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twistedtummies2 · 4 years ago

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Birthday Belly (LeonaXReader)

I wrote this yesterday for my own birthday. I didn’t really go into this with much of a plan, this story is 99% just me freestyling and whipping out some self-indulgent nonsense involving Leona Kingscholar and his appetite. It came out to about 4000 words, which is relatively short for MY stories on here. XD Hopefully you all will enjoy it.

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Living at the Ramshackle Dorm had, you thought, left you almost impervious to surprises. The 999 Happy Haunts who inhabited the old manor house had tried nearly every trick up their capes to spook you and shock you, and after dealing with so many dark mages for so long – facing demigods and fairy princes along the way – you didn’t think much could startle you. Today, you were going to be proven wrong. You sighed with some relief, removing your obligatory birthday sash and letting it drape over the arm-rest of the sofa as he leaned back and closed your eyes. Back in your homeworld, you had never really been much of a party person. You had never much cared for crowds, even among people you knew well; part of the joy of being one of only two (living) beings who called Ravenswood Manor home was that you were able to find privacy and peace fairly easily. However, despite not being a mage, and despite being so lonely there, your friends and the school itself had gone to a great deal of trouble to provide you with a party. You smiled wearily as you eyed the streamers and other decorations strung about your ground floor rooms. A huge banner reading “Happy Birthday…!” and followed by your name was hung over the fireplace, and piled up next to the spot where you’d installed your television and other such things was a stack of presents you had gotten from all your friends.

Ace had given you a set of playing cards and poker chips, winking as he promised to give you a chance to put them to use. Deuce, meanwhile, had been much more sensible, purchasing some cooking apparel he knew you could put to good use. Riddle Rosehearts, meanwhile, brought you some cherry tarts he and Trey had made together. Cater Diamond also appeared, and had bought a new external drive for your laptop computer. “I would have gotten you a new phone,” Cater had smiled. “But I didn’t think you needed one. Speaking of, BIRTHDAY SELFIE! COME ON OVER HERE…!” Idia hadn’t stayed for the party, but his brother Ortho had been happy to pop in. The two had pitched their cash together to buy you a new game system, along with a new game to play on it. Idia had personally sent a birthday card, as well; according to Ortho, his hands had been shaking so much trying to figure out what to write in it, he thought his brother’s fingers might fall off. All Idia had written in the card was, “Have a nice day,” probably because he had freaked out at the thought of saying anything else. Poor dear. Somebody – you weren’t sure who – had very, VERY wisely remembered to invite Malleus Draconia, who came with Silver. Silver spent most of the party sleeping, but Malleus had been kind enough to bestow a gift of his own, in the form of a leatherbound edition of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Naturally, Kalim had shown up, tugging Jamil along behind him. Each had a different gift to give: Kalim had brought a VERY expensive looking carpet, done in the ornate styling of his homeland. “It’s been in my family for…um…uh…” he had paused to try and count the years on his fingers…and eventually ran out of fingers AND toes to count on. “…A very, very long time! Like…SUPER long! I thought it might look nice in your bedroom or the ballroom or something! It’s, uh…it’s not too much, is it?” Gods bless that Baby Otter. He needed so many hugs. Jamil’s gift had been much more reserved: a mancala game box, which he had presented all while trying not to blush under his black hood. Vil had stopped by for a short while; he’d only stayed briefly, claiming the “decadent atmosphere of your gloomy domicile” would mess up his hairdo. (Go figure.) However, he had kindly brought you a gift in the form of custom-made suit of clothes he had ordered from his own personal tailor: some of the finest and most formal wear you had ever seen in your life. “Now you can actually look halfway presentable, instead of resembling a half-baked potato, next time there’s a big event,” he had smiled, as if he had been doing you a tremendous favor. Well. With clothes like this, you weren’t going to argue or complain. Azul had stopped for a brief “hello and goodbye” visit; he actually wanted to stay longer – Floyd, who had been with him, seemed particularly sad he couldn’t stay and squeeze his favorite “Little Shrimp” half to death all afternoon and evening…and in his case, that phrase was probably literal – but the Mostro Lounge was open that day, and he didn’t want to leave Jade in charge of things alone for TOO long at the office. The octopus man had brought you a bracelet covered in small seashells: simple, but surprisingly sweeter than you had expected. Floyd, meanwhile…he just hugged you. “What’s a better present for Shrimpy than a nice, tight SQUEEZE from their bestest, most favorite eel-person…riiiiiiight?” The safety of your spine and lungs demanded you agree and hug Floyd back. Ruggie and Jack had been among the first to show up. The latter had brought a hastily-wrapped DVD: a movie entitled “The Wolf of Pumpkin Hollow.” “I didn’t get this because I actually care,” he had clarified, looking everywhere but at your face and scratching the back of his white-eared head. “Just…everyone else would have thought it was rude if I didn’t get you something. Not that it matters what they think! Just…didn’t want to have to put up with it.” He was such a puppy. He truly was. Not only was Ruggie one of the first to arrive, he turned out to be THE first to give you your gift: a box of doughnuts. All glazed. “My grandma used to tell me: ‘Ruggie, get people the same kinds of gifts you’d want them to get you.’ Well, I can’t think of much I want more than doughnuts!” he sang out with an innocent smile. “You just wanted to have some to eat yourself, didn’t you?” you couldn’t help but smirk. Ruggie had gasped, seemingly offended…only to eventually ask if he could have some. The four remaining doughnuts – which you had to sneak away while the hyena wasn’t looking – were now on a plate in your fridge. You’d eat them later. Others had come and gone throughout the day; none of them had gifts to bring, but they had been happy to pop in, give well-wishes, and enjoy the party for a while. Now, however, all the guests were gone; even Grim had left, as you had asked him for some alone time that night. He and the gang from Heartslabyul were going to have a sleepover as a result. Despite the smile on your face as you looked over at your gifts, there was a hint of sadness to your expression. The one person whose presence you’d been looking forward to most hadn’t come. You’d asked his dorm-mates if they knew where he was or what he was doing, but none of them told you. Most of them very clearly had no clue…except for Ruggie. You got the feeling he DID know, he just wasn’t telling. Honestly, that didn’t settle your mind much. Your smile faded completely, and you closed your eyes once more, sighing through your nose…this time with a hint of despondency. Had he forgotten it was your birthday? Was he with somebody else right now? Maybe he was sleeping somewhere, like the big, lazy kit he was…some part of you – you couldn’t tell what part – kind of hoped that was all it was. He probably wasn’t hurt or sick…if he had been you’d think Ruggie would have told you… You glanced out the window. Evening was turning into night. You huffed softly through your nostrils, and stretched a bit where you sat. The party had worn you out more than you thought. You shook your head to clear it of your more perturbing thoughts, and began to wonder if you should just get to bed early tonight… A knock came at the door, jolting you to a more attentive state. You stood up from the ouch and headed out through the hall to the foyer. You wondered who it was…had one of the guests left something behind? As you approached the door, you adjusted your pristine white suit – another obligatory item for those celebrating a birthday at Night Raven College – which must have made whoever was on the other side impatient: they knocked again. “One moment, I’m here!” you called out, and opened the door. “Who’s-?” You froze, the word “there” dying before it ever reached your larynx. The first thing your eyes took in was the familiar, dimly-glowing pair of green ones staring back at you, as well as the dark mane and leonine ears and tail that accompanied their owner. A scar was slashed across one of the two eyes. The second thing – and the one that truly made you freeze – was the ENORMOUS, bare belly that was only inches away from you. The skin was tanned and smooth and supple-looking, the organ swollen to the size of a large watermelon, and only slightly less taut. The navel looked like the center of a maelstrom, drawing your attention towards that bloated gut as it let out a deep, burbling rumble…just before a black-clad hand slapped over it, hiding it from sight. At the same time, another hand suddenly scooped itself under your chin…and you found your head being tilted up, your eyes now locking on a pair of perfect-looking, velvety lips…which then parted to reveal a gaping, red mouth, dripping with saliva and framed by two rows of pointed, pearly fangs. You barely had time to take in the view of this glistening, slimy orifice…before your ears rang and your nose crinkled as two words were burped up. Right in your face. “HAAAAPPY…BUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP-DAY!” The belch was followed by a light sigh and a chuckle as Leona Kingscholar patted his stomach proudly. It jiggled at his touch. He smirked as he took in your expression: a loopy, flushed look was on your face. You were swaying so much that if he removed his hand from under your chin at that moment, you might have just toppled over. “Hm-hm-hmmm…did you like that?” he purred, smoothly. You nodded dumbly, still smiling a loopy, dazed smile as the sound reverberated in your ears, and your nose tingled from the lingering odor of the lion’s gut gas: a strong, heady, meaty smell that twined through the pockets of your gray matter, practically putting you in a trance for several long seconds. Finally, you found your voice. “…Where have you been?” “Preparing your present,” Leona said, as if that should have been obvious, and gently nudged you back as he entered the house and swaggered past you. With every step, his hips swung, and you found your blush seemed to be permanent as you watched them rock and sway as he strutted towards the living room. You followed him as if a leash had been tied ‘round your neck, and watched as he flopped onto your couch, gut sloshing with every little motion of his form. He was dressed in his usual clothes, but his gut was so massive it caused his mustard-colored shirt to ride up, exposing his belly to the world. The lion demi growled as he reached down; his waistband was still buttoned up, and clearly it was causing him discomfort. His fingers fumbled for the belt buckle…and he frowned as he couldn’t quite get it to cooperate. “Tch. Figures,” he grumbled. “After that entrance…pain in my ass…” The familiar phrase snapped you out of your stupor, and you chuckled, rolling your eyes. You sat down next to your princely boyfriend, and shooed his hands away. He frowned, growling indignantly, but allowed you to fiddle with his buckle, and finally managed to work it off… POPK! ZZZRRRIIIP! GUHBLORLSH! Leona let out a sound between a sigh and a grunt as – the moment the buckle was released – his trouser button gave up the ghost, popping open as the zipper flew down, the sheer weight and pressure of his belly forcing them open. He sighed as his belly poured into his lap like a mass of mocha-colored dough, wobbling as it noisily burbled. “UUUUUUUURRRRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAARRRRRRRP!” he belted out. “Oof…that felt good…” You blushed bright red, helpless to do anything but nod; you were already starting to tremble at so many…APPEALING things happening all at once. Leona smirked anew as he noticed your expression, leaning back a little further against the sofa cushions as his scarred eye flashed with a superior gleam. “You didn’t think I forgot, did you?” “How much did you eat?” you asked, marveling at the size of his belly as you fingers fidgeted and twitched, looking for something to do. You suddenly felt a little parched… “Mmmmm…not enough,” Leona growled, and grinned wider, revealing his pointed teeth. “I could fit more in there, I’m sure…” He licked his lips in a sultry, almost inviting way. You couldn’t keep yourself from letting out a shaky, shuddering sound as you shivered, a mixture of warmth and cold flickering across your spine. Leona chuckled – his gut bounced with his mirth, and tilted his head back with a sigh. “Ahhhhhh…went to my favorite buffet and helped myself,” he elaborated as he gave his belly a few hearty slaps. “Pure meat, every ounce.” You nodded slowly, dumbly. Leona snorted through his nose, raising an eyebrow as he saw you openly ogle his stomach. “Hmph. Are you just gonna stare at it all night, Herbivore?” he grunted. He waited till you looked up at him before going on: “Go ahead. It’s not gonna rub itself.” Your heartbeat quickened and you smiled widely. Leona grimaced and snarled. “Oi…just rub, don’t gimme those eyes…you look like that brat back home…” You chuckled – it was hard not to giggle, honestly – and gratefully helped yourself to your “present.” Your hands quickly fell over Leona’s bloated gut as he stretched his arms over the back of the couch. You scooted closer, and quivered at the intense warmth of the half-lion’s greedy, globular gut. Your palms and fingers began to lightly run across his girth, stroking his belly, just to get a feel of the texture and temperature. His flesh was silky-smooth, making it so hard to resist just pressing your face against it and nuzzling into his belly… You did resist though. At least for the moment. Instead, your fingers began to knead and massage the belly of your beau, pressing down onto the thick soup you could feel churning away inside his bowels. You prodded experimentally, almost as if trying to distinguish each bit of food from the next…but there was no way you could. Whatever Leona had gobbled up was now little more than a uniform mush being swirled about by his strong stomach muscles. His insides warbled and rumbled, as if in response to your ministrations. Leona sighed, closing his eyes and savoring the way you massaged his distended tanker. In truth, the lazy lion didn’t need much of an excuse to stuff himself…but you didn’t care that much. Whether he did this for himself, or for you, as he claimed, the end result was the same. “Mmmmm…that’s it…keep it up,” he mumbled. “Wasn’t planning on stopping,” you said, more to yourself than him, but he snickered anyway. “Heh heh…good. Prey like you should be happy to have a chance like this,” he said, and playfully patted your cheek, causing your blush to intensify. A spike of ego shot up in you, and you purposefully pressed down harder against his stomach. It let out a HUMONGOUS groan, and Leona’s eyes widened and his cheeks ballooned…before he let out another sloppy, rumbling belch. “BUUUUUUUHHHHHHHUUUUUUUURRRRRRLLLLLLLUUUUUUP! Haaah…oi. Not so rough,” he growled, narrowing his eyes at you, tail lashing and thumping against the sofa cushions. “Sorry,” you smiled innocently. “You had so much hot air in there, it clearly had to be let out.” Leona’s eyes narrowed further. “I could turn you into dust right here and right now,” he said, warningly. “I guess you could,” you said, smoothly, and then traced a finger around the rim of his deep, dark trench of a navel. The effect was instantaneous. Leona tensed up for a second, inhaling sharply through his teeth…then sighed and relaxed, all but melting into his seat, eyes fluttering closed again as he purred louder than ever. You smirked triumphantly, as you stuck your finger into his navel and wiggled it around a bit. “Still want to turn me into dust?” you teased. Leona could only moan. He moaned even louder as you cupped one hand on the underside of his belly: the softest, warmest, most sensitive portion of his abdomen. You gently rubbed your hand against them, and traced your fingers over his sides. You could hear his toes curl in his boots; his tail you could SEE curl into a spiral shape as he bit his lip with pleasure. “I’ll take that as a no,” you observed, a dreamy sort of sigh upon your lips as you were honestly enjoying this just as much as he was, a fact you made clear you when you half-consciously murmured: “You’re so SOFT…” “Mmmm…I’ll be softer once it’s all digested,” Leona mumbled. “Vargas is probably gonna complain…think he’d pester me about that stuff if I ate ‘im?” “I think if you ate Coach Vargas, you’d just get a bellyache,” you said, not wanting to add that someone as egotistical as Leona eating someone as showboating as Vargas probably meant all the weight would to his head… …Cracks like that weren’t funny, and could get you bitten. The second part you didn’t mind as much as one might think, to be fair. …You really needed to see a shrink… Leona just scoffed, unaware of your thoughts as you continued to rub and massage his belly. You gave the side of his belly a few hearty thumps, watching the way his belly shifted and jiggled like a water balloon. His stomach groaned and churned rhythmically, squelches and squeals of liquid being compressed and stirred echoing just beneath the luscious skin of the half-lion prince. It sounded like a huge vat of semi-solid mash being pumped and processed in a factory…a sound some might have considered nauseating, but you just bit your lip, rubbing and kneading more vigorously as you heard pockets of gas being released. As you kneaded and pressed down, Leona would BELCH and BURP periodically. Each was short and low, which only made you rub his gut more vigorously. He gave you a bored sort of look as he realized what you were doing. “Didn’t get enough to drink at your party, did you, you thirsty little Herbivore?” “Not even close,” you responded, without skipping a beat. Leona rolled his eyes, and held up a finger in a “one moment” gesture. He then curled that same finger down, balling that hand into a fist…and pumped his fist against his chest once, twice, thrice…before unleashing a true wall-rattler, which flapped his lips and made him go crosseyed. “GYYYYUUUUUHHHHHEEEEERRRRRWWWOOOOAAAAARRRRRIIIIIPLK!” Leona sighed as the eruption came to an end, and snorted as you squeaked at the sound. “Happy now?” he drawled boredly. “Very,” you peeped, patting his belly thankfully. Leona rolled his eyes as he scratched the side of his gut with his leather-tipped fingers, making it slosh under your palm. You quivered. His lips quirked. “Tch. You’re such a snack,” he muttered. “It’s amazing nobody’s already gobbled you up…” “Just lucky so far, I guess,” you shrugged, and scratched his belly with your own fingers. Leona let out a non-committal rumble…then smirked a bit. “We could fix that, you know,” he purred in a slippery, sly way. You froze, and looked up at him slowly, a little confused and slightly apprehensive. Leona smiled back, eyes half-lidded; the dominant, powerful, but affectionately amused smile that always left you shivering for all the right reasons. Then, one of his his hands lifted, and cupped your cheek. He brushed a thumb against it, and you smiled gently back… …Just before that same hand slid forward, and wrapped around the back of your head. “Here,” he growled, commandingly, as he began to force you downwards. “Listen. Feel.” You didn’t have much choice, and it wasn’t as if you would disobey if you could. You surrendered easily as he eased you down against his belly, pressing your head down and holding it firmly, curling his hand so one of your was right above his navel. You felt your chest flutter as the warmth of his body was now right up against your face, and the deep, thick GRRRROOOOLLLLLLG sounds of his ever-hungry belly echoed in your ear like rolling thunder. You stayed perfectly still; time and place seemed to fade into nothingness. All that mattered was the moment: you were hypnotized by his belly, barely conscious of anything. He started speaking, but it took you a few seconds to realize what he was even saying. “…I’d you’d like it, huh?” were the first words you made out, followed by still more: “I could swallow you alive, Herbivore. You’d slither right down my throat, curl up in my stomach…and never come out. I’d just fall asleep, and let you stay there. It wouldn’t have to hurt: one big burp, and your air would be history. Then, you’d go straight to my hips…my thighs…my ass…even my belly. Every part of me you love most.” He paused, purring as his stomach let out a greedy, longing rumble. “How does that sound for your birthday, Herbivore?” he crooned. “How would you like to spend your birthday – your LAST birthday – turning into more of the body you’re so in love with. To be the snack you’re supposed to be. To spend the rest of eternity as just a part of me.” None of these were spoken as questions. You shivered and let out a whimpering sound – not necessarily one of fear, either – as you heard him lick and smack his lips. He leaned down and sniffed at you, purring in the back of his throat. “Mmmmmmm…I could make that happen. Right here. Right now.” You bit your lip; as his stomach rumbled, you closed your eyes. You could picture yourself inside of there…partially submerged in acid and bubbling goo…embraced on every side by his powerful muscles…hearing him belch with satisfaction above and around you…rubbing over you as you were steadily digestedinside of him… You took longer than most people probably would before speaking. “I know you could,” you said, very softly, then added, “Maybe someday you will.” Leona blinked…then puffed with amusement, his smile growing slightly more affectionate as he ran his fingers through your hair the way a cat might. “Not ready to make this birthday your last, huh?” You opened one eye and carefully shook your head. “If it means next year I could get one as good as this, or better, definitely not,” you responded, without skipping a beat. Leona clucked his tongue, and removed his hand, letting it rest against the back of the sofa. He chuffed as your remained where you were, despite no longer being forced down. “Kinky little morsel,” he mumbled. “Guilty,” you responded in a slightly muffled voice as you freely nuzzled his abdomen, smirking as he purred anew, clearly enjoying it. Leona chuckled, and nudged you, indicating he wanted you to look up at him again. You did…and watched as his cheeks ballooned with gas as he caught a particularly low, gassy burp in his mouth… “HHHHRRRRMMMMLLLLRRRRPH…phoosh.” …Before blowing the residual fumes into your face, almost like a kiss. You nearly fainted dead away. Leona grinned. “Good?” was all he said. “Marry me now.” Leona barked out a laugh and gave your hair a ruffling, then shut his eyes and reclined peacefully once more. “Get back to rubbing, meat,” he growled. “Or I might just swallow you whether you want it or not. Don’t let your gift go to waste.” You smiled and eagerly got back to work, kissing and nuzzling and rubbing his belly worshipfully, without any sign of restraint. Leona’s purring heightened as you pampered his plumpened middle. “Mmmmm…happy birthday, Herbivore,” he growled. “Maybe next year, I’ll add you to my hips…” At the rate things were going…that was starting to sound like a promise more than anything else. If so…you could hardly wait till next year.

The End

#leona kingscholar #leona #disney #twisted wonderland #kink fic #fanfic #vore teasing #post-stuffing #belly goodness #belching #burping #birthday story

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soulwillower · 4 years ago

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tozier • ben hanscom

(ben hanscom x tozier!reader smut)

requested: okay so once regular requests open, here's my idea. so the reader and richie are siblings and they absolutely hate each other and to get under his sisters skin, he fucks her best friend. so in sheer anger she decides to fuck all of his

warnings: swearing, smut, unedited bc im a lazy asshole

ok guys here’s part one of the new series! i’ll probably have to go back in and edit some stuff n probably change the name but lmk what u guys think and what u wanna see for the next parts :)

[losers and reader are in college in this.]

2.8k words

♡

you know richie pretty well, if you say so yourself. hell, you grew up with him - you've known him your whole entire life and even now, as 19 and 20 year olds, you're still at each other’s throats constantly.

naturally, growing up with richie as your brother was full of ups and downs - like the time that you were still a baby in your crib and he'd curiously wandered into your nursery and twisted your finger, causing it to break. or, that time when you two got into a fight over who took the last of the ice cream in the freezer and didn't speak to each other for almost three whole days.

but there were really good times, too - like when richie picked you up after your disastrous senior prom night and drank vodka with you in the back of his pickup truck while you threw rocks at the creepy house on neibolt street. or the time where you bought him a new pair of glasses so your parents wouldn't kill him for breaking them and he bought you ice cream for a month as a thank you.

richie was the most frustrating, annoying, rude, arrogant older brother, and yet even when you were away at separate colleges, you talked on the phone almost every night.

you share one of those really, really competitive relationships - a lot of it, you’ve realized, stems from your parents constantly pitting you two against each other to vie for their attention and praise. but no matter, you still hated richie most of the time and he hated you just as much.

but right now, you might fucking murder him.

you have so much hatred for him as you storm down your stairs, phone clutched violently in your palm as you stalk into the basement, hollering, "richard!" at the top of your lungs. it's a hot august afternoon and you've just come back from the pool with your best friend, now filled to the brim with white hot rage for your brother.

when you'd been at the pool, cecily, your best friend, had stretched her neck and you'd noticed a hickey (naturally, you'd teased her about it). but when you pried, she got secretive and defensive until it finally slipped out that the boy she'd been with was none other than your gangly, stupid older brother, richie.

you were completely disgusted and beyond addled as to why she'd choose richie, of all people, but more than that you were extremely pissed and stormed off, driving home with knuckles tight against the steering wheel.

and now, as you make it down to the last step of the basement, you're aware that you're still in your bathing suit with shorts thrown haphazardly on top as you storm towards your fuckwit brother.

he and all of the losers he hung out with are down here, sprawled on the large sofas and on the floor in front of the tv. you don't dare break your eye contact with richie as you glare, face heated with anger.

"well hey there, little sis. what's got your knickers in a knot?" he says with a lopsided grin that you just want to punch clean off his face. he's sitting between ben and bill and you turn a little pink as you notice both boys’ eyes on your body. yet you barely think for a second before slapping richie straight across his cheek, hard.

the slap is a sickening sound as it quiets the whole room - you can feel bev's eyes on you, hear eddie's short gasp, and see out of the corner of your eyes as stan turns his head to watch the scene. richie stares at you, hand on his cheek. "what the hell, y/n?" he asks with a glare as he stands up, rising to his full height above you. but you’re not afraid.

"you talk to cecily today?" you ask with feigned sweetness, a sick smile on your face as you cross your arms. richie just blinks at you, mouth opening and closing like the dumbass he is. "how long have you been fucking her?" you ask when he says nothing.

the room bursts in exclamations after your words - from mike's "you didn't." to bill's "what the f-fuck is wrong with you, m-man?" and ben's, "oh my god, dude."

richie just shakes his head, looking way too casual as he places a hand on your shoulder with a grin, "y/n/n, can we talk about this later? we’re trying to watch jeopardy." he smirks, but you immediately shake his arm off, recoiling in frustration as you glare at him. "no, richie! you’ve been fucking my best friend! my ONLY friend!" you ask, shaking your head. “you’re such a shitty person, i fucking hate you. why did you do it?”

as you make eye contact, he sighs almost forlornly, as if he’s about to apologize. but this is richie, so of course he doesn’t. "....she's just so fuckin’ hot." he says with a grin.

you take a sharp breath, rubbing your face with your hands as you back away towards the stairs.

"c'mon, sis! don't be so sensitive." he calls to your back and you can practically hear the nasty grin in his voice. you hear eddie hiss, "quit being a fucking asshole." to your brother and you want to scream. "don't fucking talk to me, richie." you snap as you make it up the stairs, ignoring richie as he laughs his stupid hyena laughter.

you're finally changed out of your suit and into a shirt and shorts by the time you've calmed down enough to take a few deep breaths. a knock makes you jump, though, and you glare at the closed door. as you're about to yell for whoever it is to go away, you're stopped by a voice.

"hey, y/n." ben's voice sounds through the door, and it's almost shocking how quickly your shoulders relax. you smile shyly as you open the door, your heart beating wildly, this time not from anger but out of your proximity to ben.

ben hanscom had been your brother’s friend for a while, and you simply did not understand. all of them are jackasses, richie being the king of the pack, but ben really does seem to be so fucking genuine. maybe it’s because you’ve always had a small thing for him, but then again it may just be because you’re furious with richie.

"hi, ben. sorry i was.... sorry about that." you say awkwardly as he walks into your room and shuts the door gently. he laughs quietly as he leans against your wall, looking down at you knowingly. "it's richie's fault. you have every right to be mad. he’s a dick sometimes"

you nod thoughtfully, touched that ben came to check in on you. "i know he is. you know, i'm not even mad that they had sex, honestly, i’m just mad because i know he did it to piss me off." you say, biting your lip as you stare up at ben, his hair glinting under the soft light of your lamp.

ben nods as he reaches out to rub your shoulder, making your stomach flutter as you look up at him. "if i can be honest, you two have the weirdest relationship i've ever seen, y/n. i'm sorry he did that and didn’t tell you, that's really unfair."

you smile lightly at the floor where your feet point towards his. "well now i have, like, nobody to hang out with this summer." you mumble, thinking about how cecily is really your only friend from derry, and how all your college friends live hundreds of miles away.

you shrug, leaning into ben's touch. "you have me to keep me company, though." he says with a shy grin, cheeks heating up at your smile.

"oh, just you? i like the sound of that." you ask, lifting a brow playfully. he chuckles a bit at your look and it makes your chest flutter.

