For now, there’s only Minji, and the way she’s standing there, looking up at you, smiling like she’s just stepped off the stage.

“You’re going to go back to them?” you ask, gesturing towards the club entrance, to where the rest of her group are probably still gossiping, plotting your downfall.

“Of course,” Minji says. “They’re my friends. They care about me. They’ll want to make sure I’m okay.”

“And when they find out what we just did?”

“Oh, they’re going to want to kill you,” she answers, with a giggle. You’ve had enough of these types of conversations to know she’s not joking. “Except Dani, maybe. She’ll probably want a shot at you too. If I let her.”

"Noted," you say, trying to keep the image of Danielle, splayed against the wall like Minji before her, out of your head. "What exactly are you going to tell them?"

Minji pauses, thinking, before landing on a succinct summary. "I’ll just tell them that you fucked my brains out and then ditched me in an alley.”

You sigh, “sounds brutal.”

“Well, it is what it is,” Minji says, and she’s pressing a kiss to your cheek, her lips still sticky with the residue of your cum, the last traces of what's just happened.

You watch her go, watch as she turns away, walking back towards the club, a little stumble, a little trouble keeping steady. You should be feeling guilty, you should be regretting this, but all you can think is how good it felt, how right it felt. And you know you’ll do it again—you know it deep in your bones.

Minji turns back to you, catching your eye, catching you staring again, and she smiles. “You better go now. You do have a reputation to maintain, after all.”