#Temple Nurse Attorney

[houstonnurseattorneys]

The Evolving Role of a Temple Nurse Attorney: Bridging Healthcare and Legal Expertise

In the heart of Temple, Texas, a unique professional is making significant strides at the intersection of healthcare and law: the nurse attorney. This specialized role combines the in-depth medical knowledge of a registered nurse with the analytical skills of a lawyer, creating a professional adept at navigating complex medical-legal issues. Understanding the significance of a Temple nurse attorney involves exploring their unique qualifications, their contributions to various fields, and the impact they have on both individuals and the community.

A Unique Professional Background

A nurse attorney is a rare but valuable professional who bridges the gap between the medical and legal worlds. With a background in nursing, they possess a deep understanding of medical terminology, patient care, and the intricacies of healthcare systems. Complementing this with a law degree, they are trained to interpret legal statutes, advocate for clients, and handle legal procedures. This blend of skills enables them to approach cases from a comprehensive perspective, understanding both the medical and legal nuances involved.

Expertise in Medical Malpractice Cases

One of the primary areas where nurse attorneys make a significant impact is in medical malpractice cases. Medical malpractice can be incredibly complex, requiring an understanding of medical procedures, standards of care, and legal standards. A Temple nurse attorney excels in this arena by leveraging their medical knowledge to evaluate whether the standard of care was met and by articulating these findings in legal terms. This expertise is crucial in ensuring that cases are presented accurately and that clients receive the compensation and justice they deserve.

Advocating for Patient Rights

Patient advocacy is at the core of a nurse attorney’s work. They play a pivotal role in protecting patients’ rights by addressing issues such as informed consent, wrongful treatment, and breaches of confidentiality. In the legal arena, they advocate on behalf of patients who have experienced harm due to medical negligence or errors. Their ability to understand and navigate both medical and legal systems allows them to provide comprehensive support, ensuring that patient concerns are addressed and that justice is served.

Influence on Healthcare Policy and Regulation

Nurse attorneys also contribute significantly to healthcare policy and regulation. Their unique perspective allows them to influence policy discussions and legislative changes that impact healthcare delivery and patient safety. They may engage in drafting legislation, advising on regulatory matters, or participating in policy advocacy. This involvement ensures that laws and regulations reflect best practices in patient care and address emerging issues in the healthcare landscape.

Navigating Personal Injury Cases

In personal injury cases where medical issues are prominent, the expertise of a nurse attorney is invaluable. They can assess the medical implications of injuries, understand potential long-term effects, and provide expert testimony. This thorough understanding of both medical and legal aspects helps in building a strong case, ensuring that all facets of the injury are considered in legal proceedings. Their role is crucial in securing fair compensation and addressing the comprehensive needs of injured parties.

Educational and Professional Journey

Becoming a nurse attorney involves a rigorous educational and professional path. It begins with obtaining a nursing degree and gaining clinical experience, followed by pursuing a law degree and passing the bar exam. This extensive training ensures that nurse attorneys are well-prepared to handle the complex nature of their role. Additionally, ongoing education and professional development are essential to stay abreast of advancements in both healthcare and legal fields, ensuring their practice remains current and effective.

The Future of Nurse Attorneys in Temple

As the healthcare and legal landscapes continue to evolve, the role of nurse attorneys in Temple is likely to become increasingly prominent. The complexity of medical treatments, healthcare regulations, and legal issues surrounding patient care underscores the growing need for professionals who can navigate these challenges effectively. Nurse attorneys are poised to play a critical role in addressing emerging issues, advocating for patient rights, and contributing to meaningful policy changes. Their unique skill set positions them to make a lasting impact in both the legal and healthcare sectors, ensuring that the needs of individuals and the community are met with expertise and compassion.

In conclusion, the role of a Temple nurse attorney represents a crucial intersection of medical and legal knowledge. By combining their expertise in nursing with their legal training, these professionals are uniquely equipped to handle complex cases, advocate for patient rights, and influence healthcare policy. Their contributions are essential in ensuring justice and improving the quality of both legal and healthcare systems, making them invaluable assets to the Temple community and beyond.

[mickandmusings]

brotherly advice

pairing: professor au!sam winchester x TA! fem! reader

word count: 1.3k

summary: when breakout attorney sam winchester decided to leave his life of law to teach at his alma mater, nearly everyone in his life thought he had made a mistake. sometimes your biggest 'mistake' can lead to the happiest of consequences.

based on this request! (so sorry, I saw your request and my mind ran with this idea. it's probably not exactly the idea you had in mind.)

warnings: fluff, age gap relationship (sam is in his 30s, reader is in her 20s), au from supernatural tv show, sam and dean are still close because I refuse to believe they wouldn't be in any other universe, probably incorrect law terms/knowledge (author has little law knowledge), probably incorrect college knowledge (author was never a ta)

-

When Sam Winchester-up and coming, breakout young attorney-announced his early quits of practicing law to return to his alma mater to teach, everyone had called him crazy.

Well, almost everyone.

The day Sam decided he wanted to quit, he sat in his older brother's garage, his tie untied and the sleeves of his formal shirt rolled up his arms, nursing a beer. Sam finally spilled his well-kept secret to Dean, awaiting another disappointed look and pleas for him to rethink this. Instead, Dean nodded, took a swig of his own beer and began working underneath the hood of the car between them.

"Good for you," Dean's rough voice came after a moment. "I don't think you're making a mistake at all, Sammy. You should go for it, that job is suckin' the life outta you."

Sam knew Dean was right, Dean had always been wise in his own way. A few weeks later, Sam had settled into a life of sweater vests and headaches induced by reading half-assed international law essays from freshmen. Sam had been hunched over the desk in his office, rubbing his temples with his eyes closed when the sound of his office door opening alerted him to someone entering the room. He sighed, not even looking up before he spoke.

"Office hours are on Mondays and Thursdays."

"Um, noted, but I'm not here for office hours. I'm Y/N, your new TA? You are Professor Winchester, right?"

Sam's green eyes popped open, looking up at the figure standing in front of his desk. Y/N stood in front of Sam's desk with a wide-eyed look, and Sam took in her appearance. She was dressed in a professional manner, a folder of papers in her arms and an unconvincing smile drawn across her face. Sam swallowed thickly as he felt embarrassment wash over him, he had completely forgotten about meeting his new TA today.

"Uh, right! Of course, I-It completely slipped my mind, it's been a long day already. And please, call me Sam."

Y/N chuckled slightly, sitting in the chair in front of his desk.

"It's alright, Sam, I get it."

Over the course of the first few weeks of Sam and Y/N's newfound work relationship, Sam noted several things about her-Y/N was quiet, punctual, and completely professional. To Sam, she was too reserved, he was used to the cocky blabbing of attorneys at his old job and Dean's (mostly) nonsensical chatter in his leisure. After weeks of her sheer silence, Sam began the efforts of getting her to talk, which seemed to work in his favor. He quickly learned things about her: Y/N was a senior law student at 26-a late bloomer in the college world, her favorite movie of all time was Top Gun-which Sam made fun of her incessantly for-and her favorite guilty pleasure was the chocolate croissants at the bakery across from her apartment. Through their completely unserious chatter, he found out more personal things about her, like how she truly, truly hated law. It had been her parents idea for her college plans, not her true heart's desire. Y/N wanted to be a writer, to write her own series of fantasy books.

As the school year progressed, so did Sam and Y/N's friendship. She found herself hanging around his office more often, enjoying his company versus that of her classmates. Late office hours turned into him inviting her for dinner at the local 24-hour diner, and their dinners turned into something neither of them wanted to admit: Sam quickly found himself staring at Y/N longer than necessary, and Y/N kept imagining what it would be like to run her hands through Sam's long hair.

After Y/N's graduation from Stanford, their talks had moved to his apartment: Y/N spending hours helping him grade essays or Sam helping her proofread chapters of her own book over glasses of wine, all of which led to Y/N sleeping on Sam's couch-despite his protests and begs of her to take his bed instead. However, after a night of one-too-many glasses of wine and brushing touches of each other's hands, Y/N and Sam had ended up sharing the bed instead. Now, her fantasy novels lived on the same bookcase as Sam's textbooks, her sneakers in the door next to his much larger boots, and her weighted blanket that Sam's feet peeked out from the bottom of was draped across their bed, which is where the pair slept this very moment.

-

The sound of Sam's six AM alarm made Y/N's eyes open sleepily, realize where she was, and more notably, what time it was, before she curled back into her pillow and closed her eyes. The sound of Sam's yawning and the removal of his arm slung around her waist made her groan, feeling cold without Sam's furnace-like warmth against her. She heard Sam shuffle into the bathroom to get ready for his morning run, her eyes fluttering shut again, barely even registering the kiss he left on her forehead before he left out the door.

Y/N woke several hours later, sunlight shining through the curtains of she and Sam's bedroom, birds chirping in the distance, and the sound of Sam's footsteps sounded in the kitchen-likely cooking breakfast. Y/N stretched her arms up, lifting the covers and sliding on her slippers as she shuffled lazily into their living room. Sam's tall figure stands at the stove, flipping something in a pan. His running clothes had been traded for his leisurely lounge wear, his hair still damp from his post-run shower. She guessed he hadn't heard her come in yet, so she slowly made her way to him, wrapping her arms around his torso and resting her head on his back, still sleepy.

Sam laughs, his empty hand rested on her arms, his chest warming at her touch His voice comes out low and soft.

"Mornin', baby."

Y/N groans, still not quite awake enough for words. Sam laughs, turning off the eggs he was cooking and pulling her to his front, her head resting on his chest now. Sam kisses her head, his hand running through her unstyled hair. Silence ensues, until Y/N notes new items on their counter-a bouquet of carnations and dahlias in a vase of water, and the signature red box adorning the logo of the bakery across from her old apartment. Her head lifts to rest her chin on Sam's chest, looking up at him.

"Flowers?"

Sam's eyes swivel to the flowers in the vase before turning back to her.

"Yeah, got those from that flower cart right down the bakery, the one that elderly couple runs?"

Y/N's mind blanks, her sentence coming out without thinking.

"You bought me flowers?"

Sam gives her a confused smile, his hand tucking the hair in her face behind her ear.

"Uh, yeah?" He lets out a confused chuckle. "Baby, are you still asleep?"

Y/N looks up at him. "Why?"

Sam furrows his eyebrows, his big green eyes meeting hers.

"Does there have to be a reason? Just, saw the flowers, they were beautiful, made me think of you." Sam shrugs.

Y/N's eyes go soft, her shoulders dropping as a smile forms on her face. She stands on her tiptoes to reach Sam's lips, his hands coming on either side of her hips as he deepens the kiss.

"I love you, Sam Winchester," Y/N speaks after they break apart, the statement causing Sam to pull her in for another kiss, completely forgetting about his own breakfast in favor of enjoying her touch.

Nearly everyone had told Sam he had made the biggest mistake of his life, but now, as he looked at the woman he loved, he realized he hadn't thought anything he did was a mistake. He was glad he'd taken his brother's advice. Y/N smiled at his big green eyes and goofy smile, pulling him in for another kiss, her hand running through his hair. Sam smiled into the kiss and pulled her closer by her hips.

He'd have to thank Dean later.

[hleonaa]

Feedback Fest 2024

In honor of @transformativeworks's Feedback Fest 2024, here are my 10 fic recs across multiple fandoms and in no particular order:

Like a River Flows by brooklinegirl

Fandom: The Untamed/MDZS Relationship: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian Summary:

Wei Ying has been Lan Zhan's partner for two months, three days, and seven hours. Plus or minus a handful of minutes, if you're counting. Which Wei Ying is.

the soft animal of your body by howodd5ever

Fandom: The Untamed/MDZS Relationship: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian Summary:

The problem was that he didn’t remember anymore why he’d left. Sure, something about finding himself or discovering his place in the world, or whatever other bullshit he’d talked himself into to end up in the middle of nowhere. Alone.He missed Lan Zhan. Wei Wuxian sets off alone after the events at Guanyin Temple and finds himself in pretty serious trouble.

no one lights a candle to remember by asravine

Fandom: The Untamed/MDZS Relationship: Jiang Wanyin & Wei Wuxian Summary:

“Didi,” Wei Wuxian says softly. His thumb on Jiang Cheng’s cheek is calloused and warm and burns of affection. Jiang Cheng barely stops himself from leaning in. “Didi, don’t cry because of me.” I have thirteen years of mourning to catch up to, Jiang Cheng thinks, but doesn’t say. As always, the chasm between them is an incredible divide, and Wei Wuxian is the only one leaning his hand out into the darkness. – (or: Jiang Cheng and his memories of his older brother, before and after the fall)

A Flawed Mosaic by AHumanFemale

Fandom: Law & Order: SVU Relationship: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. Summary:

“You’re Rafael Barba. Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan,” he answered and Rafael let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. At least until Carisi smiled so wide and happy and added, “My husband.” The words were so alien to him that he honestly couldn’t respond for a second, just kept staring at Carisi’s happy face and at the stitches in his head while he saw flashes of blood on the car window. He couldn’t imagine his expression but knew it was something less than comforting as he watched Carisi’s face fall, his eyebrows draw together. “What?” Carisi asked finally, eyes flitting to the nurse still hovering in the corner of the room. “What’s the matter?” -- [Or, Carisi gets amnesia and believes they're married and Rafael has to play along... risking his own heart in the process.]

Darling You Will Bury Me Before I Bury You by Stablersbensons

Fandom: Law & Order: SVU Relationship: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler Summary:

Olivia leaves the precinct on a cold Tuesday morning and returns two days later in a body bag. Elliot never realized how the absence of someone could take up so much space.

downpour by owlinaminor

Fandom: Sense8 Relationship: Wolfgang Bogdanow/Kala Dandekar Summary:

It is never just rain, with them. It is never just a drizzle, or a mist, or a sprinkling of the flowers. It is always a downpour. (a kala/wolfgang relationship study in three parts.)

with roses red come lilies white by bartonbones

Fandom: Moon Knight Relationship: Marc Spector & Steven Grant Summary:

Marc originally sets up the phone line to help keep tabs on Steven whenever he was too tired to crawl his way into consciousness and pay attention--but he can only listen to Steven beg for his Mum to talk back for so long until he has to do something about it. A one-shot about how Marc takes care of Steven by writing postcards pretending to be someone they both miss. OR: Marc Spector takes "reparenting yourself" literally.

a god at your altar by thedaisywitch

Fandom: Eternals Relationship: Druig/Makkari Summary: It doesn't have one but it's beautiful, trust me :)

Looking Back, Seeing Far by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Relationship: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange Summary:

Tony Stark has rebuilt a world after Thanos snapped. Through blood and tears and suffering, he's rebuilt it--and he has Stephen Strange to blame for what he went through. He does so, hating the wizard with all his considerable capacity for passion, and Stephen does the same. It leaves them squabbling like petty children or perhaps mortal enemies when they're supposed to be saving the world, and it's getting in the way of productivity. So Tony's family comes up with a plan. “You’re gonna make a list,” Rhodey said. “Seven things you like about Stephen Strange.” Tony dropped the notepad like a hot potato. “What?”  Rhodey didn’t blink. “Each week.” "No. I refuse."

all that laughter crumbling through your fingers by philthestone

Fandom: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Relationship: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago Summary:

Amy kind-of sort-of dies, and everything falls apart. Rosa observes.

[pyropsychiccollector]

Ace Attorney: IF (... Harem Edition)

Gonna make this one short and sweet. Apologies to those that don't like harems; this is just my creative decision as writer. No NTR in my house. (人◕ω◕)

As usual, I entertain 3-4 girls for the guy. That's become my average for harems. This first post is about Phoenix; I'll make a separate one for Apollo later. Those will be the only guys with harems, at least at this time. To be fair, I don't have ships for Edgeworth. He's just a cool character for me. XD

Iris

Though a lot changed in this AU, I've kept the Phoenix-Iris relationship intact. They still went through the canon motions of Iris posing as Dahlia, and though I haven't touched on their reunion yet... You can rest easy they do eventually. (人◕ω◕)

I won't get into the full details, but after meeting again Iris agrees to leave Hazakura Temple with Sister Bikini's blessing. Iris gets a job as a nurse, and over the next seven years she rekindles her relationship with Feenie. She only has to get over her guilt of deceiving him when they first met; in this AU she never became an accomplice during a Hazakura incident. Phoenix is pretty busy as a prosecutor, but it's not his whole life. Making room for Iris again is very doable~...

Their attraction to one another is pretty strong. Outside any physical attraction, Iris enjoys that Phoenix can still be a goofball but he's evened out a lot and become very mature; Phoenix is still quite smitten with her reserved and kind nature. He sympathizes with her family tragedies, and is more than happy to be there for her. Though she does connect with her cousin Mia as well, and gradually makes friends over the next seven years. Iris works at the Dye-Young Hospital, so Phoenix is on pretty familiar terms with Nurse Karen Jensen, who becomes one of Iris's best friends, and her grandmother Bonnie Young.

After seven years they decide to go for marriage. Iris wanted to wait that long to make sure their relationship was genuine, and not just something they returned to out of pure sentiment. Admittedly, she does have to put up with sharing Feenie... and that also takes getting used to... (人◕ω◕);;; She often butts heads with Franziska because of the whole whipping shtick. Iris can be surprisingly bold when it comes to caring for others... Not that Franziska stands for all the insubordination, but she knows Iris is a "favorite" of Phoenix Wright... so there's not much she can do. (人◕ω◕);;;

2. Franziska

Franziska got acquainted with Phoenix around the Dahlia trials. She wasn't that fond of him at first, he was a foolishly foolish fool of a college student. (人◕ω◕) ... But Phoenix got interested in her as a friend, especially when Franny "allowed" him to be declared innocent and threw the book at Dahlia. Sure, his idealistic mindset clashed with Franziska's perfectionism. But he threw himself into studying law to become a prosecutor that pursued the truth regardless of the accused's innocence or guilt.

... (人◕ω◕);;; Again, not something Franziska was thrilled about that he kept reaching out... But eventually she folded and helped him become a proper man of law (and not just a bluffing fool). Due to her father being the Chief Prosecutor, she couldn't be too close with him, but Phoenix did rub off on her over the years. To the point that she didn't fully agree with her father's idea of perfection even before he was fully exposed as a criminal.

After returning to Germany for a bit to collect herself (after her father was imprisoned), Franziska came back to find out what sort of prosecutor she wants to be. She and Phoenix were still somewhat distant for that year as Franziska clashed with Mia and the Edgeworth lawyers in court for several cases... And then they grew closer again through the Matt Engarde/De Killer trial as Phoenix took the reins on that one. Franziska already knew she wanted to be a different prosecutor from her father, but around this time she stopped caring about any win records.

She and Phoenix worked together on a few cases over the next year, Phoenix's rep growing. Eventually they ran into Shi-Long Lang, and all the drama that goes along with that. Franziska decided to work with Interpol as a prosecutor around that time, which meant that she would be away from Japan a lot... But with Phoenix, she always had a reason to come back home. (人◕ω◕) Because yeah, their friendship blossomed into love over the next seven years. They helped each other grow as people, and Phoenix helped smooth out any tension she had with Miles over his "betrayal" of becoming a defense attorney. You know Franziska by now, she's not the kind to be open with her feelings. Not in public. (人◕ω◕) She somewhat envies Iris for that, but you didn't hear that from me.

With Iris and Phoenix talking about marriage, Franziska hopped in on that. Taking a break from her globetrotting to secure her spot as a Mrs. Wright. ... Though she still goes by "Von Karma" while with Interpol. She won't let that name die, and she won't lose to Iris. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

3. Calisto

Calisto... This is perhaps the most interesting one. The gist is that she was caught and arrested for attempting to murder Byrne and Mack Rell, and got rehabilitated through working as a detective under Tyrell. Eventually she got assigned to Phoenix as a partner, and she usurped Franziska's role in molding him into a worthy prosecutor. Their dynamic has always been unique, if not distant on the surface.

Yet Phoenix became a friend of sorts that Calisto didn't wish to lose. Wouldn't let him get convicted of murder, and ensured criminal elements didn't lay a finger on him. The protectiveness went both ways, and despite her past Phoenix placed his trust in her. She also got some merriment out of messing with him. (人◕ω◕)

They've been working together for a decade by now. Their relationship has never been "romantic" in the traditional sense, but in some ways they do operate like a married couple. So when Franziska and Iris came into the scene, Calisto wasted no time in sinking her claws somewhat. Mostly to mess with them, but also Calisto had no plans to get in a relationship with anyone else. She had no interest in such things... Phoenix was probably the closest she'd ever get to such attachments. (人◕ω◕)

Calisto had no issue becoming a Mrs. Wright, even though Franziska and Iris balked at her shamelessness. She doesn't remember her real name, so "Calisto Wright" will do good enough. And really, Calisto strikes a middle ground between caring Iris and whip-happy Franziska. Outside of her giggling fits, she's a pretty serious woman that won't put up with foolishness while on the clock. She's not very intimate with Phoenix...at first... But married life has a way of changing that. (人◕ω◕)

[hoperaypegasus]

Just statistically speaking here, not all these kids can have absolutely insane parents/guardians like Gingka and Hikaru have with Ryo. 

Like, we know Madoka’s dad runs B-Pit so he’s also a mechanic, but have him also be just an average looking dude. And Yuki’s grandfather might have been an old astronomer obsessed with beyblade, but like have none of his coworkers have believed him with the legendary blader thing. Because let’s be honest here, if your really old floor supervisor said a mythical star was going to chose the next saviors of the prophecy, you would not believe them.

And also, make some of these people have nothing to do with beyblade. Like absolutely nothing. They’re are so confused at what these kids are doing, but are trying their best to be supportive. 

For example...

Kenta’s mom? She’s a waitress at a really nice restaurant downtown and sometimes brings home extra deserts for Kenta.

Kyoya’s dad? He owns his own small real estate company and still also works as an agent a lot.

Hikaru’s mom? A nurse who ended up falling sick and dying from a disease she was working to heal.

Nile’s sister? Oh, she currently works as a seamstress as she’s in law school to become a family law attorney.

Demure’s grandmother? She was teacher who worked especially with language learning.

Julian’s family? Huge tycoons in manufacturing, especially in the car and vehicular industry.

Sophie’s family? She actually comes from a line of famous fashion and costume designers, commonly featured on Broadway and Hollywood.

Wales’s family? They’re old money from the oil industry and work globally to expand their company to this day.

Chao Xin’s sisters? One is a teacher, another is a travel agent, and the third one works at a pet store not far from Beylin Temple.

Mei Mei’s family? Oh, they run a pretty popular restaurant that’s even made it onto some global food locations lists.

Tsubasa’s parents? They were also special investigators but did not use beys at all in their work, sticking to more traditional methods.

Dashan’s mom? She was an admissions officer at Beylin temple and worked outreach for new students.

Gingka’s mom? Oh, she became a horror and mystery author after she left Koma and married an editor.

Masamune’s mom? She’s a diplomat actually and works with trade relationships between the US and Japan.

King’s mom? A social worker who adopted him and his siblings after falling in love with them on the job.

Benkei’s grandmother? She was a chef and the one who taught him how to cook.

And yes, they are all very confused by Ryo as a person as well as how the hell he was able to become director of the WBBA.

[ostensiblynone]

'IRON DAVY' FINDS LOVE COSTLY Sister Aimee's Mate Must Pay for Ardent Wooing By NEA Service

—August 24, 1932, The Indianapolis Times

A 223-pound Romeo who sang tender love ballads to the pretty nurse who treated his influenza, took and gave her kisses in torrid love-making on a divan, promised to marry her and then forgot his promise, awoke on his honeymoon with another woman to discover that he had left behind a wounded heart that only $200,000 could heal.

The heavyweight champion lover was David L. (Iron Man) Hutton, now the husband of Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and the breach of promise suit was filed against him by Miss Myrtle Joan St. Pierre, comely Los Angeles nurse, two days after his wedding.

Just a few weeks ago, this three-cornered love drama ended after a sensational trial at Los Angeles, in which a jury of seven men and five women decided that Miss St. Pierre's charges were true and awarded her a $5,000 judgement toward curing her $200,000 heartache.

So, was written another chapter in the glamorous love triangles of 1932. This one found the world's most famous evangelist—herself already once widowed and once divorced—competing with the pretty nurse for the affections of the gigantic baritone who was (and still is)—the leader of Aimee's famed Angelus temple choir.

Sister Aimee's romance with Hutton began about a year before their marriage, when the rotund baritone took a leading role in "The Iron Furnace," a biblical opera that she wrote and directed.

Taking the part of the king, Hutton sat on a throne of gold and sang his way into Sister Aimee's heart. Thus Hutton earned his nickname of "Iron Man."

On Sept. 13, 1931, they eloped by airplane and were wed at Yuma, Ariz. Throughout Hutton's trial the evangelist expressed confidence in her husband.

# # #

But prior to the time he married Sister Aimee, so Miss St. Pierre charged in a manner that convinced the jury, Hutton had promised to marry her.

Thus, she said, she suffered great mental anguish when she learned that he had jilted her.

The trial, replete with testimony of kisses, moonlight auto rides and amorous wooing on a divan, took three weeks.

Star witness for herself was Miss St. Pierre. A summarization of her testimony indicates that the sweet singer of gospel songs was a fast and furious lover, and the start of their romance boils down about like this:

Saturday—They met at a party at a friend's home, where Dave attempted to kiss her after a few highballs . . . "Where have you been keeping this gorgeous creature all my life?" the smiling Dave inquired of the host.

Monday—Hutton got his first "date" with Miss St. Pierre and took her on a three-hour automobile ride, which ended in an oak-bordered lover's lane . . . "He said I was adorable, that he had looked for a long time for a girl like me; he took my hand and said, 'I love you.'"

Tuesday—Hutton called again on Miss St. Pierre at her home. On the divan, Dave said: "Sweetheart, I have come to love you"—and gathered her in his arms.

Thursday—Hutton called again, and sand tender love ballads to her in the parlor. By this time he had ceased entirely to call her by her first name, and was addressing her as "Sweetheart."

Friday—Big Dave's term of endearment changed from "Sweetheart" to "Darling." . . . More love-making on the divan.

Saturday Afternoon—By now it was "Dearest" and "Honey." . . . He sneaked up from behind, put his arms around her and whispered sweet things into her ear while she fixed the salad for a picnic lunch.

And so, Miss St. Pierre continued, things continued to grow warmer until Hutton proposed and she accepted.

# # #

Numerous times during Miss St. Pierre's description of Dave's torried love-making, the courtroom rippled with laughter.

The portly Hutton, seated beside his attorneys, frequently gulped and swallowed hard.

Especially did the crowd titter when the pretty nurse told how she had treated Dave's influenza, by fixing him up so he wouldn't contract another cold on one of those moonlight auto rides.