"yeah, of course you do, y/n." he says as he pulls you into a hug. he's warm and smells like cinnamon cologne and it makes your chest glow sweetly. you pull back only slightly, hands sliding up to his chest as you look into his golden eyes. "ben..." you whisper softly, eyes going down to his lips and then bouncing back up, not wanting to make a move if he's not comfortable with it.

he clearly is thinking the same thing, because you're both moving closer and closer, his hands lightly squeezing your hips as he stares at you with hooded eyes. "yeah?" he asks, just as quietly. you swallow, wanting nothing more than to just close the gap just to see what it'd be like. to have one of richie's friends, for a change.

you don't know how to initiate it, though. "do you want to-"

"yes." he rushes out quickly, apprehension only flashing across his face just after he'd rushed out the answer, in fear that you'd been overwhelmed by his enthusiasm. but it's enough for you, and you grin slightly before pulling him into a kiss.

his lips are hot on yours, your hair still drying from the chlorine at the pool as his fingers tangle in the strands. you moan a bit out of shock, having not kissed anyone in a while and feeling touch starved. his hands are strong and soft in all the best ways and you try not to smirk as you think about your stupid brother sitting in the basement, currently unaware of what you’re about to do with one of his best friends upstairs.

but then, just as your hand slips to the hem of ben’s jeans, he pulls back a bit. “is this a bad idea?” he asks.

you sigh, looking away. “yes.” you say with barely any hesitation. “but i don’t fucking care.” you say honestly, and ben grins, “well, me neither. you’re...” he looks you up and down before smiling. “so fucking pretty.” he ends with and your stomach flutters, face growing hot at the compliment.

"but i don't want to, like.... t-take advantage of this situation, or-" ben starts, but you shake your head, biting your lip as you stare at him. he's so fucking amazing, so caring. he's always been like this - respectful, considerate, and interested in your well being, which really just makes you want him even more.

"no, ben, i... i really want this. if-if you do too." you say honestly, fiddling with your fingers as you watch him through your lashes. he grins as he nods. "you sure?"

you giggle, pulling him towards you by his neck. "yes. are you, ben?" you ask as he leans down closer. "definitely." he whispers against your lips, his breath coming out in a short huff. and then his lips are on yours, pressing strongly and fully as you stumble a bit, grasping him tightly as you kiss back.

he presses you against him, hand at the small of your back as he moves his tongue deftly against your lip, exploring your mouth as you suppress a moan. one moment later, you pull back a bit.

"you're not..." you trail off, and he shakes his head. "no, are you?" he asks, and you also shake your head as you cup his cheek and pull him back in for a kiss. "me neither." you mutter, falling back down onto the mattress, hand blindly fumbling around inside your bedside drawer for your box of condoms.

he's kissing down your neck, his hands palming your breasts softly as you finally pull one out and set it beside you, wrapping your arms back around his neck.

he grinds slowly against you and you let out an embarrassedly loud moan at the friction against your clothed clit. he's already pretty hard and your mind flickers to the basement, how chilly it had been against your skin and how your swimsuit top probably didn't leave much to the imagination as you'd stood right in front of him. it makes you giddy at the thought of ben's eyes on you, his mind drifting to what you'd look like underneath him.

which is where you are right now, as he rolls the condom onto himself and pumps slowly. you kick your shorts and underwear off, aching and dripping with need as he slides between your legs, bracing himself with one arm above you.

"ready?" he asks softly and you let out a strangled whimper as you feel him line up at your entrance, teasing your folds a bit and making your hips buck. "yes." you say, staring deep into his eyes.

ben grasps your hand then, steading both you and him as he eases into you, sinking slowly and letting out a shuddering breath. you let out a small whine at the feeling of ben stretching you out, having been too antsy and not having enough time or patience for foreplay. once he's fully inside you, he kisses your cheek and gives you a few moments to adjust as you breathe into his neck.

and then he starts to move, his hips rolling slowly as he fills you up and hits a perfect spot inside you, your toes curling almost immediately. "oh god, ben." you moan out and that makes his hips move fluidly as he thrusts into you, kissing your neck softly as you whimper in pleasure.

the hand that isn't steadying himself above you holding your hand dances around you; exploring your curves, fingers lightly tracing over the stretch marks on your hips and then his palm sliding to caress your sides, his touch making your skin feel on fire.

after a few more minutes, he picks up the pace, hips angled slightly deeper and making your toes curl. he starts to moan every few thrusts, right into the shell of your ear, and it pushes you closer and closer to that feeling growing in your abdomen.

"shit, y/n, i'm already close." he mutters, eyes closed in bliss as he leans his head back slightly, the sight heavenly to your eyes. and you don't even blame him because he's probably just as pent-up as you are and you know this has to be quick or else richie will come up, wondering why ben was taking so long to ask if you're okay.

so you lean up a bit as he thrusts into you and you attach your lips to his neck, sucking lightly enough that it won't mark. "so am i." you say breathlessly as you move your hips, chasing the high that's building deep inside you.

you press your hands to his chest, stopping his motions momentarily. "let me ride you." you say breathlessly and his eyes widen with something akin to hunger as he pulls out of you, rolling onto his back with a shocked look. you smirk as you climb back onto him, straddling him as you pump him a few times. he bites his lip as you sink yourself onto him, moaning and covering your mouth so as not to carry the sound all the way to the basement.

as you start to bounce, you smile, realizing that you're not at all insecure in front of ben - his hands are all over your body, running over and gripping the plush skin as you sink onto him, taking him perfectly. he's groaning and moving his hips with yours as you mouth wet kisses over his chest and neck.

ben lets out a moan that pushes you near the edge as you pick up the pace, his cock hitting a new spot inside you that has you whimpering. as his hands fall to move your hips with his, squeezing your soft thighs tightly, you hit your high.

you tremble as the feeling of him inside you makes you clench hard, your eyes squeezing shut in bliss as you moan out, "ben!"

your hips stop moving as you ride out your high, only making small movements as you clench around him in complete pleasure. he groans below you, eyes still shut as he juts his hips upwards, taking over to chase his own orgasm.

and his hips start to stutter a few thrusts after as you slump on his chest, one hand on your tits and the other on your hips to move you with his thrusts. he cums a few moments later with a moan that is muffled by your hair, his hands sliding down to your ass, your lips on his collarbone.

after a few moments, you roll off of him and sigh, shocked and unsure as to if that really just happened. you're embarrassed at how quickly he made you cum - you want to blame it all on the fact that it has been quite some time since you'd had sex, but it really was the thrill of hooking up with him, especially because your brother was just downstairs.

ben's cheeks are red as he sits up quickly, pulling on his boxers and then his pants, only looking at you after he tugs the hem of his shirt down. "um, i would totally stay, but-"

you shake your head with a grin, "no, i get it. this was... just a spur of the moment thing."

he beams at you, seemingly relieved that he wasn't hurting your feelings - that was amazing and you're both glowing in your post-orgasm high, but you both know that this was a one-time thing. he pecks your cheek sweetly and as he turns to leave, you mutter, "wait!"

he lifts a brow as he turns to you and you run your fingers through his hair a few times to make it look the way it did before he came up here. "thanks." he says with a grin before he disappears, closing the door behind him and making you get dressed with red cheeks in silence.

tag list: @gabiatthedisco @blisshemmings @stenbrozier @simplesammyx @clownsloveyou @baby-yoda-a @moon-shine-baby @daughter-of-the-stars11 @trashedfortozier @oceandog13 @finnskindofwoman @kait-tozier @upamongthestarss @fiantomartell @beverlyparkerr @beauregard-s @brxken-heartsclub

#ben hanscom x reader #ben hanscom smut #losers x reader #richie tozier x reader #tozier series #beverly marsh x reader #bill denbrough x reader #stanley uris x reader #eddie kaspbrak x reader #mike hanlon x reader

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courtlyharlequin · 4 years ago

Note

I bumped into Leona and we were super tired so I would like to snuggle with him. extra fluff please? 🌙I hope I followed the rules right.. thank you💖

Eternally

A/N: You followed the rules just fine so don’t worry! Your username is a mood by the way~♡ I hope this is fluffy enough for your liking because I honestly have a hard time writing fluff;;;

“Oi. Are you lost, little lamb?”

You halted, shoulders tensed. You turned around to see the owner of this raspy, tired voice. Your brows furrowed as you were met with an empty landscape. Were you hallucinating? No, you couldn’t be. You were exhausted and famished, but you were also sentient. You peered into the darkness of the forest.

“Down here, herbivore,” a rasp voice called.

You jolted, sourcing the owner of the voice. He chuckled, flicking in tail. He slightly opened his eyes. You felt small in this situation. His gaze matched the ones of the wolves you encountered earlier– hungry and wild. His brilliant emerald orbs glimmered, illuminating the murkiness of the forest. Without breaking eye contact, you approached him– a lanky figure with furry ears and a tail. He was leaning against a tree trunk with a lax expression and arms behind his head. You crouched down. The autumn leaves crunched beneath your soles.

“Y-You’re a…” you breathed, hands hovering his ears.

He swatted your hand away: “What? Never seen a lion before?”

While the shadows masked a good portion of his facial features, you could feel his smirk. You fell silent, drowsiness eating away your consciousness by the minute.

“Are you lost?” he repeated.

You couldn’t formulate an answer. The lion rolled his eyes and flicked your forehead. You stifled a yawn.

“Are. You. Lost?”

“A bit…”

“Yes or no, darling,” he growled, pulling you towards his chest.

You yelped, wriggling out of his grasp.

“M-Mister Lion–”

“That’s Leona to you.”

“Apologies, Leona. Would you mind letting me go?”

He loosened his grip but held you close nonetheless, “Answer my question first.”

“Pardon?”

He glared at you.

“Oh. Yes, I’m lost. Very lost,” you said, resting your head against his chest.

Leona’s embrace was warm, comfortable even. His steady heartbeat lulled you closer to the realm of dreams. It was hard to keep your eyes open. He nuzzled his head against your neck. You pried him off your person.

“I have to go,” you whined, “I’ll be late to a very important date if I stay.”

“You’re tired, aren’t you? Sleep.”

“No.”

He growled, pulling you closer, “Too bad.”

“Listen–”

His snores cut you short. Was he asleep already? You poked his cheeks. He snorted, but made no sign of consciousness. Yes, he was definitely asleep. You stared down at his muscular arms that held you too close for comfort. You sighed as you made one last attempt to free yourself from him. It was to no avail. His grip was deadly. Leona himself was harmless at first glance. Regardless, he was a lion, the king of beasts. What if he wanted to fall into a deep slumber before he sank his canines into your flesh? He had no reason to help you. No reason at all…

“Would you sleep already? I’m not going to eat you… God… The stench of your fear is putrid,” he mumbled.

You flinched and turned to him. His eyes were closed once more. You exhaled and plaid on his chest. A nap wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps you could ask him later– if he didn’t devour you then and there that was.

Bonus:

“Thank you so much, Leona,” you waved as you headed towards your destination.

“Mhm, herbivore.”

You stopped in your tracks and turned to face him, “Will I be able to see you again?”

He smiled at you, but said nothing more as he retraced his steps back into the eerie forest. He let out a long, drawled-out yawn while he stretched his shoulders.

“Shishishi~”

“Oi. Ruggie. What are you laughing at ?

“I can’t believe you made me keep watch while you used a guest of Hatter and the March Hare as a body pillow,” the biscuit haired hyena wheezed, emerging from the shadows.

“What of it?”

“I just never thought that I would see the day where you would have such a soft spot for someone aside from Cheka.”

Leona’s tail swayed back and forth.

“Don’t mention that little rascal. I’m not ‘soft’ for him nor am I ‘soft’ to that little lamb. It would just be an inconvenience if those nasty wolves got to them, you know? Blood has a foul odor. I would never be able to nap here if those creatures ate them.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Ruggie shrugged.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland imagines #twst imagines #twisted wonderland scenarios #twst scenarios #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #leona kingscholar x reader #event fic #lost in the woods event

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arhvste · 4 years ago

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Okay bear with me but may I request scenarios where kuroo, bokuto, and atsumu are doing the “He got all the drugs and I got all the guns” tik tok trend with their s/o (separately) and like they are wearing the whole shebang heels, dresses, crop tops, makeup, wigs ,etc that’s only if you want to of course n e ways have an awesome day🤩

OMG ARE U A MIND READER I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS AND SPECIFICALLY THESE BOYS DOING THIS TREND FOR WEEKS 🤯

just in case you didn’t know i’m referencing this trend 😼

KUROO, BOKUTO AND ATSUMU DOING THE FAMOUS (I’M THE ONE) TIKTOK TREND WITH THEIR S/O

KUROO

when you first show him the trend on tiktok he just laughs

then you suggest the two of you doing it and he goes quiet

he’s really thinking about it

he secretly is more than happy to do it with you

but he’ll find out how far he can tease you first

“and what do i get out of doing this?”

“spending quality time with the love of your life duh”

“it’s gonna take a bigger reward than that for the expense of me making a fool of myself online princess”

“PS5?”

then he’s like 👀

he wasn't expecting an actual good reward but if that’s what you’re willing to do for it

he won’t actually make you buy one for him don't worry

he’s just amused that you’re that adamant about doing it

he will absolutely let you pick out what clothes of his you want to wear

you’ll pick out what he wears from your wardrobe though because he is not about to stretch your cute clothes with his big body

you end up giving him an elasticated crop top and some loose baggy sweatpants

he will 100% let you do his make up and hold accessories

he is stunning with a natural make up look

a pretty highlight to his cheekbones, bridge and tip of his nose, inner corners of the eye and brow bone

light pink blush on his cheeks and nose

slim eyeliner and a light pink natural lip colour

he actually suggested wearing super obnoxious fake eyelashes

“i am NOT having you look like a tacky abg kuroo”

“but then we can say you’re a kevin nguyen, it fits”

‘nO!!”

to finish the look he’s holding a white clutch bag of yours

he almost looks seductive 👁👅👁

he actually looks so good in your outfit

“i think i pull this off better than you”

you’re wearing some training shorts, one of his favourite t shirts and a black nike cap

so you set your phone up and the music starts to play

immediately you two are in fits of giggles though

it takes you two approximately 8 attempts to finally get it right

and when you watch it back you’re in for a shock

kuroo can throw it BACK

he doesn’t even have a particularly noticeable ass

like he has one but it’s nothing like bokuto’s

but when he throws it back his ass is thicccccc

even he’s surprised at how well he pulls it off

he pulls the whole routine off

from the way his hips seductively sway, the pure sass in his walk as he struts into the camera frame and the way he rolls his body

honestly you think he makes a better girl than you

“good aren’t i? god i could almost date myself”

“yeah if you’re into 6″2 hairy girls with a hyena laugh”

he’s looking down at his very manly and unshaven legs

“let me shave it and i’d date myself”

you guys upload it and you’re a hit

“let’s move to LA right now tell the hype house they’ve got two new members joining”

“kuroo, i am NOT joining the hype house and neither are you. 😐”

overall i really think you guys would have fun with this trend and kuroo makes sure to send the video to both of your families who enjoy watching it as much as you guys enjoyed making it

“the roles have reversed i’m your pretty girl now y/n~”

BOKUTO

he’s the one who brings it up to you

“babe look at this we HAVE to try it please please please!”

you laugh at him and agree to it

he is so excited he already knows what choreography he is doing

you guys go to get changed and he lets you pick whatever you want out of his wardrobe

this boy is pure muscle he is huge

anything of his you wear will be like a dress on you

regardless you still take your time deciding what you want to wear

PLEASE pick his volleyball jersey and shorts he will literally cry from happiness

it would make his whole year

so you do just that

he is literally melting at the sight of you in his volleyball uniform

“BABY YOU HAVE TO WEAR THAT TO ALL MY MATCHES”

“-but you’ll be wearing it... at your matches... when you play 👁👄👁”

so bokuto will not be fitting into your tight fitting clothes that's for sure

but he will happen to fit into one of your cute flirty sundresses where the top half is made to be able to adjust the size

he is twirling around and flicking the skirt about once you manage to wrangle him in it

he’s like a giddy school girl

again, he will definitely be up for you to apply make up on him

nothing too heavy but just enough so you can tell he’s wearing some

pretty light yellow eyeshadow, highlighted features and faded eyeliner

you pull his hair into two tight little buns

he’s really feeling the part now

so you guys go to film the tiktok and he is jumping around like an excited kid

you manage to film your parts pretty well first try but he isnt too happy with his performance

“i don't know i just feel like i could’ve thrown it back a bit more”

so you refilm until he is content with his part

which by the way is after 14 tries so thank the lords you are patient when it comes to him

it is so worth it though

the practices paid tf off because bokuto is throwing his cake about like nobodies business

he be serving a piece for everyone fr

immediately after you film it he wants to show akaashi

to which akaashi isn't surprised when he watches it

he does snicker at his phone when he does watch it though

neither you or bokuto really care about views etc

this was all just for fun after all but you upload it anyway not giving it much thought

and just like that the two of you are an overnight sensation

comments are flooding the notifications

“his ass routine? drop it noW!!”

“what's his work out routine i need cake like his 😩😩”

“my boyfriend said he has a fatter ass than me so im currently crying 😔🤚🏽”

the nekoma, fukurodani and karasuno boys are BUGGIN tf out

they're all calling you and sending you the video for confirmation that it is actually you two

it’s not like bokuto is hard to tell apart but they still want your confirmation

“REMEMBER ME WHEN YOU’RE FAMOUS BOKUTO-SAN!!”

“OF COURSE HINATA WHEN WE’RE RICH WE’LL ADOPT YOU CAN LET YOU MOVE INTO OUR TIKTOK MANSION!”

he is SUCH a child but he’s the man child you fell in love with

needless to say this video will be played at the wedding and anniversaries to come

ATSUMU

atsumu is constantly irritating you to be one of those tiktok couples with him

he’s convinced the two of you were made for the tiktok lifestyle

everytime you roll your eyes and decline

but you decide to give him the opportunity when a certain trend catches your eye

“baby, when i said i wanted to be tiktok famous i meant like the dances n cute videos where people compliment us n call us hot. this aint it chief”

“fine then, guess i’ll ask samu”

he doesn't even give u the chance to get up after you say that

“no nO I”LL DO IT 😠”

he is reluctant at first

ideally he wanted to make the tiktoks where you’re the one throwing it back on him not vice versa

anything to make you happy though i guess

he will pick out both of your outfits

if he’s going to do this tiktok, the least he’s going to make sure of is that you both fit his aesthetic

so you’re wearing typical clothes he’d wear to the gym

his gym clothes are actually stylish though

you will NOT catch atsumu wearing anything ugly that includes gym clothes

unlike a certain other setter who thought wearing plaid shorts was acceptable cough cough oikawa

he chooses to wear a tight dress

it’s stretchy though so don’t worry he isn't stretching out and ruining your clothes

“why are you wearing that? you can see a little too much there ratsumu”

“uh so people can see you have a boyfriend that's obviously packin heat 🙄”

“i hate you 😀”

he is hesitant about wearing make up

but you explain to him since you’re doing it you might aswell go all out so he finally gives in

you won’t put a lot on him though just to compromise with him slightly

light highlight, blended out eyeliner, natural lip colour

he’s surprisingly impressed and pulls out his phone to take a few selfies before getting ready to film the ‘stupid’ video with you

he insists he doesn't need to practice

“im good at everythin’ i do and everyone is gonna see that when we film this shit”

surprisingly it does only take you guys one attempt to get it right

atsumu is good at body rolls periodt

he can throw it back

but his body rolls chileee

he looks flexible asf

he is serving absolute attitude

you also did take notice of him using one hand to slyly cover his private area out of modesty though

because he found you were in fact right about how that dress really did show everything

he incorporates it well into his choreography though nobody would be able to tell he was trying to cover himself

“baby we look so fuckin hot. im talkin more bout me but you’re still sexy too”

he adds so many hashtags to the caption

#couple #hot #imhotter #fyp #foryoupage #tiktokcouple #couplegoals #hotboy #sexyboy #hotathlete #attractivemale #eboy #trending #makeusfamous

you just roll your eyes and let him get on with it

im so sorry but you guys don’t get many views

atsumu is pissed

“we put so much effort in why’s it not gettin attention?!”

“calm down babe we only posted it 2 minutes ago”

give it a few days and you guys do blow up though

im talking 867K likes

and to atsumu’s delight the comments are mostly complimenting you both

“told ya this was a good idea”

“it was my idea?? 😐”

requests are open!!

#kuroo tetsurou #kuroo x reader #kuroo x you #kuroo hcs #kuroo scenario #bokuto koutaro #bokuto x reader #bokuto x you #bokuto hcs #bokuto scenario #miya atsumu #atsumu x reafer #atsumu x you #atsumu hcs #atsumu scenarios #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu hcs

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boymeetsweevil · 4 years ago

Text

in your court

Grouping: Reader x B-ball player!Jaehyun (feat. BFF!Hyuck)

Word Count: ~10.8k

Warnings/Themes: Two idiots in love, oc is scary when mad, hyuck is crafty always, jae is a bit intense but he’s just trying his best, gratuitous descriptions of dimples, a kiss!!! sfw!

Prompt: “awkward!oc with his basketball teammate jaehyun. Honestly anything with bff!haechan.”

“Make sure you don’t make it look shaky.”

Donghyuck puts the phone camera close to his face so he can better see your handiwork through the video call. He looks a bit like a fish, but you can’t see him because you’re focused on the mirror in front of you.

“Remind me why I’m being forced to do this?”

“Because I’m your best friend and I deserve a sign just as much as Jisung and Johnny.”

You have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes so you don’t mess up the number 14 you’re drawing carefully onto your cheek in eyeliner. Although you hate to see good makeup go to waste, you’re trying to be a better friend while also trying not to accidentally write the number backwards. It’s Donghyuck’s new number this season and he begged you to show some team spirit despite the fact that you normally mix with sports the same way oil mixes with water. The last time you showed up at practice was the first day of the season and you fell from the third courtside bleacher after Donghyuck called you over to introduce you to a cute new walk-on team member. If anything, just being around sports is dangerous for you.

A minute later, you sneeze while holding the pencil and draw a huge line straight through all your hard work. Donghyuck literally screams and you hang up the call to focus. When you finally finish redrawing on the side of your face, there’s half an hour left before the first home game of the spring season starts. You grab the matching construction paper sign you made earlier, complete with a huge gold glitter 14, and head out the door. Taeyong is supposed to pick you up so you can make it to the gym on time. He’s the only other friend you have who is remotely associated with sports and that’s only because he’s dating one of the players, Doyoung.

The ticket Donghyuck gave you days ago places you near the court’s side with a near-perfect view. You settle in and wait for the game to begin. The team is already out on half of the court, doing some light warmup tosses and making the occasional mean eye at the visiting team practicing on the other half. You catch your best friend’s eye and he lights up when he sees the sign and eyeliner drawing.

“Check me out, Hyuck!”

You turn to give him a full view of your profile, subtly proud of your skills.

“Look at you,” he drawls as he jogs over to you, “You know, I think this is the best your eyeliner has ever looked.”

“God, you’re so annoying.”

You try your best to cast an elbow at him without disturbing the still slightly wet glitter on the sign. When you nearly take out the old man sitting directly in front of you, you settle for flipping him off.

“Wait,” Taeyong peers at the sign, “Aren’t you—”

“I think Doyoung said he was looking for you. Something about wanting a good luck kiss.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes but still stands up to go look for said boyfriend. Doyoung’s not the nervous type, but he’s also not the type to say no to some pre-game affection. You watch Taeyong disappear towards the locker room while Donghyuck steps over some of the fans already seated and takes the now open spot next to you.

“Hey,” he says with no trace of humor in his voice any longer. “Promise you’ll still be my friend after this game?”

You place the sign on your lap and turn to look at your friend. Lately the coach has been pushing him harder and you suppose it’s starting to wear down his usual confidence. With the hand that’s not covered in little golden glitter flecks, you reach down to rub his shoulder.

“Of course I will, Hyuck. And even if you guys don’t win tonight, I’m still taking you to get food after. My treat.”

It was supposed to be a rare moment of sincere friendliness. But this seems to distress him further because he looks down at your hand on his arm and then groans before covering his face in his hands. You’re confused but you don’t have any time to ask him what’s up. A few of his teammates walk over then.

“Sorry to break up the love fest, but Coach wants us to do some stretches before the whistle,” team captain Johnny says, gesturing to the other side of the gym where some other players are already contorting themselves.

Behind Johnny stands that new walk-on. The one you fell on your face in front of. He takes in your temporary face tattoo and overly detailed sign and smirks, allowing a dimple to wink at you. You can only hope to every deity in the universe that he doesn’t remember the way you first met.

“Hey,” he smiles good-naturedly. “Glad to see you made it here in one piece.”

“Thank you,” you say with way too much sincerity.

It’s enough to knock Donghyuck out of his bad mood and make him snort loudly beside you. The new guy smiles a bit wider, revealing a twin dimple. You look away.

“Don’t get too friendly, Jung,” Donghyuck says with fake menace in his voice. “There’s only room for one Dream Team member in her life, and that’s me.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you guys were—”

“We’re just friends,” you blurt out before looking down at the fascinating liver spots on the old man’s head in front of you.

“Yeah, she wishes.”

“I definitely don’t,” you snap.

He sticks his tongue out at you. “Well, I’m glad you don’t.”

“Guys, come on!” Johnny calls a moment before the coach’s whistle blows to give a final warning.

As they walk over to the side of the gym you curse yourself for acting so weird in front of that Jung kid. If he didn’t think you were a dope when you tripped over nothing the first time you met, you’re certain he thinks you have the charms of a 13 year-old boy by now. The only thing that snaps you out of it is the fact that Donghyuck is in a time of distress and clearly needs his friend.

With squared shoulders and a new sense of duty, you try your hardest to be the world’s best cheerleader. You’re not really sure how sports work, basketball included. The game itself turns out to be really fun. Even though you’re not quite sure what’s happening. Taeyong sends you a text with a picture of your own mildly confused face contorted into a pout as you raise your handmade sign a moment too late, after everyone has already sat back down. But eventually you figure it out after enough times of standing when people around you wearing school colors stand up first. You know enough to cheer every time Donghyuck takes the ball to the basket and boo loudly every time he gets knocked down or his shot misses. In fact, you get so into it that you catch yourself cheering for other players. You even make the mistake of cheering once for new kid Jung but immediately stop when he catches a glimpse of you in the stands and shoots you a beaming smile.

They win by a small margin, thanks to a 3 pointer Johnny shot in the first half of the game. By the time that happens, you feel like you have a good feel for the game. You don’t have to wait for the other fans from your school to stand up when the last buzzer rings, and you instinctively run out onto the court with the rest of them as the final score settles. There’s adrenaline and joy pushing you into Donghyuck’s arms. He’s genuinely surprised but welcomes the greeting, spinning you lightly while he laughs.

“Congrats on the first win of the season,” you shout when you finally pull back. He lets you squish his cheeks in excitement. Doyoung ambles over then, looking for Taeyong. You offer him congratulations as well.

“Thanks,” he smirks a bit as he takes in your large sign and the slightly smudged 14 on your cheek. “Shouldn’t Jaehyun be the first to hear it, though?”

You raise a confused brow.

“Shouldn’t I be the first to hear what?”

You can’t help the way you stumble back against Donghyuck at the deep sound of Jung—no— Jaehyun’s voice. He looks pleased. Probably with the outcome of their first game.

“I was just saying you should get the first ‘congrats’,” Doyoung explains, nodding in your direction. Jaehyun blinks, but takes it in stride.

“I’d be glad to receive it,” he says with a grin. His dimples pop out even more than usual under the sheen of sweat and the glow from the fluorescents. “So, what’d you think? How’d I do?”

You have no idea why but your heart is beating like it’ll fly out of your chest. It takes everything in you to muster up a cool and natural response.

“You throw good.”

Donghyuck, the traitor that he is, gets sent into a cackling fit. If you listen carefully, between the gasps for air and the hyena-pitched giggles you can hear him calling you a dork. You’d turn to yell at him, but he’s right. Doyoung barely covers up his own laughter while leaning on Donghyuck’s shoulder to try to disguise the sound as a series of coughs. But Jaehyun merely smiles down at his shoes as if he’s somehow moved by your clunky words.

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“No, I feel like I did well today thanks to your little sign.”

“The sign? Oh. Actually, this is for—”

In that moment you realize two things. The first is that Jaehyun’s jersey has a big 14 emblazoned on the front of it. Just like the one you spent 10 whole minutes drawing onto your right cheek. And the one you spent 2 hours glittering the night before. The second is that you aren’t nearly as observant as you thought you were. Then you realize a third thing: Donghyuck is slowly creeping away from you as it all clicks together in your head.

When you turn to face your friend, the color has already drained out of his neck. He can see the wheels turning in your head and he raises his hands in a placating gesture, but you cut him off before he can even start. Grabbing at his jersey you make him turn around until you can see the white number 6 emblazoned on the fabric. It’s the same number he had last season, and the season before that.

“Just to clarify,” you begin with an unsettlingly calm voice, “When you asked me earlier if I would still be your friend after the game, you were talking about this, right?”

Donghyuck’s eyes go wide and dart around anywhere but your face. “You know what? I think you’re thinking of my brother, Hyongduck. We look a lot alike, so it’s an honest mistake.”

The coach calling him over in that moment is the only thing that keeps you from eviscerating him on the court with so many witnesses. You let him go, but not without him having to un-pry your fingers from his jersey. Jaehyun watches on with amusement in his eyes and you remember that he saw you nearly Hulk out on your friend.

“So, you actually didn’t know my number was 14?”

You shake your head, “I thought it was Hyuck’s.”

“I see.”

He tilts his head again, with eyes narrowed he looks you over before looking past you to where Donghyuck has finally made it to locker room safety.

“Well,” he fiddles with the chain around his neck, “I’m kind of sad the sign isn’t actually mine.”

“Oh. I mean, you can keep it if you want.”

Jaehyun’s head ducks down a second time, shaking his head at the ground like he heard something funny that you couldn’t hear. He does take the sign out of your hands though. With slow hands, he wraps the construction paper up until all the remaining glitter is safely tucked away.

“What about that one?”

“What do you mean?”

He points at his own cheek to mirror yours. You had forgotten all about the 14 you drew on your face to go with the sign.

“I don’t—I don’t know if you can wrap this one up, you know” you laugh stiltedly.

“Yeah. But I could always take a bit for the road. May I?”

All you can do is let out an eloquent ‘huh’ before he’s reaching out then and swiping away at some of the eyeliner that had moved around during the game. The drag of the pad of his thumb across your cheek should be completely harmless. Donghyuck has been infinitely rougher with his handling of you; one of the privileges of close friendship. And yet it’s this soft touch that has your breath leaving you like he punched it out of you. You swear the corner of his mouth raises, but it could be a trick of the light.

“What are you doing after—”

“I gotta go, sorry. Good game,” you toss over your shoulder before pulling your phone up to your ear like you’re taking a sudden phone call.

No one has to know that you spend the next few minutes dunking your head under one of the running faucets in an empty locker room to cool your heated face.

---

Nearly 20 minutes later, Donghyuck is tiptoeing out of the men’s locker room. He doesn’t notice the shadow waiting for him. When he deems the coast all clear, he opens up his messaging app and shoots you a text asking for your whereabouts.

“I’m right here.”

He jumps nearly 3 feet in the air before letting the scream that built in his throat turn into a whine. You’re just barely visible in the dark corner of the gym. If he squints you look a bit like his sleep paralysis demon.

“You scared me,” he says as he takes a step back only to hit a wall.

“Funny how that happens.”

You pull out your phone, stilling standing in the dark, and let the light from your phone cast eerie shadows across your face. Donghyuck gulps audibly as he watches you type slowly in response to his text. The sound of his phone notification moments later sounds deafening in the otherwise silent space.

You (21:39) - Run.

“Look, let’s talk this out like adults.” His hands come up, palms exposed like you’re a feral animal.

“I knew you weren’t number 14,” your voice is steady and devoid of emotion as you take a step towards him.

“Then you shouldn’t have fallen for it—shit. Wait!”

He trips in his haste to get away from you and falls. You foot lands dangerously close to his face as you come to stand in over him and he grimaces.

“Please don’t kill me, I’ll do anything.”

“Why did you tell me your number was Jaehyun’s number? Make it good and maybe I’ll let you live.”

“I just felt like it.”

“What the hell!”

“I’m serious.”

“Wrong answer, Hyuck.”

With that, you wriggle a foot free from one of your sneakers and shove your socked foot over his nose. You’ve been wearing the shoes all day and, because you forgot to do laundry the night before, the socks are recycled. The sound of Donghyuck’s cries for help make you slightly better and you smile softly to yourself.

You would think that Donghyuck would have learned his lesson about not causing chaos in your life after a face-full of foot. But you should know that it’s practically his job description after knowing him for as long as you have. Sometimes you love that about him and sometimes you kind of hate him for it. This time, you hate him for it.

Donghyuck prefaces the outing as a way of apologizing for tricking you. Normally you would have been slightly more critical. The first thing to tip you off should have been the fact the “apology" in question was coming almost two and a half weeks after the fateful jersey swap accident. The second thing should have been that the “apology” was coming in the form of a trip to a very specific tea house you don’t frequent because you’re not a tea person. And Donghyuck knows this. Because he knows everything else about you. Like which sweatpants you wear when you’re feeling bloated or when you just need a hug. But mainly you should have known something was up because it was Donghyuck. When he feels like he should do something, there’s no stopping him.

“What do you want to order,” he asks while holding the front door open for you to pass through.

“A smoothie.”

“It’s a damn tea house, order something normal.”

“A smoothie is normal.”

“Do you order hot dogs at seafood restaurants too,” he pins you with a tired glare. You mirror the glare and add crossed arms.

“If they don’t have a smoothie, then I don’t want anything.”

You take a look around at the interior of the shop. It’s the polar opposite of the shops you usually frequent, which are all trendy with their mixes of dark, unfinished woodwork and sleek minimalist furniture. This place is almost cottage-like in the ornateness of the older architecture and the collection of kitschy antique pieces. You’re not surprised to see that a good deal of the patrons are older, some verging on elderly. There’s only a handful of people who look like they could be your peers. One of them looks oddly familiar. You can’t put your finger on it, but there’s something familiar about the way he stands and the delicate gold links laying across the back of his neck.

“Jaehyun,” Donghyuck calls a bit too excitedly, “Hey, man is that you? What are you doing here”

“You told me to meet you—” Donghyuck cuts him off with a dramatic gasp and a glance at his bare wrist.

“Aw, would you look at the time. I actually have somewhere to be right now, so I can’t stick around.”

“But you drove us here,” you whip your head around to look at him, but he coughs suddenly and looks away.

“Yeah, sorry. No time to drop you back off at your place, so I guess you have to figure that out yourself. Jae drives though. Maybe you can figure something out.”

Neither of you really know what to say. You watch silently with your mouth open in disbelief as Donghyuck turns on his heel and struts out of the tea shop exit, whistling contentedly. You suppose that if you’re the god of chaos reincarnated, all of this would feel like a good day’s work. You berate yourself for recently washing your socks.

“Good to see you again,” Jaehyun says after a beat. He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Thought I had scared you off after...yeah.”

“Oh, right. That.”

The air feels both too thick and too thin at the same time. You want to leave, every fiber of your being is screaming at you to leave before you do something weird in front of him again. But you can’t move. So you stand there, 3 feet away and not saying anything as Jaehyun looks over the large chalkboard menu hanging above the head of the older woman who is manning the front counter.

“What are you getting?”

“Me? Uh, I don’t know. I’m not really a tea person.”

“Well, what kind of person are you?”

Given the context, it’s a harmless question. But there’s a sing-songy lilt to the way he asks the question. It’s so blatant that curiosity gets the best of you and you stop purposefully avoiding looking at him. One of his dimples is out and he’s very nearly poking the tip of his tongue out at you, like he knows you’re suffering and he thinks it's funny. Almost like he’s flirting. Almost.

“I’m a smoothie person,” you finally say. “But there’s no smoothies on the menu.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“But doesn’t it say ‘no customizations’?”

There’s a sign on the edge of the counter that says just that. Despite the fact that it’s written in beautiful, looping cursive, there’s an ominous tone to the message. Like the little old lady behind the counter might actually make you into tea if you asked for a frappe or something. You’re a little worried for Jaehyun’s safety. He must sense some sort of hesitance because he brushes it off and gestures toward the rest of the shop.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it, you can go grab us a table.”

The way he says ‘us’ so casually has you tripping slightly over nothing. He’s somehow there in the nick of time to grab at your elbow in a gentlemanly fashion to help steady you. Perhaps you yank yourself out of his proximity a little too quickly. But it’s only because you really want to find a good table and you can’t do that if Jaehyun is distracting you by grabbing at your limbs.

In actuality, though, the tea shop is fairly vacant. There are a variety of tables with pressed white tablecloths and dainty tiered tea trays housing pastries. You pick one at random and sit down. Part of you really does wish you’d left when Donghyuck did. But the other part is curious to see what Jaehyun’s like when he’s away from his team and truly outside the context you usually find him in. So you compromise and watch as subtly as you can.

He seems fairly similar—all charming smiles and pretty hair while approaching the counter to talk with the lady you assume is the owner of the shop. She looks stern as she polishes some dainty bone china, but brightens when he comes to the counter. You watch in quiet awe as she reaches a hand up to pat fondly at the side of his face, most likely pinching a cheek from the angle you’re sitting at. You see him run a hand over the back of his neck which grows red after he says something to her that she must not like. Her brow grows heavy and her lips purse but he says something else then that has her directing her sharp gaze at you. You gulp and pretend you were merely admiring the tea sandwich tray on the table as opposed to spying. A wave of sudden embarrassment comes over you and you open up your phone to text Donghyuck

You (15:38) - this is a shit apology just so u know

You (15:38) - come get me plz

Hyuck (15:40) - sorry suddenly cant read dont know what that says :)

You place your phone face down onto the table and cross your arms with a huff. While trying to plan an escape that makes you look the least asshole-y possible, Jaehyun returns with the drinks. More specifically, he returns with a tall water glass in one hand that’s filled with a pale tea with fruit chunks and mint leaves sprinkled throughout. The other hand is encased in a floral appliqué oven mitt that holds the prettiest squat little teapot you’ve ever seen. It’s blue, so it doesn’t match the pastel green teacups organized on the tablecloth, but it’s still a lovely sight.

“What’s this,” you stir at the fruit in the glass with an elegant teaspoon.

“It’s a chilled fruit tea,” he explains while casually pouring himself a steaming cup of black tea. “I tried my hardest with Mrs. Li, but there was no way I was gonna get you a smoothie. This is the closest thing I could get.”

“You really didn’t have to go to all that trouble. I would have been fine with just a water. I don’t want to get you in trouble with the owner.”

“Don’t worry. I think my reputation is fine for now.”

It’s weirdly fascinating to watch him fix up his tea. As a member of a basketball team, you would have never thought he’d be a tea drinker. Let alone a tea drinker who takes heaping spoonfuls of sugar to go with a tiny splash of milk in his tea. He hums a little to himself as he stirs it all with a silver spoon that’s been crafted to look like roses are growing up the stem. When he looks up a moment later, he catches you staring at him. His eyes crinkle and they look like they did when he looked at you after shooting a 3 at the latest home game, full of quiet joy. Both then and now you’re not sure what the smile means or why it seems to be for you. You look down and realize his lips are moving.

“What?”

He chuckles at how far away you sound. “I said ‘how’s the tea?’”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know yet. I got distracted. I was...thinking.”

“Mhm.” There’s smugness practically oozing out of his thoughtful hum.

You take a sip to appease him and frantically search for something to say that won’t make it obvious that you aren’t a fan of tea, but then you stop yourself. It’s no smoothie, but it really is the next best thing. The tea is cold like a smoothie, providing the same reprieve from the sticky heat of Spring. The tea with all its macerated berries and mint leaves is sweet and thick much like a smoothie.

“This is amazing,” you peer down at the cup like you’re not sure where half the glass went.

A light weight lands on your shoulder then. “That’s very kind of you, dear. High praise coming from a non-tea-drinker.”

It takes a lot of effort not to scream and even then your eyes open comically wide and you jump in your seat. Jaehyun has to disguise his laughter at your reaction by turning away in his seat as you turn in yours to face the old lady who was at the counter.

“I’m sorry for any trouble you went to so you could make this, Mrs. Li, Ma’am. I told Jaehyun that I wanted a smoothie and he was just trying to make me feel comfortable.”

“Oh, I know. Jaehyun’s been coming to the shop since I opened it, so he should know all about my ban on requests.” Mrs. Li eyes Jaehyun as he takes an innocent sip of his tea. “He’s always been courteous about it, so I thought he must have a darn good reason for breaking my rule this time.”

Jaehyun’s hand slips while pouring a second cup, but he doesn’t say anything as Mrs. Li continues to expose him.

“Now, that reminds me. Jaehyun, my boy, I’m sorry to tell you that Kevin won’t be coming to his sessions this week. He has a dentist appointment and it can’t be helped,” she sighs and waves her hands.

“That’s alright. As long as he practices a little every day he should be in good shape and we can pick up right where we stopped.”

She nods and for a moment the serious expression on her face morphs into something softer. Patting the back of his chair, she looks over the table and then at you.

“Alright. I hope everything is to your liking, but if something does come up do feel free to tell Jaehyun. He’s a very capable young man and he knows the shop like the back of his hand. I’d better get back to work now. The silver won’t polish itself.”

You wait a few beats to be respectful, but as soon as Mrs. Li returns to her post behind the counter you gulp down the rest of your tea and lean in.

“Who’s Kevin?”

“Her 9 year old grandson. I teach him and his younger brother piano on the weekends.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s nice,” you nod coolly. At least, you hope it appears cool. Internally you’re scrambling.

Of course your best friend’s basketball teammate teaches piano to young kids. Of course he helps the elderly tea shop lady with her store. Of course he drinks sweet tea out of blue floral teacups. Of course.

He’s finally ready to go after a third cup. You’re not sure where he’s putting it all, but it seems to be a regular occurrence for him. He takes your glass from you before you can argue about your own ability to do it and walks back over to the counter. Now more than ever you wish you could read lips. He goes around the counter to wash the glass in the farmer’s sink in the back and then stops briefly to say something to Mrs. Li. She says something back with a smile that has his cheeks flaming. He leaves a bill on the counter and comes back mumbling about his tea being too hot when you stare at his face. You’re not sure how true that is given how fast he downed those cups.

When you emerge from the tea shop, the sun is shining from a different angle and the temperature has mellowed out.

“My car is a few blocks that way,” he points in the direction of the parking lot nearby.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Even with his soft tone, his voice is firm and you don’t try to fight him on it.

But it’s strange walking with Jaehyun silently. It feels entirely too companionable despite the fact that you don’t even know him.

“Do you...want to play 20 questions?”

He stops in his tracks, clearly not expecting you to talk without him coaxing you out of your shell. But after the initial shock fades, he nods.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“White,” he says immediately. “What’s your major?”

“Studio art. Do you play other sports?”

“Nah. Is Donghyuck your best friend?”

“Yeah, Hyuck’s my best friend.”

“Is he...protective?”

“Protective? Of what?”

“You, I guess.”

“Hyuck?” You let out a snort because the thought is just hilarious. “On the right day I’m pretty sure he’d sell me to Satan for a fresh order of sweet potato fries.”

“I see,” he purses his lips like he’s in deep thought before returning back to the present moments later. “You get two since I asked two.”

“Do you like it here, now that it’s been a while since you transferred?”

“Yeah,” he looks you in the eyes. “I like it here.”

You swallow a bit too audibly but power through and keep asking questions. It takes nearly half an hour to walk the two and a half blocks leading to the parking lot. Even after that, Jaehyun takes a scenic route back to the main campus. When he pulls up outside your dorm, you’re not sure what to say, but it feels like something should be said. The sun is near setting and he’s haloed by the dying rays as he leans on the steering wheel to make sure you make it inside.

After giving a little awkward nod, you drag yourself out of the cabin of his car. There’s only a few steps left until you reach the door when he calls out. You turn.

“So,” he trails off, drumming his hands on the steering wheel before adjusting the mirror even though he’s in park and no one is coming. “Donghyuck has, like, a million fans.”

“What?”

“I just mean that he’s been on the team for years, he has a fan base. But I’m just a transfer student, so I don’t have that. And, you know, it’s really nice to have someone to cheer for you.” He tests the waters and looks at you hesitantly before continuing. “I still have your poster.”

All you can do is blink as you realize what’s going on. Or, you think you know what’s going on. And it makes zero sense to you, but you have a habit of overthinking things anyway. You kick at a pebble near the toe of your shoe, taking some time to muster up the courage to be presumptuous in a way you’re not used to.

“I can...I can make you another sign. If you want. Or like wear your number.” He grins and in that moment it seems to outshine the fading sun. “So you don’t feel left out.”

“I’d like that.” He starts the car up then, still grinning as he looks down to shift gears and adjust all his mirrors yet again. “Tell Hyuck he doesn’t need to set aside tickets anymore.”

“Okay,” is your witty reply before turning once more with a too warm face.

He waves at your retreating back before putting the car into drive.

Everyone on the team knows that every once in a while Donghyuck likes to come to practice a lot earlier than is probably normal. It’s not strange to come in when there’s 30, 40, even 50 minutes before practice starts and find him practicing footwork or doing layups on the court alone.

Jaehyun hedges a guess that he’ll find Donghyuck in the gym a good hour before practice starts one day and is pleased to find that his intuition was correct. There’s music blasting from a portable speaker and Donghyuck is doing some of the drills the coach likes to run, but done with his non-dominant hand.

When the ball rolls to a stop and Donghyuck moves to get some water, Jaehyun announces himself.

“Hey.”

“You quitting already?”

“Not yet,” Donghyuck takes in the serious set of Jaehyun’s jaw and shoulders. “We can do a 1-on-1. If you’re up for it.”

Jaehyun nods and sheds his outer layers on the sidelines. Donghyck wonders if he’s angry about something, perhaps that about practice a few days ago where he went a little too hard on Jaehyun and bashed his cheek with an elbow during a scrimmage. He braces himself for some incoming aggression, knowing he may deserve it a little.

They settle for leaving the ball on the ground in the paint since the equipment cabinet is still locked until the coach arrives. Both of them sprint from the freethrow line, with Jaehyun grabbing the ball first. Donghyuck moves into defense easily, having been in game mode for who knows how long. Jaehyun isn’t nearly as tough in his offense as Donghyck expected. In fact, he’s playing surprisingly light.

“What’s up with you,” Donghyuck says after the first basket.

Jaehyun catches the ball after it falls from the basket, jogging it back to the starting position. Donghyuck waits for him back at the freethrow line, brows raised but otherwise silent.

“Nothing’s up. Nothing big, I mean.”

“You’re a pretty bad liar.”

The words catch Jaehyun by surprise and he stumbles a bit coming off the line. Donghyuck uses the momentary shock to his advantage and steals the ball. The point comes easy as he basically runs a circle around his competitor.

“Since I won that point, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”

Donghyuck doesn’t bother going back to the freethrow line and instead goes back to dribbling practice. His rhythm is slow with his off hand, but steady. Better than Jaehyun’s with his off hand.

“Do you believe in bro code?”

Donghyuck snorts. “I guess. You’re not gonna ask me for my mom’s phone number, are you?”

“No. Not your mom’s,” Jaehyun trails off.

Instantly Donghyuck knows what this is about. Or who. Your face flashes in his mind and he has to bite his own cheek to keep from laughing. Being your best friend gives him exclusive access to just how awkward you can be. But the fact that Jaehyun resorted to all this buildup is kind of hilarious.

“Aw, you guys are cute.”

“What?” Jaehyun’s cheeks grow pink. “Why is this cute?”

“Look, you don’t need to ask me first or do whatever this is. I’m not her keeper. And I’m not gonna sabotage you, either.” Jaehyun’s shoulders lose some of their squared off edge.

“Okay,” he nods. “Thanks, man.”

“I could use a favor, though.”

“Oh. What is it?”

“I have a meeting with Coach after practice today. But I also really need to pick something up at the stationery store before tomorrow. Can you go pick it up for me?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Cool. I’ll text you the details later.”

---

Jaehyun arrives at the stationery store with his phone in hand. The note from Donghyuck mentions some special set of paints with a foreign-sounding name. As he walks through the aisles of the little store, Jaehyun wonders who the paints are for. The note also mentioned that they were a gift for someone, but it doesn’t say who the someone is.

It takes a few laps around the store, and by the time he spots the little nook for the brand, the store owner's voice had already sounded through the overhead speakers to say that the shop would be closing soon. He grabs the last box left and quietly rejoices. Donghyuck had bartered your number for the price of running the errand. If Jaehyun could get the paints, then he could get the number. The odd part was that Donghyuck had mentioned something about Jaehyun possibly not even needing to ask him for the number if he played his cards right. Originally he had shrugged the comment off, but it did raise the hairs on the back of his neck a bit. There’s something about Donghyuck that feels akin to a cartoon villain, but Jaehyun can’t put his finger on it.

“Checking out?”

“Yeah,” he hands the shop attendant the container of paints.

The attendant tries to scan the barcode, but a strange sound comes from the machine.

“I think something’s wrong with the barcode. If you can wait right here, I’ll go get another one to scan and give you that one instead.”

“Oh. That was actually the last one left.”

“I see.” The attendant presses some keys on the computer before nodding. “I think we should have a reference code in that backroom. I can go get that and punch it in manually if that’s okay.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, that would be great.”

The attendant assures him it’ll only be a moment before leaving the counter and disappearing into the back of the store. Jaehyun waits patiently while leaning on the counter when the bell to the front door of the shop rings. Another customer has come in right before closing, and the sound of their labored breathing makes it clear that they know they’re cutting it close. The footsteps fade out and then grow louder once more after a few minutes. He takes a glance over his shoulder to see you standing a little bit behind him.

“Oh. Hi. H-hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Jaehyun turns completely and sets his phone on the counter. “What brings you here?”

“I’m just grabbing some paint. I ran out a few days ago and I have some big projects coming up.”

“That’s funny. I’m doing the same thing.”

“Do you paint,” your eyes grow a little bigger with the prospect. At the sight of your small smile, Jaehyun wishes he could paint for the first time ever.

“No, but I’d like to learn.” And it’s never been true before, but he means it in that moment.

“Well, I could—”

“Sorry for the delay,” the shop attendant comes jogging back from the backroom. “Another employee had the reference book, so I had to spend some time to hunt it down. But you should be all set now.”

Jaehyun sends an apologetic smile your way before turning back to finish checking out. Once he’s done, even though he’s on a tight schedule with this favor, he hangs back.

“—I’m sorry but we sold out of the Neo Color Technology paints. If you’d like, we can give you a call when the next shipment comes in, but there’s a two-week wait.”

“Ah, really? Okay.”

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek as you think about what you’ll do now. The idea of continuing some of your projects with a new set of paints that could have a completely different set of hues makes you nervous. You just perfected the shade of green you needed at the base for your huge forest study. Now you’d have to start from scratch.

Jaehyun is trying his hardest not to eavesdrop, but the odd paint name catches his attention. It’s the same one he just bought, per Donghyuck’s request.

“You can have mine,” he blurts out. “I’m the one who bought the last ones. But I obviously don’t need them like you do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please, take them.”

Jaehyun hands you the bag. The smile you offer him in return is brilliant.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“God, no. Don’t worry about it.”

“Then, let me buy you a tea or something at least.” You hand him your phone. “Here, put your number in and you can pick a day. I’ll pay.”

So Jaehyun takes your phone and inputs his number. A moment later he gets a text from you, clarifying that it’s you. He feels victorious for a moment and then confused. Here he is, getting your number without having to ask, just like Donghyuck himself had mentioned. He’s getting this number because he gave you, Donghyuck’s friend, some paints. Paints that Donghyuck asked him to buy, as a gift to a mysterious friend.

Maybe Donghyuck is less like a villain and more like a twisted fairy godmother.

This little dance you keep doing with Jaehyun is strange, to say the least.

It felt odd to copy the number 14 onto your cheek for the first time knowing who it would really be for. And it felt weird to get so used to doing it that you can now copy the stencil in with practiced ease using the face paint you bought specifically for the occasion, no longer worrying about accidentally writing it backwards. All the while, you can barely make eye contact with him after a game, although you can practically feel the weight of his gaze when you make a beeline for Donghyuck after the last buzzer rings. And you can see the way his hand tugs at the gold chain around his neck as he approaches you cautiously. And you can hear the disappointment in his tone when he asks if you’re going to the house parties thrown by one of the players that typically follow the games only to hear you say no each time.

Another few weeks later finds you trying to make it through midterms. Donghyuck being a literature major means his midterms schedule is always different from yours. This time his midterms end much earlier, a few days earlier to be exact. You’re left to suffer through late night crunches to finish up paintings for one of your crits. Photoshopping some pieces for your digital art class leaves you so busy you don’t even register what’s going on around you.

“It’s my turn to host the post-game party,” he says after letting himself into your apartment one day. He drops the spare keyring reserved for him in the dish near the front door.

“Mhm.”

“But I feel like it would be a nice change to have it here.” When he makes a big show of dropping the takeout he brought you, you don’t even flinch at the sound of it hitting the table you’ve taken over.

“Sounds good,” is all you say as you try to find the one layer out of the 25 you had that you were looking for.

“Great, so I’ll probably stop by on Friday with stuff before the game to set up and then the team can just come through afterwards.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t hate me,” he places a kiss on the top of your head before wrinkling his nose when he smells your unwashed hair. “And don’t work yourself too hard, either.”