"I took my noon hour off," she said, "and bought him a little baby blanket, cut a hole in it for his head and tied it on him with little pink ribbons which I had sewed on myself."

Dave gulped—again.

Three weeks after she met Mr. Hutton, Miss St. Pierre said, she cooked dinner for him in her apartment.

She added: "He kissed my hair, my eyes, my mouth; he swept me off my feet with his love-making."

"Did you kiss him?" sharply demanded Hutton's attorney, Mark Jones.

Miss St. Pierre answered: "Mr Jones, that is a strange question. When one person kisses another, naturally the person that is kissed is also kissing the other. That's what a kiss is."

# # #

When Hutton seated his 223 pounds in the witness chair to deny Miss St. Pierre's accusations of incandescent love-making, he contradicted them, one by one, with the statement: "I did not!"

"Then," barked Miss St. Pierre's attorney, "you stand before this jury and testify you are the Great Unkissed?"

"Yes, sir," Hutton replied.

Hutton denied specifically that he had ever kissed Miss St. Pierre, hugged her, laid hands on her, addressed her in terms of endearment or offered to marry her.

He denied that he had sung to her a song that he composed just for her, entitled "My Love For You."

The big gospel singer was dressed nattily in white flannel trousers, gray coat, and livid blue tie. During his testimony he continued to pick at three bumps on his forehead. These were decorations he had won the day before in a skirmish with some bees.

The bees had stung Hutton while he was spending the day at the mountain retreat where Sister Aimee, his wife, was recovering from illness.

# # #

When the trial was over, Hutton summoned one of Angelus Temple's twelve-cylinder staff cars and hurried to the side of his wife, to be with her with the verdict came.

After arguing among themselves for six hours, the jurors returned a judgment of $5,000 in favor of Miss St. Pierre.

Miss St. Pierre said: "The verdict was exactly what I expected. I did not reckon with amounts as far as damages were concerned.

"All I wanted was to show the world what type of man this fellow is who married Aimee Mcpherson."

Hutton said: "It is a rank injustice and I mean to fight it out to the bitter end. I never made love to that girl—never even kissed her—it's all a nightmare!"

Mrs. F. B. Councill, one of the jurors, said: "We were for the girl from the beginning. There was never a doubt in my mind, nor in any other juror's mind. It was only a question of how much."

[sanantonionurseattorney]

Temple Nurse Attorney: An Intersection of Professions

In the complex and ever-evolving healthcare landscape, the role of a temple nurse attorney is gaining prominence.

This unique profession combines the expertise of nursing and law to address the legal complexities and patient advocacy needs within healthcare settings.

Temple nurse attorneys play a crucial role in ensuring patient rights, navigating legal challenges, and providing valuable support to both healthcare providers and patients.

What Does a Temple Nurse Attorney Do?

A temple nurse attorney serves as a bridge between the realms of nursing and law. These professionals are highly skilled in both healthcare and legal matters, allowing them to offer comprehensive assistance in various aspects of patient care and legal issues. Their roles can be diverse and encompass a wide range of responsibilities.

Qualifications and Education Requirements

Becoming a temple nurse attorney requires a solid foundation in both nursing and law. Aspiring professionals typically start by pursuing a nursing degree, such as a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), and gaining practical experience as a registered nurse. Subsequently, they undertake the rigorous process of earning a law degree, which can be either a Juris Doctor (J.D.) or a Master of Laws (LL.M.) with a focus on healthcare law.

The Role of a Temple Nurse Attorney in Healthcare Settings

Advocate for Patient Rights

One of the primary responsibilities of a temple nurse attorney is to advocate for patient rights. They work closely with patients and their families to ensure their voices are heard, their concerns addressed, and their rights protected. Temple nurse attorneys play a vital role in safeguarding patient autonomy, informed consent, and privacy.

Medical Malpractice and Litigation

Temple nurse attorneys are well-versed in medical malpractice laws and are instrumental in handling cases related to alleged medical negligence. They work alongside legal teams to investigate claims, review medical records, and provide expert opinions. Their unique combination of medical and legal knowledge allows them to assess the validity of claims and contribute to the legal strategies employed.

Legal Consultation for Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers often require legal guidance to navigate the complex legal landscape. Temple nurse attorneys offer valuable consultation services, helping healthcare professionals understand and comply with healthcare laws and regulations. They provide insights on risk management, compliance, and ethical considerations to promote safe and high-quality patient care.

Navigating the Legal Landscape in Healthcare

Understanding the legal aspects of healthcare is crucial for temple nurse attorneys to fulfill their roles effectively. They must be well-versed in healthcare laws, regulations, and policies that govern the industry. This knowledge enables them to navigate legal challenges and provide sound advice to healthcare organizations and individuals.

Compliance and Risk Management

Temple nurse attorneys assist healthcare organizations in developing and implementing compliance programs to adhere to legal requirements. They collaborate with healthcare teams to identify potential risks and establish protocols to mitigate them. By ensuring compliance, temple nurse attorneys contribute to maintaining patient safety and minimizing legal liabilities.

Ethical Considerations for Temple Nurse Attorneys

Ethics play a vital role in the practice of temple nurse attorneys. They often encounter challenging situations that require balancing legal obligations with patient welfare. These professionals must navigate ethical dilemmas with integrity and prioritize the best interests of patients while upholding legal standards.

Temple Nurse Attorneys in Patient Advocacy

Temple nurse attorneys are strong advocates for patients, working diligently to ensure their rights and well-being are protected throughout their healthcare journey. They collaborate with healthcare teams to foster a patient-centered approach and promote optimal outcomes.

Collaborating with Healthcare Teams

Temple nurse attorneys actively participate in healthcare teams, advocating for patients' rights and needs. They contribute their legal expertise to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, enhance communication, and facilitate ethical decision-making.

Ensuring Patient Safety and Quality Care

Patient safety is a top priority for temple nurse attorneys. They actively engage in initiatives aimed at enhancing safety protocols, reducing medical errors, and improving the quality of care. By promoting a culture of safety, temple nurse attorneys contribute to positive patient experiences and outcomes.

How Temple Nurse Attorneys Contribute to Medical Malpractice Cases

Investigating Alleged Medical Negligence

In medical malpractice cases, temple nurse attorneys play a crucial role in investigating alleged incidents of medical negligence. They meticulously analyze medical records, consult with experts, and gather evidence to assess the merit of a claim. Their understanding of healthcare practices and legal principles allows them to uncover critical details and build compelling cases.

Providing Expert Witness Testimony

Temple nurse attorneys often serve as expert witnesses in medical malpractice trials. Their expertise enables them to explain complex medical concepts and legal issues to the jury in a clear and concise manner. Their testimony can significantly impact the outcome of a case and ensure justice for the parties involved.

Assisting with Legal Strategies

When representing clients in medical malpractice cases, temple nurse attorneys provide valuable insights and assist in developing effective legal strategies. They work closely with other attorneys to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the medical aspects of the case and help craft arguments that leverage their unique expertise.

The Growing Demand for Temple Nurse Attorneys

With the evolving healthcare landscape and increasing legal complexities, the demand for temple nurse attorneys is on the rise. Several factors contribute to this growing demand and highlight the significance of their role in modern healthcare.

Expanding Legal Issues in Healthcare

The healthcare industry faces an expanding array of legal issues, including medical malpractice, healthcare fraud, patient privacy, and regulatory compliance. Temple nurse attorneys are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to address these challenges effectively, making them valuable assets for healthcare organizations.

Increased Focus on Patient Safety

Patient safety has become a central focus in healthcare, driving the need for professionals who can bridge the gap between medical and legal domains. Temple nurse attorneys contribute to patient safety initiatives by providing legal insights, promoting best practices, and advocating for improved healthcare delivery systems.

Challenges Faced by Temple Nurse Attorneys

While the role of a temple nurse attorney is rewarding, it comes with its fair share of challenges. These professionals must navigate the intricacies of both the medical and legal fields, balancing competing priorities and dealing with emotionally charged situations.

Balancing Medical and Legal Knowledge

Temple nurse attorneys must continually update their medical and legal knowledge to stay abreast of industry advancements. This requires dedication to ongoing education and professional development, ensuring they can effectively address the complex and ever-changing landscape of healthcare law.

Dealing with Emotional and Ethical Dilemmas

Temple nurse attorneys often encounter emotionally challenging situations, such as cases involving medical negligence or end-of-life decisions. These professionals must navigate these difficult circumstances while maintaining objectivity, empathy, and adherence to ethical standards. It requires a delicate balance between the legal obligations and the emotional needs of the patients and their families.

How to Become a Temple Nurse Attorney

Becoming a temple nurse attorney requires a comprehensive educational journey encompassing nursing and law. Aspiring professionals can follow these steps to pursue this unique career path:

Pursuing Nursing Education: Start by earning a nursing degree, such as a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), from an accredited institution. Gain practical experience as a registered nurse to develop a strong foundation in healthcare.

Earning a Law Degree: After completing a nursing degree, enroll in a law school program to earn a Juris Doctor (J.D.) or Master of Laws (LL.M.) with a focus on healthcare law. This legal education equips aspiring temple nurse attorneys with the necessary knowledge and skills to practice law in the healthcare domain.

Career Opportunities for Temple Nurse Attorneys

Temple nurse attorneys have diverse career opportunities that allow them to make a significant impact in healthcare and the legal field. Some potential career paths include:

Law Firms Specializing in Healthcare: Many law firms have dedicated healthcare law departments that employ temple nurse attorneys to handle legal cases and provide consultation services to healthcare clients.

Healthcare Organizations and Institutions: Hospitals, medical centers, and other healthcare organizations often employ temple nurse attorneys as in-house legal advisors to address legal matters and ensure compliance with healthcare laws and regulations.

Government Agencies and Regulatory Bodies: Temple nurse attorneys can pursue opportunities in government agencies and regulatory bodies responsible for overseeing healthcare laws and policies. They contribute to the development and enforcement of regulations to protect public health.

Conclusion

The role of a temple nurse attorney is a unique and dynamic intersection of nursing and law. These professionals bring a valuable combination of medical expertise and legal knowledge to address the legal complexities within the healthcare landscape.

From advocating for patient rights to navigating medical malpractice cases, temple nurse attorneys play a crucial role in ensuring patient safety, promoting ethical healthcare practices, and contributing to positive outcomes.

With the growing demand for their specialized skills, temple nurse attorneys are becoming increasingly vital in the ever-evolving healthcare industry.

[ppersonna]

my only wish - knj | m

“ santa can you hear me? i have been so good this year. and all i want is one thing. please tell me my true love is here ” - my only wish (this year), britney spears

✹ summary- There are few things you hate most in this world. Hornets, unnecessary fruit pieces in otherwise perfectly good jello, certain shades of orange… But nothing takes the cake more than two simple things. Christmas. And Kim Namjoon. So why did you agree to pretend to be Kim Namjoon’s girlfriend at his family Christmas party? Bah-Humbug.

✹ rating- explicit/18+/nsfw

✹ pairing- kim namjoon x reader

✹ word count- 15.1k OOF

✹ genre- smut, fluff, tiny tiny angst if you squint, enemies to lovers, fake dating au, idiots to lovers, brief mention of YoonMin

✹ warnings- penetrative sex, unprotected sex (dont do it), daddy kink lolol, namjoon has a big dick, oral sex (m/f receiving), cum swallowing, light cum play, dirty talk, light degradation (very light tbh), praise kink, lots of mentions of joon being a beefy boy, masturbation,

✹ a/n- its here!! finally! my contribution to rockin around the christmas tropes. big big big shout out to @ladyartemesia​ @xjoonchildx​ @untaemedqueen​ @underthejoon​ @yeojaa​ @snackhobi​ for being my co collaborators. and a warm shout out to @wwilloww​ and @hobi-gif​ for being some very lovely betas. thank you thank you! i hope you enjoy!

There are few things you hate most in this world. 

 Hornets, unnecessary fruit pieces in otherwise perfectly good jello, certain shades of orange…

 But nothing takes the cake more than two simple things: 

 Christmas. 

 And Kim Namjoon. 

Christmas, in your opinion, is nothing more than a consumerist holiday, anchored on ensuring you’re guilted enough from November 1st to the 25th of December to spend your hard earned money on shit your friends and loved ones won’t even use. It’s a time for people to pretend they love giving and caring, while shoving you out of lines in stores, buying up all the groceries as if it’s the end times, and forcing party after mindless party for “celebration” that ends in seeing your boss drunk and pants-less by the punchbowl. 

 And don’t even start on Kim Namjoon. 

 On paper, he’s your colleague, to put the terms friendly. In reality, he’s your opponent, your adversary. He’s annoying, rude, stuck up, and not to mention a douchebag heartbreaker. He’s everything you hate wrapped in one disgustingly handsome face. 

 The man never misses a chance to steal a case from underneath your nose, rub the praise he receives from your bosses in your face, and look ridiculously delectable in his tight suits that he insists he wears around the office. He absolutely infuriates you. 

 And now, as you sit in the company-wide meeting, your heart sinks as you realize the worst thing about Namjoon—he’s about to get the promotion you’ve been vying for your entire career.

 That position was as good as yours—at least, you had thought.

 That was until lead counsel, Seokjin, stands in front of all the attorneys present and calls out Namjoon’s name, commending him on winning his latest case—the case that you had done the bulk of the work for. Seokjin even tells the rest of the lawyers in the room that Namjoon is “someone to watch” with a glint of pride in his eyes. 

 The smug smile Namjoon sends in your direction as he teasingly nibbles on a pen with his sultry mouth is enough to make you want to tear his eyes out and use them as olives in the martini you sorely needed.

 Namjoon smirks as he walks past you once the meeting ends.

 “Make sure you watch me, baby,” he whispers into your ear. 

 His hand rests on your lower back and you hate how much he aggravates you, and hate even more so that he frustrates you sexually as much as he does intellectually.

 Unfortunately, your body can’t keep up with your mind’s distaste for the elder lawyer. His presence around you makes your blood vessels tighten and your head feel light—nipples prickling against your bra when he winks at you.

 “Asshole,” you whisper under your breath as you pack up your notebook.

 “Oh, ___!” Seokjin calls out just as you’re about to leave the all-glass meeting room.

 Your head suddenly screeches to a very frustrated, sexual halt when you turn to face the lead counsel of your company.

 “Yes, Mr. Kim?”

 “I’ve got a case for you.”

 The smile on his face makes you relax. Maybe he sees your potential. Maybe he’s testing you just as much as he’s testing Namjoon. Maybe you’ll be the “one to watch” and you can rub that right in Namjoon’s perfect, stunning face.

 A thick manila folder slides across the oak table towards you from Seokjin’s hands. The impressive volume of the dossier makes you giddy with anticipation.

 “I know you won’t let me down.”

 You nod, nibbling at your lips, before bowing to your superior and dashing out of the room as fast as your Louboutins can handle.

 It’s not until you sit at your desk, a cramped little cubicle next to Park Jimin, your best friend and paralegal assistant, that you open the folder.

 Your heart sinks as your eyes hurriedly rush over the title page.

 Personal Injury Suit.

 A dejected sigh leaves you as you throw the folder onto your desk and slouch back in your ergonomic office chair.

 “What’s up, pussycat?” Jimin smiles as he rolls his chair over to your side of the cubicle. “Namjoon got you worked up again?”

 You groan as you take off your reading glasses, setting them aside to rub at the burgeoning headache building at your temples. You had momentarily forgotten all about Namjoon in the hurried hope that you’d land a case of significance, something you could finally use to prove yourself.

 Instead, you gained yet another in-and-out, settle outside of court case. Likely some elderly geriatric suing a corporation for too-slippery floors.

 “Another fucking personal injury suit,” you whine as you thrust the folder into the lithe paralegal’s hands.

 He looks over the documents and sucks his teeth.

 “Man, Seokjin really has it out for you.”

 You level a look at your best friend, before nodding and holding your head in your hands.

 “Namjoon is getting all the good cases! He gets the media attention, the litigation deals, everything! It’s like I’m not even given a chance to show what kind of lawyer I can be when I’m stuck with all the nursing home and car accident suits!”

 Jimin bows dutifully, nodding his head as you express your woes.

 “I can do more than just personal injury litigation… and Seokjin knows that! It’s just that Namjoon keeps getting all the air-time!”

 “I know, babe. I know.”

 With one last sigh of disbelief, you take the folder out of Jimin’s hands and sit upright at your desk.

 “Well, I guess if I’m going to be a personal injury lawyer, I’m going to be the best fucking one yet. Let’s get to work.”

 “Yeah! Fighting!” Jimin cheers.

  Namjoon sighs as he listens to his mother blabber on and on through his phone. He leans back in his chair and surveys the wide expanse of his corner office.

 Seokjin gave him this space, an upgrade from the desolate cubicles when he won his last big case, Kim Taehyung, artist v. the city of New York. He can’t help but smirk as he glimpses you from his window, pouring over a case file. He notes the curve of your back in the silk blouse you’re wearing and the way it tucks into your pencil skirt. He wishes he could see the outline of your ass and watch as it sways back and forth when you walk.

 “I just don’t understand why you can’t ever bring anyone home for the holidays!”

 His mother breaks him from his silent reverie of detailing every aspect of your backside.

 “You know your grandmother will not be alive much longer! And all she wants is her only grandson to be happy and in love! And a few grandchildren won’t hurt!”

 “I am her grandchild, Mom.”

 She’s silent for a moment.

 “Well, I wouldn’t mind some grandchildren either.”

 He groans again and presses his fingers to his forehead, a headache bubbling up behind his eyes.

 “Don’t you act like that, young man! You have a big empty house, big car, big life, and no one to share it with. I just want you to be happy.”

 She continues on and Namjoon can’t help but let her words sink in.

 He has it all. Expensive luxury apartment, enormous bed, gorgeous kitchen, money to spend on traveling and enjoying life. Yet he spends most of his time here, stuck in his office. He’s utterly alone, regardless of how many social guests he tries to entertain, horrid dates he attempts to go on. He’s always left alone, and he feels it deep at the very bottom of his heart—the loneliness and desire for a companion.

 “Mom! Mom!” He interrupts her diatribe on the futility of his adult life. “Stop!”

 “Namjoon, I’m just conce-”

 “I’ll bring home my girlfriend for the holidays, okay?”

There’s a stunned silence on the other end.

 “A girlfriend?” she asks, tentatively. “Really?”

 “Yeah,” he breathes, wincing already at the lie he’s spoon-feeding his poor mother—all in the name of getting her off his back. “She’s kind of shy, so I didn’t want to tell you about her yet, but now seems like the best time. I’m... I’m even thinking of proposing.”

 The words come out of Namjoon’s mouth before he can stop them. His mom bursts into screams of delight, and he can tell she’s running to his beloved grandmother to tell her the news.

 “Oh, Namjoon! This is all we’ve ever wanted for you. I’m so proud of you! I can’t wait to meet her! Oh, goodness, I can’t want to tell your father. Goodbye, son! I’ll see you two soon!”

 She hangs up before Namjoon has a chance to even breathe.

 “Fuck.”

 He drops his phone to his wooden desk and grimaces. 

 How the hell is he going to find a fiance in the next 3 days before the holiday break? 

 There’s Jennie, his ex.

 He thinks about it for a moment, before quickly dismissing it. No, much too clingy and possessive. She’d take it to be real, and he’d be stuck with her.

 His last hookup, Jihoo?

 No, too aloof. His mom would never buy that they were a love-sick couple on the brink of engagement.

 A crash outside his office startles Namjoon, making him stand and exit the large corner suite.

 The commotion is coming from your cubicle, where he can see you’re struggling to use the decrepit computer. The crash must have been from you slamming the keyboard to the desk, causing the individual keys to pop off the board.

 “Shit! Jimin, help me put this keyboard back together!” 

 You shimmy out of your chair and onto your knees, an excellent sight for Namjoon if he wasn’t so concerned about your well-being.

 The paralegal is standing above you, watching as you kneel to gather the pieces of the obliterated keyboard.

 “Oh no, honey. It’s against my personal constitution to be on my knees unless it’s for a handsome man.”

 “God, Jimin, come on.”

 “Hey, it’s not my fault you hulk-smashed the life out of that poor keyboard.”

 Namjoon smirks, turning back into his office and sliding into his desk. He easily opens his MacBook and emails Yoongi in IT, requesting a brand new computer for your desk—no holds barred. He wants the top of the line for you.

 He suddenly has just the person in mind to be his fake fiancée. 

  A brand new, gorgeous computer is at your desk the next day you arrive.  You nearly spill your hot peppermint mocha when you see the sleek machine atop your old plastic desk instead of the broken clunker that was there the day before.

 “What the hell?” You ask Jimin as you set your coffee down gently as if any movement might scare the new computer away. “Did you order this?”

 “I love you, but I would never order you something this nice.” 

 You can’t help but roll your eyes as you sit down to marvel at the modern machinery. At least Jimin is honest.

 “Maybe I’ll call Yoongi and ask him where it came from,” you wonder aloud, hand hovering over your phone.

 “YOONGI?” Jimin screeches, eyes suddenly wide and crazed.

 “Yeah? The IT guy?”

 “I know who Yoongi is, you dumbass! Here, let me call him! I’m your assistant!”

 He scrambles to grab the phone out of your hand.

 “You literally refuse to do anything I ask.”

 Jimin smiles cherubically, completely ignoring your confusion. He’s suddenly the picture of a model employee.

 “Don’t you worry! I’ll be right on it!”

 He hops from your desk with your cell phone gripped tight, and saunters away to a secluded area out of your eyesight.

 “What the fuck is going on today?” You ask out loud, settling into your chair and unloading your bag of files.

 “How's the new computer?”

 The sudden intruder makes you jump, nearly spilling your coffee, yet again.

 “Fuck!” You shriek as you attempt to right yourself and the dangerously hot liquid sloshing in the paper cup. “You scared me!”

 The chuckle that comes from behind you makes your stomach flip. You know that laugh. You could recognize that laugh a hundred miles away, in a hurricane, with headphones on.

 That laugh is the sultry demon himself, Kim Namjoon.

 “I—How did you know about my computer?”

 Namjoon takes a knee, bringing his face to your level in your chair. He’s close to you, so dangerously close. You can smell the Giorgio Armani cologne applied to his pressure points—the heat of his skin warming the scent and mingling with his own subtleties. Your eyes nearly roll back in your head. He smells so comforting—like a home you never knew you were missing until he arrived.  

 “I saw it when I walked in this morning.” 

 He breaks you from your daydreaming of warm, firm hands caressing your body and you’re thrown headfirst back into reality—the reality where you can’t stand the man mere inches from you.

 You push back from where you are and stand, eager to get away from Namjoon’s sudden interest in close proximity. He smirks and rises from his spot, pocketing his hands in his tight cream suit.

 “Care to join me in my office for some coffee?” He asks.

 His office. The one he scored after he won the Kim Taehyung case. The bitter betrayal still lingers in your mouth. 

 For the longest time, you had been equal in every sense; both living in the dingy cubicles with the computers long-destined for retirement. Then, Seokjin awarded him with the corner office, the one with the view of the entire city. You’d never forgiven either of them.

 “I have my own coffee.”

 Namjoon smirks as he eyes your paper cup, clearly a quick grab from the 7-Eleven around the corner.

 “Looks fancy.”

 You purse your lips and clutch your coffee even closer.

 “Please,” he asks again. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

 Namjoon’s face loses its snark, and you’re curious about what could cause the man to become so serious.

 “Fine.”

 You motion with your arm towards his office, encouraging him to walk ahead. He smirks again, ah—there’s that smirk, before he turns and heads into the gorgeous corner room.

 He lingers by the door as you enter, waiting until you’ve crossed the threshold to close the door behind you. It surprises you. Something about being in a closed room with Namjoon sets you on edge. You can nearly imagine the man bending you over that fine oak desk, hiking your skirt up and spanking your ass until it’s red.

 “Coffee?” He asks as he moves towards the in-office espresso machine.

 “Are you fucking kidding me? You have a Nespresso in your office?” 

 All desperate and wanton thoughts of Namjoon sliding into you leave once you see the stainless steel contraption in the room's corner. Of course he has a $500 coffee machine in his office. He has everything you want.

 “You like it?” His question is cocky. He already knows the answer.

 “Fuck off.”

 Namjoon grins and turns the machine on, pulling out two mugs while you sip your now lukewarm coffee. It suddenly tastes disgusting.

 “So, what’s the deal, Namjoon?” You ask as he rests against the wall and waits for the coffee to brew. “You said it was important.”

 Namjoon nods, a more reserved look taking the place of his usual cocky grin on his face. His gaze turns down to his shiny dress shoes.

 “I need a favor.”

 “No.” Your answer is quick.

 Namjoon looks up at you in surprise.

 “You haven’t even heard it yet!”

 “Yeah, well…,” you huff. “I’m not interested in helping you.”

 Namjoon leaves his post by his elaborate coffee maker, forgetting about the piping-hot liquid drizzling into white mugs, as he stands in front of you. There’s that fucking cologne again. Why does he have to smell so good?

 “You’ve got to help me. Please.”

 His sudden closeness to you sets your brain off—your steely resolve begins to crumble.

 “Fine, I’ll bite. What is it?”

 His face lights up again. God, he has such a handsome mouth.

 “I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend for my family Christmas party.”

 If you hadn’t had such a good grip on the convenience store cup of coffee, it’d surely drop from your clutch and splatter on the expensive carpet of Namjoon’s office.

 Your eyes widen, and your mouth falls agape.

 “You—You what?!”

 Namjoon sighs and lowers his voice.

 “Look, I…” he struggles. “I told my mom I have a girlfriend, so she’d get off my back about it.”

 “And why am I suddenly your best option for that?!” 

 You step away from the man, determined to clear your mind as the scenario weaves its way through your head. 

 Namjoon’s girlfriend. He wants you to be his girlfriend.

 Well, his fake girlfriend.

 He would hold your hand. He would kiss you. He would touch your body in ways you convince yourself you don’t think of often. 

 “You’re the only girl I know who’s got a good enough poker face to go along with it. And honestly… you’re the only girl I really know well enough.”

 His last admission shocks you. Namjoon seems like the womanizing type—one to bring a different girl home every night.

 “That doesn’t explain why the fuck I would want to help you.”

 Namjoon steps back and moves towards the coffee machine again.

 “If you help me, I’ll take all your shitty cases that Jin is giving you.”

 Your eyes narrow at the tall man. It seems too good to be true.

 “How d'you know about them?”

 Namjoon shrugs and grabs a mug full of freshly brewed expensive coffee.

 “I can hear you complain to Jimin about it every day.”

 You grumble under your breath, sucking on your teeth as you try to process the terms of Namjoon’s deal.

 “So you want me to be your fake girlfriend for your family…” you muse.