“Yeah...definitely.”

Friday comes by and you’re still working, so you have to skip the actual game itself. In the brief window of free time you had that morning, you wonder if you should text Jaehyun again so you can tell him you won’t be coming or bringing your little hand stenciled 14. But you decide against it. It’s a big game and he doesn’t need to be bogged down by unnecessary texts.

You’re actually away at your first crit when Donghyuck stops by again, this time with party supplies. When you come back, you barely register the mountain of beers and cheap wines sitting in your kitchen. All you want to do is sleep like the dead for a few hours. As you zombie walk to your room, you swear you hear him call to you to ask if he can store his balloons in the sink. With your last two brain cells you figure he must have said something else and you were just too tired to actually comprehend it.

Hours later, bass blaring through the thin walls of your place wakes you from your slumber. The details of your conversation with Donghyuck a few days prior come flooding back just as you pick up your pepper spray to drive out what you thought were home intruders. You leave your weapon behind and open your door just slightly. The music washes over you, louder now that the seal to your bedroom has been broken.

There’s plenty of voices coming outside that accompany the music. Even a few errant screams make it inside and to your ears. Courtesy of Chenle, no doubt. A few more brave steps outside your room and a glance out of the hallway window lets you know that you didn’t mishear Donghyuck. You see several of the guys chucking water balloons at one another on the grass outside. The pile of little teardrop-shaped balloons is admirably large and it becomes clear that they’ll be doing this for a while.

You’re not in the mood to get soaked or get mosquito bites just so you can seem friendly. After all, the party is being hosted in your apartment complex. That’s friendly enough, you reason. Once you’ve done a quick sweep through the rest of the apartment to make sure nothing is stolen, stained, or broken, you return to your room to get ready for bed properly. It takes a while because you have to wash your hair on top of everything else after receiving a very strongly worded text from Donghyuck.

While in your bathroom, brushing your teeth and watching a video Taeyong sent you, there’s jumbled knocking on your door. Barely any time passes between the last knock and the creak of someone leaning on your door as they open it. You curse to yourself before spitting in the sink.

“Hey, the bathroom for guests is actually—”

Jaehyun stands in the middle of your room, squinting at the tapestry you have hanging over your bed. The sound of his teeth chattering despite it being the peak of Spring is actually alarming enough to stop you from being mad that Donghuck didn’t think to put a clear sign towards the bathroom for the general public.

“I always thought your room would have candles in it,” Jaehyun drawls. He looks around once more like he’s hoping a candle will jump out of a hiding spot. All his movements are slow and sleepy.

“Are you drunk?”

He grins with eyes that droop closed. “Yep.”

“Great,” you mumble. When you take a step closer you realize the dark red sleeveless tank he’s wearing is actually dark from being saturated with water. “Why are you wet?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. We played water balloon tag. I lost the last round.”

Jaehyun places a clumsy finger to his lips and stage-whispers a loud “shh”. For some reason you mirror that back to him. He nods, satisfied with your reaction.

“Don’t tell the others, but I...” he hiccups “I got cold, so I came inside.”

“What’s wrong with telling them you’re cold.” He hangs his head in shame then. Clearly you’re missing something important.

“Hyuck says bad bitches never get cold.”

With his shoulders slumped forward in such a pitiful fashion, you actually feel bad for wanting to laugh. It’s surprising. Super surprising actually, considering Jaehyun’s presence in your room means Donghyuck forgot to do the one thing you ask of him when he hosts parties at your place—put clear signs for drunk people to follow to the guest bathroom. You usually don’t want to deal with drunk student athletes, but something about Jaehyun makes him exempt from that.

“You can warm up here.”

As soon as you say the words, you cringe. It sounds like the awful beginnings of a bad porno, but your intentions really are pure. There’s something too sad about watching him nearly doze off while standing up like a newborn colt. So you go and find the best hoodie that you have in your clean laundry and you risk going to the kitchen and getting hit with a runaway water balloon so you can put water on for tea. Hopefully it will warm him up while also sobering him up a little.

“Is this Hyuck’s shirt,” he asks as soon as you return with a steaming mug.

“Uh, I think so.” You take a moment to appraise the hoodie. “Yeah, it’s his. It’s from one of his basketball camps from when we were younger, I think.”

He purses his lips but gratefully takes the mug with swaying hands. After taking a large sip, he hums and lets his head loll back with a smile.

“This is Mrs. Li’s blend.”

“Yeah.”

It doesn’t seem right to tell him that you’ve been back there a couple times now and have started trying to get into tea. You take the time to put some distance between him and you. You walk to your bed and fluff a pillow that doesn’t need fluffing. The thing is that Jaehyun being in your room feels...weird. He looks all too content and comfortable in the space. That’s not to say he doesn’t suit the environment well. Somehow he looks like he belongs in your room with his soaked tank top and damp hair. You fluff the pillow harder.

“You must be tired,” he says after a long silence. He’s finished his tea but his eyes are still glassy.

“What?”

“Donghyuck told me ‘bout all your projects. Told me you had to draw him for one.”

“Oh, yeah I did. People actually loved that piece the most. But it took me the shortest amount of time.”

“Next time,” he begins ambling across the room, coming to place the empty mug on your bedside table. “Next time, you can ask me to model. If you want.”

“I mean, I only asked Hyuck since he was watching TV and he was there. Plus I know his face so well that it doesn’t even matter if he talks while I paint. The company is kind of nice.”

“Well, you can do it with me next.”

He’s drunk, you remind yourself. He doesn’t realize how strange what he’s saying is. And yet, your face still heats up. The sound of his teeth chattering lightly again reminds you how he got to be in your room in the first place. Jaehyun hugs himself as he continues to check out your room with a small smile on his face. He looks content.

“Do you want to get in,” you offer before your brain can process what your mouth has just done. His eyes go wide.

“Excuse me?”

“Not—I mean, you just...look really cold and tired. Plus I heard you guys lost the game tonight, so the coach had you hauling ass after.” At the sight of his mildly amused face, tongue nudged between his teeth you add, “I don’t mean you should stay the night. It could just be for a bit and then you could, like, get up and call a cab home. But I get it if you’d rather not. Actually, I can just go see if Hyuck is around. I think he brought his—”

“No, no, stay,” he replies quickly to keep you from jumping out of bed. “I could use the rest.”

He turns around to shrug off the wet tank and pull on the hoodie, mumbling something about ‘not wanting to get your sheets wet’. Internally you wonder if you’re being laughed at by the gods while staring politely at nothing in the other corner of the room. You scoot over from your position in the middle of the bed to the side opposite him. He rewards your kindness with a flash of a bright smile before moving to pull back the covers.

His face lands directly in one of your pillows and you panic when you realize your sheets aren’t fresh out the washer. Jaehyun doesn’t seem to mind and lets out a sigh before shivering a little. With the hood over his hair, you can barely make out his eyes but you can tell they’re trained on you.

“You sure this is okay,” he whispers.

“Yeah.”

The bed shifts minutely as he turns a little to get more comfortable. It feels hot in the bed all of the sudden. Despite the fact that you have on weather appropriate pajamas and your most lightweight Spring bedding on. Despite the fact that you’re not laying close enough to him to be able to feel any body heat. Maybe it’s warmer outside than you thought. That’s probably it.

---

When you wake up several hours later, it’s to the sound of clanking in your living room. The other side of the bed is empty and you try not to read into it. It wasn’t supposed to be a full night over, after all. You swing your feet over the edge of the bed only to squeal when your foot hits something cold in the little rug you keep there.

“What is it!” Donghyuck crashes into the room while holding the trash bag he was collecting loose beer cans with. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just—oh.”

You look down at the rug and see something shiny and metallic as opposed to something wet and slimy. With your index finger and thumb, you pick up a medium length golden chain. It shines even in the low lighting of your bedroom. You both squint at the jewelry, trying to place it.

Donghyuck’s eye grow wide and he looks around the room in disgust suddenly.

“Was he in here?”

“Uh, yeah,” you grumble as you rub your eyes.

“What for?”

When Donghyuck raises an inquisitive eyebrow, your mouth drops open.

“We just slept—”

“You slept together?”

“Hyuck, not like that! What’s your problem?”

“Still, why is he sleeping in here? You never have guys sleep in here.”

“You sleep in here all the time,” you point a finger at him.

“True,” he cedes immediately, pointing a finger back. “Well, you better return that. I think it’s his lucky charm or something.”

“Can’t you do it?” He laughs before returning to the living room.

“He didn’t leave it in my bed.”

“I–fine. I don’t need your help anyway.”

At that, he snorts.

“You do, but I’ll let you keep thinking that you don’t, because I’m a good friend.”

“You’re annoying, that’s what you are.”

You pull on a sweater before coming out of your room with your phone in hand. There’s a companionable silence that falls over you two as you attempt to draft a text to Jaehyun about his chain while Donghyuck picks up the remaining trash from the party.

“How’d everything go,” you ask once the message is sent.

“It was fine. Jae was so gone that we thought he had flushed himself down the toilet for a while. But I guess that’s not what happened.”

Your face heats up at the teasing tone he uses.

“Hyuck, I have something to tell you.”

“God, what? Are you pregnant?”

“No! What the hell? Are you?” You try to swipe at his butt from the back of the couch.

“No! But...can you just say what you’re gonna say? You’re making me nervous.”

He even goes so far as to put the trash down and come around to sit with you on the sofa. You take a deep breath.

“I have a crush on Jaehyun. I just thought you should know.”

He stares at you, not blinking for a few seconds. He opens his mouth and then shakes his head to himself and closes it again.

“I see,” he finally says.

“It’s been going on a while, and I didn’t want to leave you in the dark.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Nope! I don’t mind being in the shadows. I do some of my best work there.”

“Do you think it could go anywhere?”

“What do you mean,” he throws another can into his bag.

“Like, do you think I have a chance with him?”

Donghyuck turns to stare at you, deadpan. “Do I think you have a chance with Jung Jaehyun? The man who slept in your bed a few hours ago?”

“Yeah.” Your face is completely open and imploring.

He sighs, “I think you might have a shot, sure.”

“Why, though?”

“I don’t know. Just a hunch.”

The next game of the season is a big one. The team coming in to play is an old school rival, so it draws a crowd that contains even the less sport-inclined students. You manage to get a ticket set away, but it’s still tough trying to find a spot to sit. It’s first come first serve with seats since the gym isn’t big enough to have labeled arena seating.

Initially you had planned to use the extra time you had before the start to return Jaehyun’s chain, but it took you so long to make it from the parking lot to the gym and then to an open seat that there wasn’t any time left. Somewhere in between, you nearly get knocked over by the heavy current of fans from both teams flooding the space. The chain, once clutched in your hand, ends up around your neck out of fear that you lose it permanently.

You end up in the nosebleeds for the rest of the time. The players look like ants and if it weren’t for the large printed numbers on their jerseys, you might not be able to tell all of them apart. You text Donghyuck your location, and you see him looking towards the back rows at the beginning of the game, but he has to stay focused. You try your hardest to focus as well. At this point, you’re just about fluent in the sport that is basketball. But tonight’s game is hard to follow despite this. Jaehyun grabs your attention instead. He plays especially rough tonight, you note. He pushes hard across the court, even gets a couple warnings for defending like he’s on offense. There’s a fair amount of goals with his name on them as well. It’s exciting and you just wish your cheers could reach him.

More annoyance comes when the game finally ends. It’s a last minute shot by one of the other players who walked on this season that tips the game in your school’s favor. The crowd is deafening, even the ending buzzer is muted by their shouts. The bleachers shake under you with the force of fans running to meet their favorite players and generally gloat in front of the other team on the court. The shaking underneath you is terrifying enough to keep you seated until things have died down. There’s still probably a minimum of hundred people gathered on the floor, but you can at least step over empty concession bags as opposed to being stepped on by the supportive members of the hockey team.

It takes forever to find a single person you know. Of course it’s Donghyuck, who is in the middle of talking with some friends from off the team.

“Hyuck,” you begin to run over. When he sees you, you give him a big smile.

“No,” he responds simply as you get closer.

You slow down and let confusion wrinkle your brow. He offers no further verbal explanation but does give you a swift head nod in another direction. You follow the gesture and find Jaehyun at the end of the path. He looks a bit lost despite being with Doyoung and Johnny.

The fact that the others are there makes you freeze up at first, but the feeling of the chain laying delicately on your clavicle reminds you of what you need to do. Luckily, he sees you before the others do and he steps aside under the guise of getting a fresh towel. He waits for you to catch up once he’s out of their line of sight.

His voice is low, like he’s worried being too loud will make you change your mind about talking with him. But there’s an undercurrent of sincere happiness.

“There you are.”

“I was at the top row. I got here too late to sit where I normally do.”

“Ah. I thought maybe you couldn’t make it.”

“There’s no way I would be able to miss this one. Hyuck threatened to shave my head if I did.”

“That...sounds like him.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. The nerves are getting to you a bit. You’ve never confessed your feelings to anyone before, and you’re not sure if Donghyuck was right about you having a shot.

“So, what are you doing—”

“I’ve been meaning to tell—”

You both start talking at once and then immediately clam up when you interrupt each other.

He gives the floor to you. “You go first.”

“Okay.”

You reach for the back of your neck and watch as his gaze follows the movement of your hands only for his eyes to light up in recognition.

“I wondered where that thing went.”

“You left it at my place. I put it on because I was scared I’d lose it for real. Sorry.”

He reaches out casually to thumb at the chain around your neck. “Don’t be. It looks good on you.”

“It looks better on you.”

The chain slides off cool against your skin and your fingers shake as you carry the chain over to him. Wordlessly, you reach up and loop your arms around his neck to reunite the chain with its rightful owner. Sweaty palms make it difficult to redo the clasp without being able to see it. It puts you right in his personal space for an awkwardly long time.

“I’m really sweaty,” he whispers.

“Uh, that’s nice?”

He laughs and it puffs off your temple.

“I don’t want to get you dirty, but I really want to kiss you right now.” The clasp finally snaps into place

“Oh.”

The way he leans in, the way his arms come to cage around your waist, the drip of the sweat from his temple down the hinge of his jaw. All of it is slow. As if to give you the space to withdraw if you wanted. But you surge forward into him. And for once it’s not awkward. You don’t know how long you stand there necking like hormonal high schoolers in a sea of people on the gym floor at a school dance, but—just like at the school dance—someone is bursting the gossamer thin ambiance just when Jaehyun’s fingers graze the back pocket of your jeans.

“If you look to your left, boys and girls, you can see two local horndogs engaged in a seasonal ritual” He karate chops a hand down the space between your faces, cutting the kiss off abruptly and nearly bruising Jaehyun’s nose. Meanwhile Taeyong snickers loudly from behind Doyoung.

“Do you have a death wish,” you turn to him with fire in your eyes. He backs up slightly, but attempts to stand his ground.

“Do you know how hard I’ve been working to set you two up?”

“What are you talking about?”

You turn to Jaehyun, who looks just as confused. The gears turning in your heads are practically visible as you and he put 2 and 2 together slowly. The random lies, the weird errands, the sudden party. The blank stares from Donghyuck every time the two of you were in the same room but refused to talk. It all adds up.

“You owe me sweet potato fries for the rest of your life. Maybe longer, I’m not sure yet.”

Donghyuck puts his arms around you and Jaehyun, pulling you with him as he heads out of the gym and towards the exit that leads toward the cafeteria.

“I can’t believe you...puppet-mastered us,” Jaehyun’s voice is airy with disbelief.

“I can’t believe you guys didn’t realize what was going on,” Taeyong snickers on the walk over. Doyoung snorts while lacing their fingers together.

“Yeah, the whole team was in on it.”

“You guys are one to talk.” Donghyuck turns back to give the two boys a humbling once over. “Don’t get me started on how hard it was to get you two losers together.”

Doyoung stops in his tracks, nearly tripping Taeyong in the process.

“What?”

#nct fanfic #nct scenarios #nct imagines #jaehyun fanfic #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun imagines

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mihorapendeja · 3 years ago

Text

happier than ever | tsukishima x you

the one shot in which tsukishima basically falls for a female version of everyone's favorite sunny tangerine.

genre: fluff/soft core smut lmao i haven't done this in years i feel silly but here you go

pairing(s): kei tsukishima x you (referred to as "ria kihira" in part 1 bc this was originally going to be an OC thing but nvm a/n's: show this some love and interaction pls.

PART 1: THE PAST

❝Again?❞ Even though Tsukishima complained again, this time he made it easier for her as he even stood completely still. Such a good boy.

❝Let her beat your face!❞ Shoyo exclaimed as she smiled in delight, then moving on to pat the powder puff on his stupid face. Of course she only took a few seconds for him, but all the time in the world for Hinata.

While the two chirped about the new reboot trailer for Dexter, Kuroo's sleazy self slid beside his lanky child with an extra smug look on his face. That man was a menace.

❝Say, don't you think they look related?❞

Tsukishima was a difficult man to catch off guard, but right then and there, a mini existential crisis kicked in. His eyes darted back and forth between Shoyo and Ria Kihira, the makeup artist on set for the commercial filming day.

Kei knew Kuroo was a slut for all the pretty things in life — he constantly had a trope of hot women surrounding him.

But this time, he'd really outdone himself.

Not a stupid man entirely, a huge shit-eating grin formed on Tetsuro's face. He followed Kei's eyes who desperately wandered back and forth their matching hair, skin tone, lack of height... "please let it be a mere coincidence because it's bad enough that—" Kei shut his own intrusive mind from further thinking as he slapped his hand over Kuroo's mouth shut. Tight.

That hyena laugh was not being unleashed today.

THE STORY OF HOW YOU MET:

ca. 2019, on set of a commercial for one of Kuroo's production companies. After Tetsuro had defeated Kei in a game of beer pong, he had to comply with the loser's bet -- be part of the damn commercial along with Shoyo, for a viewership boost. So he said. Ria was the makeup artist on set that day, and it pretty much went from Tsuki acting like a feral cat who didn't want to be touched by any makeup tools, to blissfully passing out in a chair while she gently stroked his face with a soft powder brush.

Near the end of the day when he'd no longer back away from her with animosity, it was Kuroo's stupidly astute observation that left him rattled. The boy was put into a choke hold because he refused to like someone with the same orange hair and milky skin tone as Hinata. Someone equally bright, bubbly, and stupid ... yeah that refusal didn't last long. Ria spoke her mind so freely, being direct but never pleading because she respected herself in that regard. He liked that and before Kei knew it, he found himself admitting to her that he was, "actually quite fond of you." She understood it was his way of saying those pesky 3 words, 8 letters.

PART 2: THE PRESENT, 3 YEARS LATER.

THE ALARM CLOCK rang it’s deathly siren like tone, nearly sending you into cardiac arrest. Although he defensively stretched an arm out over your chest as if ready to protect, Kei did not get up.

Of course he wouldn't.

Like every morning at 4am, it was you who suffered the most when getting out of bed to grab the phone to silence that torture down. As you had deeply sighed and turned to face the bed, Tssuki was now face up with the covers all the way up to his nose.

Even in your groggy state, you could tell he was smirking. That smug bastard stared at you intently, dead still. While Kei typically minded his own business and was at times thought of as quiet, the boy was definitely not shy. You wouldn't call him a total flirt, but he could so hold onto a gaze without so little as batting a long eyelash.

Kei was, extremely competitive. Lightning would have to strike his literal eyes to keep them from staring at you, specifically at your curvy thighs.

The way your soft cotton shorts rode up them was always a very pleasant sight, so he just kept staring, happily.

He loved that little penguin walk you busted into every morning when shutting the alarm off.

It’s like you couldn’t balance properly, and he swore that you were always shorter looking in the early hours of the day. He didn’t know how you could lack more height than you already did at barely 5 feet 2, but it always seemed that way.

It was especially cute, like he could just grab you and keep you in the palm of his hand.

Tired, you sat back down on the bed. You scooted until meeting the headboard, and then just let her head dip back.

It was so incredibly peaceful until you could no longer ignore his obvious glaring. “If you’re awake already, why don’t you get up?”

“It’s barely 4:05,

we don’t go in till 5am.”

He said so factually that you just deeply exhaled. Tssuki was definitely not a morning person, and neither were you.

Even though you were much more energetic, it was a Friday and you could not wait for the end of the workday already.

While Tssuki could be late to practice because let's be honest, few would even confront him, you could not pull off the same irresponsibility.

You cared way too much, and in general, hated the feeling of being late to anything. "Come on." You murmured, nudging Kei as he completely ignored you and kept on sleeping.

You waited for another minute before climbing out of bed, grabbing his attention once again. This time, your black shorts were scrunched further up. So far up that your ample ass cheeks were out in all their glory.

“Arigato, thank you god.”

Nishinoya would say.

“Well I’m not as naturally good looking as you so I’m gonna go shower and start getting ready.”

You huffed, truly riling Kei up inside. Hearing you say that genuinely made something inside of his stomach stir, so he instinctively reached out towards your wrist.

Even in the dark room, he could see your face clearly and tell you weren’t joking. "The fuck is wrong with her?" He thought, not angry, but extremely concerned because you weren't fishing for a compliment.

The two of you had been together for over 3 years now, and so he more than knew that you were not that kind of girl.

Yes, you lacked height at 5’2, but you were physically strong. Literally, you could carry all the grocery bags in one go with no issues. Lifting abilities? Check.

Even though Tssuki cruelly chose the apartment with extra high kitchen shelves, you would never ask for help to reach for stuff. "Help I can't reach" was not a phrase that existed in your world.

Literally, he’d sometimes walk in for some juice and find you on top of a chair reaching for something, if not on the literal counter tops to store items.

Independent? Check.

Resourceful? Check.

On top of all that, you had a voluptuous body he thought was fucking scrumptious. He understood that the norms for women in Japan could be vicious, especially if you weren’t a slender door like he was, but despite your insecurities, you still wore it all so well. You didn’t let it stop you from wearing whatever you wanted (as you should).

At times he did think you were a little bit stupid for fretting over such body image issues, but Tssuki was okay with that.

He didn’t want a know it all like himself, that be beyond insufferable.

Before he knew it, you were teaching him a thing or two as well. So Tssuki then knew you were not a vapid pick me girl, and that was honestly a pretty big turn on for him.

SPEAKING OF TURN ons, Kei found it incredibly hot to have you pinned beneath him, like you currently were.

It wasn’t an ingenue kink, to have you below him so submissively and weak, no. It was the way you fought to assert yourself, and the way you writhed. The way you tried to break free was no half assed attempt either.

Sometimes you'd even throw in a few knees into it, and Tssuki didn't mind it one bit. Two dominate personalities, things were always bound to be feisty in bed.

This time however, he sensed some a defeat in your soul.

Convinced to rekindle your spirits, his brows furrowed as he lowered himself closer to your pretty face.

“Take that back.” Tssuki growled in a low, oh so sexy deepened morning voice.

“I can’t, It’s true.” You protested, sighing as he pulled himself away only to then wrap his arms around your waist and throw you over his shoulders.

Misreading the situation, you first protested before breaking into full on laughter as he stormed into the shower with you still dangling, kicking your short legs in the air.

You had thought this was playful Tssuki, the version no one was too familiar with.

Except you … and Yamaguchi. You and Yams lived to exchange Tssuki-isms.

You were mistaken when trying to approach him as he had stripped entirely. God, you so badly wanted to touch his defined chest and close the space between —and that’s when your favorite salt mine smirked as he instinctively reached back to swivel the shower handle on.

Grabbing the detachable shower heard, Tssuki sprayed you down.

"That son of a bitch." You thought, having jumped back in shock, literally. The water was so fucking cold.

Tssuki raised a brow, testing you. On one hand, he thought you looked like a helpless kitten that was abandoned on some random parking lot on a rainy day.

He was an asshole, but if he ever came across a lonely stray cat, he'd so scoop it up and take home for some warm milk.

On the other hand, he thought you looked even more hot with the way your baggy shirt now clung onto every part of your curvaceous body.

Tssuki had to exhale as he saw your nipples peaking through your smaller but perfect chest. He just wanted to cup your perky tits, squeeze them and hear you moan in delight—your hot breath on his ear as you rested a side of your face on his.

“Can’t touch me till you take that back.”

He warned as you tried to take a step forward.

“Tssu— you whined, sighing as you crossed your arms, cold.

“Admit it, you’re beautiful. Say it.” He insisted as you tossed your head back. "I’m beautiful … kinda, I mean” you trailed off, too distracted by your own cruel thoughts to notice when he raised the shower head again to spray you down.

“Ouch!” You gasped this time, burned by the super hot water. Tssuki turned, realizing that instead of increasing the water’s pressure, he had turned it to the hot side.

Steaming hot.

He rubbed them back of his neck, sheepishly trying to play off. That stupidly cool bathroom is literally what had sold him into choosing that apartment.

After a long day of training, having a large bathtub to soak in, or large walk in shower that doubled as a sauna to rest in was a treat. Not only that, but curative. You swore that this man's epsom salt baths were the reason his long limbs were always good to go, pain free.

Tssuki rushed to place the shower head back on, pushing a few buttons on the digital control panel to get some therapeutic steam going.

On a good morning, he'd already have you pinned to the wall. Your face buried into his neck as Tssuki spread your ass apart, drilling his every inch into you.

But sadly, this wasn't a good morning ... yet. When you waved a hand out in defeat, eyes swelling with tears, Kei grabbed you right before you could step away.

You slammed into his chest with a light thump as he then grabbed your shoulders to keep you balanced. "My clumsy pumpkin." He thought as you raised your head to meet his warm eyes.

Tssuki lowered his face, gently planting a kiss on your forehead. Pulling away, he grabbed your arm & extended it out as he begin to plant a trail of kisses over the burned-pink area. His kisses deepened the closer he got to your neck, stopping only when at your jawline.

Now, the two of you were staring directly at each other, his eyes radiating all the comfort you wanted to see: love, adoration, lust. It was so quiet, but your heartbeat was so damn loud.

His actions were doing all the talking. Now completely soaked, you looked down at the hem of your shirt as Tssuki grabbed both ends and begin to lift the blouse up and away from you.

Left in nothing but shorts, he kept his eyes locked on you as you nodded while he lowered himself to help you out of them.

Now, completely naked, he just stared at you in awe.

You were his goddess, and he was going to happily worship, service, respect, love.

ARIGATO GOD.

“I don’t know why you hesitate” he softly whispered as you took in a deep breath, suddenly feeling overly emotional. Near tears kind of overwhelmed.

To keep yourself from actually sobbing, you cleared your throat to speak up, “I love my job, but I guess sometimes working with so many beautiful models, I can’t help but to compare my—

Tssuki had heard enough about your delusions. His hands flew the sides of your face, pulling you in for a deep kiss. You felt such a thrill surging through your body as he so easily hoisted you up.