 “Yes,” he agrees. “And I’ll do all your worst cases for the next 2 months. I’ll even give you my next big one. I know you want that.”

 God, he’s right. That’s all you want. A chance to prove yourself to Seokjin, to the company.

 With an aggravated sigh, you relent. 

 “Fine! But it better be a good fucking case. And, I’m using your coffee maker every morning.”

 Namjoon can’t help but chuckle, loving the fire in your voice. 

 “Deal?” He murmurs.

 He holds out his hand to shake on it, and it takes you by surprise how warm and soft his large hands are once you slide your own into his grip.  

 “Deal.”

 Jimin is not going to let you live this one down.

  Jimin doesn’t let you live it down.

 He’s sitting on your couch, legs crossed underneath him as he hoists his wine glass filled to the brim. He holds it away from his body as he shakes with laughter.

 “You’re telling me,” he wheezes. “That you agreed to be Namjoon’s fake Christmas girlfriend? You hate that man!”

 Flopping into the couch beside him, you sigh.

 “Yeah, well, it was my only option. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

 “Okay, Godfather,” Jimin snickers. “Lord knows you still want to bone that man, anyway.”

 “Jimin!” You admonish. “I do not! And that wasn’t the deal!”

 He sips at his red wine with an impish smile. You hate it when Jimin looks at you like that, like he can see behind the lie you’ve so carefully crafted of your hatred for Namjoon.

 “Then tell me, what was the deal?”

 You fiddle with the stem of your own wine glass, sighing.

 “He’s offered to take all our shitty personal injury suits for the next two months. And he’s giving me his next big case.”

 Jimin actually looks surprised—as if he didn’t expect Namjoon to provide a deal so worth the cost.

 “Wow,” he breathes.

 You nod in reply, taking a large gulp of the pinot grigio in your glass.

 “You’re still going to fuck him though, I know it,” Jimin adds.

 You splutter your wine from your mouth, hand reaching over to gently slap Jimin on his taut abdomen.

 “Shut up!” You cry.

 Jimin looks proud of himself, sipping his red wine gleefully while he settles further into your couch. Wine nights with Jimin is the highlight of your weeks. Together, you bitch over cases, coworkers, dating struggles, and eat too much cheese and cured meats and nurse a hangover the following day with brunch.

 “Hey,” you say to Jimin as you set your wine down on the coffee table. “Did you ever talk to Yoongi?”

 Jimin’s cheeks immediately turn a shade of rouge.

 “Yoongi? Yoongi who?”

 “Oh my god,” you groan. “Yoongi from IT. You stole my phone to call him today? To ask about my new computer?”

 Jimin swallows a large swig of his wine.

 “Oh. Yes, I did.”

 “And?” You encourage the blonde to answer further.

 “And he’s doing well,” Jimin replies demurely.

 “Jimin!” You huff. “The computer?!”

 Jimin makes an ‘O’ shape with his mouth and bites his lip.

 “I… might have forgotten to ask.”

 Your mouth drops open.

 “You literally stole my phone out of my hands to call him! What did you talk about?!”

 There’s his blush again. The shade of pink on Jimin’s cheeks would be adorable if you weren’t so flabbergasted by his answers.

 “I have a date tomorrow night.” He takes another sip as you let the reply sink in.

 “Oh. My. God.” You gasp, a smile now overtaking your features. “You have a crush on Min Yoongi!”

 Jimin sets his wine glass down next to yours and turns to you.

 “I had no idea if he was into me! But when I called, I totally forgot why I was calling him and we sort of just… started talking and next thing I know, he’s asking me out to dinner tomorrow night.”

 You playfully slap at Jimin’s thigh.

 “You little slut—using my phone to get yourself a date. On company time!”

 Jimin sticks his tongue out at you, before grabbing a pillow and slapping you with the overstuffed cushion.

 “At least I didn’t agree to be his fake girlfriend!”

  It’s the sound of your phone ringing at 7:32 am that wakes you from your spot on the couch, wine glass still clutched in your hand.

 “What the fuck?” You grumble, eyes blearily seeking the offending object disturbing your sleep.

 Jimin grumbles next to you, kicking at your foot as if it will stop the phone from ringing.  

“Stop,” he whines and cuddles into his fetal position. “Turn it ooooff.”

 You locate your cell phone and groan as you recognize the name on the caller ID. Namjoon. What the fuck could he possibly be calling for? And why did he have to call at seven in the goddamn morning? 

 “What do you want?” You snap as you hold the phone to your cheek and throw yourself back onto the couch.

 “Well, good morning to you, sunshine.”

 Namjoon’s voice, as sexy and sultry as it sounds, still aggravates you.

 “Why are you calling me? It’s Saturday. Its seven am.”

 Namjoon chuckles and you fight the shiver that works through your spine at the sound.

 “I tend to keep human hours on the weekend.”

 You can’t hold back the sarcastic guffaw that escapes you.  

 “Okay, Mr. Perfect,” you sigh. “That doesn’t explain calling me.”

 Jimin kicks at your foot again. 

 “Stop talking,” he grumbles.

 God, Jimin is such a diva when he’s hungover.

 “Meet me at the cafe on First Street,” Namjoon says casually. “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

 “Right now?!” You ask, incredulous.

 “I’m literally already here. Hurry before your coffee gets cold.”

 You let out a whine that could rival a 5-year-old’s temper tantrum.

 “Fuck you. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

 There’s no care about your phone when you end the call and throw it to the floor.  Jimin grumbles and rubs at his eyes.

 “Why the fuck are you having phone sex with Namjoon so early in the morning?” He asks.

 “Jimin, I swear to God.”

 He wraps himself in the throw blanket and buries his face back into the couch while you stand and retreat to your bedroom to throw on some semblance of appropriate clothing for the occasion.

 “Fucking Namjoon,” you grumble under your breath as you change into jeans and a sweater. “Fuck him and his stupid, sexy face. And his unbelievable ass. And his stupid, probably enormous penis. Man, I hate him.”

 As you’re re-entering the living room and grabbing your important items (keys, wallet, lip gloss just in-case), Jimin pops his head out of his blanket cave.

 “Where are you going?” He asks, suddenly less annoyed and more pathetic. “You’re leaving me?”

 “I have to go meet Namjoon for coffee. I don’t know why, so don’t ask.”

 “You’re really going to let me suffer here? Alone? With no coffee?”

 You spin around to face your best friend, who’s giving you an absolutely soul-crushing pout and puppy eyes.

 “Yes. Call Yoongi.”

 His precious pout is wiped away, and a devious smirk takes its place.

 “Great idea!” He says as he digs around for his phone. “Be careful out there! It’s icy! Wouldn’t want you to slip and fall on Namjoon’s dick.”

 Your only reply is one singular middle finger in Jimin’s direction as you exit your apartment.

  Namjoon can’t help but smile as he sips his warm coffee. The cafe is warm and bright, despite the chill outside. 

 Things feel peaceful. Tender flakes of snow trickle down outside and frost up the shop’s window. There’s something about this time of year that strikes him down to the core. Something cozy, something warm.

 It’s odd to think this will be his first year not celebrating the holiday alone.

 Even if it is... well, fake. 

 The bell over the door chimes an arrival, and Namjoon can tell by the grumbles and grunts and stomps of snowy boots that it’s you.

 “Over here!” He calls, raising a hand and turning to face you.

 Wow, he thinks. You look gorgeous, even without trying.

 You hurry your way over to the booth and plop yourself on the opposite side, immediately lunging for the obvious mug of coffee waiting for you on the table. You don’t waste a minute gulping the liquid down your throat, then spluttering when you realize it’s still hot.

 “I thought you said it was getting cold!” You cry, airing out your burnt tongue. Namjoon can’t help but imagine that tongue sliding up and down his cock.

 Not now. Wrong time and place to get a boner.

 Namjoon smiles as he sips his cappuccino. 

 “I got you a fresh one.”

 You make a face, but your features soften. As if you’re pleased with the idea that Namjoon cared to freshen up your cup.

 “Oh, well--”, you manage. “Thank you.”

 Namjoon doesn’t reply, but merely tips his head. The silence is thick enough to cut with a knife. Normally, you’re both normally so wound up in aggravating the other that a moment of calm is strange, but not unwelcome.

 “So, why the early morning wake up?” You finally ask, fiddling with the handle of the mug.

 Namjoon settles his cup down.

 “We need to get to know each other. Deep shit, you know. The shit that lovers would know about each other.”

 He notices you, watches as you nibble at your lip. You try hard to hide it behind the mug you lift to your lips, but Namjoon notices. 

 “I’m hoping maybe we could spend the day together,” he adds. “I need to get some Christmas gifts for my family and… well, it’s rather lonely doing it on my own.”

 There’s a slight smile at the ends of your lips.

 “And you needed me at seven thirty in the morning to do that?”

 He stifles a laugh.

 “Like I said, I operate at regular human hours. Even on weekends,” he replies.

 With a dramatic sigh, you agree.

 “Fine,” you say. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”

 He watches as you settle into the seat of the booth, hands gripping the warm mug like it’s a personal heater. He notices you’re only wearing jeans and a sweater--no properly warm clothing for the snow storm ahead. He’ll have to fix that, and soon.  

 “What are you doing for Christmas?” He asks.

 You level a look.

 “Spending it pretending to be in love with you.”

 Namjoon can’t help but snort a laugh.

 “I meant after that.”

 You shrug as you settle back into the seat.

 “I don’t like Christmas. I don’t do much other than force Jimin to kiss me under the mistletoe and watch shitty movies with a gallon of boxed wine.”

 “Hmm,” he hums. “You’re sort of a Grinch.”

 A scowl comes over your face.

 “I am not! I just don’t buy into this whole ‘prove how much you love me by buying me things’ shit. It’s a big scheme, I tell you! Capitalist propaganda! They encourage you to spend all your money, and if you don’t, they shame and guilt you by telling you you don’t love your family enough.”

 Namjoon can’t help but laugh as you rant. It’s what makes you such a talented lawyer—your ability to feel a passion so deep within you you’re able to convince a stone-faced jury of your side.

 “Don’t laugh at me!” You cry. “I’m serious! My family doesn’t celebrate, I don’t celebrate. I’d rather just buy gifts for my loved ones when I see something they’d like. Why do we have to put a time of year on it?”

 He shrugs and scooches his mug around the carbonate table.

 “I suppose that makes sense,” he muses. “But you’re still a Grinch. And a Scrooge. You’ll definitely get visited by some Ghosts at midnight.”

 “Ha ha,” you snark sarcastically. “Hilarious, Namjoon. Don’t tell me you’re a big festive guy.”

 “Somewhat. It’s my Mom’s favorite holiday. It’s why she’s so bent out of shape about me having a girlfriend. Something about family and love and shit.”

 You nod, understanding him completely. Your own mother, despite her reservations towards the holiday, still makes a fuss over your single status. There must be some Mom code to obsess over your children’s woeful dating life.

 “Well, I say let’s get on with it then. Ready to hit the shops?” He asks.

 You’re mid-sip of your finally cooled coffee and you send a desperate look to the man in front of you.

“Already?!”

 “We’re burning daylight, baby.”

 Namjoon stands and you can’t help but feel a roar of flames in your belly at the pet-name. Your cheeks are surely flaming up and you admonish yourself for getting so peaked about such a trivial name.

 “Please don’t tell me we’re walking,” you murmur as you sneak a peek outside.

 The snow is falling down harder now, and you’re dreadfully underdressed for the weather.

 Namjoon tsks at your lack of outerwear, but then shakes his head.

 “No, we’ll take my Range Rover.”

 You roll your eyes and grimace.

 “Of course. You have a fucking Nespresso machine and a Range Rover. Asshole.”

 Namjoon doesn’t even think about it as he grabs your hand and laces his fingers in between yours. If anyone asked, he’d say it’s practice—to familiarize himself with the way your fingers slot between his own so it’s not such a foreign concept when he does it in front of his family.

 “Yeah, but I’m your asshole now, princess.”

 Christmas shopping with Namjoon is mostly painless.

 Normally, you dread the lines and the crowds and the confusion and the expense.

 But with Namjoon, you relax and banter away with the tall lawyer. You’re completely at ease as you walk through crowded aisles and sort through racks of cashmere sweaters and stacks of fuzzy blankets.

 “Mom will love this, don’t you think?” Namjoon asks, holding up a thick, exquisite looking blanket.

 You’re about to answer with an affirmative when you catch yourself. You don’t even know his mom. You’ve never met the woman. Why does it feel as if Namjoon is someone you’ve known your entire life? 

 Why do things feel so easy with him?

 “Sure, Namjoon,” you reply. “Seems like something most mother’s would be into.”

 He smiles at you. It’s a genuine smile too, one that nearly knocks you on your ass. Your body is sent into overdrive constantly. He holds your hand, he places his hand at the small of your back to guide you through a thick crowd. He calls you baby and princess and doll.

 It’s confusing.

 It’s amazing.

 You can’t tell if you love it or hate it.

 Namjoon pushes the shopping cart and walks beside you, chatting easily about his various aunts and uncles names that you likely must remember at some point but you just can’t think about anything but Namjoon, Namjoon, Namjoon.

 You hate him. He stole that corner office from you. He’s going to take the promotion you want from right under your nose. He has a goddamn Nespresso in his office and a Range Rover. 

 And yet, you can’t help but fall in place next to him and listen to him tell stories of his childhood, weaving tales of uncles who snuck him his first sips of alcohol and aunts who spoil him rotten. He’s easy to listen to, a natural story-teller. Your body feels warm, as if you’re sitting on a large hearth by a roaring fire. He’s comforting.

 It’s infuriating and wonderful all at once. 

 “And that’s when my cousin Jungkook got caught smoking cigarettes. My grandma beat our ass so bad I couldn’t sit for a day.”

 Namjoon finishes his story and turns to look at you. You’ve been staring at the man for nearly a minute straight now.

 “Hey,” his voice is soft. “You listening?”

 You shake out of the trance Namjoon’s deep voice sends you into.

 “Yeah!” You reply with a smirk. “Sounds like this Jungkook is a guy I’d like to meet.”

 Namjoon sucks his teeth and nudges you.

 “Hey, you’re my girlfriend, remember.”

 You stick your tongue out at him playfully.

 “Fake girlfriend. I’m still a single, desirable lady at the end of the day.”

 Namjoon hesitates before answering. He wants to reply something snarky, something sarcastic and witty. But he takes a moment to pause, allows himself to fully immerse himself in you. Even hungover, in yesterday’s jeans and an old sweater, you’re still an absolute catch. You’re the definition of desirable and Namjoon can’t help but allow himself to desire.

 “Hmm, is that what you call it?” He asks, now allowing the sarcasm to permeate his words. “I was thinking you’re more of the spinster, cat-lady type.”

 “Hey!” You pout as you slap at his arm. “I’m allergic to cats!”

 “But you don’t deny being a spinster.”

 “Fuck you, Namjoon.”

 He grins and pushes the carts towards the candle aisle, a sure-fire gift for his aunties.

 “In due time, my love.”

  By the time Christmas Eve arrives, you’ve spent nearly every day with Namjoon. At work, he brings you fresh coffee from his Nespresso and buys you lunch. You’ve even landed his big case, an incredibly complex lawsuit that will showcase your skills. Namjoon gives you pointers and space to talk through the case with him.

Namjoon is, in fact, simply being kind. And it unsettles you.

 Your heart and brain are at war with each other constantly. You should hate him, loathe him. He’s going to nail that promotion regardless of what you prove to Seokjin.

 But your heart tells you he deserves it. He’s an incredible attorney and has earned every ounce of respect. You want Namjoon to get that promotion just to see that smile on his face. He’d do incredible things as Seokjin’s protege to take over the firm.

 You hate to admit it, but Namjoon has melted the ice around your heart. And you’re dreading the day after all this is over, because it will be the day Namjoon stops holding you close and pressing soft kisses to your temple. It will be the day he stops pretending this is all real.

 It’s Christmas Eve and you’re sitting in Namjoon’s expensive Range Rover, plush leather seat toasty from the built-in seat warmer. You can’t help but marvel at the way the oncoming headlights brighten up Namjoon’s features as he drives you down a snowy mountain lane. They always hold the Kim family holiday party at Namjoon’s late grandfather’s cabin in the mountains, a quiet getaway for the family to gather and spend the night together to wake up on Christmas morning and gather around for presents and food.

 Which means waking up to Kim Namjoon.

 It’s something you’ve dreamt of often, but denied yourself any actual possibility of it. Namjoon was always out of reach, and it was easier to hate him for his success he rightfully deserved than it was to admit the feelings that were always inside.

 And now, although it’s artificial, you can’t bear to think of not spending your time with Namjoon anymore.

 You steal a glance again at him, and smile as you hear his faint humming. He loves Christmas music. You learned that early in the week during another early morning coffee and ‘get to know you’ before work. Namjoon couldn’t stop singing Mariah Carey’s classic pop song under his breath as it played over the speakers in the cafe. 

 “It’s so pretty up here,” you muse as you force your vision away from Namjoon’s gorgeous face to the snowy scenery outside. 

 The snow is falling gently, not enough to cause a blizzard but enough to make it seem like you’re trapped in a picturesque snow-globe. Leaving the city and entering the magical forest stirs an emotion inside you you hadn’t felt in some time.

 It’s Christmas Eve and there’s just something magical.

 Ugh. Unbelievable.

 Namjoon has even made you actually enjoy Christmas.

 He nods. “Yeah, it’s my favorite place in the world, I think.”

 “I can see why,” you sigh. “It looks like a painting.”

 Namjoon glances over at you peering through the window. His heart hammers in his chest hard as your glittering eyes bounce around from tree to tree, a pretty smile on your face. The diamond ring in his pocket feels like it weighs a literal ton and he nibbles at his lip.

 He bought it for the showmanship of it all, initially. It was his first purchase he made when he set up this whole rouse.

 But now, it feels real. It feels like he’s really about to get on one knee and ask you, the girl he’s absolutely head over heels for, to marry him.

 And then it will be over.

 He’ll make up some story to tell his mom about how it didn’t work out and you’ll go back to being his coworker, and nothing more.

 Namjoon can’t fight the sinking feeling in his stomach.

 Nothing more.

 He pulls into the driveway before you even have time to realize you’re there. He puts the car in park and smiles over at you. 

 He looks so cute in his puffy winter coat, hair pushed to the side and a smile that’s all dimples and cheeks.

 Fuck.

 “We’re here,” he whispers. “You ready?”

 Suddenly, the nerves of meeting your fake boyfriend’s entire family slap you right in the face. You hope that you’re a good enough actress to get Namjoon through the night and into the morning.

 “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

 He nods and squeezes your hand, an unspoken comforting ‘I got you’.

 Namjoon gathers his wrapped gifts and stacks them all in his arms, ignoring your pleas and giggles to help carry them in.

 “No, no,” he assures. “I have to make sure my mom sees me being manly and helpful.”

 As if on cue, the front door opens and Mrs. Kim is bursting out into the snowy night.

 “Namjoon!” She shrieks, completely overjoyed. The rest of the family is standing by the door, eyeing you carefully with smiles and whispers. You pray to whatever Christmas God that’s listening that you can do this.

 Namjoon sets the pile of gifts down just in time to wrap his delicate and tiny mother in his arms, hugging her tightly while she gleefully buries her face into her tall son’s chest.

 “Oh, my son, I’ve missed you.”

 Namjoon kisses the crown of her head and smiles.

 “Missed you too, eomma.”

 The scene has you misty-eyed and you swipe at your eyes to stop the tears. There’s no way you’re ruining the fantastic makeup you did for the occasion, but the reunion of Namjoon and his mother is heart-warming. He clearly cares for his mother more than he would outwardly admit. 

 Namjoon and his mother unwrap from each other and Namjoon turns towards you.

 “Everyone, this is ____,” he breathes. “My girlfriend.”

 His mother’s gleeful squeals now turn to you, and within an instant she’s gathering you up in just as tight of a hug as she did to her son.

 “Oh, darling, we are so happy to meet you,” she beams.

 The excitement in her voice makes you feel bad—like you’re conning an old woman out of her retirement. You’re instilling a sense of hope in the kind woman, and you can’t help but send Namjoon a look as you wrap your arms around her and return the embrace. His eyes sparkle with something you can’t read.

 “I’m happy to meet you too,” you smile as you pull apart. “Thank you for letting me come.”

 “No thanks necessary,” she admonishes with a wink. “We had to beg Namjoon to bring you. It seems he wants to keep you all to himself.”

 “Eomma!” Namjoon snaps. “Be appropriate!”

 She nudges you with her elbow knowingly, which makes your cheeks flame hot, before she leads the way back into the house.

 “Come in, come in! Let’s get out of this snow.”

 Namjoon encourages you to step inside with a gentle hand at the small of your back—a touch that makes your body light up brighter than a Christmas tree.

 “Thank you,” he whispers in your ear from behind. You can feel the warmth of his lips and your body reacts.

How is it that any simple act makes you desperately horny for the man? You pray for some respite from your sexual frustration over the next day. How are you going to last over 24 hours?

 Namjoon deposits his massive haul of gifts under the tree and returns to your side, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to bring you close. He introduces you to uncles and aunts and cousins. He even introduces you to his infamous cousin, Jungkook, who smirks at you in a way that makes Namjoon pull you in closer to his body.

 “Are you doing okay?” Namjoon finally asks after the rush of relatives greeting you dies down. He turns you towards him, to face him directly with his hands on either of your shoulders. “You’re killing it.”

 You can’t help but smile. Namjoon’s family is all incredibly kind and funny. They welcome you into the family with ease and it chips away a little more each time at your heart.

 Because this is all fake. 

 One day, Namjoon really will have a girlfriend to bring to Christmas and to show off to his relatives and it won’t be you. You’ll be back at your apartment, watching shitty TV re-runs and binging on Chinese takeout, as you do every year. It’s a jab at your heart each time the bitter truth rears its ugly head.

 “Yeah,” you nod. “I’m great.”

 “Look!” Jungkook shouts. “They’re standing under the mistletoe!”

 Namjoon blushes a shade of red that likely matches a blush on your own cheeks. Sure enough, the green branches of the mistletoe taunt you from above. 

 You’ve never kissed Namjoon before. In all the skinship and closeness of the last week, you’ve still yet to close the gap to kissing the man. 

 “Oh, come on Kook, that’s a stupid tradition,” Namjoon murmurs awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

 Jungkook smirks as he steps up next to you.

 “Well, if you’re not going to do it, I’d be more than happy to take your place.”

 Jungkook wraps a loose arm around you and gives you a charming smile. He must be very popular with the ladies, you think. That’s a charming smile.

 “Hey!” Namjoon grabs for your hand and tugs you out of Jungkook’s predatory gaze. “She’s my girlfriend.”

 Namjoon looks at you for a moment, assessing your comfort level with everything about to take place. His lips look so inviting, so plush and warm. Now that you’re thinking about kissing him, you can’t help but focus on the way his lips pucker so gently and naturally.

 And then it happens. Namjoon lowers his face towards you and it feels as if the world is in slow-motion. It’s happening.

 The first press of his lips is soft and conservative. You take a split second to register, but instinctively you press against his lips with determination and wrap your arms around his neck to deepen the kiss.

 He groans softly as you trail your tongue out to seek purchase in his mouth, and he opens for you without hesitation. His hands grip at your waist and bring your body flush against his. You can feel his cock twitching and rising from the kiss that’s gone from innocent and playful to passionate and deep. It feels like the world around you has stopped and the only thing that matters is Namjoon, his mouth, his body against your own. He tastes like hot chocolate and peppermint, and you want more, more.

 “Oh my god, stop,” Jungkook’s voice shatters your illusion of being all alone with Namjoon. “Now you’re just showing off.”

 Namjoon pulls away from you, eyes dazed as he tries to right himself. 

 “You two are just so perfect for each other,” Namjoon’s mother says, who’s suddenly appeared in Jungkook’s place. “Let me show you your bedroom.”

 “Oh, we’re sharing?” You ask without thought. It’s a large house, with ample bedrooms surely for you to have your own space.

 Namjoon nudges you in the ribs gently, eyes widening and mouthing a ‘what the fuck do you mean?’ 

 “Of course dear, don’t be silly,” his mother replies with an eyebrow waggle and a chuckle. “I remember when your father and I were dating. He would sneak into my room after my parents went to bed and keep me up all night long. Your grandfather would ask me if I had terrible dreams that night, because I looked so tired.”

 Namjoon makes a face. “Eomma, please,” he begs. “Please don’t talk about my parents like that.”

 As his mother guides you down a long hallway, your mind is whirring with too many thoughts of Namjoon, of sharing a bedroom with Namjoon, of seeing his sleeping face and waking up next to him. It’s all too much, too overwhelming. You pray there’s a couch in the room you could sleep on, because you’re far too weak and you’d rather fight the desperation in your body than face the fact that you want nothing more than to curl right into Namjoon’s strong arms and let him hold you all night to sleep.

 Fuck.

 “Here we are!” 

 His mother opens the door with grace, and flicks on the light. The room is beautiful in its simplicity. A king sized bed, a fireplace, and a balcony with a view of the sprawling snowy scene outside. It’s cozy and warm and decorated with its own Christmas tree.

 “Wow,” is all you can muster.

 “Aish, Mom,” Namjoon sighs as he drops his bags. “You didn’t need to do all of this for us.”

 Mrs. Kim holds his hand in both of hers. “Well, I know how special this Christmas is going to be,” she winks. “I want you to enjoy your time here. Now, I’ll leave you two alone for a bit. Dinner is in an hour, so ‘freshen up’!”

Another wink, and Namjoon makes another face. She definitely wants grandchildren, that much is for certain.

 She closes the door behind her and you’re left standing in the room, overnight bag in hand.

 “This is—Wow, this is amazing.”

 You’ve never experienced Christmas like this—with decorations and warmth and family. It’s as if the love of the Kim family permeates the very walls of the expansive cabin, like it’s built into the foundation itself. For a moment, you allow yourself to soak it all in. This is all yours. It’s your Christmas and you finally understand why so many make such a fuss over it. The results are nothing short of remarkable.

 “Yeah, she really does the most,” Namjoon laughs. 

 He takes the bag from your hand without your notice and you step towards the balcony to peer into the night. The landscape looks as if everything has been covered in soft marshmallow. The snow is untouched—picture perfect.

 “I’ve never had anything like this before.”

 Namjoon settles your bag and his on the bed, watching as you soak in your own wonder. The smile on your face is not one he sees often, one of pure joy. Namjoon swallows hard as he realizes he wants to be the one to always put that smile on your face.

 “Not such a Scrooge after all, eh?”