It was your favorite thing in the world, to wrap your legs around his long torso, and it was Tssuki’s favorite thing to dig his hands into your firm ass, your soft thighs.

Pulling away, he takes slow steps forward so your back gently meets the wall. With one hand, he caressed your face , thumb gliding over your cheek before connecting his forehead with yours.

“As I was saying, - I don’t know why you hesitate to say it, but I think you’re the most beautiful person in this whole goddamn world.”

A pesky tear escaped onto your cheek, and Tssuki blotted it away with a kiss, burying his face closer to yours. So close your noses are now touching.

When he wanted to, Tssuki could be so completely soft.

“You don’t know every single person in this world.”

You laughed, still touched by his bold declaration.

“I mean it. Waking up to you every morning I think wow, I’m so lucky.”

He admits as you then break into another chuckle. “You’re so full of shit, that’s not the first thing you think of.”

Tssuki pulls on your lower lip down with his thumb, chuckling back. “You idiot sandwich I didn’t say it was the first thing, but it’s a close second.”

You find yourself laughing out loud, his frisky smile fully plastered on his face as your nose scrunches in that way he finds so fucking adorable.

“Begone negativity.” He both teases and shudders at the thought of how Suga burned that in the back of his mind.

“Do I have to sing that stupid One Direction song to you?” Tssuki then jokingly added as your eyes widened.

“You wouldn’t!”

“You’re right that’s disgusting.” He scoffed, hoisting you further up as he took your breath away with another kiss, this time, his hands running through your hair.

It was always a mystery with him, never knowing if he was going to pull on your hair, or caress it.

This time however, as his tongue slipped into your mouth, eager, you couldn’t help but to squeal. You had to give it to him, the man was great at multitasking. While he deepened the kiss, Tssuki tapped the melody of that dumb song on your thighs as if drumming.

"You're insecure, don't know what for, you're turning heads when you walk through the door / don't need makeup to cover up, being the way that you are is enough --

Everyone else in the room can see it

Everyone else but you

Baby, you light up my world like nobody else

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed

But when you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell

You don't know, oh, oh, you don't know you're beautiful."

Tssuki had really taken SMACK MY ASS LIKE A DRUM to a whole other level, and you couldn't even be mad about it.

"Having fun, ya happy doing that?" You teased as he now gave himself a quick rub, fully erect. Your man was so well endowed and that was both exciting and terrifying at times. While you loved dominant Tssuki, today he was a bit more mellow and less gimp man.

"Fuck, Kei-" You moaned as he slowly entered you, rubbing your clit with his thumb, the pressure just right. "I'm definitely having fun, in fact" he smirked as you moved down to slam yourself further into him, begging for more, "I'm happier than ever."

#haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu!!#tsukishima x y/n #kei tsukishima #tsukishima x you #kuroo tetsuro oneshot #shoyo hinata #tsukishima fluff

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haloshornsinkstains · 4 years ago

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Kinktober? (Semi)Public Sex [Kuroo]

Not sure I ever posted this here, sorry if I did. Brain mush right now. But I am trying to continue with the Kinktober stuff as and when I can, and hopefully I’ll get around to writing some headcanons and fun seasonal stuff soon too. Suggestions are always welcome. :)

CW: Female Reader, semi-public sex, some terrible chemistry puns, alcohol

“What is that cat doing?” Suga glanced up from his drink, following Daichi’s glare across the bar. Where you’d been dancing on your own earlier, the former Nekoma Captain was now pressed against your back, smirking. He turned back to Daichi and sighed. “I thought Kenma was supposed to be watching him!” Daichi growled. “I think Kenma is a bit busy right now.” Suga gestured to a far booth and familiar head of orange hair huddled against the gamer. “You worry too much Daichi, she can handle herself.” Daichi frowned and shook his head. “I’m not-” “I’ve been out drinking with her before, believe me, she can. If she didn’t want Kuroo there he wouldn’t be, and… I know you might disagree but he’s a decent guy really.” He leant his head against the others shoulder. “There’s always someone there to help her if she needs it. Half the guys in this room act like her older brothers, she’ll be fine . Now, as sexy as the protective big brother thing is, stop moping and enjoy your night off with me.” “I can’t believe you took her out drinking.” “She’s 23. Now shut up and kiss me you idiot.”

Across the bar, blissfully unaware of the conversation happening about you, you found yourself grinding back into a solid body. Glancing over your shoulder you raised a questioning eyebrow at the man, he merely smirked in response though he did step away a little until you grinned at him. “Aw c’mon, I haven’t even tried to scare you off yet.” You laughed. The man smiled and moved closer again, large hands coming to rest on your hips. “You’re planning to scare me off?” You shrugged. “Not yet, we’ll see.” “Can I at least get a name before you chase me away?” His deep voice was right in your ear and something about it sent a shiver up your spine, you ground your ass back against him in retaliation. You were going to tell him, really you were, but a guy sidled up to the pair of you and eyed the man you were dancing with. “Hey baby, I can show you a much better time than this-” You felt the man behind you tense, ready to interject, but you shook your head giving the stranger a smile that terrifyingly reminded Kuroo of Suga in full mom-mode back in the day. The stranger actually flinched. “I’m having a good time here thanks.” And how one person could sound so sweet and so terrifying at the same time Kuroo would never know, but the guy was gone and honestly he was beyond impressed. “That was… something.” He practically purred into your ear. You shrugged. “I had a good teacher. And I really am having a good time.” “Oho?” “Mhm. Haven’t even tried to scare you off with a terrible chat up line yet.” He chuckled behind you, “they can’t be that bad.” The song changed and you used it as an excuse to turn to face him, your arms resting around his neck as you studied his face properly. He really was handsome, the kind of good looking that even made his bedhead hairstyle look sexy. You could only blame the alcohol and his good looks for muddling your brain and making the next words to come out of your mouth seem like a great idea. “Are you Francium? Because you’re really attractive.” Ooops. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Kuroo blinked a few times, before his face split into a wide grin and a terrible hyena laugh burst from his lips. Once the laughing had subsided, and you were so thankful for the coloured lights hiding your blushing face, you realised he was still holding you. And still smiling. “That was amazing.” He chuckled. “Know any more?” Fuck. He was hot and liked awful science puns? Well that decided it. You grabbed his hand, tugging him away from the dancefloor and towards the back of the club.

You pushed him inside the bathroom stall, locking the door behind you and turning to him. “A bar toilet, really?" You shrugged. “There’s the grimy alley if you prefer? Or you can leave I guess, but well…” You gestured vaguely towards the obvious bulge in his jeans. “I got the feeling you might-” He was kissing you before you finished, strong hands lifting you almost effortlessly up onto the sink so he was pressed between your legs. “Fuck you’re hot.” You smiled. “I think that’s my line.” His lips were back on yours in an instant, one hand tangled in your hair while the other pushed your skirt up around your hips. You moaned into his mouth as his thumb rubbed across your underwear, pressing into the dampness that had already accumulated there. “Ah, fuck, we don’t have-” He groaned in response, pushing your underwear aside and pressing two fingers into your wet heat with ease. That pulled a low moan from his throat, as you gasped and bucked your hips against his hand. From the other side of the door you could hear the voices of the other people in the bar, friends and former teammates easy to pick out over the low hum of noise. You whine, fisting your hands in the front of his shirt. “You don’t have time to tease me. Please, I want you.” He huffs, but any real irritation is clouded by lust as he fishes a condom out of his pocket (you would question it, because really what? But you’re far too focused on releasing him from his jeans). You bite your lip hard to hold back the moan when you finally release his cock, long and thick and curved so perfectly you think you lose the ability to think straight just looking at it. You can practically feel his smirk, and glance up to see him biting back some sort of sarcastic remark. Just to spite him you snatch the condom wrapper from his hands, rolling it onto him yourself and slowly sliding your hand along his now covered erection. The groan that leaves him is pure sin and you can’t help but wrap your legs around his hips, urging him closer. He complies, eyes squeezed shut as he slides into you. You understand the feeling completely, biting down hard on your lip to stop you crying out from just how perfect he feels inside you, the slight burn of the stretch only adding to the sensation. “Move. God, please move.” You urge, rocking your hips against him. Move he does, your head thudding back against the mirror as he starts to thrust, breathing ragged already. He leans forward, bracing himself against the wall with his arms caging you in as he sets a punishing pace, his lips finding yours in an attempt to stifle his moans. “You feel so fucking perfect.” You whine at the praise, arching into him already embarrassingly close, but he doesn’t stop the words tumbling from his mouth. “I wish we had more time, I want to feel you come on my tongue. Want to treat you right. Fuck you feel so good.” It’s so perfect and so intense and you’re so close already. It feels like he is too, the way his body is trembling around you, brow furrowed and bottom lip caught between his teeth. Somewhere on the other side of the door you can hear someone hammering and shouting at you to hurry up and get out of there, if you weren’t so close to finishing you’d probably want to punch them. But Kuroo shifts slightly, thumb swiping over your clit in small circles and that is more than distracting enough, even as his movements become jerky and then still. He keeps going until you follow him into your own orgasm, his lips swallowing the loud moan that bubbles up in your throat. You stay like that for a few moments, lips moving against each other as you both come down from your respective highs. It’s over too soon, him pulling out of you, disposing of the used condom and gingerly tucking himself back into his pants. You sigh, leaning forwards and swiping his phone to enter your number. “In case you want to do that again as much as I do Kuroo-san.” You grin, hopping down from the sink on wobbly legs and returning to the party.

Kuroo sighs, pocketing the phone again and making his way back over to his former teammates. Yaku narrows his eyes when he approached, frowning. “Kuroo. Please tell me you didn’t have sex with Sawamura-san’s little sister.” Kuroo blinks, suddenly realising you seemed to know his name when he never gave it out, that would also explain the glare he felt burning into his back while he was dancing with you. After a few seconds he grins, glancing over to see you whirling a drunk Nishinoya around the dance floor. “That sounds like my cue to leave.”

[from: Unknown Number] Are you a carbon isotope? Because I want to date you.

[from: you] Kuroo? Marry me.

[from: Unknown Number] The one and only. I think your brother would kill me. Rude not letting me know, fyi.

[from: you] Sorry! I was trying to not scare you away. Coffee tomorrow?

[from: Kuroo] It’s a date.

#my writing #kinktober #kuroo x reader #f!reader #kuroo tetsuro #haikyuu #semi-public sex #halo.writes #halo.afterdark

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bizarre-alien · 4 years ago

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Saturday Morning

I made a short Erasermic fic on Saturday, and I just wanted to post this here because why not! It takes place when they were in their 20s, and Shota is gonna do something bold after a night of clubbing with Hizashi which, apparently, didn't turn out so well!

Saturday mornings were hard sometimes. Waking up hungover while my brain tries to recollect memories of last night only makes me numb with this dull melancholic ache in my chest. I stretched out my limbs across my bed to find that I was all alone. “Shocker.” I thought to myself sarcastically. I slowly turned my body over to get my phone that was on my nightstand. To my surprise, it was hooked up and charged. “No, I was too drunk to do something this responsible.” I mumbled as I unplugged it. There were some unread messages from Yamada, and it brought this warm feeling inside that my heart seemed to crave.

“Last night was WILD! Please text me when you wake up. I need to know you lived! 😭”

“I did lay you on your side with a bucket, pukey! 🤣”

“OMG ARE YOU ALIVE?? I MISS MY BEST FRIEND!”

“I should’ve just crashed on your couch instead of taking the cab back to my place… Could’ve saved myself from stress and money… LMAOOO”

“SHOOOOOOTAAAAAAAA”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at his sweet attentiveness. He never failed to put a smile on my face even if he wasn’t around. I took a selfie and sent it to him. “I lived, bitch. 😤”

I felt my stomach shock from anticipation as I saw the ellipsis pop up. “YOU LOOK GOOD FOR A DEAD BITCH!!” The ellipsis came up again. “Also, you looked cuter than me in the shirt I let you wear. If you wanna keep it, you deserve it! I have your shirt, and it’s nice and clean! I think I’ll wear it today!”

I couldn’t help but to blush at his remark. “It’s mine now. I’ll take good care of it.” I looked down to see which shirt it was, and I gasped. It was an exclusive shirt from one of his favorite bands that he got at a live show. The exact one that he said he wanted to be buried in. “WAIT ARE YOU SURE BC I JUST SAW WHICH ONE IT WAS”

“It’s okay!! I’d rather see you wear it instead. 💖”

“... That’s very sweet…”

“How do I look? I’m going for that Shota Aizawa look. Don’t mind my lack of pants, please. 🥰🤣” His selfie nearly made me drown in affection. He looks so good in my shirt… And his legs...

“*Chef’s kiss* You rn…” Were we flirting, right now?? No. He has someone, right? “Wait… Are you flirting with me to make your so jealous? What did he do wrong, now? 🥴” The ellipsis came up, but went away… Then again… Then nothing. I began to worry. “Zashi, I’m playing. You know that, right?” The other end was radio silent, and I felt anxiety surge through me. Was it a sore topic and I didn’t know? Did I just ruin our friendship? I mean, how would that screw everything up? After all we’ve been through for the past 7 years, that couldn’t have been the final straw… right? I was pulled from my overthinking by my phone vibrating. It was Zashi calling, and I picked it up immediately. “Was that a bad thing to say? Because I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt-!”

“It’s okay, Sho!” He chuckled reassuringly to me, but I could hear the pain in his voice. “I forgot that you black out when you’re drunk… No, me and him are done. You broke his nose when I came to you crying about it. We had to leave the club because of all the drama, but no one knew who we were… Thank God, right?”

“Yeah…” I was silent for a moment as I tried to remember what happened.

“Sho! We’re leaving. Come on!” Hizashi roared as he made his way to me.

“Hold, hold, hold. What happened?” I stopped him in his tracks and grabbed his arms. “Zashi, are you okay? Where’s-?”

“Who cares? I hate him! Let’s go!”

“But you left me to blow him in the bathroom! What do you mean you hate him, now-?”

“I wish I didn’t, and I’m so sorry! He’s a monster in disguise, but I was too stupid to notice AGAIN!!” Zashi burst into tears as he held onto me tightly. We stumbled a bit, but I held him back with all I had. I feared that this was gonna happen.

“I knew there was a reason why I couldn’t stand him.”

“Baby, you got it all wrong! I love you, Hizashi! I wanna marry you!” I heard the voice of Zashi’s former lover, and the alcohol in me decided to take control of my body.

“You take another step, and you’ll regret it! Don’t think I won’t have you on the ground, you piece of garbage!”

“Sho, let’s just get out of here! I gotta go!” Hizashi pushed me towards the exit. “It’s not worth it!”

“Hizashi!” The moment he grabbed Hizashi’s arm, I went feral.

I dug my nails into his wrist to get him to let go of my best friend. “Piss off!” I roared as I got Hizashi behind me. Before I could register anything, I felt my right fist connect with his nose hard enough that it sent a shock up to my shoulder. “I knew you were trash the moment I laid eyes on you! You don’t deserve Zashi!” I wanted to go for more, but I felt a multitude of hands grasp at me and pull me towards the exit. I managed to spit on Zashi’s ex before we were escorted out of the club.

“Oh my God, Shota! That was intense!” Hizashi grabbed my shoulders and shook me. His makeup was smeared from his tears, but it made him look like an ethereal being. “You good?”

“Mmh.”

“I can’t believe you did that for me! You’re so sweet! Oh my gosh, like you- Oh, God!” He backed up as he looked at me again. “Alleyway. Alleyway!” He guided us to the alleyway and held my hair the moment I let everything out. “Oh, God. It’s on your shirt. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” When I spat out the remains, he gently took off my soiled shirt. “You are so lucky that I have on something sexy underneath this tee! I guess this may be a sign to dress sexy for myself instead of waiting for someone to see it in private, huh?” He pulled off his band tee and handed it to me with a smile. He had on a fishnet long sleeve bodysuit with nipple coverings, and he looked like the biggest rockstar in that moment… but, that was my best friend… My best friend is the biggest rockstar and he’s holding my gross shirt.

“You’re so freaking nice, Zashi!” I began to tear up as I put on the shirt. “I’m so sorry!”

“I should be sorry! I didn’t listen to you. I just listened to his dick!” We laughed like a couple of hyenas as we took our drunken selves to our favorite place to eat when we drank our weight in booze.

“Zashi." I sighed and shook my head. "I’m so sorry."

“Thanks. It hurts, you know? He wasn’t who I thought he was. I guess… I don’t know how to pick ‘em, huh?” He tried to laugh, but he went quiet.

Never in my life did I want to reach out to him through the phone and hug him as much as I do now, but all I could do was hug him with my words. “You have a big heart and a warm presence that deserves to be honored and cherished, and he just didn’t get it. If I had the chance, I’d punch him again. You deserve so much better, and you will get that.”

“When, Shota?” There was a pause.

“When the time and place is right.” I wanted to say right now and with me, but I chickened out. “That person will love you and nurture your heart, and that person will be the most lucky human in all existence and memory.”

“I wish it were-” He paused and sighed. “I wish it happened now.”

I felt my heart jump and my mind started to race. Did he want me? Should I risk it all? Were we both too afraid of screwing up our friendship? “Hizashi…”

“Hey, do you mind if we meet up somewhere? Your place, my place, a restaurant… Anywhere, honestly! I just need to see you. Sorry if that sounds clingy. I just-”

“Of course! I would love to meet up. You’re going through a tough situation, and I’m more than happy to be there for you.” I smiled. “You can come over to my place and we can decide if we wanna go out or not.”

“That sounds good. I’ll get coffee on the way, okay? I know you need it.” He chuckled.

“You’re the best.” I sighed in relief. “I think coffee would solve a lot of problems, right now.”

“Hey, Shota?”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to know how much I value our friendship. We had rocky moments, but there isn’t a day that I’m not grateful that we smoothed things out. I can freely be myself around you, and that’s really rare nowadays because all these fakes are roaming the streets.”

“It doesn’t help that you’re well known, huh?” I joked.

“Exactly! You keep me from losing my mind… You inspire me, you encourage me, and I know I can be vulnerable with you and you wouldn't judge me for it! I just really love- Ugh... No, I should stop. I’m getting sappy.” He burst into laughter.

“Funny enough, I needed to hear that.” I blushed and rubbed that back of my neck. “Hizashi, I actually wanna talk to you about something when you get here. It’s important to me, so that’s why I wanna wait.”

“Oh, for real? I’m not in trouble, am I?”

He was so cute. “No, not at all!” I snorted.

“Good! Give me a few minutes, okay? I’ll be there in a bit.”

“In Hizashi minutes, right? I'm guessing that it'll be an hour before you get here.”

“Shut up, man! I can’t help the fact that I’m a high maintenance scatterbrain!” He whined on the other line.

“Whatever. Just get here when you get here. You know where the spare key is, so I’m gonna take a shower and clean up the place a bit.”

“Sounds good!”

“Okay, cool. See you then.”

“See you!” He sang then hung up.

I looked at my phone with a whirlwind of emotions. The comfort of his voice still in my heart, but it wrestled with the anxiety that I felt in my chest as I knew what I set myself up for. The timing seems wrong, but I was so caught up that I could care less. What if he hates me for even confessing now? Yet again, it seemed that he was dying for me to confess… I just know that this is the last Saturday morning I wanted to spend hungover by myself. I wanted to wake up to messy blond hair in my mouth, limbs entangled, and the sweet smell of his natural scent mixed with the ghost of his perfume of choice from the night before.

The feeling was so strong that I clutched my pillow for dear life, and I couldn’t tell what kind of tears were falling from my eyes. All I could do is lay there and imagine what could possibly become a reality while also fear that I could make this imagery impossible if I said the wrong things. Funny enough, this hurricane of emotion is something that I’m just observing. Somewhere deep in my core, I felt a sense of relief and peace. And it was that very peace that gave me the strength to get up and get ready for a life changing discussion with my best friend.

Thank you! Bye!

#erasermic #aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa #yamada hizashi #hizashi yamada #hizashi x shouta #maizawa

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alirhi · 3 years ago

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jfc FINALLY

Ugh. I have been fighting with my muse to get this done for two months. And I was actually going to stretch it to line up more or less with the movie's timeline, but honestly... I'm just so burnt 😂 So this is what you get.

Title: Monday Chapter: Oneshot Fandom: Monday Rating: R/NC17 (I mean, have you seenthe movie?) Pairing: Mickey/OC Summary: What if, instead of Chloe, Mickey met a woman that night who was actually good for him and whom he was compatible with? WARNINGS: swearing, sex (not explicit; I rarely if ever write smut, but still) Notes: I hate Chloe. Omfg I hate her so much. So I fixed it XD Yes, I literally rewrote the entire movie with a different love interest. Well... most of it lol. I get bored, okay? Lol. Oh, and the girl is actually a character I yanked from one of my original stories lol. I didn't make her up on the spot for this (I'm too lazy for that XD). Tweaking her to fit the setting was kind of a bitch, as she's from a fantasy series, so if she seems kind of Mary Sue-ish...sorry.

“You have a nose for American cheese!”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Come on, that girl looks insane!”

“What?” Looking surprised, Argyris turned and looked where his friend was pointing, and then laughed. “Not her, you idiot! The ginger-snap over there!”

The girl in question, a lithe, pretty thing with a wild mass of red hair that she constantly shoved impatiently out of her face was dancing alone a few feet away from the angry-looking blonde Mickey had thought he'd been talking about. She was gorgeous, he had to admit.

“Go and talk to her, man!”

He pointed to the turntables in front of him, impatiently reminding Argyris, “No, I'm working!”

“Come on,” the other man taunted, “I know your playlist inside-out! It's the same R&B shit, and then a little bit of disco!”

“It's not R&B, and it's not disco!”

“This song is twenty fuckin' minutes long! Come on!”

“Hey!” Mickey grimaced, hastily yanking his headphones off and setting them down as he was dragged off toward the redhead. “Fuck!”

All puffed up with pride – and way too much to drink – Argyris pushed Mickey when they drew close to the girl, so that he slammed right into her. Laughing, he patted her shoulder, but his mirth was short-lived. She grabbed his hand and twisted his arm up behind his back.

“Put your hands on a girl you don't know again. I dare you.”

Mickey covered his mouth with one hand to hide his laughter as his friend writhed in the deceptively delicate-looking girl's grip.

“Alright, alright! I'm sorry!” Laughing as he was released, Argyris went to put a hand on each of their shoulders, took one look at the girl, and just hung off of Mickey's shoulder, instead. “You're an American... You're an American! You're a man, you're a woman! There you go!”

“Yeah, crazy kismet,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “Two Americans out of their natural deep-fried, flag-waving habitat at the same time! Imagine!”

Undaunted, the drunk Greek simply shrugged and flounced off with a flippant, “Whatever. Have fun!”

“Sorry about him,” Mickey said immediately, smiling when she turned and smiled at him. At least she didn't seem to be judging him by the company he kept.

“Friend of yours?”

“Argyris? Yeah.” He grinned. “He's kind of an idiot, but he's a good guy.”

She laughed. “I'll take your word for it. Aren't you the DJ? Should you be over here?”

“No,” he admitted with a laugh, “but I'm fine for a few minutes. You wanna dance?”

“I'd love to.”

She was tall, he realized as he spun her around; in the little barely-there heels she was wearing, they stood eye to eye. Clearly drunk, though, she lost her balance every few seconds and crashed into him with a laugh, occasionally giving up on righting herself and just resting her head on his shoulder.

Mickey grimaced as he heard the song beginning to wind down, but the girl hanging off of him only smiled and patted his chest. “Go on! Get back to work. I'll be here when you're done.”

“Any chance I could convince you to come around the other side?” He gave her his most charming grin, and felt a little warm inside when she laughed.

“Why, so you can stare down my top the whole time?”

With a shrug, he admitted, “I've been doing that anyway, so why not?”

“Honesty!” She grinned and kissed his cheek. “I like it. Alright, you gorgeous lech! Get back up there. We'll see what I can do about your view.”

He only made it another hour or so, with the girl coming up to him every few minutes with another drink, and occasionally flashing him from the spot she'd found in front of him. Queuing up enough songs to play through the end of the party, he hopped down off the podium and ran over to her, tugging her close for the kiss he'd been dying for since Argyris had first pulled him over to her. “You wanna get out of here?”

“You sure? What about-”

Mickey shook his head, smiling. “It'll run til they all pass out. No one'll touch my stuff, not here. Come on!”

“Okay, yeah.” She shrugged and laughed, allowing him to pull her through the throng of dancing people and away from the party. “Fuck it. Let's go!”

The next morning, naked, hungover, and covered in sand, they were nudged awake by a police officer while an angry lady yelled about their indecency. The officer waited for them to scramble back into their clothes and then cuffed them both, ushering them into the back of a cruiser.

Despite the situation, Mickey couldn't keep the silly smile off of his face. At least the cops had been kind enough to cuff their hands in front of them, allowing him to hold his out to the girl beside him. “Hi. I'm Mickey.”

She laughed, the realization that they'd never introduced themselves clearly dawning in her bright green eyes. “Beck.”

“Nice to meet you.” He shook her hand, but couldn't hide his slight confusion. “That a first name or a last name?”

“It's short for my first name.” She was still smiling, but there was a dangerous glint in her eyes as she added, “Call me 'Becky' once and I'll be facing real prison time at the end of this ride, and you'll be missing body parts.”

With a slightly nervous laugh, he nodded. “Alright, noted. Beck it is!”

“And, nice to meet you, too.”

There was the briefest of conversations at the police station, the sandy couple signed themselves out, and then Mickey persuaded one of the officers to give them a lift back to the beach.

“You want a ride?”

Beck grinned, one ruddy eyebrow arching up. “I still need to clean up from the 'ride' last night.”

Laughing, Mickey shook his head. “I'll never say 'no' to more of that, but that's not what I meant.”

“I know.” She shrugged, snarky grin turning into an almost bashful smile. “And yeah, I'd love a ride. Thanks.”

He loaned her his helmet and, after getting directions from her, drove her to her hotel. It seemed like that would be the end of it... and he hated that thought. “So, what're you doing tonight?”

“Packing and sleeping,” she told him with a laugh, leaning against the building. “I gotta be on a plane Monday morning, and I hate leaving things to the last minute.”

“You're leaving?”

With a grin and a snarky air kiss, she teased, “Missing me already, lover boy?”

Mickey shrugged, grinning. “Maybe I am. I like you, is that so bad?” He beckoned, and was somewhat surprised when she walked right over to him. Still smiling like a fool, he grabbed her by the waistband of her shorts and pulled her close for a kiss. “Come with me tonight, for a proper sendoff.”

“Come with you where?”

“I'm DJing on an island.” Thumb sliding under her clothes to slide over her hip, he wheedled, “Come on. Come with me.”

“I need to shower. I'm all sandy and sticky from last night.” Beck gave him just long enough to deflate, and then she smirked and nipped his jaw. “Care to join me?”