 You turn from the still-life view outside and back to Namjoon, where he stands at the foot of the bed. He looks so different outside the office. He’s wearing skinny jeans and a flannel shirt, his puffy jacket hanging by the door. No cream suit, no slicked back hair or shoes shiny enough to see your reflection. Just simply Namjoon.

 He’s no longer the man who steals the limelight in the office. He’s no longer the man you see as your adversary or your rival.

 He’s the man who’s showing you the magic of Christmas, the spirit of love and kindness that embodies the season.

 He’s the man you’ve fallen in love with.

 And yet, he’s the man who will leave once this is over and return to his proper life, and you to yours. He’ll return to sleeping with models and movie starlets, and you’ll return to binge watching Great British Bake-Off with Jimin and a carton of Chicken Tikka Masala.

 And Christmas will never feel as special as it does now. 

 So, you’re determined to soak in it for a little longer. It’s going to hurt regardless, so why not push that hurt off until tomorrow and allow yourself to pretend you live the lie you’re spinning for Namjoon’s family?

 “I think I’ll just freshen up and change into my dinner outfit, then?” You ask out loud, grabbing for your overnight bag and heading towards the ensuite.

 Namjoon, who expected a witty retort, takes a moment to reply.

 “Oh,” he coughs. “Yeah, sure. I’ll err—, I’ll just get ready out here.”

 You quickly escape into the bathroom, closing the door and resting on it as you exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

 The tension in the bedroom with Namjoon was too thick, too powerful, especially after the kiss you just shared. His cock had been there, straining in his jeans as you licked into his mouth. The kiss felt so natural, as if you had always kissed Namjoon like that. Your heart beats loud and hard in your chest just from the thought of it.

 You really needed to get a handle over yourself. You still have dinner to get through, and an entire night in a bedroom with Namjoon. A bed with Namjoon.

 No, you won’t allow yourself to go that far. You can pretend you’re his girlfriend, but all thoughts of his delectable body doing scintillating things to yours is strictly off-limits. You shake all thoughts of a thick, heavy cock sliding into your mouth and warm hands spreading you open, and set about fixing your makeup and changing into the gorgeous cocktail dress you purchased for the occasion. It wasn’t often you got to get dressed up. The emerald green velvet dress clings to your body and highlights your curves. It’s a sexy dress, definitely, but also appropriate for a formal evening with your boyfriend’s parents.

 Well, your fake boyfriend. Right.

 After fixing your hair and buckling your heels, you take one last glimpse in the mirror for good luck and exit the room.

 Your breath is nearly knocked out of your lungs as you see Namjoon. 

You’ve seen him dressed up for court and for TV appearances millions of times, but you’ve never seen him like this.

 He wears a blood red button up without a tie, a few buttons open to emphasize the casual look, tucked into the tightest and sexiest slacks you’ve ever seen. They hug his thighs and sit at a spot on his waist that you just know is rippling with cut lines from his work in the gym. His hair is tucked back with a bit of hairspray, and he’s fixing the sleeves of his shirt when he sees you.

 His eyes widen and his hands fall to his sides as he soaks in your appearance.

 An absolute vision.

 He can see the gentle valley between your breasts and the way your dress pushes up your cleavage and displays your collar.  The dress follows the delicate curve of your waist and hips and ends at your knee, but teases him with a glimpse of thigh that has him wiping his mouth in case he’s drooling. 

 “You look incredible,” Namjoon murmurs as you step closer.

“So do you.”

 You swallow hard as he continues closer to you, breathing harshly as he stands right in front of you. You could reach out and unbuckle his expensive slacks and fist his cock right there. You’d fall on your knees for him, if he asked.

 There’s a moment of silence as Namjoon’s face inches closer and closer to your own, each unable to verbalize just how desperate either of you feel for the other.

 “Namjoon, I—,” you start. You want to tell him. You want to tell him everything—that you don’t want this to be fake, that you want this to be real, and you want to be his and his forever.

 “Yes?”

 You swallow hard, shaken by just how close his lips are to yours. He’s inches away and all you can focus on is the way his plush lips look and how well they fit against your own under the mistletoe.

 “I just—, I really um, I’m just very…” 

 You’re not making sense. Comprehension of language is quickly soaring out the window because the only words you know are ‘Please, for the love of God, kiss me and make me yours’, but you can’t bring yourself to speak them out loud.

 Namjoon’s hand cups your cheek, as if he can tell what you’re trying to say.

 “Yeah,” he breathes. The inches between you turn to centimeters, to bare millimeters. Your eyes flutter close as you feel his breath dance over your lips and your heart beats so loud you’re sure the entire household can hear it. He’s right there and moves in to close the distance—

 “Knock Knock!!”

 The forceful, cheery voice of cousin Jungkook forces both of you to jump away from each other as if you’ve touched a burning stove. Your head feels light, like you’ve forgotten to breathe for the last ten minutes and you’ve suddenly taken in too much air.

 The wooden door squeaks open and Jungkook pokes his head in, a shit-eating grin on his face.

 “Auntie sent me to get you. It’s dinnertime!”

 Namjoon rubs his face frustratedly. “Yes, thank you, Jungkook.”

 Jungkook doesn’t leave, however. He smiles at you and winks. 

“Would you like an escort to dinner, madame? You look tastier than the roast beef downstairs.”

 A blush creeps over your cheeks as Namjoon storms to the door where his cousin laughs.

 “That’s enough, Kook. We’ll be down in a minute.”

 He sends you one more grin, then retreats from the door and closes it behind him.

 “Sorry about that,” Namjoon apologizes. You’re not sure what he’s apologizing for—Jungkook, or the moment before.

 “It’s alright. Let’s go?”

 Namjoon nods and holds out his hand with a smile.

 “Let’s go, girlfriend.”

  Dinner with the Kim family is as delightful as every other interaction with them has been. They’re polite and funny and ask questions about your life and your family.

 They ask how you met Namjoon (at work), what your favorite quality about him is (his smile and his ass), and what your first date together was (coffee at seven in the morning).

 You tell stories of Namjoon in the office, of your best friend Park Jimin who’s secretly trying to date the IT manager, of your parents and Christmases past.

 By the time dessert is served, Namjoon’s mother looks at you as if you’ve put the very stars in the sky.

 Namjoon doesn’t miss that look either. He can see the way his family is falling in love with you and somewhere deep in his stomach, he feels the guilt rising. All of this is a lie. Not only is he going to break his own heart, but every heart of his family member’s too. 

 “We’re all just so overjoyed that Namjoon has found someone to share his life with,” his mom speaks softly. It’s the first time she’s been thoughtful and quiet. She’s a woman who’s larger than life, you’ve found, so the softness in her tone strikes a chord. “You’re absolutely perfect for him. I’ve never seen him happier.”

 Fuck. 

 “Thank you,” you murmur sincerely to his mother. “I’ve never been happier.”

 Namjoon peers up from where he’s been pushing around his uncle’s famous chocolate cake on his plate to watch as you speak.

 “Truthfully, I never cared much for Christmas. I thought it was a rubbish holiday and spent it alone every year with a bottle of wine and some takeout. Namjoon really changed that for me,” you smile at the man and place your hand in his lap to hold his free hand. “He showed me more about Christmas in one week than I’ve felt in my entire life.”

 Namjoon’s mom wipes away an errant tear and he squeezes your hand under the table.

 “I guess the Grinch’s heart has grown 3 sizes, after all.”

 Namjoon’s joke lightens the soft mood, and suddenly there’s chatter around as the family members move about to wash dishes and clean up the mess of dinner. Everyone leaves the table except for you and Namjoon.

 “That was some good acting,” he whispers with a sad smile.

 “Right,” you whisper back, nibbling your lip anxiously. “Acting, of course.”

  You should have thought through the bedroom sharing thing more.

 Because sharing a bedroom is one thing.

 And sharing a bed is another.

 And of course, the only pajamas you thought to bring tonight is a very sexy long shirt that says “no coffee, no talking” with a bedazzled pair of shushing lips. That’s it. Just a single shirt. Not even a pair of shorts or pajama pants.

 You slip into the bed first, as far onto one side of it as possible. It’s a king sized bed, and it still feels too intimate, too close.

 Namjoon exits the bathroom after his shower, rubbing at his wet hair with a towel. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of flannel pajamas, leaving his bare chest on display.

 Sweet lord in heaven, you nearly cry out loud. He’s absolutely ripped, pecs defined and droplets of water from his hair streaming down. You want to chase each drop with your tongue and circle back again. You shut your eyes tight and clench your teeth. Why, oh why, does he have to look so fucking sexy at a time like this?

 Namjoon sees you at the edge of the bed, shutting your eyes closed like you’re a shy schoolgirl afraid to see a naked man’s body. He feels guilty for making you be here. He knows you’ve likely got better things to do than spend time with a man you openly hate.

 “I’m sorry,” he apologizes for nothing in particular. 

 You ignore it. Instead, you’re trying to think of every un-sexy thing in the world you can possibly imagine. Taxes, a bunch of bees, old people, shark attacks.

 There’s absolutely nothing that can stop the image of Namjoon’s perfectly sculpted body from bursting into your mind. You’re nearly pleading with yourself to just go to sleep and contemplate how hard you’d need to hit your head to knock yourself out as fast as possible.

 “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says as he grabs a small throw blanket from the closet and throws it to the ground by the fire.

 It snaps you from your musings of how best to forget how badly you want to suck Namjoon’s cock through his pajama pants.

 “What?” You sit up in the posh bed and finally make eye-contact. “Why? It’s freezing. There’s a literal snowstorm outside.” You motion to the window of the balcony. What was once a gentle snowfall is now a full-on winter storm.

 “There’s a fire. I’ll be fine, I sleep hot anyway.” Namjoon’s voice is low and without energy. He almost sounds sad.

 God, is being with you that hard for him? You know you’re just the artificial replacement until he has the real thing, but you’d actually hoped Namjoon had found it as comforting and warm as you had.

 “Namjoon,” you sigh. “This is a king-sized bed. You don’t need to be waking up with back pain because you gallantly slept on the floor.”

 To emphasize your point, you tug back the blankets on the other side, beckoning him to join.

 He hesitates for a moment, as if he’s weighing the pro’s and con’s and sliding into bed next to you in his mind, then stands and pads his way on the plush carpet towards the bed and slips in.

 There’s an entire football field of distance between you two in the bed, but it feels like he’s right beside you. You imagine sliding in right next to him, wrapping your arms around his taut chest and pressing soft kisses to his stomach.

 You squeeze your eyes closed again. Stop it, you horny slut.

 “Thank you, again.” Namjoon breaks the silence. “I really appreciate you helping me out.”

 “Yeah,” you swallow hard. “Of course. What else was I going to do? Jimin’s probably sucking Yoongi’s dick right now, so I’d be watching baking shows alone.”

 Namjoon laughs for a moment, then quiets.

 “You know, I don’t even really want that promotion at work.”

 You’re surprised by the sudden change in topic, but you turn over to face Namjoon.

“What?! Really?”

 Namjoon nods and stares at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’m that good of an attorney to get it, anyway.”

 His statement makes you sit up in bed again, staring at the man in disbelief.

 “Are you fucking kidding me, Namjoon? You’re the best lawyer in the firm.”

 Namjoon says nothing, just turns to stare at you curiously as you continue.

 “You’re like… literally better than Seokjin, too. The way you handled the Taehyung case was nothing short of historical. Like, that was an impossible case, and you nailed it. That was your ‘OJ’ case, you know?”

 Namjoon barks a laugh.

 “My what?”

 “Your OJ case!” You use your hands to emphasize the importance of what you’re saying. “Like, they’ll write about you and how impossible the odds were of winning that case. And you won it! Not even Seokjin could have won that case.”

 He’s silent again, watching as you speak directly from your heart with all the fire and passion you feel about the things you care about. It’s what makes you such an incredible lawyer, too.

 “Wow,” he breathes. “Thank you.”

 You settle back down from your excitement, suddenly bashful at how fanatical you became.  

 “You’re welcome,” you murmur. “You deserve that promotion. And the office.”

 Namjoon smirks.

 “And the Nespresso?”

 Your eyes narrow and send a glare to him he can see even with the faintest of light in the room.

 “No, no one deserves the Nespresso, except for me.”

 He chuckles and settles down into his pillows.

 “Goodnight,” he whispers.

 “Goodnight, Namjoon.”

 There’s a beat of silence and your eyes flutter shut easily. It’s quiet, and all you can hear is the crackle of the log in the fireplace and the wind blowing past the balcony windows as the storm outside rages.

 “Oh,” Namjoon whispers again. “And, Merry Christmas.”

 You can’t fight the smile that creeps onto your face.

 “Merry Christmas, Joonie.”

  “Happy Christmas!” A voice bellows through your bedroom at approximately seven fifteen am.

 You groan, immediately grimacing and burying your face into your firm, warm pillow.

 “Nooooo,” you whine, trying to hide from the offending noise.

 Namjoon shakes awake, and notices Jungkook standing at the bedroom door once again.

“It’s time for presents!” He giddily explains. “And, they gave me the job of waking you two up.”

 “Of course,” Namjoon yawns.

 “You look a little wrapped up,” Jungkook smirks, eyeing your sleeping body. “I’ll give you two a minute. Don’t get distracted.”

 Namjoon rolls his eyes and watches as the door closes, before he turns his attention towards you.

 Somehow, in the middle of the night, you’ve scooched yourself to his side of the bed and draped your body around his. Your face is buried in his chest and your legs are haphazardly intertwined in his own.

 He bites his lip. His cock is rock solid, not just from his usual morning wood, but from the way he can feel your tits through your shirt, and from the sight of your pink panties. Namjoon wants to take them off with his teeth and bury his face in your delicious cunt, and his cock is nearly screaming at him to get on with it.

 “Hey,” he whispers to you, actively ignoring the demon that is his turgid length. “Wake up.”

 This causes you to cling harder to his chest, rubbing your sleepy face on him.

 “What is it with you and early mornings?” You ask, blearily raising your head to peer at him judgementally.

 Namjoon bites his lip, curious about your reaction to the tight embrace you’ve got on him. He doesn’t want to say anything, doesn’t want to break the spell. Frankly, he wants to push your sleep shirt up and stuff you full of his cum.

 “Merry Christmas?” He offers shyly.

 You take a full minute to recognize what’s happening.

 You’re no longer on your edge of the bed. You’re wrapped around the man like a koala, legs strewn over him without care and clinging to him like he’s a lifeline.

 “Oh!” You gasp as you jerk out of his grasp. 

 In your movement, your leg brushes over an obvious tent in Namjoon’s pants, making him groan softly. You shut your eyes, embarrassed at how disgustingly horny you are for the man who’s not even interested in you sexually.

 “Christ, I’m so sorry,” your cheeks flame bright red and you scoot further from him.

 “No, no, don’t be,” Namjoon wheezes as he tries to fix himself. “It’s fine. It’s more than fine. It’s great. It happens. Don’t worry.”

 He continues to stammer out reassurances as he leaves the bed and bolts into the bathroom to fix his unruly tented pants, leaving you sitting atop the bed washed with shame.

 “Fucking hell,” you whisper to yourself as you rub at your cheeks. “Get a grip of yourself.”

 Inside the bathroom, it only takes Namjoon a few fisted jerks of his cock and the mental image of you beneath him, begging for him, until he’s silently cumming on an expensive towel. He bites his free hand to stifle the moans he makes as his cock pulses.

 By the time he arrives back in the bedroom, you’ve changed into a hoodie and yoga leggings that accentuate your ass so delectably that Namjoon thinks about turning right back into the bathroom for a second round.

 “I’m sorry!” You nearly shout when he walks into the room. “About the bed. You were warm and I was cold. That’s all.”

 Nmajoon simply nods, doesn’t want to have to explain how he wishes he could wake up like that every day. Doesn’t want to describe in vivid detail how he’d wake you up with his tongue buried deep in your cunt.

 “Let me grab a shirt and we’ll head out, yeah?”

 Your eyes dance over the defined ridges of his body, a little crest-fallen at the idea that this might be the last time you see him shirtless, but you nod anyway.

 “Yeah.”

The ring box sits in a deceptively large box beneath the tree. Namjoon wrapped it last night and hide it at the very back. His heartbeat hammers in his ears as his family passes around gifts and opens each with squeals of delight.

 His mother gave him new ties for the office, ones that Namjoon prefers. She’s even gifted you with jewelry, which makes your eyes water at the sentiment.

 It all begins to be too much. It’s harder and harder to hold back the tears as each of Namjoon’s family members gives you gifts. It doesn’t matter the value, not at all. The fact that they specifically set out to include you in their gift-unwrapping makes your heart snap in two.

 This is all too much, it’s too real.

 It’s everything you never dreamed you could have. A loving partner who lets you sit in the space of his legs and rubs your arms soothingly. A family who goes out of their way to include you in the abundance of love and company. A cabin so warm and cozy.

 The tears don’t stop.

 It’s at the end of the gift exchange that you finally allow yourself to breathe. 

 “There’s one more,” Namjoon whispers as he moves from behind you and fetches a large box from behind the tree. “It’s for you, princess.”

 Curiously, and suspiciously, you eye him as he sets the enormous gift in your lap. You had done nearly all his Christmas shopping with him, and can’t remember a single thing he would have gotten for you.

 “I hope it’s the Nespresso from your office,” you snark with a smile. His family members all laugh and exchange knowing looks to each other.

 Namjoon doesn’t think he can breathe. He watches as you begin to carefully unwrap the large box, which reveals another box, slightly smaller. He can’t help but grin as you continue to unwrap the nesting-doll style gift until you’re down to the smallest one, the one that holds the ring box.

 With one last tear of paper, your eyes widen as you recognize the velvet box.

 “Oh--,” you breathe as you delicately pry open the gift.

 Inside sits a dazzling and gorgeous diamond ring. It catches the light from the fire and sparkles like a firecracker.

 “Oh my god,” you whimper as the tears flow again.

 He’s proposing.

 Namjoon settles himself onto one knee and tucks an errant piece of hair behind your ears.

 “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. I knew from day one that you were always the girl I wanted to marry,”

 Namjoon’s speech sends daggers to your heart. He’s so convincing for something so counterfeit. 

 “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, much longer than we’ve been together. You’re who I want to come home to every night, and who I want to wake up with every morning.”

 It hurts. It hurts so badly that you’re crying even harder as he continues to speak. His family must think you’re simply overcome with emotion and love that the crying doesn’t give it away, but inside you’re absolutely dying.

 There’s no way you can recover from this.

 Tomorrow, Namjoon will take the ring back to where he got it from and return to what he had before. He’ll leave you behind, broken and hopelessly in love with a man who faked a relationship so well that you fell for it, hard.

 “____, will you marry me?”

 You take several large, gulping gasps to reply. You can’t shatter the illusion. Namjoon’s parents are weeping with joy, while his relatives record the moment on their phones and wipe away errant tears. Even Jungkook looks soft, proud of his cousin for taking the next step in his life.

 Oh, how you wish this were all real.

 “Yes,” you lie with a smile. “Yes, Namjoon, of course!”

 Namjoon grins and pulls you to standing, gathering you in his arms as he hugs you tight. His family cheers and hollers in the background, and you sob into his shoulder as you cling to him.

 He easily slides the diamond ring out of the box and onto your finger, where it sits and taunts you. The weight is heavy, and you whimper at the realization that this will never be for you. It will sit atop a pretty model’s finger sometime soon, when Namjoon resumes his regular life.

 “Oh, my darlings, I am so happy for you!” Namjoon’s mother appears and wraps you both in a hug, weeping and kissing cheeks. “We must discuss planning!”

 It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The tears and weeping turn to wracking sobs, which quiets the family as they watch you hold your face in your hands.

 “I’m sorry,” you apologize through your grief. “I—I just need a moment.”

 Without another word, you turn from the scene and bolt back towards the bedroom.

 It’s silent and Namjoon’s heart sinks. 

 This must be too much for you, too much for you to pretend to love him. He knew it was too much and he should have discussed it with you beforehand.

 “She’s just a little err--,” Namjoon tries. “Easily emotional. I’ll go check on her.”

 His family understands as Namjoon hurries towards the bedroom and gently opens the door.

 You’re sitting over your overnight bag, trying to shove any clothing into it you can, while you sob openly.

 “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I should have told you. I sort of... told my mom I’d be proposing to my girlfriend.”

 There’s pain in your eyes as you snap your head up to look at him. It nearly destroys him.

 “You should have warned me!” You gasp. “Namjoon, I can’t do this.”

 Namjoon lowers his head and shoves his hands into his pockets of his pajama pants.

 “I get it. I know you want to go back to your regular life. I can take you home now.”

 You’re silent for a moment, standing and moving towards the man.

 “Don’t you get it, Namjoon?”

 He raises his head to look at you curiously, brow knitted together with confusion.

 “I’m in love with you, you asshole!” You cry, pushing at his chest. “I can’t continue to pretend this is real anymore. I love you, I absolutely love you and I can’t go on watching you pretend you love me too. It’s too much for me to handle.”

 Namjoon’s world freezes in time as he watches you slide the ring off your finger. He grasps your hand to stop you, his eyes boring into your own.

 “I never had to pretend.”

 Before you can speak, Namjoon cups your cheek and pulls you in close, mouth sealing over your own in a desperate kiss.

 You don’t fight it, not at all. You sink into his grasp and kiss him back with fervor, with all the pent-up emotions you’ve held back all this time.

 “I’m in love with you,” he whispers as he pulls away from the kiss. “I meant every single word I said.”

 More tears stream down your cheeks, and Namjoon is quick to wipe them away with his thumb.

 “I know it’s maybe too soon for us to really be engaged, but I—I want that, with you,” he adds. “I want you to be my girlfriend… for real.”

 “Are you being serious right now?” You ask as your hands cling to Namjoon’s waist.

 He can’t help but to laugh, nodding in reassurance as he leans down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss.

 “Never been more serious in my life.”

 “I can’t believe you’re mine,” Joon murmurs into the nape of your neck.

 You were supposed to be driving home to your apartment now, back to real life, but the snowstorm raged on and Namjoon decided it might be best to spend yet another night in the cabin. Together. As a couple. A real couple.

 You didn’t put up much of a fight.

 He’s pressing soft kisses into your tender skin as he closes the door to the bedroom.

  “All mine, all mine.” He chants it like a mantra. 

 You’re trying to maneuver your way into the dark bedroom, only guided by the light from the fireplace. Namjoon stops you and pulls away from your neck, eyes soaking in every inch of you.

 “You have no idea what I’ve been dying to do to you,” he speaks after a moment of appreciating your beauty.

 “Hmm, I think I have some idea,” you say, a finger at Namjoon’s chest, directing him towards the bed. “I’ve been dying to suck your cock, Joon,” you whisper in his ear as he makes his way backwards. “Will you let me?”

 Namjoon nods in a daze as he sits on the edge of the bed and watches as you kneel. Your eyes are full of hope, full of lust. It makes his cock harden further.

 “Please do,” he breathes. “I’ve wondered what you’d look like with your mouth full of my dick.”

 You smile as you tug at his flannel pajama pants, pulling them down thick thighs and calves until they’re completely off. Your mouth waters at the sight before you. Namjoon’s cock is thick, head weeping with pre-cum and straining hard against his taut chest. He’s been working out more, you can tell. His arms are full and strong, and his chest is so firm and defined. 

 He’s an entire three-course meal.

 Before you move closer to his cock, Namjoon stops you.

 “Take your shirt off.”

 You comply easily, already settling well into an obedient role. He discards the shirt to the side and marvels at your breasts. He can’t wait to mark them up, suck them until you’re crying.

 “Perfect,” he sighs. “You’re fucking perfect.”

 He allows you to resume your work, eyeing the length of his cock before wrapping a hand around it and gently pumping.

 “Shit,” he breathes as his head falls back. “I’ve dreamt about how it’d feel having my cock in your hands.”

 “What else have you dreamed about?” You ask with a teasing smile, bringing your lips to the tip to paint tiny stripes. He tastes salty, somewhat earthy, and the pre-cum that’s gathered at the top gets swept up by your tongue. 

 Namjoon can’t believe how lucky he is. Can’t believe how incredible it feels to have you here, licking at his cock like a lollipop. He’s enchanted by the way your delicate tongue swirls around his head, testing and teasing.

 “You look so good, princess,” he whispers as he tucks stray hair behind your ears. 

 You’re encouraged by his sweet-talk and soon descend to take his cock fully in as far as you can go. You’re definitely out of practice, but you steel yourself up to take him completely to the back of your throat. Namjoon’s desperate moans and cursing only encourages you further.

 Soon enough, you’ve started a rhythm of bobbing your head and swirling your tongue and pumping your hand down his thick length. The noises leaving your mouth are sinful—slurping and sucking and whining around him. Namjoon’s got a hand on the back of your head, holding your hair in a makeshift ponytail and coaxing your bouncing head further down his cock.

 “Oh, shit, baby,” he grits through a tight jaw. “I’m gonna cum baby girl, fuuuuckkk—oh god, yes baby, just like that.”

 You slurp and swallow around his cock as much as you can, head bobbing at a frantic pace while you cast your eyes upwards to the man to watch him come apart. He meets your eye contact and loses it at the fire burning in your beautiful eyes.

 “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he gasps as his cock pulses. “Cumming, baby—ohhhh, shit, take it all, baby.”

 After slowing your pace completely, you sweetly moan around his length as his salty cum splatters on your tongue. Bringing Namjoon to climax with your mouth is already one of your favorite hobbies, and you’re desperate to do it again.

 When he’s completely spent in your mouth, you pop off carefully and present your tongue to your boyfriend, who smiles.

 “You gonna swallow my cum, baby girl?” He asks, cupping your cheek sweetly.

 You nod in reply, and he groans as he watches you close your mouth and visibly swallow his load.

 “Fuck, that was so hot. Fucking kiss me already,” he demands, pulling you up gently by the hand and pressing his mouth to yours. He doesn’t care if he can taste himself still lingering in your mouth. In fact, he thinks your mouth should always taste like him.

 Namjoon holds you close as he kisses you, tongue diving around and seeking purchase in your mouth. His hands are roaming your body, cupping your breasts and caressing your curves. He can’t get enough. He doesn’t think there will come a time in his life when he won’t love touching you.

 His hand smoothes over the satin of your panties and he smirks into the kiss as he feels how wet they are.

 “Oh my,” he tuts as he rubs at your clothed slit. “All this from sucking my cock, princess?”

 It’s too late to be ashamed of it. You simply nod and whimper as his thick fingers rub at your core. You’re dying to feel those fingers inside you, scissoring you open to prepare you for his massive cock.

 “P-please,” you gasp, needing more of him. “Please, Joon.”

 He lets out a breath of contentment, loving the way his name sounds in your breathy moans. In one quick swoop, he flings your panties off and onto the floor and slides down to his knees where you knelt moments before.