“Fuck yes!” He was off his moped in a flash, following the laughing redhead as she took his hand and tugged him into the hotel. Giggling like hyenas, the pair made their way up to Beck's room, stopping every few steps for one to yank the other close for another kiss. Mickey was on cloud nine. This girl was fun, she was sassy and wild, and he couldn't get enough.

It seemed she couldn't get enough, either. They'd barely stepped into the shower before Beck was on her knees in front of him, her hand on his ass and his hand tangled in her hair as she sucked him off. He leaned back against the wall, tugging lightly on her hair and shuddering as he felt her moan around him.

“Fuck... oh, fuck, you're good at that! Holy shit... Stop. Stopstopstop!” With a little half-smile at her look of confusion, he tugged her back to her feet and kissed her. “You're fucking amazing. God damn, you are good with that mouth! But that's not what I want.”

Beck grinned, a playful glint in her bright green eyes that made him weak in the knees. “That's not a good idea.”

“Oh, no?” He backed her up against the wall, nuzzling her neck as his hand drifted down between her legs. “Funny... You don't seem to really believe that.”

“I definitely want you to fuck me til I can't move,” she assured him, shaking as she tried desperately not to laugh. “But it's not a good idea-” Her words turned into a startled whimper as Mickey hoisted her up by her thighs and slid into her to the hilt.

“I think it's a great idea,” he purred, biting her shoulder. Then he almost dropped her, and they both cracked up.

“The wall's slippery! This isn't smart.”

“No, it's definitely not smart,” he agreed, turning so that he was holding her up in mid-air instead of bracing her against the wall. “But that doesn't make it not a good idea.”

Beck laughed, clinging to him for dear life. “You're just gonna hold me up?”

“Yep.”

“The whole time?”

“You don't think I can do it?” Mickey grinned, bouncing her a few times just to prove her wrong. “You weight nothing, baby girl. I got this.” She was surprisingly light... but she was also a grown woman almost the same height as him. His pride would never let him admit it aloud, but there was no way he was going to be able to fuck her like this for long.

Just as he was wracking his somewhat foggy brain for a solution, he saw light dawning in Beck's eyes and waited. “Counter!” She nodded toward the sink, and only then did he realize they hadn't even closed the shower curtain, and the bathroom floor was getting soaked. “Put me on the counter.”

“I thought we were supposed to be getting cleaned up.” Even as he teased her, he was carefully stepping out of the tub, blessing her foresight when she grabbed a towel and threw it down just before he set his foot down, and carrying her across the bathroom.

Beck snickered and kissed him. “No point getting clean until we're done getting dirty. Shut up and fuck me.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

A little while later, they stumbled across another logistical issue Mickey hadn't considered.

“You are not putting dirty clothes on a clean body!” Beck insisted, prying his – pretty nasty at this point, he had to admit – clothes from his hands. “That's disgusting!”

“Well, what the fuck else am I supposed to wear? Clearly, I can't just run around naked. We got arrested for that this morning!”

“Pity,” she teased, eyeing him in a way that made him wonder if they were ever actually going to leave her hotel room. “You're the best view in Athens.”

“Maybe they arrested us out of jealousy, then.” Mickey shook his head, though he couldn't help chuckling a little, despite his frustration. “Either way, I'm kinda stuck. It's either be gross, or don't go anywhere.”

“As much as the thought of keeping you trapped here as my sex slave appeals to me...” With another mocking grin, Beck turned and started going through her dresser drawers. “I think I can help you out.”

“I'm not wearing your clothes.”

“They're less flamboyant than what you do wear.”

“They won't fit!”

She tossed him a tee shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that proved him very wrong. They were huge. At his questioning stare, she shrugged.

“I always pack a couple of cute outfits when I travel, and the rest is super baggy; at least three sizes too big. I like to be comfortable.”

“Convenient.” He stared at the shorts in his hands, and then at the belt she handed him a few seconds later. “Am I supposed to wear your underwear, too?”

Beck snorted and walked away, patting his shoulder as she passed him. “I don't wear underwear.”

“Then I guess I kind of am wearing yours.” Even as the joke was tumbling out of his mouth, he knew it was lame, but they still both laughed. Then he glanced at his watch and winced. “Shit, we gotta go.”

“What?”

He waited for the dress she was pulling on to settle into place and then wrapped his arms around her, tugging her back against his chest. “We gotta go. If we don't catch the next ferry, we're gonna be late.”

She flinched. “Okay, two seconds.” The girl moved like lightning. Mystified, Mickey watched as she yanked on a pair of canvas sneakers, grabbed her wallet and cell phone – which she then stuffed in the pockets of the shorts he was wearing – grabbed a hair tie, and ran for the door. In no time, she'd strangled her wild red curls into submission in a low ponytail. They hadn't even reached the elevator yet.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Handing her his helmet, Mickey shook his head. “I think you got dressed faster than I did! I thought girls always take forever to get ready.”

Laughing, Beck rolled her eyes. As she settled on the back of the moped and tucked her skirt around her legs for decency, she told him, “I spent two years in the jungle with nothing but what I could fit in a backpack. Low maintenance is kinda my thing. The fewer steps to getting ready, the less time it takes.”

“That explains so much.” He stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head and grumbled as he slid into place in front of her and started the moped, “And raises so many more questions!”

“Full disclosure: I will probably answer none of them, as I'm very likely never going to see you again after tonight.”

Well, that was a depressing dose of reality he wasn't ready for. Not one to dwell on things, though, Mickey simply decided to have as much fun as he could with this girl while she was around, and treasure the steamy memories.

They made it to the ferry just in time. Making sure there was no one else around, Mickey smirked and tugged Beck into his lap, one hand sliding up her thigh. He moved slowly, giving her plenty of time to push him away if she wanted; she simply arched an eyebrow at his questioning look and grabbed his wrist, tugging his hand closer.

“Why do you think I'm wearing a dress?”

Fuck, he loved this girl!

They were pretty much attached at the hip the whole day – literally, when they could steal a few minutes alone. While he was DJing, she was dancing like a lunatic, front and center. Those piercing green eyes never strayed from him; he knew, because he couldn't look away from her, either. Once he was free, they danced together for a little while, but it didn't take long for Beck to grow bored and yank him down the beach, away from the party. They found a dark, hidden nook to be alone, spent the night hopelessly wrapped up in each other, and then cuddled as they watched the sun come up.

“Gods, this place is so beautiful!”

Mickey chuckled at the plural, but didn't ask about it. He had a more important question for her: “You really gonna leave all this behind?”

“I have to.” She didn't sound any happier about leaving than he was about letting her leave. “I gotta get home.”

“Where's home?”

“Boston. You?”

He grinned and nudged her. “Athens, baby. Been here seven years!”

“Okay, but where before here?” she prodded with a laugh. “You're obviously not Greek; you don't even speak it!”

“Do you?”

Beck sat up a little straighter, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Nai.”

“Showoff.”

“One word is being a showoff?” Beck laughed, shaking her head. “You've been here seven years, and you don't know a single word of the language?”

Mickey scowled, feeling defensive. “Everybody speaks English!”

“Wow.” She wasn't smiling anymore. She actually looked and sounded pretty pissed off. “That is astoundingly arrogant. And completely American, so clearly your obnoxious friend with no boundaries was right; it's not just a funny accent, you actually are American.”

“You're an American, too!”

“By birth,” she snapped, “not by choice. And I fucking hope not by attitude. I don't go stomping around foreign countries with absolutely no respect for their language or customs, expecting everyone around me to cater to my laziness.”

He rolled his eyes, scooting away from her. “Give me a break! Learning another language is hard!”

“Impossible, if you don't even try.”

“Yeah? How many languages do you speak?”

“Fluently?” She held up her hands, ticking each one off on her fingers as she listed them. “English, obviously. Korean, Irish Gaelic, Italian, and German. Passably? Japanese – I can speak it fluently, but I have trouble reading it; the kanji is a nightmare – Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish. I can read Latin and Old Norse, and I'm learning Mandarin, but I admit I'm struggling with that one. Mostly for the same reason I can't read Japanese; the writing system.”

Gaping at her, Mickey couldn't formulate a response for a long moment. When his brain finally started working again, all he could think to say was, “Jesus, what the fuck are you, a robot?!”

“I'm an archaeologist,” she told him flatly, still looking irritated. “And I've been traveling since I was seventeen. Been studying at least one language other than English since I was ten. I definitely had an advantage, starting when I still had a little kid's spongy brain, but it's not impossible to learn at any age, if you actually care enough to try.”

“You sound like my ex.” Hoping to distract her from that comment he hadn't meant to make, he hastily asked, “If you love to travel so much, why're you in such a rush to get home?”

Beck sighed, turning to stare out over the water. “I promised my daughter I'd be home in time for her birthday.”

Huh. They had more in common that he'd thought. “You have a kid?”

She nodded. “Two. Two girls.”

“How old?”

“Alice is five,” she murmured, pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them. Head pillowed on her arms, she added, “And Madeline's about to turn fourteen.”

“How the hell old are you?!” He hadn't meant to ask so bluntly, but he was so stunned by her daughters' ages that the question just kind of blurted itself out.

Mercifully, Beck laughed a little. “I'm thirty-three. I'll spare you some math – I was nineteen when I had Maddie.”

Mickey shook his head, not sure how to react. In all honesty, she didn't look much older than that now. There was a shadow behind her eyes that he was dying to ask about, but even as thoughtless as he could be, he knew when to just not go there. Instead, he told her softly, “My son is six.”

“What's his name?”

He smiled. As much as the situation with his ex sucked, he loved his son, and thinking about him always brought a little smile to Mickey's face. “Hector.”

The look on Beck's pretty face as she watched him like a hawk made him blush, though he wasn't sure why. There was just something about that direct green gaze that made him feel like she could read his mind. “He's the real reason you don't want to leave Greece, isn't he?” A spot-on guess like that certainly did nothing to dispel the notion.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yep. His mom hates my guts, but I don't care. There's nothing I wouldn't do to stay in his life. I actually, um... I have a room for him, at my place. If she'll ever let me take him, you know, just for a weekend or whatever... His room is ready and waiting for him.”

“All you can do is keep trying. Put in the work, be the best dad you can be, and hope for the best.”

Unsure what to say to that, Mickey changed the subject with an awkward smile. “So... Alice? She blonde, like Alice in Wonderland?”

Beck snorted, shaking her head. “No, she has black hair, like her dad.” She paused and then shook her head again with a bemused smirk on her face. “Actually, both of my girls look like their dads – dark hair, big blue eyes.” Smirk turning into a grin, she nudged him. “Guess I've got a type.”

“'Dads,' huh?” He grinned, too, and nudged her right back. “Plural?”

“You gonna get all judgy on me, now?” Her tone was light and teasing, but her eyes promised a whole lot of pain if he answered wrong.

Mickey just laughed. “Nope, no judgment. I think you've seen enough of what I'm like this weekend to know I wouldn't have the right.”

“Good answer.”

“I don't want you to leave.” He watched her go rigid and sighed, shaking his head. “I'm not gonna try to stop you. If you were leaving for literally any other reason, I might, but I'd never dream of trying to keep a mom away from her kid. I just... I really like you, and I wish you didn't have to go.”

She shrugged a little, staring out over the water again. “To be honest, I don't wanna go, either. I mean, I'm dying to see my girls again, being away from them is always painful, but... This place is so beautiful. I would love to stay a little longer.”

Not a single word about whether or not she liked him. That stung, but he did his best to ignore it. “Why don't you bring them with you when you travel?”

“I used to,” she admitted. “When it was just Maddie, I brought her everywhere with me and tutored her myself. I tried to keep it going after Alice was born, but it was rough. They got tired of always being on the road and not having kids their age to play with, so now I leave them with my sister when I'm away.”

“Wait, you taught her yourself?” He laughed, shaking his head in dismay. “Are you sure you're not a robot?”

Beck laughed, too, rolling her eyes. “I'm sure. There's more down time than you think in archaeology; plenty of time to keep an already smart girl from falling behind in her schooling.”

“They must take after their mom. I mean, you speak a zillion languages, so you gotta be pretty damn smart.” She was so reckless and carefree, it was hard to picture this woman digging in the dirt for broken clay pots, or wrangling two children to teach them math. From what he'd seen, it felt like Beck was describing a completely different person. He didn't want to offend her, so he refrained from pointing out that she came across less brilliant, multilingual career woman in her thirties and more Girls Gone Wild: Athens.

“Cheapann tú gur leathcheann mé.” He had no idea what the hell she'd just said, but he could tell from the look on her face that he hadn't been as good at keeping his thoughts to himself as he'd hoped. She looked both offended and darkly amused. “Pensi che una ragazza non possa essere intelligente e libera? Eísai vlákas, Mickey.”

He didn't bother asking for a translation; her tone told him he didn't want to know. “How many languages was that?”

Beck grinned. “Three. Gaelic, Italian, and Greek. I sometimes mix a few in the same sentence – I constantly mix Japanese and Korean at home; it makes my girls laugh – but I figured I'd be nice.”

Mickey opened his mouth to say he wouldn't have noticed the difference, and then stopped. He had noticed the difference; the lilt of her voice changed dramatically with each language. That was how he'd realized that she'd been speaking more than one in the first place. “I kinda wanna hear that mix, now. Are the languages that similar?”

“No.” She laughed. “Not at all. They share some slang thanks to pop culture, and both borrowed a lot from China, but they're structured differently, and the way they're spoken is different.”

“Then how do you mix them?”

“I speak them both,” she said with a shrug and another laugh. “If you speak more than one language well enough, they don't have to be similar to still flow. Like...” She smirked, leaning against him and batting her eyes. “Kimi wa baboya, demo... mada jowayo.”

“Showoff.”

“Yes.” Cracking up, she pulled him back to lie on the warm sand with her and cuddled close. “That time, absolutely.”

“Do you think you'll ever come back?” He'd been trying so hard to avoid the subject, but he just couldn't get his mind to budge from the fact that he didn't want her to leave.

With a fond smile, she kissed him before teasing lightly, “You gonna miss me, honey?”

Mickey grinned, hoping she couldn't see that he was feeling more melancholy than amused. “I think mostly I'll miss the sex. It's hard to find a woman who can keep up with me.”

“Oh, is that so?” She laughed and tickled him, making him squirm. Then she stopped, a warm, almost wistful smile on her face. “I'm gonna miss you, too, you know.”

Forced playful grin turning into a soft, genuine smile, he pulled her closer and kissed her. “I was beginning to worry you didn't like me.”

Beck grinned and nuzzled his neck. “The past twenty-four hours wouldn't have happened if I didn't like you.”

Feigning shock, Mickey gasped. “You mean you don't fuck strange men all over Greece indiscriminately?”

“No, that I do all the time,” she joked, hand sliding up one leg of his borrowed shorts. “But I only let the really special ones wear my clothes.”

He laughed, glancing down at himself; he'd forgotten for a second that they were hers. “Right. We should stop at my place so I can change and give these back before I take you back to your hotel.”

Beck sighed, snatching her hand back as if he'd burned her. “Right. Yeah, we should get going.”

Though he still hated that she had to leave, he kept his word and didn't try to stop her. Argyris tried to convince him to make some grand gesture at the airport, but Mickey shut him down with a grumpy, “It's her kid's birthday. I'm not that much of a selfish asshole.”

“I can't believe you're in love with this girl!” Hooting with laughter, Argyris slapped his back. “I'm a fuckin' matchmaker! Who knew?”

“Fuck off, Cupid!” Mickey grinned and shoved him away, hoping the other man couldn't see how shitty he really felt. He moped for a couple of days, barely paying attention to the world around him, just missing the crazy girl with the temper as fiery as her hair.

Then he answered an unexpected knock at his door and was baffled by the sight of a cute, petite brunette with huge blue eyes staring up at him. “Um... Can I help you?”

“Huh.” One dark eyebrow arching up, she called back over her shoulder, “You really do have a type.”

A familiar laugh made Mickey freeze in shock as Beck stepped into view behind the girl, another one in her arms. “I made the mistake of telling Maddie that I met this awesome DJ in Greece-”

“And since I have no friends anyway,” the girl, who he finally realized was Beck's older daughter, Madeline, cut in, “I figured there'd be no problem moving my 'party' somewhere more fun than my aunt's house. For the third year in a row.”

“Jesus, you might look like your dad, but you sound just like your mom!” The words slipped out before he could stop himself. While Madeline rolled her eyes, the little girl in her mother's arms – Alice, he figured – giggled.

“Yeah,” Beck agreed with a grin, moving closer and leaning past her daughters to kiss him. “She's got my snarky attitude. Gods help me. Thankfully, this one's still innocent.” She squeezed Alice tighter against her side, making her giggle again.

“Mommy! You're squishing me!”

“Her? Innocent? Did auntie tell you what she did to my stereo?!”

“It was an accident!”

“My butt it was!”

Wincing, Beck glanced at Mickey and mouthed, 'I'm sorry.' “Girls, enough. What have I told you about bickering in front of strangers?”

“I mean, you also tell us not to spread our legs for strangers, and yet...”

“Madeline Fiona O'Brien!”

“What?!” Eyes wide and looking frustrated, Madeline gestured to Mickey. “I'm kinda right!”

He couldn't hold it in anymore. Leaning on the door frame to stay upright, Mickey burst out laughing. God help this woman, he thought as he struggled to get his breath back. Her daughter's exactly like her!

Face even redder than her hair, Beck grumbled, “I did not tell her we slept together.”

“You couldn't shut up about him and your clothes smelled like dude. Doesn't take a genius.”

“Maddie, couldja stop? I kinda wanna see more of Greece than two buildings. If mom drags us home early cuz you're being a jerk, I will kick your seat the whole way back to Boston!”

“I'll let her.”

Mickey had just about gotten his laughter under control. Still chuckling, he yanked Beck into his arms and gave her a long, slow kiss. “You are dreaming if you think I'm letting you leave again.”

“That doesn't sound kidnappy at all!”

Laughing again, he released the blushing redhead only to trap Madeline in his arms and tickle her until she squeaked. “And you, little miss Queen of Sarcasm!” With a grin, he kissed the top of her head and released her, pleased to see that she was smiling. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

As he stepped aside to let them in, it finally dawned on him that he'd never actually worked a child's party before. He was used to crowds of rowdy drunk Greeks, not two innocent little girls. He didn't even know any kids, besides his own! He glanced helplessly at Beck, who snickered and kissed his jaw.

“Just do whatever; I can keep an eye on them. Maddie was more interested in the change of scenery than an actual party.”

“Does she really have no friends?”

She shrugged, turning to watch her daughters awkwardly settle on the couch and begin nudging and poking each other repeatedly. “She's never been the most social kid in the world. Around their own age groups, Liss is the bubbly extrovert and Maddie can't be bothered; she wanted to hang with kids her own age until she realized they annoy the hell out of her.”

“Argyris might know some people with kids...” He rolled his eyes. “He'll think I'm nuts, trying to hunt down teenagers, though.”

Beck laughed and shook her head. “No, really, don't worry about it. We don't even have to actually throw a party-”

Cutting her off with a kiss, Mickey insisted, “Oh, she's getting a party. When is her birthday, anyway?”

“Today, actually.”

He flinched, glancing at the clock, and then relaxed. It was still pretty early. “She's getting a party,” he repeated firmly. “She's fourteen! That... has no special significance in any culture I've heard of, but the kid still deserves some fun on her damn birthday. Especially if the last few have been disappointing.”

“The day after is pretty significant in our culture,” she murmured, so softly he almost didn't catch it.

“Is it?” Wasn't she American? He seemed to recall a whole conversation that almost turned into an argument about it. “Since when?”

Beck blushed again, looking uncomfortable. “Never mind.”

“...Girls, make yourselves at home. I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”

“You're talking now.”

He almost wrote that off as another snarky response, until he realized it had come from Alice. Looking innocently confused, she stared at him with almost comically large blue eyes, and he smiled. “In private,” he clarified as gently as he could as he grabbed Beck's wrist and tugged her down the hall toward his bedroom.

“Door open at all times!”

With a huff, Beck dug her heels in and spun around to glare at Madeline. “Who's the mom, here?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Madeline.” Wrenching free of Mickey's grasp, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared her defiant offspring down. “Who's the mom?”

Glowering right back, Madeline mirrored her pose and grudgingly admitted, “You are.”

“Good. Now that we've got that cleared up, how about you show our host a little respect?”

Madeline's face was red as a tomato, but she still looked more angry and resentful than contrite, until she took a deep breath and turned to Mickey. With a surprising note of sincerity, she grumbled, “Sorry, Mickey.”

“Jet lag gets the best of all of us. Maybe you two should take a nap while your mom and I talk.” He didn't know what the hell else to say. He couldn't say 'it's okay' and undermine her mother, and 'you're forgiven' sounded kind of dickish. With an awkward smile, he waved and resumed dragging Beck down the hall.

As soon as the bedroom door was closed behind them, Beck sighed and leaned against it, looking worn out. “I'm so sorry about her. She's been so bitchy lately; my sister said she was even copping an attitude with her, which she almost never does.”

“She's probably just tired and been missing her mom.” In truth, he thought Madeline's sass was funny as hell, but he wasn't about to step into the middle of a mother-daughter war. Instead, he focused on his own curiosity. “What 'culture' celebrates the day after a birthday?”

She winced. “It's nothing, Mickey. Forget it.”

Weird. “What's the big deal? I'm just curious.”

“Alright, fine.” Looking and sounding resigned, she muttered, “If you're gonna judge or laugh, might as well get it out of the way – I'm a witch.”

Mickey stared at her. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. “...A witch?”

“I don't ride a broomstick and I can't turn you into a toad.” Oof. Defensive. Judging by her tone, she'd had this conversation before, and it hadn't gone well. “My sister's a witch, too, and so are my girls. There's an old tradition in the craft; at thirteen we find our deity, if we're meant to serve one, and a year and a day later, we pledge to their service.”

Light dawned. “Oh, that's why you always say 'Gods' instead of 'God'! That makes sense.” Who was he to judge? He wasn't particularly religious, but was any one religion really any weirder than the next? Curiosity abated, he brushed it off and tugged her into his arms. “My very own Sabrina.”

Beck snorted and dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Sometimes I feel more like Sarah Sanderson.”

“You really want me to throw a rager for your fourteen-year-old?” He didn't know what to say about her Hocus Pocus reference – 'horny and ditzy? Sounds about right' was...probably not the right thing – so he decided to just jump back to the original topic.

She shrugged. “I honestly don't know what to do for her. Coming back here was her idea, but I kinda doubt it had much to do with her birthday. She wasn't kidding about wondering which one of us is the parent; that kid's been trying to take care of me since she was little.”

“Why?”

Sighing, she stepped back out of his arms. She looked so sad and broken suddenly that he wished he'd never asked. “I would love to say that it's just who she is – and it is, to a point. Some people are just natural caregivers, and Maddie's definitely one of them. But I was a mess before Liss was born. Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.”

That settled it in Mickey's mind. As he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with one hand and opened the bedroom door with the other, he told her again, “She's getting a fucking party.”

Three hours and a lot of yelling at Agryris to get him to stop laughing later, he was setting up speakers in front of his apartment building, surrounded by what looked like every kid in Athens between twelve and sixteen, along with their parents. It definitely wasn't his usual crowd, to say the least, but they were friendly enough. Most importantly, Madeline was already smiling and laughing.

Remembering the posters he'd seen around town, he pulled his phone out again and called a number he hadn't used in quite a while. “Well, well. So you're in Athens. What do you know? I have a favor to ask you...”

“OHMYGOD! BASTIAN!”

Mickey grinned. Clearly, he'd made the right call, and it was earning him hugs galore. For the first time all day, Madeline was acting like a teenage girl, bouncing up and down and screeching with joy as Bastian made her way through the party. With a bright smile, she hugged the birthday girl and smoothed her dark curls back off of her face before approaching Mickey and hugging him. The second she moved back, Madeline launched herself at him, squeezing so tightly he thought she might crack a few ribs. And then her laughing mother replaced her, and he'd never felt so popular.

“Hell of a dad move,” Beck teased, grinning at him as she stepped aside and Maddie barreled into him again.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Laughing, Mickey lifted her up and kissed the top of her head. “Happy birthday.” She was too light; idly, he made a mental note to ask what the hell Beck and her sister were feeding these kids, or failing to feed them. Then he realized he sort of was acting like Maddie's dad and he blushed, setting her down.

As she ran off to dance with her little sister, he pulled Bastian up onto the platform and picked up the mic. “First of all – let's hear it for the birthday girl!” He pointed, and grinned when the revelers around him cheered, making the brunette blush. “Maddie O'Brien! You said you have no friends back in the States-” Boos echoed around them, and her color deepened. “-So I thought, what could make a better birthday present than a couple hundred Greek friends?”

The crowd cheered again, and a few “YEAH, MADDIE” shouts made the girl in question laugh, covering her face with the hand not holding tight to Alice's little wrist. Mickey noticed that she did that a lot; whenever the younger girl wasn't in her mother's arms, she was in her sister's tight, protective grip.

“What do you guys think?” He shouted into the mic. “This girl's really cool, right? You wanna be Maddie's friends, and show her how much better everything is here in Greece?”

The cheers were deafening. Mickey was grinning like a fool, and was pleased to see that so was Madeline. Big blue eyes shining, she stared up at him like he was her hero, and for a minute, life was pretty damn good. He'd die before admitting it aloud, at least so soon, but he could easily see a bright, happy future where he was stepdad to these two beautiful little girls, and they doted over their step-brother Hector, the way Maddie doted over Alice. He glanced at their mother, and couldn't help getting just a little choked up when he saw an identical look of joy and appreciation on her beautiful face. Man, it was nice to be the hero.

Before he could get too emotional and ruin the party, he pointed to Bastian. “You guys know who this is, right?” Another enthusiastic roar; he was a little jealous this time, but shoved it down and smiled. “Well, she's gonna take over for a little while, so make sure you give her some love, alright?”

Yanking her into one more tight hug, he handed the reins over to Bastian and hopped down. Beck immediately threw her arms around him and kissed him. “You are amazing, you know that? I descend on you unannounced with a grouchy teenager in tow, and you give her the best fucking night of her life!”

“All in a day's work,” he joked, squeezing her. “She seems like a great kid; they both do. I couldn't just do nothing and let her be miserable.”

“Hector is lucky.” She was grinning so wide, her face hurt; Mickey only knew because he was doing the same. “He's got a really great dad. If you'd do something like this for a kid you've never even met before, I can only imagine the lengths you'd go to for your own.”

“Think you can pass that praise on to my ex? Maybe she'll actually let me see him.”

Smile fading, she gripped his head with both hands and pulled him down to press their foreheads together. “If you want me to, I'll help you fight for him. You deserve to see your son, and he deserves to know his dad.”

“How long are you staying this time?” He didn't want to talk about Hector suddenly; not at a party surrounded by strangers and their children.

Seeming to sense his mood, Beck smiled and glanced at her giggling daughters. They were hopping around like lunatics to the music, surrounded by kids Maddie's age. She looked like she was having the time of her life. “From the looks of things now? Forever.” Mickey thought she was joking, but the look on her face stopped him from laughing it off. “I've never seen her so happy. Athens might just become home.”

“I hope so.” He shrugged, forcing a chipper smile to hide the desperately hopeful one he couldn't quite keep in. “It did for me!”

“We'll see.”

Unlike most of the parties he'd worked, this one started winding down fairly early as kids hugged Maddie, wished her a happy birthday, and were ushered home by their tired parents. Alice was asleep in Mickey's arms, her tiny body limp as a rag doll and her silky black curls tickling his nose. As the last of her party guests wished her well and left, Madeline hurried over to him and cuddled up to the side not currently occupied by the dead weight of her sister.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“Did you have fun?” She nodded, and he smiled softly, stroking her dark hair. “Good. Let's get inside and get the little one into bed, shall we?”

She glanced around, frowning a little. “Where's mom?”

“Already upstairs.” Grinning, he watched her for a reaction and added casually, “With Bastian.”

Bright blue eyes widening, she gaped at him. “She's staying?”

Mickey laughed. “For tonight, at least, yeah. Come on.”

As they trudged through the door of his apartment a few minutes later, Mickey found himself wishing he'd stayed outside.

“No way!” Beck whipped around to gape at him while Bastian laughed. “You didn't tell me you were in a band!”

“Oh lord,” Madeline grumbled under her breath. “Get something pierced and she'll propose to you by midnight, I swear.”

Choking on a startled laugh, he lowered Alice into her sister's waiting arms. “Put her in Hector's bed. You and your mom can take mine tonight.” As she obediently wandered down the hall to tuck the younger girl in, Mickey flopped down on the couch beside Beck and tugged her into his arms. “That was a long time ago. Then she got her big break and got all famous, and she didn't need losers like me anymore.”

“Oh, that is such bullshit!” Laughing, Bastian stretched out to kick him. “We got a break. We got a deal. You were every bit a part of all that!”

“Oh, please!” Mickey rolled his eyes. “You never needed me. It was the Bastian Show, and we were just-”

“No! No, what happened was...”

They bickered for a while, going back and forth over who was to blame for Saint Claude's ultimate demise. After a few minutes, Beck excused herself and left the room, leaving the two old friends to catch up. When the argument showed no signs of ending, Mickey huffed and stood up, muttering something about getting a drink as he walked away. He loved Bastian, but damn she could be stubborn!

“What the fuck are you doing?” A glass in each hand, he stared at her as she laid out lines of cocaine on her phone's screen.

“What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?”

“Oh, god.” He grimaced, glancing toward the bedrooms. All quiet, but he didn't know if Beck and Maddie were asleep, or just hiding from the debate. “Come on, let's go in the bathroom.”

“The Brat Pack's asleep. Don't worry about it!”

“You don't know that,” he hissed. “Come on.”

Bastian rolled her eyes, but she allowed him to usher her into the bathroom. “You're paranoid. You barely even know these people! What do you care what they think?”

“I care,” he snapped, though he didn't refuse when she offered him a line. He'd just finished, was still hunched over the phone, when the door opened and he was faced with, basically, his worst nightmare: Madeline was standing in the doorway, hand on the knob.

They both froze, staring at her like deer in headlights. Face completely expressionless, Maddie looked at each of them, then at the line of cocaine still on the phone, and then straight at Mickey. "I just wanted to thank you again for today." Without another word, she calmly turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Shit." Ignoring Bastian's drug-fueled giggle fit, Mickey was on his feet and chasing after the teen in a flash. "Maddie!"

Though her face was still a stony mask, there were tears in her eyes when she whirled around to face him. "I need to talk to you. Now."

"Okay." He gestured to the couch, but she shook her head.

"Outside. I don't wanna wake up mom or Alice."

Nodding, he followed her without another word. At first he'd thought she meant out in the hall, but she didn't stop until they were outside the building. "Maddie, listen-"

"Let her go." Mickey's heart broke when she turned to face him again. Tears running down her cheeks and lower lip trembling, she stared up at him with those huge blue eyes and he almost started crying with her. "You have to let her go. Mom's loyal even when she shouldn't be. She'll never break it off."

"Maddie, I don't want-"

"I only exist because my dad drugged and raped her!" Wiping furiously at her face while he shrank back in horror, she continued more calmly, "She doesn't know I know that, or that he tried to kidnap me a bunch of times when I was little. Auntie told me. She still stayed with him for almost a year. Will hit her, Owen was a toxic psycho, Alex was a racist jerk... Alice's dad was always really nice to us all when he came around, but he almost never did. And I don't know what he did, but he's in jail for life now." With a bitter grimace, she spat, "And you're a druggie."

Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.

Beck's soft voice, so full of pain and regret, echoed in his head as Mickey sank down to sit on the steps and tugged Madeline into his arms. "I'm not a druggie," he assured her as she clung to him and broke down sobbing. "One time thing, kiddo, I promise."

"Like you'd say anything else!"

The little whimper that escaped her as she scooted up his leg to get closer and dropped her head onto his shoulder very nearly made him start crying with her. For all that she insisted he get the hell out of her life, he could tell that she was desperate for someone decent to stay. This poor kid was fourteen going on forty after watching her mom date a string of losers; no wonder she had no faith in men, or in her mother's ability to make sound decisions. He squeezed her a little tighter, not sure what to do or say.

"Mickey, I'm tired," she croaked, making his heart ache for her even more. He knew she didn't mean sleepy; she was tired of being the mature one, and he couldn't say he blamed her. "I'm so tired..."

"Shhh, it's okay, baby," he whispered, rubbing her back. "You can rest now. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You're my little girl now, okay? And I won't let anything happen to you, or your sister, or your mom. You don't have to take care of her anymore, honey. I will. You just take a breath and be a kid while you can."

"How can I trust you?"

Well, that hurt, but he got where she was coming from. Pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, he murmured, "I gotta earn that." He pried her loose and pushed her back a little, just enough to be able to look her in the eye. "Do you think you can give me a chance to?"

After a pause that felt like an eternity, Maddie sniffled and nodded. "Okay. But if you hurt her, I'll kick your nuts back up inside."

Laughing, Mickey nodded and smoothed her hair back. "Noted.” A thought occurred to him and he frowned. “Why did you aunt tell you all that? Putting that weight on a kid... That's cruel.”

“I asked,” she admitted with a shrug. “I asked why mom was such a mess, and why I didn't have a dad. So she told me.”

I'd have made some shit up, damn. Even high, he was smart enough not to say that. He chose not to say anything at all, and just held her for a while as the cool night air soothed their frayed nerves and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

“Mickey?”

“Hm?”

Voice a small, timid whisper, she asked, “Do you really wanna be my dad?”

Smiling softly, he kissed her head again and hugged her just a bit tighter. “I am your dad.” When she tensed and let out a frustrated huff, he explained, “I'm in love with your mom, kiddo. And I already love you and your sister. We're family now, and I'm not going anywhere. I promise.”

“You're weird.” He could hear her teasing smile in her voice, and he smiled, too, relieved. “You don't even know us.”

“I know enough. Come on.” Though all he wanted was to sit there and cuddle with her all night, he gently pushed her off his lap and stood. “It's getting late. You should get to bed.”

Sending her off down the hall to his bedroom when they got back upstairs, he collapsed on the couch and sighed. He'd known when he met her that Beck would make his life more interesting... he just had no idea how interesting.

A laugh beside him reminded him of his other guest and he reluctantly opened his eyes. Judging from the way she was twitching and snickering, Bastian had finished the rest of the coke. “That was intense!”

Mickey closed his eyes again. “If it's not already gone, get that shit out of my house.”

“Oh, come on!” She shoved him, grinning impishly. “Don't try to act all virtuous now! You were right there with me, until that kid walked in.”

“'That kid'?” Annoyed now, he sat up and glared at her. “My kid.”

“Not really, though.” Confused, she twisted to glance down the hall, and then back to stare at him. “...Right? I mean, shit, she does kinda look like you...”

He shook his head. “No. Biologically, no, but I don't care. I'm not gonna add my name to the list of guys who've hurt her.”

Bastian snorted, rolling her eyes. “Mickey, you can't just decide to play daddy to this random kid on a whim just because your ex won't let you see your own. She's not yours, and changing your whole life and personality isn't going to change that.”

“I haven't touched that shit in years. I'm not changing on a whim; you just don't know me anymore.”

“Enough,” she challenged, settling back in her seat and staring down her nose at him. “I know you well enough to know this is never gonna work.”

“What isn't?”

“This!” Bastian gestured vaguely around them. “This whole self-domestication shit. You're not some house husband and stepdad – you're a musician. You belong on the road, Mickey! Not shut up in some old lady's apartment playing House with some crazy chick and her walking, talking reminders of past mistakes.”

“Beck,” he snapped, glaring at her. “'That chick's' name is Beck, and her gorgeous daughters are Maddie and Alice. They're not mistakes. Alice is adorable and so smart, and Maddie is fucking awesome and she's been through Hell. I haven't seen you in years and you think you're gonna sit here in my house and tell me who I am and what I want? I don't fucking think so, Bastian.”

“Alright, alright!” She held up her hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Chill. I just miss you, okay? I want you to come on tour with me, like the old days, not sit here and rot away in some mediocre domestic life. You could have so much more!”

Mickey sighed, staring off into space for a moment. Some part of him was drawn to her offer, but that wasn't him anymore. He didn't actually want to tour with her, he just hated feeling settled; at some point in his wild youth, stability had begun to feel like stagnation, and now he found himself often desperate to avoid it, even if it came with everything he truly wanted.

He thought about Beck, and her bright smile and her two beautiful, lonely daughters, and he thought about Hector. Beck had been spot-on; as much as he did love Greece, Mickey had really only stayed this long because of his son. He wanted to be in Hector's life. Now he wanted to be in Maddie and Alice's lives, too. He wanted a family.

And for the first time, he was willing to fight for that family.

“You're right,” he admitted slowly. “You're right, I've been hiding here, just floating around aimlessly.” Before she could get all triumphant, he stood and growled, “But that's not what I'm doing now. Now, I'm finally seeing a life that I want, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone take it away from me.”

That said, he walked away without giving Bastian a chance to argue. He peeked into his son's room to check on Alice, smiled when he saw the way she was sprawled, half hanging off the bed, and he quietly closed the door and headed to his own room. Hopefully Maddie wouldn't mind; he'd originally intended to crash on the couch, but he couldn't stand to be in the same room as Bastian, and couldn't quite bring himself to kick her out, either. Moving slowly, so as to avoid waking either of the bed's other two occupants, he slid in next to Beck.

She immediately rolled over and cuddled close to him. At first he thought she was just fidgeting in her sleep, but then she whispered, “Don't let anyone change you or tell you who you are. Not even me.”

“I won't.” He tried to smile, couldn't quite manage it, and kissed her, instead. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

It wasn't quite a seamless transition. Mickey's place was too small for a family of four, and he didn't exactly love the idea of moving a bunch of heavy audio equipment down those winding stairs. Though he wanted to jump right into living together, he didn't put up much of a fight when Beck started looking for her own place.

It helped that she didn't spend a lot of time at home. Once the girls were enrolled in school, their mother started dropping them off and then going straight to Mickey's place. She helped Argyris translate for Mickey and his clients, which both men had thought was a terrible idea... until they saw her in action. The short fuse he'd become so familiar with in their first couple of days together was nowhere to be found. Around even his most difficult clients, Beck was the embodiment of charm and professional courtesy. Mickey quickly found that while Argyris was better for direct translation, he was no match for Beck when it came to diplomacy and deescalating a heated argument.

“You haven't seen 'difficult',” she teased, “until you've been a woman in a male-dominated field arguing for funding. This is nothing.”

Mickey laughed, yanking her into his arms. “Where have you been all my life?”

She flinched, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips to her mouth for a second. It was the briefest of moments, and then she was smiling again and joking, “On my knees in the dirt, mostly,” but he refused to ignore it.

“You okay?”

With a little shrug and a nod, she admitted, “Been a little queasy and lightheaded lately, but I'm fine. It never lasts long.”

“You are so American.” She glared at him and he grinned, pleased that he knew how to get her attention. “You're not in Dystopia anymore – go to a doctor.”

“Did you not hear me? I'm fi-”

“I heard 'lately,'” he countered, poking her side and immediately regretting it when she cringed. Right; queasy. Maybe don't mess with her stomach, Mickey. “'Lately' means this is not normal. It means you're sick, so go to a doctor.”

She shook her head, winced, and dropped it onto his shoulder. “I don't need a doctor.”

“You can't even move without turning green.”

“I'm fine. I don't need a doctor.”

“Why are you being so stubborn? You're supposed to help me with stubborn people, not be the Queen of them!”

“Am I your girlfriend or your lawyer?”

“That's not what I meant and you know it. Don't change the subject.” Rubbing her back, he insisted as gently as he could, “Please just go get checked out.”

“I don't need to. I'm fine.”

“Look, even if it's minor, do you wanna suffer or find out what's wrong and get better?”

“I don't need a doctor to tell me what I already know!”

What she already knew? He frowned, more confused than ever. “Is it some kind of chronic-”

“Mickey, I'm not sick – I'm pregnant!”

He froze, gaping at her in shock. She started to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her waist before she could stand up. “You're what?”

Looking nervous and uncomfortable, she mumbled, “I was trying to find the right time to tell you; we've just been so busy with that 'make it more Greek' asshat...”

“You're really pregnant?” When she slowly and carefully nodded, Mickey grinned and hugged her as tight as he dared. “That's fantastic!” He finally let her up, only to stand with her and frame her face with both hands. Between frantic kisses all over her face, he gushed, “That's incredible! Have you told the girls yet? Oh, Alice is gonna be so excited to be a big sister! And Hector! I can't wait for Hector to meet his little brother or sister!”

“Mickey...”

He glanced around, smile dimming just a bit. “Damn, we gotta get a bigger place.”

“Mickey.”

“I wonder if Agryris' grandmother had-”

“Mickey!” Shoving his hands away, Beck got a tight grip on his hair and forced him to turn back to face her. “Do you really think we can do this?”

He blinked, taken aback by that. “Don't you?”

“Three kids, and fighting for joint custody of a fourth?” She shook her head, looking at him like he was an idiot. “The thought that we might be in over our heads crossed my mind, yeah. I was struggling with just two!”

“Well, now you have me.” His cheeky grin didn't seem to comfort her as much as he'd hoped it would. “You were struggling 'cause you were alone; now you're not.”

“A single mom with two kids really isn't all that different from two parents with four,” she pointed out, releasing his hair and crossing her arms over her chest. Seeing the hurt he tried to mask, she sighed. “Look, I'm glad you're excited, I am. And whether we're ready or not, the kid's on the way, I just... I just wish I shared your optimism. I'm not excited, Mickey; I'm scared to death.”

“Well, get excited,” he jokingly commanded, pulling her close for another hug. “We'll be fine. Besides, it's not like Aspa's ever gonna give me full custody, so it's not really two to four. Maddie's old enough that she doesn't need constant hyper-vigilance from us, so it's really just two to two-and-a-half.”

Finally, finally, Beck laughed. It was quiet and weak, but a laugh nonetheless. “Jesus, you're like sunshine in human form. Does anything ever get you down?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but I try not to let it for long. And I see a new baby as something to celebrate, not freak the hell out over.”

“See, you get to see it that way because you don't have to push it out,” she teased. “It's not so perfectly sunny from where I'm standing.”

“No one said life is perfect.” Still smiling like a fool, he kissed her. “Whatever you need, I'm here. You're not doing everything alone anymore. We got this.”

“I love you.”

It didn't seem possible, but somehow his smile got even wider. “I love you, too.”

“Speaking of Aspa, though...”

“Oh, god, what?”

With a laugh and an apologetic smile, Beck ventured, “I don't think you should come today.”

“What?”

Her smile immediately faded; apparently, he was really bad at hiding it when he was confused and offended. “Baby, you're chaos incarnate. It's one of the things I love about you, but it's not exactly conducive to a civilized conversation with a woman who probably kind of hates you.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I just think I might have better luck getting through to her, single mom to single mom.” She looked like she was waiting for him to hit her, which only made him feel worse. “I know how hard it is, and how, whether we mean to or not, we tend to villainize our exes-”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, with the stellar guys you've dated, it makes sense. It's not really villainizing if he's already a villain.”

“Exactly how much did Madeline tell you?”

Uh-oh. She was mad. Knowing he was in trouble no matter what and refusing to drag his stepdaughter down with him, Mickey hastily changed the subject. “Do you really think I'll fuck things up that badly if I go?” Why was he even asking? Offended or not, he knew she was right; Aspa hated his guts.

Thankfully, Beck let the dig about her exes drop and her steely expression melted back into one of gentle sympathy. “I just want you to have the best chance possible of getting to be an active part of Hector's life. I want him to know you, to sleep in that bed you bought him before he outgrows it, to meet his new sisters. And I think your feelings towards Aspa, and hers toward you, are probably too raw and volatile right now for a face-to-face meeting to be a good idea.”

“Alright.” Forcing a faint smile, he nodded. “Alright, go. You've got a point.”

“I'll tell you all about it when I get back, okay?” She promised with an equally strained smile, kissing his cheek.

“Can't wait.”

When she came back a little while later, she was laughing. Mickey's hopes that it meant things had gone better than expected were dashed, though, when she managed to gasp out, “She really hates you!”

“Yeah, thanks.” He shook his head. “I knew that much.”

“I'm sorry.” Still giggling, Beck wound her arms around his waist. “She was just such a bitch. I kinda respect the hell out of her.”

“What did she say?”

“That you're a baby,” she dutifully recited, “and you're irresponsible, unreliable...”

“Why is this funny?!”

“Because, Mickey... Mickey, honey...” Framing his face like he had to her earlier, she told him, “It's nothing I didn't already know. You're flighty and you're a big kid; this isn't news. She was floored that I love you anyway, and my god, the look on her face when I went off about how that childishness is what makes you such a good dad, and you're great with the girls... I haven't been able to stop laughing since! Pretty sure she hates me now, too.”

“Great!” Failing to see the humor, Mickey jerked free of her light grasp and moved away, beginning to pace the room. “So instead of helping, you just alienated her from us both!”

“We're going to see him on Saturday.”

“What?” He spun to stare at her; she wasn't laughing anymore. “Are you serious?”

Looking rather proud of herself, she nodded. “Supervised by Aspa, of course, but yep. You get to spend time with your son, and I finally get to meet him. It doesn't matter what she thinks of either of us, as long as she can see that you give a shit; that we're safe to be around Hector, and can be trusted to think of him first. Show her how much you love him, that even childish and flaky you can be reliable, that you want to be reliable, and a supervised visit might turn into father-son weekends, without your ex underfoot.”

“I... wha... how...?”

She shrugged, smiling faintly. “Mother to mother. We came to an understanding.”

Overwhelmed by emotions he couldn't even identify, Mickey closed the distance between them and lifted her up. “I fucking love you, you know that?”

Beaming as he set her down, Beck leaned in for a kiss. “I love you, too, baby.”

“That's not cute anymore.” Despite his protests, he was grinning as he backed her toward the bedroom. “Now I just feel like you're calling me a baby. That sucks. Don't do that.”

“I'll call you what I want,” she teased, pulling him down for another kiss. “And you can't stop me!”

With a hand on her belly, he joked, “How about you call me 'daddy'?”

“No.” She laughed and shook her head. “I physically cannot do that. I'll puke.”

“Well, morning sickness is pretty common.”

“No, this is pure disgust.”

They were both laughing now as they reached the bed; he almost playfully shoved her back, but then remembered the baby and thought better of it. Instead, he flopped across it himself and beckoned for her to join him. “We're gonna be okay, you know.”

Beck winced as she settled gingerly on the edge of the bed. “It's just such bad timing. I don't...”

“Hey.” He tugged at her arm until she stretched out beside him, and wound his arms around her. “It's all gonna be okay. No matter what life throws at us, we'll deal with it together, okay? I want this baby. I know you want this baby. The rest is just details.”

“Pretty big fucking details. I was supposed to go to Mongolia next month.”

“Then go.” God, he didn't want her to, but he was determined to show her that they could be together, be a family, without completely derailing her life. When she looked at him like he'd lost it, he gave her a bland 'are you kidding' look right back. “You're not really gonna try to convince me that you weren't still going on digs when you were pregnant with Alice, are you?”

She blushed. “My team didn't know...”

“So don't tell them this time, either.”

“Mickey...” Pushing his arms away, she sat up. “You really have no idea how physically demanding my work is, do you? I almost lost Alice.”

For a second, he floundered, wondering what the hell to do or say. Then he brightened and sat up, as well. “You speak a million languages; just work as a translator until you're safe to go back out into the field.”

“...I do love it,” she conceded, making him perk up. “And maybe I can finally teach you some Greek so you can talk to your son more easily.”

Mickey chuckled. “I'm not getting out of that, am I?”

“Nope.” She grinned and settled back against his chest as he leaned against the headboard. “Not until we're both fluent.”

“Alright, I'm in.” He smiled, kissing her jaw and lacing their fingers together. “New home for us, new job for you, learning a new language...”

“New baby on the way.”

“New baby on the way,” he parroted, pressing their linked hands to her belly. “New chapter.”

“Here's to a new life.”

Mickey nodded and leaned down for a proper kiss, murmuring against her lips, “Together.”

#monday 2021 #monday movie #fanfiction #fix it fic #mickey henry #mickey/oc #i really really hate chloe #so much #omfg

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musicalmagic · 4 years ago

Text

Umbrella

Summary: Being blind has it's disadvantages. You may not be able to tell what your crush Taehyung looks like, but the heart that he has, the care he has, is so much more important than that. So, maybe not seeing isn’t so bad after all. You have more focus on who the person is rather than what they look like. Taehyung ends up confessing to you underneath his umbrella after he asked you out for a drink. You thought he was joking.

A/N: Haha! A longer fic for you. I had more time today, and I’ve been in a writer’s good mood as of late! Enjoy! Oh and, if I get anything wrong or offend anyone who knows someone who is blind or is, let me know!

*Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Blind Reader

*Word Count: 1,092

*Genre: Fluff

*Warnings: None

You were blind. Totally blind, due to an illness, it was a long time ago since you could see. Becoming blind at 10, you managed to see as much as you could before everything went dark. Honestly though, it hadn’t bothered you. Determination had still woven its way into your heart in anything you put your mind to. Learning braille was easy; since you had to learn it if you wanted to read. Touch becoming more faithful everyday than sight. Your awareness to hearing and touch became more pronounced, as your mind compensated for the lack of visual stimuli.

The only thing that sucked about it, was that you couldn’t tell what your co-worker, Kim Taehyung, your crush, looked like. People would always whisper how handsome he was, but to you, handsome or not, it didn’t matter as long as his personality was sound. That’s how you crushed on him, for all the kind things he would do. As much as you dislike your other co-workers for only focusing on superficial things, they were right in how kind he was.

Today was no different, knowing where you sit, he’d offer help around the office for you. Although at times, it did annoy you.

“Taehyung, I’m okay. Look,” you pressed the button of the copier perfectly. A smug smile on your lips as you heard him huff.

“Sorry ____. I just felt…” You turned to him.

“Really Taehyung, it’s fine. I know, you wanted to help. I admire that. But I can do things on my own too. Just trust me?” You heard him hum in agreement. You heard the ruffle of his clothes as he reached to touch your hand that was resting on top of the copier.

“May I?” He asked a little quietly. You nodded, a little confused. He gently scooped your hand, stretching it up to his face. Your hand jumped slightly at the warm contact, but you could feel the hint of a smile. Kim Taehyung was smiling.

“I trust you. I’m sorry I didn’t do so before,” He said. You shake your head.

“Well, I think you’ll remember for next time. You’re really kind Taehyung, I’m sure that you won’t do anything wrong or distrusting.”

He chuckled, “No. I promise you that.”

You finally move your hand away from his face. The tingle of warmth on your palm as you walk away slightly embarrassed. Carrying under your arm the papers from the copier and your cane in your free hand.

______

You ran into Taehyung again that day, heading down the elevator home. He tapped the ground floor button as you ran inside.

“Heading home?” He inquired.

“Of course,” You replied, slightly excited.

“H-Ho, you seem happy for something!” He giddily said.

“Well…”

“Have someone at home ____?” He asked you, and based on his tone, you could tell he was smirking.

“N-No! I don’t Tae!” The nickname slipped out too fast for you to take it back. Taehyung caught it just as the elevator reached ground level. The pair of you walking out, him by your side as you shakily took out your cane.

Embarrassed you said, “Sorry Taehyung…slip of the tongue.”

He just laughs, “No, no. It’s cute, actually. Tae…” He mulls over the nickname. Clapping his hands after a couple moments, startling you.

“O-Oh sorry _____.” You sigh, a small smile tugging up your lips. “Just wanted to tell you, I really love the nickname. Could you call me it again?” He asked assertively.

“What? Tae?” You propped. Taehyung nodded, but quickly remembering you couldn’t see uttered a yes instead.

“I mean, sure…” You said, a little hesitantly. Both of you then started to head out the building. Cool air hitting your faces as the crying city surrounded you two.

It just had to rain today. Apparently, in the time since you got into work this morning until the evening, it had started to rain. Silly you forgot an umbrella, which you thought you had left in your bag the night before after checking the weather. Nope.

“Ughhhh,” you groaned, “I left my umbrella at home!” Taehyung gently tapped your shoulder, you jumped again at its suddenness but steadied quickly.

“It’s okay, I have an umbrella on me if you want to use it?” He offered.

“What about you though?”

Taehyung only smiled at that, softly replying with, “S’no big deal. I live close by, near the station. So I don’t have to travel all that far anyways.”

You pondered his suggestion. You did live a bit away from your work, usually taking you about 40 minutes to get there on time. Turning, you feel the fabric of the umbrella touching your free hand, taking it slowly from his grasp.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Trust me.” You only chuckled at that. Taehyung seemed to make you laugh at odd times. With that, he let go of the umbrella. Stepping away as you opened it. Laughing as it had hit the shelter above you both.

“Stoppp!” You said as he teased you, you were blushing as you extended out your cane.

He was a laughing hyena as you grumbled. Stepping out onto the street, cane out in front of you as you started walking.

“Sooo, anyways…” He started.

“Yes Tae?”

“Can I get you a drink somewhere?” You stop. Turning in surprise.

“Kim Taehyung! Do you have a crush on me?” You asked jokingly.

He shakily replied, “Y-Yes. I mean… yeah…?”

You paused at his reply, the clacking of the cane halting, “Wait, wait, wait. I was kidding Tae. Do you actually?”