 “I want to see this pretty pussy up close,” he murmurs as he lays you out at the edge and spreads open your thighs as wide as he can. 

 You’re gorgeous, absolutely mouth-watering. He licks his lips as he watches your folds drip with arousal and takes a delicate finger to trace the slit gently.

 “Fuck,” you gasp as he swirls his finger around your sensitive clit. It’s been so long since someone else has made you orgasm, you’re sure you won’t last a second with the man of your sexual dreams face-first in your cunt.

 “This is my pussy now,” he states as he leans in close and licks a fat stripe from your hole to your clit. “I’m going to make you cum every fucking night, baby. Gonna claim this cunt as my own.”

 You’re trembling from his words and his actions as he soon buries his face into your pussy and eats as if he’s a man starved. His tongue swirls around your hole before swiping up to your clit, making your back arch and keen off the bed. His lips wrap around your throbbing clit and sucks gently, lewd noises echoing off the walls of the bedroom.

 “Namjoon!” You squeal as he slides two of his fingers inside you and slowly pumps. They’re thick and perfect, and they’re better than you could have ever dreamed.

 “Cum for me, baby,” he coaxes as he licks at your clit. “I know you want to.”

 He’s right. You’re desperate for it and the string inside your belly that tightens with each thrust of his solid fingers has it nearing a snapping point.

 Namjoon speeds up, adds a third finger and fucks into you like a man on a mission. He watches your face pinch in agonized delight and is hypnotized by the way your tits bounce with each thrust up. His cock is rock solid again, aching to bury itself deep inside your womb and coat you with his cum.

 “That’s it, baby girl,” he breathes as he watches your body quiver. “Cum on my fingers, let daddy see you fall apart.”

 He presses his lips to your clit one last time and sucks, and it sends you reeling over the edge into bliss. Namjoon moans as he feels your cunt convulse and squeeze his fingers as if they’re his cock, and he nearly whines at how good it’s going to feel when he’s balls deep inside of you.

 “Fuck!” You cry as your back lifts off the bed and your legs shake. “Oh, my god!”

 Namjoon kitten licks at your pussy as you come down, cleaning up the juices that coat his fingers. He doesn’t break eye contact with you as he does it, sucking up your essence like it’s an expensive wine he won’t waste a drop of.

 “You’re so fucking sexy,” he says as you try to catch your breath. “I can’t wait to fuck you in my office.”

 The smile on your face turns lustful as you spread your legs open once again and present yourself to him.

 “Why don’t we practice right now?”

 Namjoon grips the base of his cock and gives himself a few pumps as he stares at your gorgeous body—laid out and ready for him.

 “Merry Christmas to me,” he murmurs as he presses a kiss to your lips and lines himself up.

 In one swift motion, he slips inside your juicy channel and buries himself to the hilt. You’re so wet and warm and tight that Namjoon falters and groans out loud.

 “Holy shit,” he cries. “Sweetest fucking pussy I’ve ever felt in my life.”

 Namjoon filling you up to the brim is something you’ve only ever dreamt of, and now that it’s happening you feel intoxicated. He’s so thick inside you, stretching you past what you thought you could handle, and the burn is so sweet.

 “Fuck me, Joon,” you beg as he continues to still inside you. “Please, fuck me, daddy.”

 It’s the magic word for Namjoon and instantly he’s snapped back to feral, ready to claim you as his own. He grips your hips tightly as he pumps in and out of you, delighted by the squelching juicy sounds of your cunt as he takes you.

 “That’s right, baby girl, I’m your fucking daddy,” he grunts. “Take this fat cock for daddy.”

 Your legs quiver with each thrust and Namjoon sucks a nipple into his mouth, nibbling gently on the bud which makes your body thrum with electricity. He’s marking you, claiming you inside and out, you realize. You whine and keen for him to continue, and Namjoon growls as he doubles his pace. 

 He thrusts into you without abandon, desperately seeking his release that will have him spilling his cum anywhere he possibly can.

 “Mmm, look at my pretty princess,” he groans as he stares at your blissed-out face. “Taking daddy’s cock so good, being a perfect little slut.”

 His words make your eyes roll back into your head. You’d never had someone speak so nasty to you while being so kind and praise-worthy that you don’t think you can now ever live without it.

 “G-gonna cum, daddy!” you cry as you feel your body nearing the edge. “Please let me cum!”

 Namjoon gasps for air and drops a thumb to your clit to rub circles on the sensitive bundle.

 “Yes, baby girl, cum for daddy. Cum on my cock, princess.”

 Namjoon’s unrelenting pace and thumb handily stroking your clit brings you to the end, sending you screaming into orgasmic delight.

 Namjoon nearly weeps at how good your cunt feels convulsing around his cock, walls coaxing him and gripping him tight as if your pussy is begging for his own release. 

 “Cum inside me daddy, please,” you beg as you try to catch your breath. 

 Namjoon needs no more permission. He gasps as your channel tightens around him impossibly and sends him into his own release. He whimpers as his cock pulses with ferocity, loads of cum splattering your walls.

 He doesn’t pull out. Instead, he rests his sweaty forehead on yours as you both try to catch your breath.

 “Holy shit,” you gasp as you feel yourself returning to Earth.

 Namjoon laughs and presses a kiss to your lips, before nodding.

 “Yeah,” is all he can manage.

 After a few shuddering breaths, you wrap your arms around your boyfriend’s naked body and hold him close, as close as you can.

 “If this is what Christmas is all about, sign me up.”

 Namjoon buries his face into your neck and kisses you sweetly, before lifting and giving you a playful smile.

 “I guess all Scrooge needed was a good fuck. Dickens got that part all wrong.”

Returning to work after the New Year was easier this year than it had ever been in your career.

 Namjoon was given the promotion. He told Seokjin he wanted to keep his corner office near you because he “likes the view”, and that he would give all his top cases to the best lawyer in the office—you.

 Jimin won’t stop screaming when he sees the diamond ring on your finger. You haven’t wanted to take it off since the moment you put it on. Maybe it’s not an engagement ring quite yet, maybe it’s just more of a promise. Either way, Jimin is ecstatic and confused as he shakes you down for answers.

 He walks with you to your desk, chattering away about his week with Yoongi, while you sip your convenience store coffee.

 “What the fuck?” Jimin asks as he notices something on your desk. “What is that?”

 As you round the corner, your eyes catch sight of a gleaming silver contraption on your desk, right next to your brand new computer.

 A Nespresso.

 A smile crosses your lips as you approach the expensive machine and notice a folded up card on top.

 Inside, the card is simple.

 “To the only girl in the world who deserves a Nespresso. Love, Namjoon.”

taglist - @ardoren​ @devilion14​ @bykookie​ @rageyoudamnednerd​ @holynamtiddies​ @thejooncrew​ @dee-ehn​ @yrc1963 @fireheart2003​

[sona-btxt]

the happiest and best moments from this week’s episodes (ep. 13, 14) of extraordinary attorney woo (because i need to focus on the positive; if i focus on the negative i might go insane before ep. 15 comes out):

junho’s face immediately brightening at the sight of youngwoo but then remembering he’s supposed to be upset with her

the seatbelt scene on the airplane: “planes are the safest method of transportation.” “even if they’re the safest you still have to put on your seatbelt.”

the iconic “woo to the young to the woo” + “dong to the geu to the rami” that we haven’t heard in a LONG time

jung myeong seok’s travel fit at the airport

jung myeong seok hanging out with dong geurami and mr. hairy

youngwoo quizzing junho on dolphins before their flight

the temple scene between junho and youngwoo: “how many left?” “155.” [...] “now that’s 154.” “no, you still have 155. you started later.” “why are you keeping track?”

(while i hate to admit it) “are you the saint of blackpink” line

junho immediately smiling (and showing us how utterly WHIPPED he is) when he sees youngwoo in her dolphin-watching gear (honestly i was whipped too she’s just SO CUTE LOOK AT HER)

“i can’t sleep the clock is too loud” “get up, we’re killing the clock”

youngwoo being unbothered when minwoo increased the volume on the tae sumi news

geurami (without even knowing it) diverting and going “it’s time to watch spongebob”, right after snatching the remote from minwoo

honestly every single scene with geurami (gods i love her so freaking much)

the cute illustration at the end of ep 13

youngwoo’s pink outfit from when they were at the nursing home (she looked so freaking cute)

the different combinations of button-ups + matching shirts that junho wears (he looks so good in them though)

junho and suyeon immediately defending youngwoo and ready to attack kwon minwoo for whatever ableist shit that was about to come out of his mouth when they were out drinking

geurami and mr. hairy at karaoke

“who would you bring to a deserted island, geurami or the angel? WHO???” whilst being dragged off by a awkward-laughing mr. hairy

youngwoo telling myeong seok that he was so cool and amazing and that everything was worth it

and lastly (and most importantly, because i would die for park eun bin due to how much i love her):

park eun bin singing an ost for the show (she’s so good how is she so talented)

[whimsicalworldofme]

Saving Grace: Chapter Twenty-Three

Things go from bad to worse when Grace gets the call that Steve is in the hospital following the shooting at his apartment.

(I'm bad at summaries, what can I say. It's Winter Soldier stuff)

“What do you mean I can’t go in there?”

Nat was snarling at the poor receptionist in the emergency room when Grace finally got there. Like the rest of the country, she had watched, glued to the tv as the news showed S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers lift off over D.C., weapons clearly powered up and ready to launch an assault, though on whom it wasn’t clear. And then she’d watched in horror, like everyone else, as they came crashing down over the city and river. She didn’t have any clarity, any way of knowing where in all that mess Steve might be, but she knew, deep down in her gut that he was there, somewhere. He had said something was wrong at S.H.I.E.L.D., that something felt off. No one could have predicted this level of catastrophe though. Tony watched with her, at a total loss for what to do, completely stunned.

“I’m sure Capsicle wasn’t on that helicarrier,” he tried to reassure her, wrapping an arm around her as she stood in front of the tv, hand over her mouth, practically hyperventilating. “It’s going to be ok,” he insisted, though he didn’t even sound convinced. “I’m going to call Bruce and Legolas, see if they have any idea what’s going on and what we can do.” He pressed a kiss to Grace’s temple and disappeared to figure things out.

Grace had remained glued to the news for what felt like hours when a call rang through on her cell phone from a D.C. number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?” She answered, frantically hoping it was Steve, borrowing a phone to let her know he was ok.

“Is this Grace Turner?” A woman’s voice on the other end asked.

“Yes. Who is this?” She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“My name is April Bridges, I’m a nurse at Georgetown University Hospital,” the woman on the other line said and Grace felt like she might throw up. “We have a Steve Rogers here, unresponsive, and we have you as his emergency contact and power of attorney. Are you able to come to the hospital?”

“I can be there in an hour or two,” Grace stated, her heart thumping in her chest. “I’ll be there.” She hung up without another word, not that she would’ve heard anything else.

Her dad and Pepper let her take the private jet, something she normally refused to use for environmental concerns, but in this sort of emergency situation, she could make an exception. She made it to D.C. in record time, rented a car, and blazed a path to the hospital, speeding the whole way but being as careful as possible. Luckily no cops were nearby, too occupied with the cleanup from what had happened. Hurrying into the hospital and seeing Nat there, it sank in that Steve must really be in bad shape.

“You are not his emergency contact or his medical power of attorney, ma’am,” the nurse said again when Nat began tossing out threats. “You’ll have to wait out here.”

“Nat,” Grace made it to the desk and watched shock overtake the anger on the redhead’s face.

“Grace,” she blinked, trying to process her presence and the reason for it. “What are you doing here? Did they call you?”

“Are you Grace Turner?” The nurse at the desk asked and she nodded. “Do you have ID?”

“Yeah,” Grace reached into her purse and fished out her wallet, fumbling to get her drivers’ license out, but once she did and showed it to the nurse, recognition hit Nat.

“Are you Steve’s emergency contact?” She asked, brow furrowed, confusion still evident in her eyes. “I know you lived together, but that was two years ago.”

“I guess he never changed it,” Grace shrugged. “Can I go back and see him?” She turned her attention back to the nurse working at the desk.

“Yes,” the nurse nodded. “Sheila, can you take Dr. Turner back to Captain Rogers’ room? Three-oh-nine.”

“Of course,” another nurse in pink scrubs nodded and motioned for Grace to follow her. “Come with me, hon.”

“Grace,” Nat put a hand on her arm and Grace realized that she was terrified something was seriously wrong with her partner, her face subtly trembling as she fought back tears.

“I can only allow one person back at a time for right now,” Sheila told them and Grace watched Nat’s face fall. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll make sure you stay updated,” Grace told her. “Promise.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I know he’s ok,” Nat nodded.

With a nod, Grace slipped out of her grasp and followed Sheila through the magnetic locked doors into the heart of the emergency room. The beeping of heart monitors carried into the hallway from every room, doctor’s shuffled around from room to room, as did nurses, checking charts, ferrying medicine and various supplies. Sheila guided her to a room where Steve was lying in a hospital bed, all hooked up to an IV, a heart monitor and blood pressure cuff. He was in a medical gown, but she noted his original Captain America suit, the one from the Smithsonian, tattered, cut up the middle, bloodied, and sopping wet in one of the chairs beside the bed. It looked like he was sleeping, but his face was swollen, cut up and bruised, his blond hair wet.

“What happened?” Grace asked, going to Steve’s side and gently brushing back a bit of hair that had fallen over his eye.

“Well in medical terms, cranial trauma, swelling on the brain, several lacerations and contusions, fractures to facial bones, broken ribs, and a punctured lung. He’s breathing fine on his own, miraculously, and the doctors expect he’ll wake up soon, we just don’t know when. We’re only keeping him because he was unresponsive.”

“Ok,” Grace nodded. “That’s good. Breathing on his own is good. Once the swelling goes down in his brain, he should wake up.” They had been there before, with him getting beat up beyond belief. He typically healed far more rapidly than the average man. “Thank you,” she flashed a weak smile at the nurse who nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Pulling in a deep breath, Grace sat down on the edge of the bed, adjusting the scratchy hospital blankets to cover him better. The hospital was frigid and he had a thing about being cold since coming out of the ice. She wanted to make sure he was comfortable when he came to.

“Hey Steve,” she said quietly, brushing his hair back again with one hand, the other holding his. “I’m here, so you have to wake up soon, ok? It’s freaking me out that you’re even in the hospital because you’ve been through injuries just like this without going unconscious and you recovered at home. Even Nat’s freaking out. She’s out in the waiting room, furious that she can’t be back here.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “She’ll probably tell you that you look like hell when she sees your face all swollen.” She chuckled slightly.

“Feel like hell,” he mumbled, not opening his eyes. Everything was so swollen she didn’t know if he could.

“Hey,” Grace felt her heart leap and she leaned forward, wishing she could hold him without inflicting pain. “You’re awake.”

“Been awake,” he said weakly. “Too tired and hurt to talk. Meds aren’t doing anything.”

“Ok,” she nodded, though she knew he couldn’t see. “Do you want me to get you out of here? Get you home? Is it even safe?”

“Should be,” he said. “Someone else should have this room.”

She understood what he meant. Unless he needed emergency surgery, a blood transfusion, or was actively and immediately dying, there wasn’t anything the hospital could do for him other than set bones and stitch wounds. There were plenty of other people there in the waiting room who could benefit from being able to get back there, to be seen by the doctors.

“I’ll see if we can get you discharged.”

She leaned forward and gently pressed a kiss to his forehead, the one part of his face that wasn’t all puffed up, cut, or bruised. Poking her head into the hallway, she asked a nurse to grab the doctor, who ran through all the same things the nurse had, refusing to let Grace get a word in edgewise to tell him that she already knew all that. When Steve spoke up to say that he was awake, the doctor signed the release paperwork, Grace gathered up the ruined Captain America suit and a nurse helped to push Steve in a wheelchair out to the waiting room. They let him keep the medical gown, since they’d had to cut him out of his suit when he came in and it wasn’t wearable anymore.

“You look like shit, Rogers,” Nat quipped with a fond smile, popping to her feet when they got out to her. Steve tipped his head back slightly and attempted to laugh but it sounded more like a sputter. “Is he going to be ok?” She asked, looking to Grace. “I’ve never seen him get that beat up before.”

“Thanks,” Steve grunted.

“Yeah, he’ll be all right,” Grace nodded. “Nat, why don’t you stay here and I’ll bring the car around.”

“I can walk,” Steve said and tried to get up but both women each put a hand on one of his shoulders and pushed him back down. “Or not.”

It didn’t take long to get back to the apartment and because Grace didn’t drive whenever she visited D.C., she had to rely heavily on the GPS. Nat had given her the apartment address, not realizing just how well she knew it and Grace didn’t bother letting her know the truth.

“Do you have your key?” Nat asked Steve as he leaned against her, arm slung over her shoulders. He shook his head. “Ok, I can get us in, but it might take me a minute to pick the lock. Or I can break it down, though your landlord probably won’t like that option.”

Steve cast a sidelong glance at Grace, and even in his battered state the meaning was clear. Better to just come clean, even though she had really wanted to tell her dad first.

“I have mine,” she sighed and pulled it out of her purse, unlocking the door and opening it to let Nat in first.

The look on Nat’s face made Grace want to crawl into a hole. The judgement, the confusion, and the disappointment, it was a lot to handle, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She shut the door and locked the deadbolt hanging her purse on the rack by the door before trailing after them.

“You want me to drop you in your room or on the couch?” Nat asked.

“Room,” Steve said.

He shuffled through the house with his partner’s help and Grace followed slowly behind. She flipped the light switch and as Nat helped ease Steve to a seat on the bed, Grace went to the dresser and pulled out some clean pajamas for him, which earned her another look from the redhead.

“You want something to ice your face?” Grace asked, handing him the clothes and he nodded. “We’ll let you put these on then come back,” she said, nodding for Nat to follow her out of the room.

She shut the door behind them so Steve could change out of the hospital gown and made her way to the kitchen, feeling Nat’s eyes on her with every step she took.

“So, you being Rogers’ emergency contact wasn’t an oversight after all, was it?” Nat asked as Grace fished a clean dish towel out of the drawer then went to the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen peas, wrapping the towel around it. “You have a key, you know where everything is, if I looked in his dresser, I bet I’d probably find a drawer of your stuff. And a toothbrush for you somewhere in his bathroom. In a drawer so no one asks questions if they come over and see it.”

“Right hand drawer under the sink,” Grace shrugged.

“How long?” Nat asked, leaning against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Almost two years now,” she sighed. “I don’t really want to get into it right now.” She pulled in a deep breath. “It’s been a very long and horrible couple of days. I’m sorry we kept you in the dark, but we can discuss it later.”

“I’m more surprised than mad,” Nat softened, her eyes falling to the ground and she shrugged, letting out a little laugh even. “It makes sense though, you’re good together. Always have been. I’m mostly just impressed the two of you managed to keep it secret from me for so long.”

Grace couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Nat continued, laying a hand on Grace’s arm. “I’m going to head out. There’s a lot to sort through after today. Just make sure you or Rogers text me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Grace felt awkward about the whole situation but let her go.

Heading back to the bedroom, she knocked on the door, bag of peas in her free hand.

“Just me,” she said as she stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

Steve was lying on his side of the bed, propped up by pillows against the headboard. He’d managed to pull off the hospital gown but hadn’t put on his pajamas, lying there in nothing but his boxer briefs. Terrible green, blue and purple bruises covered huge swathes of chest, abdomen, and sides and Grace felt the wind get knocked out of her at the sight of them.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he mumbled, despite the fact that he had his eyes shut and couldn’t see her staring in horror.

“You lie with a lot of confidence,” Grace stated, shaking out of her stupor. She headed over to the bed and sat down beside him, gently pressing the bag of peas to the more swollen side of his face. “I want you to tell me the truth though,” she watched him open the one eye not covered with peas and look at her. “Normal men can’t do this to you, so what were you up against? And is it still a threat?”

He shut his eye, his face falling as tears slipped down his cheeks.

“Steve,” Grace gently brushed her fingers through his hair, trying to comfort him. “Please tell me what’s going on?”

“It was Bucky,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

A chill ran down her spine. “Bucky?”

“He’s been alive this whole time, Grace,” his chest heaved with heavy ragged breaths as he fought not to outright bawl. “Hydra must have found him when he….when he fell,” he shook his head. “Gave him their own super soldier serum and brainwashed him. He didn’t even recognize me, didn’t recognize his own name. I kept trying to break through, told him who he was. He nearly killed me, said it was his mission. He would’ve done it too,” he scrunched his eyes tighter shut. “We were in the helicarrier that went into the river. I guess something must have gotten through to him because he fished me out of the water, dragged me to shore, and left me there.”

Grace took his hand in both of hers, wishing she could hold him, wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but with all the bruises, she had a feeling that would bring him worse physical pain and she didn’t want to add to the emotional torment. He pulled the bag of peas off his face and tossed it aside. His serum-enhanced body worked it’s science-y magic and his face had gone entirely back to normal in just the few minutes of icing, not a hint of swelling though there were still some cuts.

“I don’t think he’s going to try to kill me anymore. Hydra’s on the run and at least part of the programming in his brain broke. I don’t think they’ll get their hands on him again, but I don’t know.” He paused. “I don’t even know where he went,” he said, his voice cracking.

Steve sounded so utterly heartbroken, Grace couldn’t stand to simply hold his hand while he suffered. Carefully, she laid down beside him.

“Come here,” she instructed, pulling him to her. He rolled over gingerly and wrapped his arms around her, resting his head on her chest. She combed her fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp as he cried. She could only imagine the agony he must be feeling, how gutting it must have been to see the childhood friend he thought he’d seen die, have to fight him to defend his own life, to be hit with the fact that Bucky had likely been experimented on, tortured, brainwashed, and forced to do who knew what else. Nothing in her training or experience as a psychologist could have prepared her for a situation like that and words seemed pointless, so she simply held him, letting him cry until he fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Masterlist

Chapter Twenty-Four

[cherryyharryy]

i have an idea for a request (it’s totally ok if you don’t want to do it) like an angst-> fluff where one of harry’s songs accidentally gets leaked bc of y/n like she has something on a flash drive and the song is on another and they get mixed up and obviously he’s really mad at y/n and they have a fight he’s super snappy with her but something happens to her like she gets into a really big accidental or something and he forgives her bc he cares about her more tha the leaked song

WC: 2.7k

***

Damage control wasn’t even an option. 

Y/n sat there, staring at Harry’s laptop, numb to everything except the blaring desire to go back in time just two minutes. Two minutes is all she would need to undo possibly the biggest screwup of her life.

And the worst part is that this mistake ultimately doesn’t affect her. At least not in comparison to how it will affect Harry. And his band. And his team. Basically everyone involved with his career. 

Her mind is equally begging for her to shut down and come up with a plan—an excuse—something, Is there anyway this wasn’t my fault?  

She checks the time, her heart sinking to her stomach when she realizes Harry and his team will be back any minute. Any minute and she’s done for.

They’ve only been together for five months, officially. She’s still new to most everyone. She’s that girl Harry’s dating.

“I told you he played in that movie.” Jeff’s voice echoes outside the studio. Y/n closes the laptop and prays for strength. 

“I have him confused with someone else.” Harry bustles through the door, a small crowd of people filing in behind him, back to the spots they left an hour ago. “Hey darling,” he greets, “finish your paper?”

Y/n’s frozen, morbidly wishing he had found out about his song leaking on his own so she wouldn’t have to tell him. “Uh, almost.”

He kisses the top of her head and hands her a cup of frozen yogurt. “Your favorite.” 

“Thanks.” She sets it on the table she’s sat at while Harry pulls up a chair beside her. “Aren’t you guys still working?”

He waves in the direction of his band, “Mitch’s gotta fix his guitar.” He snickers, and slides his laptop out from under y/n’s hands. “Had a bit of an accident in the car.” 

Y/n’s head tingles with what must be nerve damage, her place in this world, her place in this room, decreasing in value as Harry opens his computer.

“It’s gonna melt.” He nods to her yogurt.

“I’m not hungry.”

He furrows his brow. “You alright?”

“Mhm.” She looks around the room, everyone busy getting back to work, light chatter passing among them. “Uh, actually, I uh, I have to tell you something.” Y/n tries to swallow the lump in her throat with no luck.

“Okay…” He shuts the laptop and gives her his full attention.

“Okay, um—”

“What the fuck!?” The room freezes as everyone turns toward Jeff. “Harry someone’s got a hold of your song!” 

Harry scrambles to his manager, complete shock on his face as they both stare down at Jeff’s phone. “Fuck.” They start to play a video, the sound of a girl screaming, with Harry’s unconsented voice playing in the background, fills the room. “How the hell did this happen?” He’s gritting through his teeth, neck red, veins bulging in his hands as he rips the phone out of Jeff’s hand. “HOW? Someone answer me!”

Y/N considers keeping quiet. Playing innocent. What good will it do to confess anyway? It’s not like it’ll undo what she’s done.

Sarah chimes in from across the room, “It looks like it happened half an hour ago. That’s when this video I’m looking at was posted.”

Y/n’s staring down at her lap, holding her head up with her fingers pressed into her temples when Harry slings himself back into the chair next to her.

“All that work, all that fucking work,” he nearly growls, “for some cunt to spread my unfinished song around for a buck.”

Y/n peers up to the room, a completely different picture compared to five minutes ago. Now there’s talk of lawyers and pressing charges while everyone shuffles around. Jeff slams the door as he steps out with his phone to his ear, and y/n knows she can’t claim denial, it’ll only make things worse.

“Uh, Harry?”

“What is it?” He doesn’t look at her, eyes glaring at his phone while another video plays of a group of people reacting to his song. “Glad they fucking like it.”

“Harry?”

“What, y/n?”

She shrinks under his gaze, mouth dry as she forces her confession out. “I uh, this is all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll do anything—I know I can’t fix it—but...”

Harry’s tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, his eyes narrowing in on her as a morbid silence forms a little bubble around them. “Go on,” he whispers with grit, “finish what you were gonna say.”

She stutters, desperately trying to figure him out. “I’m just sorry. It was an accident.”

“An accident? How did you even manage to do this?”

“I—”

“Do you have any idea what this accident means, y/n?”

She reluctantly shakes her head no.

“How the fuck did you do this?”

“I—I don’t know...I was taking a break from my paper, and, I don’t know Harry.” She’s in tears now, warm and salty as they spill down her cheeks. Her mouth wobbles around another apology, but no sounds make it out.

“Fix it.”

“What?”

He stands up, yanking his laptop off the table, pausing to glare at her one last time. “I said, to fix it.” With that he storms across the room, slinging the door open just as Jeff reenters.

“Harry, your attorney—”

“Forget it.” He turns around and points his phone towards y/n silently sobbing in the corner. “She’s gonna handle it.” He takes one step out into the hall and stops, spinning on his heels to face the studio. “Don’t speak to me until you do.”

Mitch’s guitar that was fixed and propped against the wall, crashes to the floor when Harry slams the door. 

Chatter passes around the room one more time, only now everyone seems to be in agreeance—that girl never should have been allowed in the studio, and maybe, Harry should break up with her.

***

Early morning rain fell outside Harry’s apartment. It was still dark, street lamps burning through the fog in the city below. His home fills with coffee as he pours his fifth cup; the prior four never offering more than a few sips before he had abandoned them somewhere, the counter, mantle, bookshelf, because he can’t talk without his hands.

Y/n sits on his couch. It’s velvet and pink and too big for one person. She hated it the first time he invited her over. If he breaks up with her, she’s going to tell him how ugly it is.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do.” She’s exhausted. She hadn’t hesitated to drive over when he finally responded to one of her hundreds of texts in the week since the mishap. But now she regrets it. They’ve been going in circles with the same argument for the past four hours. She’s convinced he invited her over just to be mean. She sighs, rubbing her temples. “I said I was sorry. You know that I’m sorry. And you know that I never, ever in a million years, would have done something like this on purpose.”

“I’m allowed to be angry with you. I have every right to be.”

“Do you, though?” She straightens up on his ugly couch and looks at him leaning against the doorframe that leads into the kitchen. “Aren’t you a little tired of hating me? God Harry, everyone else in the whole world has moved on except you.”

“It’s not everyone else’s song, is it? It’s not everyone else’s months and months of hard work. It’s not everyone else’s unfinished art? Nobody else is having to deal with a girlfriend that is so careless, so thoughtless, that she actually managed to leak my song!”

“Stop raising your voice at me!”

“You had no business snooping around my computer anyway! I told you you could work on your fucking paper, not to go prying around my personal shit!”

“You know what,” she scoffs, shooting up off the couch, “this argument is so pointless. You didn’t want me here so we could talk. You just wanted to torture me because you’re mad that people don’t love your stupid song.”

“What the fuck did you say?”

She brushes his shoulder as she passes by him, and a drip of his coffee spills onto his hand. He curses, and follows her into the kitchen where he lays his final cup down on the island.

“You’re being a baby because people aren’t fawning over you like they usually do.” She shrugs and slings her bag over her shoulder. “It’s not your best song, Harry.”

The veins in his neck strain against his flaming skin. His cheeks are sucked in, and if he bites down on the skin any harder he’ll puncture his face. “Get the fuck out.”

“I was already leaving, dumb ass.” She strides by him once more, practically feeling the heat steaming off his body. When she gets to the front door, she pauses with her hand on the knob. “Your couch is hideous, by the way. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you have to buy shitty looking stuff.”

When she slams the door behind her, the apartment shakes, and cold coffee spills from each cup.

***

It’s nearing five a.m. when y/n backs out of the complex. Her wipers race across the windshield, but do nothing against the downpour wreaking havoc in the city. She does her best to stay on what she assumes is her side of the road, swerving to the right each time headlights blind her.

“Shit.” Nothing is open, and she can’t even see where it would be safe to pull over to let the rain pass. But her home isn’t that far, and traffic isn’t too bad. 

She comes to a stop at a red light, only to realize she missed a left turn she should’ve made a minute ago. “Damn it. Fucking hell.”

As soon as the light turns green, she spins the wheel to make a U-turn, and if it hadn’t been for the rain, and her own clouded mind, and Harry’s voice echoing in her ears, she might have seen the truck who didn’t even try to avoid her.

***

It’s the headache from hell that wakes her up. And it’s the sterile smell of hospital that jogs her memory. And it’s a nurse not much older than y/n that says something about you’re lucky to be alive. 

She’s poked and prodded and asked a thousand questions before her IV is adjusted and a pill to ease one of the many pains scratching her body is handed to her in a small plastic cup. A police officer repeats half of this process, and somewhere in the mess of her reality, she learns that the other driver was sending a text to his wife when he plowed into her car. He’s at home and she’s here. Lucky to be alive.

She made calls to her mom and friends, and even managed to type out a decent email to her professors for her upcoming absence in class.

When she automatically pulled up Harry’s name on her phone, the last text he sent, the one inviting her over so he could make her more miserable than she already was, sat there in all its taunting glory.

What is she even supposed to say? Hey, I know you hate my existence right now, but I’m lying here in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around my head. It’d be cool if you stopped by.

It’s not long before the sun pops up and reminds y/n of just how early it is. The clouds part, and it’s like it had never even rained, like it had never even been dark for hours, and if she closes her eyes, y/n can pretend that the past week hadn’t even happened.

***

 “How are you feeling today?” The nurse checks y/n’s IV, humming after her question.

“Just sore. Ready to get out of here.”

“We’ve started the paperwork, so shouldn’t be too long. Who’s coming to get you?”

Y/n blinks, feeling stupid she hadn’t thought this far ahead. She doesn’t even have a car anymore. The nurse looks over the computer monitor, waiting for a response.

“Uh, my friend.”

“Awesome. Dr. Kirby has to come check on you one last time before you leave. I’ll go see if he can stop by now, if you want to let your friend know.”

As soon as the nurse is out the door, y/n scrambles to turn her phone back on, and once it is, her lock screen is filled with missed calls and unanswered texts.

She’ll respond later; gives her something to do in the car to occupy her in front of Harry. 

She can’t call him. Harry’s not a monster, although the past week doesn’t exactly prove her case, but she knows he wouldn’t refuse to come get her. If anything, he’ll be annoyed she didn’t tell him about the accident sooner. But she’s too emotional to deal with hearing his voice.

She types out a text recounting her last 24 hours, along with the name of the hospital. He immediately reads it, and a moment later he’s trying to call.

To: Harry

I’m too tired to talk rn

She lies. And it works.

From: Harry

I’ll be there as fast as i can

***

“Baby?”

Y/n cracks her eyes open, irritated she never quite fell asleep. Confused as to why Harry’s calling her baby. Angry that she cares. And the next words out of his mouth are ones she’d been predicting.

“Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve dropped everything. You’ve been here all alone, shit. Are you okay? What hurts?”

He’s hovering over her, fidgeting, unsure if he can touch her.

“I’m fine now. Just sore. And tired.”

“Fuck I can’t believe this, I—”

“The doctor already said I can go. I’m not allowed to walk out on my own, so, you need to let the nurse know you’re here. She’ll take me down in a wheelchair.”

“Baby I’m so sorry-”

“No, Harry. You would still be busy hating my guts right now—”

“Hate you? I don’t hate you?”

“Well you did a great job this week making me feel otherwise.”

Harry sighs, gripping the bed frame and dropping his chin to his chest. When he looks back up he has tears brimming his eyes. “I’m sorry,” his voice cracks. “I know I’ve been an ass this week. I—you were right. I took out my anger from no one lovin’ the song on you.”

“Well it’s not no one. A lot of people did. And it’s unfinished anyway. You wouldn’t enjoy a meal if it was only cooked halfway.”

He nods, but y/n knows he’s only accepting her words because of the situation.

“You mean so much more to me than a leaked song. I’m sorry I treated you like shit. And that I—I made you think I hated you. You have every right to hate me.”

“You annoy the hell out of me, but I don’t hate you.”

His lips twitch, but a few tears slide down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She takes his hand off the rail and smoothes her thumb across his knuckles. “You can make it up to me by getting me out of here.”

“I can do that.” He kisses the top of her head and hits the remote to call for the nurse.

“You can really kiss me, y’know. I’m not gonna break.”

He’s hesitant, but slowly lowers his head to press his lips to hers. He’s timid, and his lips are still damp from tears, but it’s more relieving than either of them would ever admit.

The nurse ends their moment when she pops in the room, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. “Hi, you must be y/n’s friend.”

“Friend?” He peers down at y/n, suggestion lacing the word. “Care to explain?”

“Not really, I’m so tired.”

“Mhm.” He clicks his tongue, supporting her arm as she swings her legs off the bed. Once she’s standing and steady, he tucks her hair behind her ear and bends down so his mouth can graze her lobe. “Since we’re just friends, I guess you’ll have to sleep on my ugly couch.”

[cdyssey]

Need

Summary: After Nick arrives at the beach house, Frankie escapes to her studio to process her emotions. Post 7x04.

A/N: I've had such Grace and Frankie brain rot these past few days that I figured I should put it to good use and write another fic. It was really fascinating to try Frankie's POV. Lily Tomlin imbues her with a lot of subtle pathos that I totally wish the show would explicitly explore more.

AO3 Link

—

Frankie excuses herself to the studio for dinner, so she can process her very big, astonishingly inappropriate, and entirely overwhelming emotions without resorting to calling Nick a “wavy-haired, Pierce Brosnan wannabe douche canoe.” 

As delightful (and totally true) of a turn a phrase that it is, even she knows that saying it aloud would be trespassing a boundary that she’s sworn herself never to cross: Grace is married.

Unhappily married, maybe. 

Complicatedly married at the very least.

But until the day that they mutually say “I do” to divorce papers, there isn’t enough room for three people in the Skolka marriage, however much that Grace—bless her increasingly unthawing heart—tries to ensure otherwise. 

So Frankie lets the newly reunited couple have their dinner alone under the guise of a generosity that she doesn’t exactly feel, and she takes leftover pasta into her studio to moodily pick around the bowl until her fettuccine looks less like fettuccine and more like unevenly perforated confetti.

(Woo fucking hoo.)

After a few minutes of this aggressively unconstructive practice, she places her nearly full bowl on a nearby work table and stretches out across her paint-stained couch, staring at the ceiling and resisting the reactionary urge to light a joint. Mary J might help her feel better for the present moment, but tomorrow morning, she’d still wake up and feel invaded in her own home.

Paradoxically, she’d also feel alone, goddammit.

She pulls her shawl more tightly around her shoulders against an invisible and piercing chill.

Frankie hates feeling lonely.

She spiraled when Grace lived in the penthouse. She nearly self-destructed to fill the gaping void that her roommate, her friend, her practical and beloved soulmate left behind. There was a period where she didn’t wash her clothes and ate a lot of admittedly non-vegan takeout. There were nights when she’d lay awake in her awfully huge bed, staring at the empty space where Sol used to sleep, and have the familiar waking nightmare of spending her final years in forced solitude. She was happy with Jack, and then Jacob—sweet Jacob—came around too, and she did something she still feels fucking ashamed about: she hurt both of them, and she lied when she said that she had just wanted to have some fun.

She knows herself.

Intimately.

She‘d been scared of being alone again, so she tried to hold on to two people who were helping her to stave the awful feeling away. Those men wanted her, and Frankie used them. They wanted her, and she pathologically loves to feel wanted because she sometimes and irrationally fears that she might not be needed.

To be fair to her irrational fears, all the people she’s ever needed and felt needed by have hurt her before.

Sol cheated on her for twenty years.

Her own sons stuck her in a nursing home.

Grace just fucking left her.

She eloped in Vegas like a blushing twenty-one year old bride and just disappeared.

She says it was a mistake; she sat across Frankie in a sunlit restaurant and candidly told her that she didn’t like the person she had become when she married Nick.

And to be completely fair to her, Grace has been adamant about not wanting to leave again—so perhaps she never will—but if her husband is here to stay, it's also a distinct possibility that she’ll never have to make the choice to physically leave to… well… leave.

She can perpetually honeymoon with Nick and still call Frankie home. 

It could be a happy ending for Grace… and a fresh new hell for Frankie, who'd just started to feel secure again.

God knows she wants her best friend to be happy, but the big man in the sky must also surely understand that she had hoped that she alone could be enough for Grace, that this unconventional life spent together in the beach house—so crazy, so weird, and so inextricably entangled—would be their shared happily ever after.

But even as she thinks it, the vestiges of her clearly misplaced optimism begin to evade her, dregs now at the bottom of an already drained cup.

She and Grace aren't married.

It’s always been an objective fact.

Tonight, it feels more like an unpleasant reality.

When the door leading into her studio suddenly flies open, Frankie barely has enough time to swipe the back of her hand across her eyes before she sits up to find none other than the lady of the hour.

Her collared shirt popped up stiffly around her neck, a martini glass surgically glued to her right hand, Grace looks quintessentially herself as she walks in, even down to the minutiae of her trademark I'm-angry-at-the-world-and-everyone-in-it expression—brow furrowed and eyes Medusa cold. After all but slamming the door, she stalks over within a few clicks of her practical but unmistakably high heels.

“Well, hello to you, too, Sunshine,” Frankie greets wryly, hoping to hell and back that her face isn’t as red as it feels. 

It’s a tall order, though.

Alas, she was gifted (or equally cursed) with an exceptionally expressive face.

“Frankie, this is nonsense,” Grace says bluntly, using her martini glass like a pointer and leveling it straight at her head. “Come back to the house—your house—and have dinner with us.”

It’s the authoritarian nature of the demand that rifles Frankie.

Frankly, it pisses her off.

She’s always been a rebel contrarian.

“And by us, you mean you and your house arrested husband, right?” She returns evenly. She betrays herself by raising a single and devastatingly skeptical brow. “The man with whom you should be having a very emotionally honest conversation with right now about the parameters of your jacked up relationship?”

Grace shifts her weight from heel to heel and glances away a little too quickly for the gesture to be entirely natural. Frankie had blatantly stricken a pulsing nerve, and the guilt of doing so immediately swallows her. 

She shouldn’t be so hard on her friend.

(She doesn’t know why it’s permissible to be equally hard on herself.)

“Well, I tried to have that conversation, thank you very much, but then I ended up wanting to claw Nick’s eyes out.” The obvious follow up question must shine in Frankie’s face because sighing infinitesimally through her nostrils, Grace adds, “His attorney argued that my advanced age and apparent capability to croak at any moment were reasons enough to grant Nick leniency. They let him out so he could take care of me—whatever the hell that means.”

Her no-nonsense voice never falters as she delivers the brutal words, but her eyes undermine her, seething with emotion, simply roiling. They tell a story of horror and disgust and searing, absolute betrayal; they’re heavy all over with sadness and the indelicate trappings of all her raw and mercilessly exposed fears. 

Frankie understands immediately.

Nick used one of Grace’s deepest insecurities as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Being eighty-two years old.

But perhaps more accurately, feeling like it.

“Oh, honey,” Frankie melts. She can do nothing else but melt, to be suddenly overcome with fierce, protective, and terrifying love for the woman in front of her. “That fucking bastard.”

Grace immediately laughs, the sound hoarse and watery and a little unhinged all at the exact same time.

“Tell me about it,” she half-smiles and takes the swearing as a rightful invitation to join Frankie on the couch. With a gentle clink, she sets her half-emptied martini glass on the table next to Frankie’s completely full pasta bowl. “I said the exact same thing.”

When she chooses to sit close enough that their shoulders are brushing, Frankie intuitively knows that this is petty defiance against Nick for daring to intrude upon them and the world they've so carefully created together.

She temples Grace’s nearest hand with her own in an attempt to silently communicate that this right here—whatever this is between them—is love.

“So, please”—Grace squeezes her hand back—“please don’t be angry with me… I… I didn’t want this. You know I didn’t want this. I don’t want him to even be here.”

Frankie stares openly at her best friend.

Wide-eyed and hopeful against her self-loathing, self-centered will, she searches her broken face like it's revelatory.

It's stunningly rare that Grace Hanson ever articulates her wants so clearly. Forty years of an emotionally repressive marriage did their number and toll on her. She pedestalized rigid decorum over every conscious desire. 

She played by the rules even if they hurt her.

And drank herself to oblivion on many a night to forget the very fact that she was hurt.

To deny herself the honesty she’d somehow convinced herself that she didn’t deserve.

“… you know this is your husband we’re talking about here, right?” It’s a rhetorical question. Frankie's pretty sure that they both fucking know that it’s insane that this conversation—that this entire situation as a whole—is happening. 

“I know,” Grace replies firmly. “Believe me, I'm well aware. But you’re… you’re my partner, Frankie, and if I can’t be upfront with you, then I don’t know who else I can turn to.”

The very word partner sends shivers down her spine, and the shivers collect like butterflies in her already churning belly.

It’s just a word, she tells herself. 

She scolds.

Grace doesn’t mean anything by it.

It's a label, and Grace doesn't do labels anymore.

“I... I wasn’t mad at you, Grace,” she finally admits. It's easier to do than questioning the extent to which her roommate would give up the world for her, but all the same, her voice is frighteningly weak, a pale imitation of everything Frankie usually projects herself to be: confident, cheerful, unshakeable, unshaken. Suddenly, it hits her that it’s been a very long time since she’s been so openly vulnerable, too. “I'm not even really all that mad at your jailbird husband either. I was just scared, and when I get scared, I skitter like a nervous little bug."

She shuts down.

She spirals.

She tries to put a smile on her face for the people who love her all the same.

And then she lies awake at night, drowning in the sheets of an empty bed.

Thinking about how she should probably tell someone that everything hurts.

But she’s Frankie, and she doesn’t do that.

Grace perpetually convinces herself that she doesn’t deserve honesty; Frankie has come to fear that no one wants her own.

“Were you scared of me?” Grace asks quietly, her grip so tight now that it almost stings.

“Frankie…” She presses when a few heartbeats of silence stagger by, limping painfully on all fours, pronouncing so many unspoken and profound hurts. 

“Of losing you, Grace,” she confesses, the words defeated and scraped raw. She forcefully tugs her hand away from Grace's just to temple her own hands together on her lap, to lick her sundry and shining wounds in a private corner. “I was scared of losing you, of being alone again in this big, empty house… and I don’t like being alone.”

She can’t bear to look at Grace as she says it, staring at the paint-flecked floor without ever really seeing it, her eyes burning.

She wishes they’d stop burning but feels the precise moment when they begin to leak anyway.

It’s all so embarrassing.

And childish.

Frankie is an eighty-year old woman, and she shouldn’t be upset over her best friend having a goddamn life.

She should be happy for her, fucking ecstatic.

And yet, she's—

But before she can complete the miserable thought, her body becomes aware of another sensation entirely—warm arms enveloping her from the side and inexorably pulling her in, turning the space that once existed between two bodies—between them—intangible, negligible.

Grace.

Shock turns into realization, and realization transforms into aching, sweeping relief.

It can only be Grace.

Grace’s soft lips pressed to her cheek.

Grace’s fingertips curling into the fabric of her dress.

Grace’s nose against her neck as she slides her sharp chin across her shoulder.

“I’m not leaving you, Frances Bergstein,” she declares. “Whatever happens between me and Nick, in the end, it’s going to be just you and me in this house that is our damn home. I swear that to you. I’d tell you every day just to prove it to you.”

Oh, these words.

These beautiful, tender, and long-needed-to-hear words.

They’re just words, she could tell herself again.

She could lie.

She could convince herself if she had to.

She could conveniently forget that Grace Hanson uses language carefully, that she employs every sentence with scalpel-like precision.

Or... more complicatedly still... Frankie could believe her.

Frankie could blindly accept these words for what they are, as manifest confirmation that she is loved by another—prioritized and cared for and needed.

She could be Grace’s partner and let that incredible word be electrically charged with so many complex and ridiculous and extraordinary ideas, none of which are traditional, and all of which feel true.

She could believe in her even if belief is not simple, even if belief is a product, first and foremost, of trust.

And Grace has certainly lost her trust before, but goddammit, she's earned it so many times, too.

“Oh, God,” Frankie laughs in such a way that it’s stupidly clear that she’s crying as Grace rubs slow circles into her back with her thumb. “This is all messed up. You’re the one with a house arrested, tax evading husband. I should be the one comforting you.”

“The house arrested, tax evading husband doesn’t particularly faze me,” Grace chuckles, her voice low. “Seeing you hurting and upset does. My priorities are remarkably straight.”

“I’m not sure you know the meaning of that word,” she smiles weakly as they slowly and clumsily begin to extricate themselves from their tangled embrace. 

It’s hard to find themselves again.

To be apart.

“But I do,” Grace protests, emphatic and indignant and maybe even a few shades righteously pissed. “You’re the person I wanna share this crazy life with at the end of the day and every day. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because every day is an incredibly long time to be with me,” Frankie offers meekly, giving her one more perfect and easily acceptable copout, a neatly packaged excuse. 

She can be too much.

She knows this.

“It’s just the right amount of time to be with you,” Grace murmurs, reaching up to brush an errant tear away from Frankie’s cheek, her thumb lingering, her quivering palm. “You’re kind enough to love me, and I’m lucky enough to be loved by you... so let me return the favor, Frankie. Let me be here for you."

And to Grace’s credit in this fleeting moment, she continues to hold Frankie.

It's a promise to never let her go.

[diyeoracha]

IwaOi Fanfiction Masterlist with 90+ Works

Hello! In celebration accumulating over 290 bookmarks on my AO3 account featuring IwaOi, Haikyuu S4 part 2, and @haikyuuweek2020​ (Day 7 - Free Choice), I decided to create a masterlist of all of my favorite Iwaoi fics in order to keep myself organized as well as contributing to more traffic for those works! Works are split up into genres such as alternate universe (either not childhood friends or set on Earth), angst, canon compliant (post timeskip with spoilers), canon divergent (childhood friends but divergent timeline post timeskip), high school, and university au

Formatting update: Jan 13, 2021 (spacing is wonky on the mobile app!).

Fic update: Jan 7, 2021

This is incomplete as I got distracted while re-reading a lot of these and have only gone through half of my bookmarks, but feel free to check my own page here for the rest of them! I really do hope you guys enjoy reading these and leave comments and kudos! Please reblog and like so more people can enjoy

Titles marked with (♡) are my absolute favorites and there’s a chance I cried while reading them but otherwise they’re in alphabetical order

Alternate Universe

an allegory of all the things we could’ve been

Word count: 16k

Summary: “I don’t know anything about some red string,” Iwaizumi murmurs into the cracks of Oikawa’s skin, “or even about lifetimes or fate. But no matter where you are, I’ll find you. Gods or otherwise.” Reincarnation AU

And All the Prince’s Men

Word count: 65k

Summary: “Father only loves that which he owns, and I am the one thing that can never truly be his.” Royalty AU

Built a Temple in Me

Word count: 55k

Summary: Up the mossy mountain steps, past the komainu guardians and the faded red gate, and beyond the boundaries of the green shrine—that’s where the forest and the spirit world within it lies. That’s were Hajime met him, and where their story began.But intertwining of destinies can be ugly business, Hajime finds, when their first meeting begins with blood and the too-human eyes of a beast. God Oikawa AU

Quote: It fills his heart anyway, heals the hole in his chest that had been bleeding since he cut Tooru so forcibly from him.

Cotton Breathing

Word count: 13k

Summary: Long-distance and summer only but childhood friends AU

Conquering the Great King

Word count: 105k

Summary: Oikawa's lips twitched into a smirk and he brought them hovering just over Iwaizumi's, "One time thing, Two time thing, what's it matter as long as it's not a Relationship thing?"

Quote: Oikawa's eyes twitched wide for less than a second, his knee pressed in hard against Iwaizumi's thigh, "I may be gorgeous, but I'm not a doll."

dear diary, i met a boy

Word count: 15k

Summary: Iwaizumi's first impression of his upstairs neighbor involves getting woken up at two in the morning to the sound of Oikawa singing along to trashy pop music. He'd thought it would get better, but it all just goes downhill from there. Modern AU

Desperado

Word count: 82k

Summary: Clearly Iwaizumi had a checkered past. Kyoutani has never asked about it, nor has Iwaizumi ever brought it up. He knows it’s a sore spot for his mentor, just like the gorgeous Monte Carlo he keeps hidden away is, so he leaves it alone. Out on the streets, you learn a little something about when to turn a blind eye in order to survive; Kyoutani knows better than most to leave the past of men like Iwaizumi well alone. Heist AU

Even Heroes (have the right to dream)

Word count: 20k

Summary: Oikawa Tooru, ace reporter of the superhero beat of Asahi Shimbun, hates superheroes. Or maybe he just hasn’t met the knight one yet. Superhero AU

♡Infinite Risks

Word count: 8k

Summary: “It’s my fate,” Oikawa responds slowly. He’s crying. “It’s too lonely,” Iwaizumi’s heart sounded broken. “And I’m not there with you. Not really.” Edge of Tomorrow AU

In Defense of Reptiles

Word count: 9k

Summary: In their seventh year, Oikawa is chosen to be the Hogwarts champion in the Triwizard Tournament, and Iwaizumi suffers. Harry Potter AU

Quote: “You are so spoiled,” Iwaizumi tells him, but lets him shuffle down until Iwaizumi’s hand is now running through Oikawa’s hair instead of rubbing his shoulder.

In the Telling

Word count: 6k

Summary: Muggleborn Iwaizumi could not be less impressed with pureblood Oikawa Tooru. Harry Potter AU

♡Lockdown

Word count: 72k

Summary: Within the first few months of his stay, Oikawa gets caught up in a war between cellblocks, becomes a prime target, and must decide just how far he's willing to go to protect Iwaizumi Hajime. Prison AU

♡long nights, no peace

Word count: 18k

Summary: It's the steady knowledge that Iwaizumi Hajime will always be someone that he can rely on, that no matter what the world throws at the two of them, they share in a piece of each other's soul. Pacific Rim AU

Quote: Quiet settles between them softly, like the warm pressure of the blanket, or Iwaizumi's fingers curling to lightly hold the fabric of Oikawa's shirt.

The Long Light

Word count: 36k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime's seventh year at Hogwarts begins, and begins, and begins, and begins. Somehow, Oikawa Tooru is always there. Harry Potter AU

Magic Man

Word count: 12k

Summary: Oikawa is named the most desirable wizard in France. Iwaizumi is not impressed. Harry Potter AU

Quote: You keep saying partner or them. Is it rude of me to ask you to clarify?

Meet me in the grey area

Word count: 24k

Summary: Set in a hero/villain AU with Iwa as our trusty hero and Oikawa as our charming villain

Saw You at the Fish Market

Word count: 14k

Summary: In other words, Oikawa befriends hot part-time worker Iwaizumi and tries to impress him both off and on the court, in hopes of more.

♡♡ (sing with me) A Song of Conquest and Fate

Word count: 26k

Summary: When Seijou receives a missive from Aobajousai to discuss a potential peace, its emperor Oikawa Tooru could not have foreseen the series of events that would follow. Historical fantasy AU

Similar Creatures

Word count: 53k

Summary: "What's your name?" "Whatever you want it to be."(Or, Oikawa gets directions from an attractive stranger on a street corner.). Escort AU

♡Something Like Us

Word count: 28k

Summary: Friends since childhood, Oikawa and Iwaizumi now live together, both playing for the National Team. It's no secret that athletes who are bonded perform better. So if the two of them happen to bond...It'd be for the good of the team, right? A/B/O AU

Space

Word count: 44k

Summary: Tries not to think of his rooftop garden, or the apartment he used to inhabit, or Hajime’s broken expression on the night they whispered their goodbyes before Tooru’s launch, attempting to push it all to the back of his mind behind visions of this alien world terraformed. Astronaut AU

Stop the Time

Word count: 10k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime, 27, E.R. nurse at University of Tokyo Hospital. Hospital AU

♡♡The Loyalty of A Traitor

Word count: 76k

Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime was an undercover officer with a single objective: Infiltrate the Seijoh Syndicate of the Yakuza and tear them down from the inside out. His primary target was the boss, Oikawa Tooru. The job itself was simple enough, until Iwaizumi got in too deep and absconded not only from the mission, but from the city itself. Yakuza AU

These Flowers I Stole For You

Word count: 3k

Summary: ANBU don't cry. They tear themselves apart, bit by bit, and then they stitch themselves whole again. Naruto AU

on shipwreck shore

Word count: 8k

Summary: “I’m going to murder you in cold blood and feed you to the basilisks,” Iwaizumi says conversationally. “You can’t do that, I’m your boss,” Oikawa sings, positively sparkling. “Also we’re partners, which means,” he points at Iwaizumi and leans in, “you’re stuck with me.” Detective AU

Page 305 of 304

Word count: 53k

Summary: “…she called you ‘papa’,” iwaizumi managed. oikawa just stared for a moment longer before relaxing in a smile. “yeah. cute, right? but you can call me ‘daddy’ if you want.”

Temporary fix

Word count: 12k

 Summary: “And you’ve shampooed his hair how many times now? Hmm. Yeah, that’s not technically a bromance.” A/B/O AU

Tokyo Boy

Word count: 16k

Summary: He has feelings for Iwaizumi Hajime, who probably has casual lovers just like him in every major city he visits on business. Oikawa is just his Tokyo Boy, just another pit-stop on Iwaizumi’s travels. Businessman AU

Trial by Fire

Word count: 78k

Summary: (lawyer!AU - in which Iwaizumi loves his objections, Oikawa is beautiful, and they have more chemistry than two opposing attorneys probably should.)

Watch Me

Word count: 32k

Summary: Oikawa's a cam model. It’s been a month since Iwaizumi first spoke in his chat. When they meet in person, things get complicated. Cam model AU

Angst

open when

Word count: 1k

Summary: Iwaizumi knew it was coming, but it still hurt. It still hurt when he opens one letter and drowns it in the tears he cannot keep at bay.

Chasing Paper Suns

Word count: 10k

Summary: Post-high school,     Oikawa makes it to the national volleyball team but Iwaizumi doesn't. The     next three years become an exercise in growing up without growing apart

Quote: “ ‘it’s just—I’m     just trying so hard—’‘What, and I’m not?’

Timeless (We Have 30 Days)

Word count: 12k

Summary: Or AU where you're branded 50 days before you die. But Oikawa doesn't tell anyone so now there's only 30 days left.

the weight of water

Word count: 6k

Summary: “Again,” he says, the smallest tremor in his voice, and Oikawa blinks at him a moment before smiling, soft and sweet. “Iwa-chan,” he replies, and Iwaizumi closes his eyes. “Again.” “Iwa-chan.”

Canon Compliant

Are You Listening?

Word count: 4k

Summary: 30 times oikawa said i love you and 1 time he didn't have to

Quote: “Iwa-chan, watch out for the log—!” Oikawa looked on in horror as his best friend tripped and fell flat on his face.

Edge of the balcony

Word count: 8k

Summary: Iwaizumi looks older, he realizes. Oikawa knew he had aged as well, and so did everyone around him, but the thing was when you see people often, you don't notice the subtle changes in appearance. And Oikawa hadn't seen Iwaizumi in four years.

How can this loser ever win

Word count: 2k

Summary: everyone is in stupid love with Iwaizumi Hajime and he has no idea

♡♡♡Lost in Translation

Word count: 9k

Summary: Because misfortune come in threes, Iwaizumi Hajime starts his Thursday having a screaming fight with Shittykawa, spends his lunch break listening to the UCI women's volleyball team gossiping about how Ushijima Wakatoshi had gone public about his longtime love affair with Oikawa Tooru, and closes out the day by drunkenly dropping his phone into a sewer grate.

maybe we could be enough

Word count: 9k

Summary: iwaizumi hums in reply as the car goes silent, frank ocean crooning from the speakers. they stop at a red light when iwaizumi feels eyes at the side of his face, and turns to look at oikawa.

Most people never even get a single high school rival

Word count: 5k

Summary: Team Argentina gets to know Iwaizumi Hajime (27) Athletic Trainer.

Primavera

Word count: 8k

Summary: They say it takes twenty-six years, for certain breeds to fully bloom.

Quote: Did you know that distance is only me, growing towards you?

♡♡♡rest on your laurels

Word count: 4k

Summary: In Iwaizumi’s heart of hearts, untouched by time, they are young and alive, burning with the hearth of home and bright as winter light. Unbreakable. Invincible.

♡♡♡Something Borrowed

Word count: 16k

Summary: In which Oikawa and Iwaizumi have always been a foregone conclusion to everyone else, but a massive, unanswered question to one another.

‘Til Infinity

Word count: 2k

Summary: “Hey,” he says, “that cloud looks kind of like a dick.”

Quote: “I got you ladybug”

♡♡♡ You Set Off a Dream In Me

Word count: 15k

Summary: In which Oikawa is 41 and ready to retire. He's at the top of his game and ready to find a new challenge. Turns out his new challenge is pretty familiar. It's high school, round 2.

Quote: A past with an Iwaizumi that wasn’t on the opposite side of the net, monsters on all sides, guiding a setter that had lived the dream left behind in the ruins of Tooru’s past self.

Canon Divergent

a world alone

Word count: 60k

Summary: Iwaizumi has his medical books on the musculoskeletal system. Oikawa has his research papers on parallel universes. It isn't until much, much later that they realize they have each other.

♡Almost a Stranger

Word count: 16k

Summary: Iwa-chan's leaving Kapan. Tooru's not sure he can forgive him, but he's not going to admit his long-held feelings, either. A trip to Miyajima complicates everything.

Quote: There are only two things that have ever broken Oikawa Tooru’s heart. Iwa-chan would say Tooru has no heart to break, but that’s simply untrue.

Count your blessings, it goes 1,2,3, me

Word count: 7k

Summary: He's unsettled by the undefined boundaries of their relationship so it's all his luck that he accidentally wins three wishes to be granted just for him, and all that comes to mind is Iwaizumi.

Quote: Now, as an adult, past convenience of circumstance and the haze of hormonal lust, exactly none of his feelings have worn off

♡♡♡the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle

Word count: 66k

Summary: Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

♡days fall away

Word count:17k

Summary: Except now he’s back home, so close to his old haunts and to Oikawa himself, and it's—weird.

Quote: “You and Tooru,” he begins, and then shrugs. “I was just thinking, you look at each other a lot.” And he walks away, leaving Hajime winded, and sort of aching, somewhere deep in his chest. Whatever that means.

♡here comes your man

Word count: 8k

Summary: Iwa-chan, it reads, Have a good day today! Good luck! <3 <3 <3 Suga chokes. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling the scowling and fierce Doctor Iwaizumi “Iwa-chan.” But marriage probably comes with all sorts of liberties. Doctor AU

♡♡In damp earth my body

Word count: 15k

Summary: Onscreen, the nation’s favorite setter has arranged himself so that he’s bowing, forehead pressed to the court, like he’s thanking everyone for their kindness thus far, like he’s asking for forgiveness. Hajime thinks: shit, it’s really happening

In the Business of Love

Word count: 22k

Summary: Meet Oikawa Tooru: He's a best-selling shoujo manga artist, a hardcore romantic and you won't believe where he's getting his lovey dovey fodder from...Enter Iwaizumi Hajime: He's Oikawa's best friend, a realist who also happens to be a wedding magazine writer despite not believing in romance...

Quote: A flare of pride lit in Oikawa as he watched Iwaizumi's eyes crinkle with mirth and in that yawning second, it bloomed into a warmth that bordered on a burn, forcing a bittersweet inhale.

it's been so long (nobody knows me the way you do)

Word count: 8k

Summary: Tooru hums, only half-listening. Somewhere along the way, Hajime’s palm has settled itself over the curve of Tooru’s cheek, thumb tracing over the line of his jaw.

Quote: Iwaizumi blushes even more. “That you’re here, I mean. I’m happy that you’re here. With me.”

♡♡♡Mint

Word count: 19k

Summary: It's the December after Iwaizumi’s last year in university when Tokyo welcomes him with a new ad campaign for Bright Days toothpaste, and Oikawa Tooru—fresh off a run at the 2016 Summer Olympics—has decided to grace the city with his signature grin, a flip of his wayfarer sunglasses, and the most irrepressible tag line for the signboard above.

Quote: "To be able to tell him, in the new year."  This comes under Oikawa's breath, so low that Matsukawa and Hanamaki can't hear, and the game continues.

Six-Month Lover

Word count: 89k

Summary: Iwaizumi barks out a laugh. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that you made a PowerPoint presentation about why we should date.” Oikawa doesn’t tell him the file has existed for the last twelve years, constantly receives updates, and that the original copy contained almost a hundred slides before he forced himself to get a grip.

Special Relativity

Word count: 22k

Summary: Time moves differently for people in different inertial reference frames. Oikawa goes on a two-year exploratory mission in space. Iwaizumi's been waiting for a lot longer than that.

♡♡sunset towns

Word count: 33k

Summary: In the summer of 2020, Oikawa Tooru returns home from his first successful stint as captain of Japan’s national volleyball team. In one hand, he holds the undisputed weight of an Olympic medal, and in the other, his unresolved feelings for a childhood best friend.

♡♡Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad)

Word count:     19k

Summary: It’s July 10th, 2024, and Oikawa Tooru is an Olympian. His smiling face airs on an NHK promo every 45 seconds. He’s captain of the national men’s volleyball team, reigning star of the professional leagues, and he hasn't spoken to Iwaizumi Hajime in two years.

Quote: Oikawa’s grin in  the last set of the morning’s game. Oikawa’s grin as they sat on their asses on a golf course. Oikawa’s grin when they were in college. When they were in high school. When they were twenty-two, seventeen, fifteen, twelve, six.

High School

Bet On It

Word count: 13k

Summary: Hajime knows exactly how shitty Oikawa's personality is, and has no scruples whatsover about betting Oikawa six thousand yen that he can't be nice for an entire week.

Quote: The whole instant-compliance thing was seriously creeping him out. Oikawa from a week ago would have made a crack about how if he'd wanted something cold, he could have just put his face on Hajime's shoulder.

Betweens

Word count: 2k

Summary: Iwaizumi is asleep in the club room. Oikawa is blindingly awake in the club room. The sun moves slowly across the sky, and Iwaizumi’s skin is gold underneath it. Oikawa watches the changing shadows on Iwaizumi’s face and thinks about nothing in particular.

Don’t think too much

Word count: 6k

Summary:  In which Oikawa and Iwaizumi have a confusing, drunken encounter and then deal with the (sticky) consequences.

Quote: As soon as that thought crossed his mind, though, Oikawa did what he always did:  exactly the opposite of what Hajime wanted

Gates

Word count: 12k

Summary: The day after their graduation ceremony, they drive to the beach at Shirahama. Iwaizumi drives, because it’s his car, and as he has told Oikawa on multiple occasions, he’d rather die than let him touch the wheel.

Quote: ‘Yeah,’ he says, because they’re on a beach, and they’re supposed to be on a metaphorical journey, and they’re supposed to be growing up, and completing rites of passage, so it’s honesty, today - just for today, at least.

♡♡i sing the body electric

Word count: 8k

Summary: It was never part of the plan, falling in love with his best friend, but then again, most things in Iwaizumi’s life that involve Oikawa rarely unfold the way he thinks they will.

Quote: But Iwaizumi thinks about Oikawa laughing with that girl in the low light of the gym, a particular kind of quiet intimacy that Iwaizumi’s only ever read about in books hovering in the air, and all it makes him feel is small and petty and spiteful.

it’s better than words

Word count: 3k

Summary: [ or : oikawa makes iwaizumi participate in three bonding activities for new friends, and iwaizumi just wants to know why oikawa's being so weird about this]

Make sure you cross the line

Word count: 4k

Summary: With graduation just around the corner, Iwaizumi knows he has to gather the courage to really ask Oikawa out.

Quote: He’s been asking Iwaizumi to go out with him every single day this past week, increasingly panicked about getting his time and attention now that they’re nearing the end of this season of their lives.

Only the jellyfish know

Word count: 6k

Summary: Their third and final year at Aoba Jousai has come to an end, and the guys decide to go to the beach the day after graduation. That day, the ocean water is salty, the watermelon is sweet, and the people are sweeter.

static

Word count: 6k

Summary: Being snowed in with all of Seijou volleyball in his childhood home brings back a lot of memories for Iwaizumi, because it's kinda Oikawa's childhood home too.

Quote: It's fate that brought them together and choice that keeps them that way. The closest description in Hajime’s vocabulary is partners, but only because Oikawa taught him what its true definition is.

Told before and told again

Word count: 3k

Summary: This is how Hajime and Tooru fall in love, through the accounts of those around them.

Quote: When Oikawa lets out a long, heavy breath, Iwaizumi looks up at him and frowns, and flings a towel over Oikawa’s head to cover his face. Then, he tugs, once, on Oikawa’s fingers, and leads him down the hallway, Oikawa walking quietly in tow.

♡we can do better than that

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Quote: Because Iwaizumi’s known Oikawa nearly all his life and never felt anything more than vague affection usually followed by intense irritation for him. But then suddenly at eighteen years old and nearly two weeks into a very badly planned road trip, it’s like someone flipped a switch somewhere inside Iwaizumi

♡when it starts to rain, they go inside

Word count: 33k

Summary: “Where?” starts Iwaizumi.“ My parent’s old lakehouse, silly, didn’t you hear me the first time?” OR: Oikawa takes Iwaizumi to his lakehouse for two weeks, post-graduation.

reassemble it

Word count: 15k

Summary: When Tooru was six years old, he discovered—unbeknownst to him at the time—two of the most important things in his life: volleyball and Iwaizumi Hajime. It was ironic that he had stumbled upon them hand in hand—quite literally, too.

♡things that change, things that stay the same

Word count: 8k

Summary: Oikawa realizes he's in love with his best friend; it sucks for a while. (But only a while.)

Quote: Iwaizumi’s expression right now is less terrified than it used to get back then, but he’s tight-lipped with concern, and his broad body blocks out other passengers as if their stares might be a danger to Tooru too.

University AU

An Archaeology of Affection

Word count: 23k

Summary: For Hajime, it is a riddle and simultaneously so evident. It fills his chest, surging like water, paints heat up his neck. In retrospect, it eats up his days, makes them its own until it feels like his heart has always been in his throat at the smile thrown over Oikawa’s shoulder, the stilling of his fingers on Hajime’s sleeve.

closure

Word count: 22k

Summary: In his first year of university, Oikawa builds a new friendship and upgrades an old one. Or: Ushijima is not a great wingman, but he tries his best.

Quote: “On the first day of his university career, Oikawa Tooru walks into his dorm, spots his assigned roommate, and turns one hundred and eighty degrees and walks right back out. He dials a familiar phone number - the first one he ever memorized - and starts complaining before Iwaizumi even gets the chance to say hello. “Iwa-chan,” he says, “tell me why Ushiwaka is in my dorm room.”

♡♡♡galaxies, within you

Word count: 21k

Summary: Hajime and Tooru move in together at the start of university. Too bad they’re stuck with the two gremlins that haunt their apartment.

Quote: I AM A HEADASS

Hands to yourself

Word count: 11k

Summary: He missed his parents, and he missed Takeru, and Takeru's badly behaved puppy. He missed Aoba Jousai, and he missed the volleyball team. He even missed Karasuno and Shiratorizawa, just a little.

Home, and how we made ours

Word count: 3k

Summary: “No, I like it here.” There’s a rustling as Iwaizumi shifts, inching closer. “I like it here, as in this crappy apartment—with you.”

Quote: “Do your fights end up being like—you know, about actual things and then extending into toddler days and suddenly you’re accusing Iwaizumi of kissing the girl you used to like in preschool?”

in progress to you

Word count: 6k

Summary: The eventuality of Oikawa and Iwaizumi falling toward each other is dramatically lackluster. Still, it's a process to go through.

Quote: “But what if you didn’t eat my pudding all the time?” Iwaizumi asks flatly, ignoring the way Oikawa is slapping his thigh to get out of his chokehold. “Do you think I buy them for you, huh? I buy them for me, you turd.”

Like we’re made of starlight

Word count: 6k

Summary: (a look into iwaizumi hajime’s journey of falling in love with oikawa tooru, from when they’re babies meeting for the first time to young adults moving in together.)

Ninety nine percent

Word count: 14k

Summary: more than anything, oikawa tooru wants to be with iwaizumi hajime, but he's only ninety nine percent of the way there.

Quote: Their ace was lining up for the ball, knees bent and arm pulled back, just as Tooru tosses the ball……to Hajime.

no sleep in the city

Word count: 7k

Summary: Along their journey to find Tokyo's best ramen, Iwaizumi finds himself asked again and again why Oikawa is still single.

Quote: “I was only telling Hanamaki literally yesterday that your personality isn’t as vile as before,” Iwaizumi informs, slightly stiff from the way Oikawa’s got an arm looped through his own. “Why do you make me such a liar to people I care about?”

Out of nowhere

Word count: 8k

Summary: They move in together after graduation and it's doing weird things to Iwaizumi's heart. He's a little in denial about it.

Quote: Oikawa excitedly ran up to him when Iwaizumi came home with groceries the other day. Not about the food but just to say how boring everything is when Iwaizumi's not there, eyes shining, and he couldn't meet his gaze after from blushing down to his neck. He doesn't know how much more he can take.

♡♡shiver

Word count: 16k

Summary: Oikawa was always the brave one. Hajime just followed two paces behind.

Quote: “I’m in love with you,” Oikawa tells him three days after they graduate junior high, head in his lap and hands gently folded over his chest and completely and totally unconcerned that he’d just shattered Hajime’s world.

Terpischore

Word count: 38k

Summary: They’d ended up going to different universities, Tooru and he. The distance was good for them. The confession Hajime dropped in both their laps wasn’t. That’s how it’d ended – a lifetime of friendship crumbled to dust in the space of five minutes. (Or, a lesson in learning to move on from things you can't have, in finding old loves in new ways and in understanding that life is never truly simple... till it is.)

terrarium

Word count: 11k

Summary: At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

these foolish things (remind me of you)

Word count: 3k

Summary: Oikawa helps Iwaizumi move into his new college dorm.

Quote: He’s desperate for something to happen. It must show on his face because Iwaizumi blushes and looks away. The thing is, Oikawa always looks at him like this when Iwaizumi isn’t paying attention.

They say it rains diamonds on Jupiter

Word count: 35k

Summary: "You're in love with him. "Hajime considers denying it. "Yeah," he says instead.

Quote: “Share the weight of your feelings with me, Hajime wants to beg when he hears Tooru's first hitched breath. Let me carry some of your burdens”

to be first, to be best

Word count: 26k

Summary: Hajime is apparently something of a masochist, and as he stares down at the tie-dyed AREA51 T-shirt in his hands, he thinks “I’m totally in love with this asshole, aren't I?”

Undecipherable

Word count: 4k

Summary: "Koi no yokan," he says. "The sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love."

Quote: Because for all the bravado, for all the flaunting Oikawa does, he wants Hajime by his side, and no one else.

♡we shine like diamonds

Word count: 26k

Summary: "You know Abe-kun from class?" they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they're passing along a filthy secret. "I hear his older brother is... gay."

Where you are (I’ll be)

Word count: 6k

Summary: Theirs is a love that starts out like a seed and it takes two sets of hands tending it for a shoot to appear. There are no dramatic declarations of love, only a pair of hands that find each other again and again and again.

Quote: Oikawa broke off into giggles as Hajime slowed the descent of his hand from a slap to the back of Oikawa’s head to a gentle ruffle of the taller boy’s hair

♡♡with every second that you could give

Word count: 9k

Summary: The journey of Iwaizumi and Oikawa going for gold.

Quote: He knows they’re too close. Iwaizumi knows it too, and they both decided to move in together anyway.

Your love is sunlight

Word count: 6k

Summary: It's Iwaizumi's birthday, and they have a talk about the future.

Quote: But Hajime doesn’t think any present could top this: them, kissing in a sun-dappled bathroom, Oikawa’s skin warm under his hands, and the promise of a life together stretched out before them.

[tatooedlaura-blog]

My Person

It’s a Sunday morning drabble complete with head-cold editing and runny nose ruminations ... hold nothing against me except possibly a cold compress on my forehead ...

&&&&&&&&&&

Safe for all -- rated ‘G’ Skinner-friendly Includes Waffles and Stuff 

What more could you ask for

@today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&&

She’d ridden with him in the ambulance, leaving Mulder behind to deal with the blood, the body, and the barrage. She needed a few stitches but those were taken care of quickly and efficiently while Skinner moved from the ER directly to the operating room, the right side of his body full of holes from one Curtis Barkley and his modified AR-15.

She could easily handle eight stitches to her forehead.

&&&&&&&&

Mulder, four hours later, finally had the time to wonder about his boss and his partner. Trying to call, she didn’t answer, so wrapping up his end of business, he trudged first to his car, then drove through the dark to the hospital, figuring since she wasn’t back at his side, she’d still be there.

Leaving his jacket, armor, and swat helmet in the car, he kept his gun tucked under his arm as he made his way through the emergency room entrance. Clearing through security, he asked around, discovering Skinner was out of surgery and in recovery while the red-haired agent he was inquiring about was up in the fourth-floor waiting room. Heading in that direction, he got off the elevator, stretching his back as he did so, and caught a glimpse of her hunched in a chair, head down, hands dangling.

Waving his ‘hello’ to Genevieve, one of their many guardian angel nurses he knew by name, he headed towards Scully. Crouching in front of her, she didn’t startle but looked up, having heard the unique cadence of his walk. Mulder tilted his head, “how’s boss man?”

“Holding his own.” Looking around the small area, she tried to find a clock and gave up quickly, “what time is it?”

“Almost midnight. Nearly had to run out to get Sam a pizza so he’d let me up here but Darla sweet-talked him for me.” Giving her what might have been a small smile in another universe, “we know these people too well.”

“Did you see Genevieve?”

“Yeah. Remind me to ask about her oldest. He was applying to Princeton last time we talked.”

Nodding, she held his gaze for a moment, “how did things go on your end?”

“We’ll talk about that later.” Reaching up, he touched the skin around her stitches, “no bandage?”

“No. It would have covered my eye so I refused.”

Continuing his fingers along her temple then down her cheek absently, he stood, dropping a kiss to the top of her head before he sat down, “so, hungry?”

They hadn’t eaten since the night before and being honest, “I should be but I’m not.”

About to tell her he was buying her dinner anyways, Genevieve popped in, her voice quiet, “Mr. Skinner’s been moved to his own room if you’d like to go see him for a minute.”

“What room?”

“412. It’s around the corner and down the hall. The other end of the floor.”

“Thanks.” Once she’d left them alone again, “how about we go check on him then we go find food?”

Scully didn’t move to get up, instead tilting her head in his direction, “have you noticed at all the lack of people here?”

He didn’t see where she was going with this, “yeah, it’s midnight. On a Tuesday. At a hospital. I think bustling would be more noteworthy.”

“No. I mean, there’s nobody here for him. Some people from the Bureau were earlier but since he can’t tell his side, they said they’d be back tomorrow. Otherwise, he has no family, Mulder. There’s no one here for him.”

Mulder understood now and reaching over, he rested his hand on her knee, squeezing it once, “then he gets us. I never had anyone until you so now, we will be his you.” Shaking his head, “sorry. That sounds stupid but I’m hungry and exhausted. I’ll make better sense tomorrow.”

Her voice low, oddly surprised she hadn’t asked before this, “didn’t Diana or your mom ever come see you?”

“Hell no. Diana hated hospitals. Once she found out I wasn’t dead, she told me she’d see me at home and don’t even get me started on Mom.”

Knowing when to move on, she covered his hand with hers, “412, right?”

Standing, he pulled her up, “let’s go.”

&&&&&&&&&

Once in the room, noting the normal monitors, nothing beeping, nothing blinking red and terrifying, he led her to the other side of the bed, where two chairs sat empty, seemingly waiting for the pair of them, “sit?”

She didn’t object.

Quiet for a minute or two, as the vinyl settled under their weight and their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, Mulder took a deep breath, “he’s a mess.”

Skinner’s right side was heavily bandaged, covering stitches from shoulder to hip. Barkley had been so close when Skinner startled him that the bullets had gone through Skinner’s flesh to bury themselves in the wall behind but had left enough damage to reduce the Marine to a bloody mess. Scully had held him together as well as she could, pressing on shredded holes, yelling for an ambulance, yelling at Skinner to stay awake, yelling at Mulder to make sure that son of a bitch Barkley was dead.

Thankfully, she wasn’t still covered in their boss’s blood, Genevieve having given her a scrub top and liberal use of a shower in one of the empty rooms. Her jeans were still caked but from the waist up she was clean, dry, and now still staring at her boss without blinking until she broke the silence, “those bullets would have caught me square in the face if Skinner hadn’t gone in first.”

That was what would keep him from sleeping for the next few days, “I know,” his hand found hers over the padded arms of their chairs, “and I’d prefer if we never spoke of that again, thanks very much.”

She was in a strange mood and she could feel it settling in, mingling with the exhaustion of the last five days. Melancholy? Morose? Maudlin? “we’ve never used both chairs before.”

He honestly had to stop and think, “no. I guess we haven’t. It’s usually one of us in the bed.” Giving her a thoughtful look, he took hold of her hand once again, running his thumb over knuckles at random intervals until, “you know I love you, right?”

Sudden, unexpected tears pricked her eyes but she held them back, “you’ve never said it but I figured you did. I mean, how many times have you sat vigil in that chair for me? That tells me more than words ever could.”

“I love you, Scully.”

Finally giving up a smile, “you know I love you, too, right?”

“I think it wavers occasionally, especially when I’m an asshole but for the most part, I think you do … a lot of the time, at least … I hope.”

“I love you, Mulder.”

She would have continued but suddenly, a groggy voice crackled at them, “I love you both, too, now will you shut up and get out of my room already. I’m trying to sleep.”

Scully’s smile broke wide and both stood immediately, Scully starting to apologize as Mulder pulled her towards the door, “g’night, sir, glad you’re still with us.”

Stopping him from taking her out the door, she let go of Mulder for a moment and moved to Skinner’s side, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, “we’ll be back tomorrow and for the record, I owe you … big time.”

Mulder called from the doorway, “I owe you even bigger. Come on, Scully, let the man sleep.”

Both disappeared out the door and Skinner moaned a groan, his finger finding the call button for more drugs. He’d been happily asleep until those two idiots of his had walked in the door. The three of them would be having a long talk about personal space and indoor voices in the near future.

&&&&&&&&&

Waving goodnight to Genevieve and her cohort, both smiling at them from the desk, Mulder moved Scully to stand by the elevator, button pushed, wait ensuing. Toying with her fingers as they dangled beside his, he grasped one digit then two, “not to scare you or anything but you also realize that you’re my person, right? You are my emergency contact, my power of attorney, and you have the only spare key to my apartment in existence.”

“So, you only love me because without me, you couldn’t get into your apartment.”

The elevator doors opened and he playfully shoved her forward, “get in there so I can take you to breakfast.”

Once in the box, enclosed and moving slowly to the parking level, Scully leaned in, hugging his arm, “do you know you’re my person, too?”

“Always have been, Scully.” Waiting three beats until the doors opened again, exhaust mixed with dank humidity hitting them, “and always will be.”

Leaving her arm through his as they headed to the car, “I think we should go to Waffles and Stuff.”

Kissing the top of her head once again, “you and your waffles.”

“Love me, love my waffles.”

[cattles-bians]

Damie Vibecca exes AU part 4

post directory

[em note: this one is LONG i had to split it!!!]

obsetress: deflecting to viola protecting becs

obsetress: once they are dating

obsetress: and thinkin thoughts

em: viola asks rebecca if she wants to put a hit out on peter and rebestiecca is like????

em: that’s hot but

em: u can do that? also maybe don’t. but mostly that’s hot

obsetress: i was literally gonna say peter is still her ex and he's a persistent fucker even though it's been a year at least and viola's response is... not far off from canon!

obsetress: becca just stares at her for a minute and then she's cupping viola's cheek and murmuring "come here" and pulling her down

obsetress: they're like kissing or whatever and rebecca's murmuring "that was hot, you know" between kisses and viola's like "oh?" and becca's like "don't be cheeky, you know it was" and vi just grins against her mouth

em: I’m Really Invested In This Crack Ship

obsetress: ok but rebecca tells jamie and dani about vi offering to put a hit on peter and they're both understandably and reasonably aghast and rebecca's just like (takes a sip of wine, ducks head, smiles to self) i think it's sweet

obsetress: dani and jamie look at each other out of the corners of their eyes

obsetress: (later, dani agrees how absolutely out of line it is but also admits that it sure does feel nice to be so taken care of sometimes)

obsetress: (jamie throws a pillow at her)

obsetress: also thinking about secret soft vibecca are sometimes and how horrified dani and jamie are the first time they see it with their own eyes

em: jamie and dani excessive PDA queens get a taste of their own medicine

em: it’s so funny that i’m like. always on the verge of viola horny posting but as soon as it’s vibecca i’m like look at these babies. these beautiful babies

obsetress: viola and rebecca kissing one (1) time at brunch and jamie, arm slung around dani’s shoulders, is like “oi, no one wants to see that” and dani, leaning into jamie, one hand in her lap, crinkles her nose and rebecca’s like “y— you’re kidding, right?”

obsetress: also like. we talk a lot about what vi does for rebecca but also like

obsetress: vi massive abandonment issues and rebecca just

obsetress: she just stays

em: ur gonna Kill me here lies em

obsetress: i know i didn’t mean to and then i just

obsetress: i can’t think too hard abt them or i will Melt Down but just like

em: look if rebecca can see the best in someone as awful as peter

em: viola isnt nearly as terrible

obsetress: esp vi post dani like

obsetress: she’s obnoxious and haughty and neoliberal but

obsetress: radical love goes a long way!

obsetress: rebecca grounding her thru touch and rebecca slipping her hands around vi’s and easing them loose when vi’s hands start to clench and rebecca just pressing a kiss to viola’s temple and murmuring “i’m here, yeah? with you. not going anywhere”

em: like i just think after eddie dani wouldnt like, just go w the flw any more. like i think abt her challenging viola occasionally

em: lovingly! gently

but like, holding her accountable

em: also violas absolutely little spoon

em: like i know blah blah viola top rebecca top leaning switch but viola little spoon

obsetress: “actually viola” (vi always knows she’s in trouble when dani calls her viola) “that was really hurtful” “i’m sorry you feel that way, dani, but—“ “i don’t need you to be sorry for how i feel. i need you to show me you’re sorry for what you did”

em: dani calls vi the Full Name and viola knows shes in trouble bc thats at least 4 extra vowels w danis midwest accent

em: it is always v surprising how much like, working w kids equips you to work w adults. b/c at least w kids you dont have layers and layers of social nuance to work through. u can just say 'hey. that was hurtful and your apology sucks'

obsetress: meanwhile dani’s over here trying to explain to vi intent vs impact and how no, it’s not semantics or nuance, it’s actually kind of a chasm

em: i kind of love like um. look viola is terrible but she wasnt born terrible

obsetress: she just has a lot to unlearn

em: and id belive that even if i wasnt a ghostfucker thats just rogers theory of self actualisation babyeee

obsetress: dani viola big fight n dani's like

obsetress: "i'm sorry and i love you but it's not my job to fix you, vi" and she just breaks down and she's like "it's not"

obsetress: jesus why did my brain take THAT turn

em: wrow

em: its ok i was gonna be like 'so they obvs break up at some point....'

obsetress: anyway viola just stares at her for a second and then she's like "you put the 'i'm sorry' before the 'i love you'"

obsetress: and dani just stares at her for a long time and she's like "yeah. i guess i did"

em: HANNAH

em: BESTIE

obsetress: i KNOW what the FUCK

obsetress: anyway dani's like "i guess i did" and vi's like "is that it then?" and dani just looks at her with her puffy eyes and is like "i think so"

obsetress: dani clayton queen of saying "i love you" over and over in the midst of breaking up w someone

em: well! she has a lot of love to give but, she also has to love herself sometimes!

em: i was thinking abt scenarios n i just remembered that. whole video rental shop thing so i think that slots in nicely

[em edit: u can read here]

obsetress: god i love that lil scene

em: dani sends viola a tentative little meme peace offering and they get back to talking and its nice but maybe a bit awkward and viola mentions like, going to therapy and seeing someone for help n its

obsetress: vi's stewing on "i can't fix you" for weeks and then she's begrudgingly. BEGRUDGINGLY calling a therapist

em: like its still awkward and dani is still nursing some wounds but she can ALSO be happy for someone she used to care about

em: still cares about!

obsetress: she's always gonna love her in some way or another

obsetress: but yeah also like. smth to viola being too stubborn to do anything she doesn't wanna do except suddenly when dani clayton gets involved and that feels p canon in its own way too

em: 'i cant fix u' weird bc every time i see viola im like 'i can fix her'

obsetress: it's like ur in my head bestie

em: how do u think viola and rebestiecca met

em: not that u think abt it or anything

obsetress: MAN i was just thnking

obsetress: in this universe how did dani and jamie meet but i guess it can still just be bly tbh

obsetress: as for vi and bestiecca hmmm

em: am so caught up in the joy of fucked up interpersnal dynamics i forgot a meet cute

obsetress: honestly part of me wants to be like

obsetress: on some dating app but a dating app for posh people yk

obsetress: but then i'm like

obsetress: that takes all the meet cute fun out of it

obsetress: oh GOD

obsetress: i got it

obsetress: ready

obsetress: so like viola landlord we know this

obsetress: and then i was watching whatever ep three the other day and bex mentions wanting to do public law right

em: oooooh

obsetress: bex public housing attorney

em: OOH

obsetress: they meet at some conference

obsetress: hit it off prob fuck lbr

obsetress: and then

obsetress: comedy of errors

obsetress: whoever stays the night, they sleep together again in the morning, breakfast in bed, bex is like "so what do you do, anyway"

em: hjgbjshmdnfbmngbmhnbgs,hndg m,shndgds

em: YES

obsetress: and then they just

em: WHEEZES

obsetress: also i like to think rebecca invites vi back to her hotel room and vi is so charmed by her taking charge ("""taking charge""") that she lets her

obsetress: and then like

obsetress: god for a while what if they just like

obsetress: they're so mortified and morally and fundamentally at odds but like

obsetress: the sex is so good???????

obsetress: that they keep just meeting up and then

em: romeo and juliet situation

obsetress: yk how it goes

obsetress: the sex is good and they see each other as like

em: thats so fucking good thank u hannah

obsetress: super rare intellectual equals whatever

obsetress: thank u i am exceedingly proud rn

obsetress: honestly at this point i'm

obsetress: rebecca and vi uhaul change my mind

obsetress: like not too quick because isabel but, quick enough to be considered

em: so the joke is like. obviously 'extremely pda damie' but when rebecca and vi are alone they Also cannot get their hands off each other

obsetress: they both just. worry about appearances too much meanwhile

obsetress: tweedle dee and tweedle dum in the overalls and mom jeans dgaf

em: accidentally seeing ur friends compromised is just part of the package of being friends w damie. however jamie accidentally catches vibecca in the act and shes Horrified

em: hypocrits

em: danis like yeah what do u. think theyre doing

em: dani is nonchallant bc shes dated viola of all people

obsetress: i mean could you imagine

obsetress: between vi and dani's just

obsetress: insatiable libido

em: HADNT IMAGINED UNTIL NOW BUT YEAH

obsetress: dani, very seriously: jamie, when two women love each other––

em: dani likes dating jamie bc it means she can top occasionally :) maybe even more than occasionally

em: jamies like ooh my god i knw i know how are u so casual about... rebecca... and ... viola... (dani just pulls her in fr a smooch)

obsetress: they have each other's clothes half off and dani's like "i'm so casual because i dated her too, babe" and jamie's like "can we not have this conversation right n"

obsetress: also i still have this on my clipboard from earlier we bopped around so fast but

obsetress: vi and bex hooking up early on:

obsetress: rebecca knocks on vi's door at, like, 6:00 pm after work, vi opens it, rebecca just grabs her and kisses her, vi pulls her in, becca kicks it closed behind her, vi shoves her against the door and they're kissing against it, then vi's ducking her head to kiss along rebecca's neck and rebecca's like "how many people did you evict today" as she angles her head and then viola's finding her lips again and tugging at her lower lip with her teeth "probably not as many landlords as you shortchanged today" and rebecca's laughing and pushing her backwards down the hall as viola tugs at her blouse

em: GOD. viola is probably like

em: ok, disclaimer: fuck all landlords

em: but at least in this fantasy world perhaps viola is 'fairly' 'reasonable' n shes absolutely playing it up for the hate sex angle n rebecca Maybe Assumes shes lying but

em: stupid morons in love

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: i think i've mentioned this before but like

obsetress: now that it's more fleshed out

obsetress: then they're at drinks one night (and when did it go from just sex to drinks? neither of them could tell you) and viola's kinda quiet n moody (n rebecca already knows she Gets Like This sometimes and that she'll usually say whatever she's thinking eventually) and finally she's like

obsetress: "i have... a daughter" and rebecca's just like "tell me about her" like it's the easiest thing in the world

obsetress: and viola's head snaps over and she stares because she was.... not expecting that

obsetress: and so viola does

obsetress: and rebecca's just like "i'd love to meet her one day"

em: soft.....

obsetress: they always turn back to soft

obsetress: like they have a fuckin mind of their own

em: rapidly oscillate between horny and soft

obsetress: that's the mood

em: violas probably like. yknow, rebecca's young and up and cming n she probably assumes rebesticca isnt interested as something as full on as a kid but shes like 'do you have any photos'

obsetress: fuck!!!!!!!!!

em: rebeccas like do u think i didnt. see the photos at ur apartment lmao

em: theres a childs drawing on the fridge

obsetress: rebecca has known almost from the jump but was

obsetress: giving viola her time

obsetress: also smth smth giving her time instead of time wearing her away etc etc we're all in hell

em: cracks knuckles

em: bestie....

obsetress: pls

obsetress: it's what i deserve

obsetress: first tho

obsetress: consider

obsetress: the way viola's face lights up when she's talking about isabel and showing rebecca all the pictures

obsetress: hold pls

em: soft......

obsetress: this one chief

obsetress: right here

[barbasbodaciousbeard]

IF You Love Someone, Let Them Go: Part 5

Summary: Since starting with SVU, Sonny hadn’t kept much terribly close to the chest. The squad knew about his family, growing up on Staten Island, the classes at Fordam. What was hidden was why he didn’t date. Sonny Carisi was also separated from his childhood sweetheart, a separation neither ever took to divorce. They had the same haunts. They’d grown up neighbors. Their paths crossed every few months, and divorce talks would turn into reminiscing would turn into a night spent together, sometimes sex sometimes just talking until the early morning. It always ended with one of them waking up alone however. How will that change when the squad finds out?

Pairings: Sonny Carisi x Original Character,

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

March 2015

“You’ll see me two times in three weeks,” Victoria smiled, wine in hand as she settled in the seat beside Sonny. It was Tommy and Bella’s engagement party, which Gianni was treating as a bridal shower. The whole engagement would only have been three months, and it seemed the two younger Carisis had cost her the months of parties and planning Gina and Teresa had given her. At least Sonny and Victoria had gotten married in a church a year after they eloped. Tommy and Bella would be getting married outdoors, while she was pregnant. Everyone pretended not to notice the slightest bit of a bump, easily confused for weight gain if you didn’t know, when Gianna was around before fussing over Bella the minute she left.

“I’m a lucky bastard.”

“I hope you told your squad.”

“We’re all going out the Saturday before. I’m doing it then.”

“Really pushed it off, huh?” she asked, and he didn’t like the hurt she was trying to hide. 

“The cases got heavy during the holidays. And then we busted up a sex ring and I was undercover. That also felt like a weird time. I kinda realized there wasn’t going to be a good one.”

“Yeah. Tommy and Bella inviting them kinda twisted your arm, huh?”

“Yeah. But it’s good. The last step.”

“They all coming?”

“Olivia for sure. I think Rollins and Amaro are coming together, and then honestly? Barba will when he finds out there’s gossip. He’s kind of a dick, but an amazing attorney. I really wanna shadow him sometime, but I’m too green to ask, y’know?”

“Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be nice when the time comes. And I think it’ll make Bella and Tommy happy. If it weren’t for them, it coulda been bad.”

“I got brother brain instead of cop brain, so yeah. I still can’t believe she’s having a baby.”

“It’s wild. And I know you don’t like Tommy, but he’s got a good heart.”

“And got locked up.”

“Everyone has their own problems.” 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Same deal as Gina’s wedding? No marriage problems talk. Just have fun and be sentimental.”

“Deal. Though if your squad asks, I’m not ignoring it.”

“Fair. But also tell the cute stories.”

“I’ll bring the photo albums.” He laughed, arm settled around her shoulders. When they’d moved out, she’d taken to collecting all the pictures of them and adding them to a photo album. She’d gotten copies of dozens of pictures from his mom, who had always kept them organized by year in boxes. When she left, Victoria took them, and he missed being able to thumb through the pages. There were multiple volumes at this point. The pages got harder to find. She didn’t scrapbook. Instead, she used the pages with four slots each, keeping them up as time went on. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were pictures from Gina’s wedding in the most recent. Maybe there were even pictures of them separate from each other to bridge the gap. 

“Please don’t give Rollins and Barba that ammo. They’ll steal the really bad ones.”

“I like the ones from prom the best. Could we look any more 2004?”

“We looked damn good.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not super dated.”

“True. It’s okay. We got the pictures from Gina’s wedding. We don’t look like we’re separated in them.”

“True. You got the dimples on full display.”

“I seen the dresses Bella picked. I know you hate it. You won’t like this one so much.”

“I love it.” He raised a brow at the feigned enthusiasm. “Dom, that pink is gonna be so bad on a pale red head.”

“I like you in pink.”

“You like me in anything.”

“Because you look good in anything. Dark green’s my favorite though.”

“Mine too. Thank God for Gina. I’ll wear that dress again.”

“I’m sure I’ll have to go to some fundraising thing…”

“You asking me to be your date before you even know?”

“You’re always who I ask to be my date.”

“I better be. We’re married.”

“Gettin’ awful territorial, Mrs. Carisi.”

“You put your ring on your hand today.”

“And you put them both on the right finger.”

“It’s almost like we’re making progress.”

“I want to tell you. I’m ready. But not until after the wedding.”

“Why then?”

“In case you don’t look at me all happy anymore.”

“Literally nothing you could tell me could make me not want to work on it. Unless you cheated on me.”

“You’re the first, last, and only.”

“You are too.”

“We oughta stop being sappy. People are coming and we got put with people we don’t know.”

“Gross. It’s like ma is mad at me.”

“I’m just glad she knew better than to try and make us sit apart. I’m sittin’ with my wife.”

“You two aren’t even pretending to be awkward,” Bella teased, leaning to hug Victoria and then her brother. “This nonsense almost over?”

“Butt out,” Sonny warned, but he was still smiling. “Strictly married talk.” 

“Two weeks and ya can’t use that excuse.”

“Then it’ll be strictly talks with my wife.”

“Stop, Dom,” Victoria laughed. “You look beautiful, Bella. How you feeling?”

“Kid’s making me tired as hell. I’m excited though. Tommy talks to her every night. It’s been hard, after what that bitch did. But he’s doing so good.”

“I can tell. I’m just glad you’re so happy.”

“I really am, T.” 

“You look beautiful. I like this dress a lot.”

“Thanks. I like feeling all bridal.” Sonny was content to watch Bella and Victoria catch up. Over the last year, he’d come to realize every time they talked came around to when Victoria was taking him back. He probably hadn’t helped that any, constantly acting like he didn’t know why she’d gone. Thanksgiving had changed that. He stood up to his mom more, told her he was in therapy, and openly defended Victoria. The last part wasn’t new, but this time it was specific to her decision to leave. He’d told his family in no uncertain terms that, while he thought she should’ve told him earlier instead of letting the hurt fester, he had done something wrong and he was trying to fix that so they could start over. His mom and dad didn’t like that. Generationally, bottling up feelings was more acceptable to them. His sisters, on the other hand, hugged him tight and told him they were proud of him. 

Their table filled up quickly as guests arrived, and Sonny was happy to help Victoria keep conversation moving until his parents spoke. That was the plan for tonight. Appetizers, speeches from the bride and groom’s parents, dinner, dessert, and finally dancing and cocktails. It was quickly apparent all the family’s required-but-barely-liked invites went to the table they’d put Victoria and Sonny at, a sure sign Gianna was over dealing with their drama. He was thankful his sister wouldn’t be having assigned seating at the reception for anyone, the bridal party included, though the thought of having Victoria joining his squad at a table made him nervous.

“I thought they’d never go dance,” she said softly against his ear, and Sonny smiled more from the closeness than the sentiment. Damn, it felt good to have her on his team. She wasn’t there day in and out, so these events felt more valuable to him now.

“Right? He’s from dad’s work. Known each other forever. I don’t know why the hell they invited him.” Her hair tickled his cheek as they gossiped, watching the people around the room and nursing their drinks. He decided they didn’t have a heavy case, so he’d tell the squad the next day, that way the giddiness of the evening would still be fresh. When they’d both finished their drinks, he took her hand, pulling her towards the floor. 

“I was comfy,” she protested half heartedly before she realized he’d pulled her up for Sinatra. One hand on his shoulder and the other in his, she let him lead the few moves they’d learned in a ballroom class they’d taken. It had only been a couple years into their marriage, and they took it because it made them feel older and less like imposters. Now, all either could really remember was a boxstep, and their frame was terrible. That didn’t matter though. What did matter was Sonny resting his temple against hers to sing softly against her ear. When one swing tune melted into another, she was grateful Gianna had picked the music for this wedding event. 

“Looks like we get to dance all slow again,” he teased, giving her a spin before holding her close.

“For someone getting mad when we get along, your ma worked real hard for us to get along.”

“She’s just mad it isn’t like when we were kids. If we fought in middle school, she’d give us a pizza, and we’d be over it.”

“Very true,” she grinned, looking up at him. He looked handsome, and after what came out to two years of seeing him deteriorate, she was grateful he was actually getting back to himself. She wasn’t sure if therapy, the job, or the slow progress they were making was the reason, but he was her Sonny again. He kept his hair cropped, face shaved, and smile present.

“You’re staring,” he teased before tightening his grip to dip her. 

“You look good. Like not just handsome. Happy.”

“Thanks,” he smiled softly when he pulled her up again. “I’m learning to process stuff better.”

“That’s good.”

“It sounds messed up, but thank you for leaving. It made me go to therapy. I really wasn’t being good to you, Tor. And I’m sorry for that.”

“I forgive you, Dom. I wasn’t doing a good job talking to you about it. I’m sorry for not pressing until we hit the point of no return.”

“It’s okay,” he said, forehead resting on hers. “I think we’re gonna be okay.”

“Me too.”

“Can we get somebody to take pictures of us?” 

“Bella got a photographer, and he has definitely taken several.”

“This camera shy Sonny or detective Sonny noticing?”

“It’s Sonny seeing Gina tell him to.”

“You ever feel like the kids are trying to get us back together?”

“All the time, doll. You know how often Gina or Teresa go after me? Then Bella meddles. But Mia? She’s 17 and bound and determined she’s going to be the one to talk sense into me. And she kind of is. She actually talked to me about therapy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t know why but knows my brain shuts down when I try to open up. Heard me tellin Teresa. Said it’s toxic masculinity makin’ me feel like talking about feelings is girly and I gotta get over that if I wanna stay married and making you happy.”

“I ever tell you Mia’s my favorite?”

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“How long until we can run away and go to a bar?”

“Anybody else left yet?”

“Your cousin Lauren and some of Bella’s friends.”

“What bar you thinking? Because you look too pretty to not take to some classy wine bar.”

“That works for me.”

“Then let’s go tell Bella and Tommy bye.”

“What about Gianna?”

“It’s not her engagement.” Victoria almost felt like they were back in high school and cutting class as they said their goodbyes and got their coats. Why the hell his sister was getting married outdoors in winter was beyond Victoria, but she was grateful for the fact they’d probably end up rained out and inside for the ceremony. Sonny hailed a cab, waving when he saw his mother watching them from a window. 

“She’s pissed, Dom.”

“Too bad. Taking you to a nice wine bar. Ordering a cheese board.”

“You’re making it sound like a date.”

“I been shit and ain’t taken you on one in two years. Can it be?”

“I’d like that.” She was nervous, but it had become apparent he was trying. From what he said, in a couple weeks he’d be willing to open up. He was also communicating with her as it was. Maybe treating the next two weeks as a trial run could be good. Ease into the heavy discussion. He’d mentioned being afraid how she’d react. Maybe if she was always there again, he’d realize she wasn’t leaving. 

“C’mon, whatcha thinking Tor?”

“Just that I’m happy we’re making progress,” she fibbed, lacing their fingers. He looked to their hands and smiled, squeezing her fingers gently. 

“Me too.” Soon enough they were settled at the bar, and Sonny, true to his word, had ordered a bottle of wine and a cheese board. She was turned to face him, legs carefully crossed. He had the leg towards the room on the footrest around the base of her stool. She was boxed in, but it felt reassuring when paired with his hand on her leg. 

“So what’s this new squad like?” Sonny had never quite settled in anywhere since he’d become a detective, and he seemed smitten with his spot in Manhattan. 

“So Barba is the ADA. Covered him. Liv is Lieutenant. Nobody ever really gave me a shot before. Apparently I can be abrasive.” He threw the hand not on her leg up in mock affront, and she laughed. 

“You? Never.”

“I know,” he said, ignoring her sarcasm. “Rollins is cool. She’s been through a lot. She’s from Georgia though. I know you mostly grew up here, but you get that same Southern catty as her. Means it doesn’t get to me, because I know the secret. That she doesn't really mean it. Amaro is cool too. Had some problems too. Come to think of it, I don’t know why I’m acting like they won’t understand or accept our marriage. Fin’s been there longest, other than Lieu.”

“They treating you well?”

“They are. I think I’m finally not just a newbie. Barba gets mean. He’s not southern snarky though, so I think he means it.”

“I’ll fight him.”

“You’d win. He’s got a big mouth, but I don’t think he’d be scrappy.”

“I’m just real proud of you.”

“That means a lot to me, Tor.”

“You worked real hard. I watched that. And you’re going to be an amazing attorney.”

“I think I wanna try for the DA’s office if I pass the bar next year.”

“You’ll pass the bar.”

He rolled his eyes, pouring her another glass of wine as he topped off his own. When the night was over, he walked her to her door, kissing her goodnight and going to his own apartment. Sonny had decided that if it was going to be a date, he’d be a gentleman. Things were still delicate, and he had to leave early when she had a day off. He did text her the next morning to say he’d enjoyed their date, not wanting to have the wedding be the next time they talked. When he arrived at the precinct, he went to Olivia’s door, knocking. 

“What’s going on, Carisi?”

“Since the squad’s coming to my sister’s weddin’ now, I felt like I gotta tell everybody I’m married and it’s really confusing.”

“Since you hadn’t mentioned it, I assumed you were getting a divorce.”

“You knew?”

“I did get sent your file when you started here. You know, I do read those.”

“I messed up bad, y’know? She’s a baker, right? And I’ve known her since I was five. Got married when we were eighteen. It was all good until I got to homicide.” Oliva gave him a sympathetic, knowing smile. “What I told you guys? How the women got to me? I was scared if I told her, I’d, like, tarnish her. Make her see all the bad stuff we see. It’s amazing talking to her, Lieu. She never stopped seeing the best in people. And I stopped acting like her husband because I thought just being close to me would transfer all of it. She left me, but we’re in a weird limbo. She’s in the wedding, and we act married when we see each other. This’ll only be the sixth time in a year and a half. But I don’t want her to meet everyone and they’re all like who the hell are you.”

“This job can make that part of life incredibly difficult, Carisi. I feel the same way sometimes about Noah. What if they take him? What if I’m so paranoid he grows up paranoid? Or god forbid he sees pictures? I try to refocus it. I think about how he can make light in those bad times. I don’t know much about her, but I’m guessing she does too?”

“She does.”

“Tell her, Carisi. If she knows something is wrong, she’ll be able to get through it.”

“I’m telling her after the wedding. My therapist said it might make it less stressful. I’ve been afraid she’ll change her mind when I tell her.”

“It’ll work out. It is a smart idea to make sure everyone knows. Barba’s coming with me, so I’ll make sure he knows and keep him in line.”

“Thanks Lieu. For this whole talk, but also giving me a shot.”

Tag List: @cycat4077 @fear-less-write-more