Taehyung trembled as he spoke, slow and uncertain. Gone was his confidence, “I-I do, and… I-If you don’t feel the same way then we can go back to be being friends and I won’t talk about it and you won’t—” He was rambling before you stopped him. The pitter-patter of the umbrella the only sound between you both. You subconsciously thought to yourself, he’s wet because of the rain. You had silently moved closer; you knew where he was because of his nervous chatter. Extending your arm upwards, shielding you both from the rain.

“I like you too,” you simply said. Blush colouring your cheeks.

“O-Okay…”

Embarrassingly, Taehyung and you both walked to the nearest café and ended up on a small date. Talking about the random points of your lives. You told him about your cat at home, and he laughed while mentioning his dog, Yeontan.

“Hey _____, next time you’re free, mind hanging out with me under the umbrella again?”

#kim taehyung x reader #collar worker taehyung #blind reader #taehyung x reader #bts taehyung #bts fic #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts #bts v #v x reader

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imagitory · 5 years ago

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Review: The Lion King (2019) [spoilers]

NAAAAAANTS IGONYAMA BAGITI BABA -- !

Ahem. So...I just got back from seeing the new Lion King remake, and I guess it’s time to talk about it. For those of you who wish to avoid spoilers... *exhales heavily* how do I say this kindly, um -- you don’t need to go see this. Like, really, you don’t. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but you would miss absolutely nothing watching the original instead of this one, and honestly, I think it’s fair to say you’ll have much more fun watching the original too. As much as I haven’t loved Disney’s line of recent remakes, I at least found something in most of the films I saw that I could praise, but with this one? I don’t recall ever being so utterly bored sitting in a movie theater in my life.

If you would like a more detailed opinion, here’s a cut!

The Good!

+For once, Disney decided to hire a cast full of singers that don’t require autotune, including Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, and of course Beyonce, as well as quite a few lovely people in the chorus like Brown Lidiwe Mkhize (who sang The Circle of Life). Even some of the performers with weaker singing voices like John Oliver were able to hold their own well enough.

+The voice acting overall wasn’t bad. I’ll have to leave it at that, though, since this is supposed to be the positive section.

+The Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? were well-performed, though I will be getting to other issues I had with them later.

+Zazu was actually given a bit more pathos rather than just exclusively being comic relief. He not only tries to protect Nala and Simba from the hyenas, but he also rushes to go get the lionesses when Simba’s in trouble, makes a distraction for Nala so she doesn’t get caught by Scar, and even helps a little more in the final battle. I won’t act like he was an improvement on the orginal exactly, as the best compromise would’ve been to have him be both funny and supportive, but at least there was an attempt to give him some depth.

+As much as I’ll critique the animation further down, I will give the animators credit for its realism. A lot of hard work was obviously put in, and it shows.

The Not-So-Good...

+The number one problem with this movie is, as I feared, the animation. I can respect that this is my opinion and many others might find some charm in how “real” everything looks, but I’m sorry -- musicals =/= realistic . Musicals are supposed to be over-the-top. They are supposed to be theatrical. Hell, even the Broadway production of The Lion King understood that to tell this story without animated lions, you had to treat it like a folktale. The story was never about lions -- it was a human story told with lions. The ideas of family -- responsibility -- duty -- leadership -- grief -- hope -- these are human values. The Lion King was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It also has ripples of the Moses story, given that it revolves around someone running away from their home and responsibility, only to realize their true calling and go back to save their people. And you know something? I am positive that the filmmakers knew full well how ridiculous these National-Geographic-esque animated creatures would look suddenly bursting into song -- that’s why they tried at every single opportunity to depict the musical sequences in wide, impersonal shots that barely correspond to the rhythm or mood of the song at all. Unless it’s The Circle of Life, which is literally a shot-for-shot recreation of the original sequence accompanied by a song sung by none of the characters on screen, the only way that these supposedly “realistic” creatures could communicate energy or emotion during the song sequences was by running and climbing things. And in the end, it just looks lazy and dull. There’s no energy in either the shots or the editing. Hakuna Matata and I Just Can’t Wait to Be King suffer the most because of this, as those songs were so dependent on bright colors, spontaneity, and enthusiasm, but none of the songs are done justice with this animation.

+Another issue with the animation is in the characters themselves. As realistic as it looks in the textures of the fur and the way the animals move, it is utterly lifeless in practice. I swear to God, there are points where these animals looked stuffed, they’re so blank and hollow. You know those live action movies, like Cats and Dogs, where they would have real dogs and cats play the characters and then just “fix” their mouths with post-production CGI to make it look like they’re talking, even if their eyes and faces still end up looking so blank that it never looks like they’re saying what’s coming out of their mouths? THAT’S THE ENTIRE MOVIE. It didn’t matter how good the voice acting was, because it was invalidated by the lack of expression of the characters who were supposedly saying the lines. The only character in this movie who seemed to have any emotion in his eyes was Scar, and that was because his animated model was apparently given permission to narrow his eyes more, presumably to look more “eeeeeviiiiiiil~.” Even the hyenas were just given hollow black eyes that only ever looked alien and inhuman most of the time (clearly to remind you that they’re the bad guys) -- there were no emotions other than “mwehehehe we’re gonna eat you” on their faces the entire movie. But yeah, think of all the really emotional scenes in this movie. Think of Mufasa seeing Simba hanging on that tree -- the fear in his face as Simba almost loses his grip on the branch -- the pain and fear in Simba’s expression when Mufasa puts him up on a small ledge, only to get yanked backward by the wildebeest and disappear from view -- the struggle in Mufasa’s body language as he tries to climb up the edge of the gorge -- the betrayal and horror in Mufasa’s expression when Scar reveals his true colors -- the desperation, disbelief, horror, and grief in Simba’s face when he finds his father and screams at the open air for help. ...Yeah. Now imagine all of those scenes being acted out by EMOTIONLESS PUPPETS. That’s even what Mufasa looks like when he’s thrown backwards off the cliff -- a puppet. A scene that has left people in tears almost made me snort with laughter because of how bad it looked!

+The animation’s realism also, as others pointed out when the trailers first came out, made it very difficult to pick out individual characters. When Nala grew up, there wasn’t even a way to tell that she was the youngest of the lionesses -- they all looked like clones of each other. There’s a bit where one of the hyenas (I guess he’s supposed to be Banzai, but I guess he’s been renamed something else?) confuses Scar for Mufasa at a distance and I almost burst out laughing because it was like the movie characters themselves even realized how identical all of the lions look. Simba’s face “turning into Mufasa’s” in the water had no emotional impact at all because you could barely tell that anything had just happened.

+Geezus, and I thought that Beauty and the Beast took too many ideas from the original? Oh boy. This movie took so much from the original, it was like the filmmakers copied something they found on the Internet for a school assignment and then added and switched around a couple of lines just so they wouldn’t be accused of plagiarism. There were quite a few points while watching this where I was going, “Oooookay, and this is where Simba sees a lizard. ...Yup, there it is. He’s gonna try to roar twice. ...Yup, and...yup. And on the third try, he’s going to roar loud enough for it to echo, and we’ll cut to the top of the gorge. ...Called it. And wildebeest in three, two, one...” Now, of course, knowing what’s going to happen shouldn’t reduce suspense -- if anything, when something suspenseful is done well, it doesn’t matter if you know what happens, because now you’re excited to see those things happen. But in this? How could I be excited when they recycled almost every joke, almost every shot, almost every scene, only with half the energy and sincerity? Even Beauty and the Beast tried to throw in some twists now and again, even if I didn’t end up liking most of them...the only things I can think of in regards to “changes” were some extra scenes that didn’t add much of anything, such as Scar leaning even more into his “Claudius” role and trying to court Simba’s mother Sarabi. Oh, and on that note...

+...The original movie was about an hour and a half long. This one was two hours. You want to know how they stretched that run-time out? Largely by adding in extended nature sequences. Perhaps if you really like the “realistic” animation, you might enjoy the gratuity of it, but some of them just got ridiculous. Remember how in the original, Scar caught a mouse and kind of taunted it? Now we get almost a whole minute just watching the mouse running around and doing nothing before Scar even shows up. Remember how we got a short, smooth transition from Pride Rock to Rafiki’s tree with a rainfall and soothing music? Have one that’s twice as long and is devoid of any of the epic, solemn atmosphere. Remember how we got a cute little giggle when Timon and Pumbaa sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight, only for it to get interrupted by Nala’s arrival? Now that song is treated like a full musical number with lots of danc -- sorry, walking around aimlessly, because it’d be stupid if animals actually danced or something. Remember how Simba collapses into some leaves, which sets loose some dust which in a ten-second-long cut scene is blown through the wind into Rafiki’s hand? Now it lasts almost two whole minutes and involves a tuft of Simba’s fur landing in a river, being picked up by a bird, becoming stuffing in a nest, being tossed out of the nest, being accidentally eaten by a giraffe, being shat out by that giraffe, being picked up by a dung beetle -- OH, COME ON. NOW YOU’RE JUST SEARCHING FOR EXCUSES TO DRAG THIS MOVIE OUT.

+I love James Earl Jones, but he should not have reprised his role as Mufasa. I’m sorry, but the man is 88 years old now, and he just sounded so tired. He didn’t show even half of the energy and enthusiasm he had playing the part the first time. If he was Simba’s grandfather, that’d be one thing, but he’s not. Half of what makes Mufasa’s death so tragic is how alive and young he seemed and how close his bond was with his friends Rafiki and Zazu and his family Simba and Sarabi, but thanks to Jones’s low-key performance and the lack of emotion in Mufasa’s animation, all of that is lost.

+Just like with Jafar in the recent Aladdin remake, this movie tries to give Scar some depth, but the halfhearted attempt only serves to take away what made Scar a great villain in the first place -- namely, his dry wit, ruthlessness, talent for manipulation, dynamic attitude, arrogance, immaturity, and most of all passion. Combine this not-deliciously-evil-but-definitely-not-sympathetic characterization with such bland animation that neither conveys energy or intrigue, and we’re once again left with a very forgettable, uninteresting villain. Come on, Disney, you used to be so good at writing villains -- just because you’re trying to make a more “realistic” story doesn’t mean your villain can’t crack a smile every-so-often, geezus!

+If Sarabi was chasing off hyenas with the lionesses, how in the world did she and the lionesses get back to Pride Rock fast enough for them to be lounging around when Simba came to get Nala? Scar and Simba’s interaction isn’t nearly long enough to encompass Sarabi finishing up with the hyenas and returning home. This is a problem that comes from how much this remake copies from the original -- because it wants so many scenes to play out identically to the original, it gives any subtle line changes the writers do make the potential to create plot holes.

+Oh yeah, and the joke of Simba pouncing on Zazu really doesn’t work if we see Simba getting ready the entire time and Zazu makes it easy for Simba by spinning around in circles looking at nothing. One would think Zazu was trying to let Simba pounce on him.

+There’s no kind way to put this -- Timon and Pumbaa were just flat-out INSUFFERABLE in this. Not only were their deliveries of lines from the original movie pretty awful, but they also added in a bunch of new, often fourth-wall-breaking jokes that just made me hide my face in my hands and groan. In Hakuna Matata in particular, they act offended by Simba not being more excited when they first say the phrase, ruin the joke of Pumbaa farting by having him say it and Pumbaa then being upset that Timon didn’t interrupt him, AND give Simba a hard time for continuing the song until it fades out by saying that Simba’s “gained 400 pounds” since they started it! This isn’t even touching on how TERRIBLE Seth Rogen was as Pumbaa while singing -- like, I know that’s supposed to be part of the joke, but Ernie Sabella was “a bad singer” by being over-the-top, not by being off-pitch and painful to listen to! Not to mention that Sabella packed so much more characterization into his line deliveries -- the chasm of quality between Sabella and Rogen’s performances all the more highlighted to me the difference between an actor and a voice actor. You can’t just get away with speaking your lines in an ordinary voice when you’re voice acting -- you need to emote solely with your voice, as your face is not doing any of the work, and with animation this emotionless and bland, one really needed to have given 120% in their voice work for it to be even passable. (And honestly, none of the actors stood out well performance-wise...not that they should have to singlehandedly bear the burden of depicting their characters’ emotions just with their voices: this is an animated movie, not a radio drama!) As if breaking the fourth wall for no reason, telling bad jokes, and singing poorly wasn’t enough, Timon and Pumbaa also come across as infinitely more selfish and mean-spirited. They say they’re outcasts, and yet there’s a whole friggin’ community of animals in their jungle home. Simba actually hears Timon and Pumbaa selfishly decide to “keep him” because having a creature bigger than them around might help them out. Timon flat-out tells Simba to only look after himself and no one else. Whereas in the original film, Timon and Pumbaa almost raise Simba like adopted parents, having fun with him and genuinely showing concern for him -- here, Timon and Pumbaa act more like a pair of frat boys who adopted the “new kid” in college and induct him into their friend circle, even though, yeah, Simba first meets them as a cub and they’re already adults. Rather than just laugh at the thought of “royal dead guys watching them” for a quick moment, they openly roar with laughter at Simba, dragging it out even when it’s very clear Simba is hurt by their amusement and not even bothering to apologize. At least in the original, Simba acted like it was funny and then left abruptly, but here? Simba never laughed or showed any amusement, so it came across as Timon and Pumbaa bullying him. Oh yeah, and speaking of bullying, remember how there was that one-off pop culture reference where Pumbaa gets mad at being called a pig? Now that’s been replaced with Pumbaa saying he doesn’t like bullies -- seems like that would’ve been a lovely thing to set up earlier, maybe to give that line some emotional pay-off, but nope! There’s no joke AND there’s no point. But you want to know what made me hate these two beyond reason in this movie? You want to know what finally pushed me over the edge? They broke the fourth wall beyond repair by -- rather than randomly putting on a hula skirt and dancing goofily, because of course we’re a SERIOUS animated movie, one that’s so REAL -- singing Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, French accent and all. ...Excuse me for a minute. *buries her face into a pillow and screams in rage*

+By the way, those other animals who live in the jungle Timon and Pumbaa are from and therefore invalidate their assertion of being “outcasts”? Completely pointless. They don’t even come with Timon and Pumbaa and fight for the Pridelands! You could have cut them completely and lost nothing.

+As much as Hakuna Matata was the most irritating of the numbers, I Just Can’t Wait to Be King and especially Be Prepared were just pathetic. I Just Can’t Wait to Be King largely suffered, again, due to the “realism” of the animation, but the slow editing and even the vocals slowed the whole sequence down and sucked out any energy or excitement from the piece. I’ll give credit to Nala and Simba’s voice actors for their vocal quality, but there was still none of the spontaneity and recklessness in their voices that the song requires, so it just came across as Disney karaoke, rather than anything professional. But Be Prepared was easily the worst of the lot. It would be a challenge to try to evoke the level of dread and demented thrill you get from the original song sequence, but here, the filmmakers didn’t even try. Not only do we only get part of the song, but Scar’s voice actor Chitwetel Ejiofor barely sings a word of it and brings none of the dynamic, power-hungry, conniving, almost hypnotic mania that’s supposed to define Scar in that moment. He’s mostly just shouting like an old man yelling at a kid to get off his lawn -- there’s no attempt at persuasion or temptation in his voice at all. And just like in most of the other musical numbers, the only way Scar’s character model can emote during his song is to climb on things. Even in songs that were performed well, there were notable problems. The Circle of Life was basically animated on autopilot, replicating every single shot without taking any time to show any genuine emotion anywhere, whether when Zazu and Rafiki greeted Mufasa or when Simba sneezed away the dust in his face...and Can You Feel the Love Tonight? Haha, yeah, right -- more like “Can You Feel the Love in the Mid-Afternoon”! It was absolutely comical, hearing them sing “tonight” when the entire sequence was done in daylight!

+I’ve always liked The Lion King, but...wow, after seeing this remake and how much they tried to lean into the “hyenas as outsiders” idea in this, I have to acknowledge that there are some uncomfortable elements to this story. In the original, we solely focus on Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed with other hyenas in the background, so them being outside the Pridelands could just be seen as the case of a few bad apples, rather than it being an indictment on an entire group. But here, in this version, Shenzi is depicted more seriously as the leader of all the hyenas and it’s established that the war between lions and hyenas has gone on for a long time. Basically this movie turns Shenzi into Zira from The Lion King 2...and yeah, that makes it so that the hyenas -- as the outsiders -- should theoretically be slightly sympathetic, right? You know, to show that it’s wrong to cast others out because they look or act different from you? Nope! Nope, they’re all just evil! They’re manifestations of greed and hunger with no potential for redemption whatsoever. They’re not like our good, pale-colored lionesses who all look the same -- they’re dirty, and conniving, and they seek to creep out of the shadows and leech on everything the lions hold dear. I could very, very easily see how some vile, disgusting people could embrace such a narrative in this current climate, seeing themselves in the lions trying to “take their land back” from the shadowy, evil hoard of creatures who have come from outside to tear down their way of life. I can’t act like this adaptation added something that wasn’t at all in the original movie, as, let’s be honest, it plagiarized most of it...but perhaps because of how they reused this story and in some cases leaned into some elements of that story, this remake has very, very bad timing in when it was released. Those elements of the story probably wouldn’t have been read into it back in the 90′s, given the relative stability of the political landscape, but now? Now I could see how people could read it that way. It’d be like trying to make a movie like Independence Day, where national monuments get blown up, right after 9/11.

Looking back on what I just saw, I’m still absolutely stunned. Never before have I felt like my time has been more wasted than when I decided to sit down and watch this movie. I’ve tried to find shreds of praise, but whenever I try, it feels like I’m grasping at straws, only to fall back into a big pool of “blah.” I have never been so bored by a movie in my life -- and if there’s anything Disney, and especially Disney musicals, should never be, it’s boring. I would still say Maleficent makes me the most angry of Disney’s recent remakes, considering that that one openly insulted the original it was based off and this one is just clearly so up the original’s ass that it’s obnoxious...but this one was easily the biggest disappointment. I went in with almost no expectations, and yet still came out disappointed in the result. That, I think, says a lot. I could see someone who simply wants to see some cute animals and ride a bit on the nostalgia train enjoying this...but forgive me, but that bar is way too low. Disney is capable of doing so much better -- the true Lion King, the 1994 classic that broke records and surpassed all audience expectation, is more than enough evidence of that.

Overall Grade: D-

#the lion king (2019)#the lion king #disney #the lion king spoilers #opinion #oh boy here i go #reviews #disney remakes #remakes

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hell-bound-stories · 4 years ago

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walk?

It was nearing late afternoon and Azz still hadn’t found a way to get Syd out of bed, or even just smiling. Azz didn’t know why she was so down, and honestly neither did she. Every attempt to ask why was met with anger and frustration, followed by more sadness. “I don’t know why!” Syd would snap harshly, though Azz didn’t take it personally, “I just feel horrible ok, i’m sorry I know I shouldn’t be”. It was just one of those days where everything felt awful, and the overcast skies certainly didn't help lighten the mood. It wasn’t the first time Syd has had a day like this.

Azz tried everything they knew to try and cheer Syd up. Getting her favorite food, watching her favorite show, playing her favorite game, even cuddling for a bit, but nothing seemed to work. It felt like nothing was going to pull her out of this rut.

Syd laid on her big bed, rolled up in a blanket facing the wall scrolling mindlessly threw various social media apps on her phone. You didn’t need to see her face to tell the bags under her eyes were heavy and dark, like she hadn’t gotten any good sleep in days. She wasn’t paying attention to Azz at all, but deep down she did appreciate the effort they were trying to make to cheer her up.

Azz was desperately trying to come up with other ideas to lighten things up. They hated seeing Syd like this. ‘I'm failing’, panicked thoughts started to race through their mind ‘I can’t fail, she needs me’. Azz hopped off the bed and walked around the room. They gazed out the window onto the sidewalk below. The sky was starting to clear with the clouds slowly dancing across it. Below was a nice couple walking down the street with their small corgi. Azz’s eyes lit up, they knew exactly what to do.

“Hey” Azz said, walking back over to Syd in bed, “let’s go for a walk!”

Syd groaned not even looking up from her phone, “A walk?”

“Yeah, it's really nice out, a short walk to the park will be great” They said, sounding as excited as a puppy.

“Mmm, No, moving sounds hard” Syd had barely moved all day, only doing so when she absolutely had to. Her body felt impossibly heavy and hard to move. “Besides, it's getting dark soon anyways”

“Aw come on” Azz pleaded, this time not even getting a response back from Syd, who went back to her phone. “Fine” They stated sharply, “We’re going to have to do this my way” Azz walked back over to the other side of the room, stretching their arms.

“What way?” Syd said hazily, at this point not even paying attention to Azz, ‘whatever’ she thought lazily, and continued scrolling.

A moment later she felt something jump onto the bed and walk over to her. At the foot of the bed was sitting a cute small corgi. Well as cute as it could be in a way. It had black grey fur with purple highlights scattered about. Its nails were a tad too long and definitely too sharp, along with the horns resting on its head next to its slightly bigger ears. More noticeably the “corgi” had no eyes, not even empty eye sockets. The area was covered nicely by fur, like someone had forgotten to draw eyes in. What it lacked in eyes it made up for in extra teeth, some poking through its lips in a cartoony way. ‘Right’ Syd rolled her eyes, ‘that’.

“Walk.” the dog demanded. Its voice was a little distorted but still understandable.

“Ohmygod” she whispered under her breath, “Azz knock it off, I just don't have the energy for a walk, im sorry”, you could tell she felt bad about this in her voice, she really felt she didn't have the ability to do anything right now. Syd pitifully went back to her phone, with guilt written all over her face as she did so.

Azz just sat there, but even with no eyes Syd could tell they were staring daggers into her. “Come on”, she nudged Azz on the side with her foot, “go”.

“Hrmph, fine” Azz said jumping off the bed, “If you wont take me I’ll just take myself!”. In a flash of purple light the little corgi turned into a moderately sized hyena, standing in the middle of the room. Syd turned around and glanced at them. She knew Azz could turn into pretty much any animal, but all the animals shared the same characteristics. No eyes, black/grey and purple fur, long sharp teeth and claws, with small horns placed on top, this hyena was no different.

The big dog began to cackle, “I'm gonna go terrorize old ladies at the park!” they laughed at the top of its lungs. Syd immediately shot up from her bed.

“WHAT”

“You’ll have to come stop me!!” between all the teeth you could see a shit eating grin on their face. Syd watched as the hyena ran out of her room gracefully. Then heard it not so gracefully fall down the stairs, crashing into a potted plant at the bottom making a mess downstairs.

“Im good!!” Azz screamed, getting up to run out to the front door and down the street to the park.

‘Fuck’ Syd thought frantically ‘that fucking dumb ass is going to get himself killed…...again…..wh a t’

Syd didn't have time to think. She had to go stop this demon from terrorizing people. Even though Azz was here to help Syd, she felt that it was her job to stop Azz from, you know, being a demon and stealing people's souls or….other things demons did. She didn't really know what demons did, and she didn’t want to find out today. Syd also wasn’t about to let them get hurt. She pulled her hair up, slipped on her favorite (and only) pair of boots, and ran out the front door after Azz.

The park was a short walk down the road. Syd was there in a couple of minutes after sprinting down the sidewalk. She was a little chubby but that didn’t mean she couldn’t run great when she wanted to. However anyone would be tired after sprinting down a road after a hyena. She got to the parking lot and stopped to take a breath. By the park entrance she saw Azz, still a hyena, Sitting there licking their paw. No one seemed to care that a big monstrous, African native dog was sitting there by itself, in the middle of Colorado. People gazed by it as they walked by, clearly seeing something, but not freaking out. ‘Weird’ Syd quickly thought.

“HEY” she shouted between breaths, “get your BUTT BACK HERE” she tried to sound threatening, but it was hard with a smile on her face.

Azz looked up, looked around and finally found Syd. They cracked a smile, trying to hold back a laugh, but very much failing. Azz did a lil spin and took off into the park, Syd following quickly behind. Well as quick as you can chase a hyena. They ran what felt like around the entire park, finally ending in the middle of an empty grass field.

Syd stopped again trying to catch her breath, “you….piece of SHIT” she yelled tackling Azz into the ground, who was still laughing. As they rolled in the grass “fighting” Azz flashed purple and was back to their “human” (demon?) self, with Syd finally pinning them to the grass. Syd couldn't help but smile harder, and started laughing too. Between breaths she managed to ask “What’s so funny?”

Azz gave her the biggest smile she’d ever seen. ’she’s smiling’ was all Azz could think right now ‘she’s actually smiling’

“You”

Syd tried her best not to blush, but kinda failed a lot.

“OH MY GOD” she screamed, burying her face in the grass next to them.

Syd looked back up at Azz and went off “You asshole!!! Oh my god, you're impossible, you made a mess downstairs then made me chase you around literally the hole park…” As she kept scolding them, Azz looked up at the sky. They slowly used their hand to point Syd’s head up at the sky too. She immediately stopped talking once she saw the sky. The sun was begging to set and that painted the once dark clouds in vibrant pinks and oranges, set against a blue sky slowly getting dark. Azz could swear they heard her say “wow”, but didn’t mention it.

Syd’s breath finally caught up with her, “you were never going to terrorize old people”

Azz looked at her again, with nothing but a genuine smile, “nope”

Syd sighed, laying down in the grass next to Azz, looking up at the sky. All Azz could watch was Syd. The way her hair fell in the grass and the look of aw and beauty on her face was just amazing to them, they couldn’t look at the sky if they wanted to.

“I did what I had to” Azz admitted “to get you out of the house”

Syd sighed again “I guess you did……….thank you”

“You’re welcome”

They laid in the grass, talking and laughing about everything and everything till it got too dark. Syd never stopped smiling.

“Hey syd”

“Yeah?”

“I think I broke my hand”

“Jesus fucking Christ”

#hellbound stories #syd and azz #sky gazing #depression #oc fanfiction #demon boy #human girl

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ashesandhalefire · 6 years ago

Text

we had it (almost)

michael guerin x alex manes canon compliant pre-1.09

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As a rule, Michael tries to avoid injecting himself into the business of the town beyond the property limits of Sander’s Auto, the Wild Pony, or Foster Ranch. If he can’t earn himself a paycheck, get a stiff drink, or find somewhere quiet to hide out during the long hours of insufferably lonely nights, he figures he shouldn’t let the problems of Roswell weigh on his shoulders.

That’s been his policy for over a decade, so when he notices a strange light in the window of a closed storefront on his way home, he has every intention of minding his own business. The town’s rising larceny rate is only partially his fault, and he has no responsibility to look after the vagrants he comes across at two in the morning. Leave that to Max and his badge and his hero complex. Michael has a mattress and a pillow and a second bottle of acetone calling his name.

The traffic light turns red at the end of the block, and he drums his fingers as he waits at the empty intersection. Glancing back towards the window is mostly an accident. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him to find the old members of Wyatt Long’s high school posse breaking and entering. They have enough money to buy their ways out of whatever trouble they land in, and they’ve been fidgety since Long took a bullet to the leg. They rove like hyenas, slobbering and mangey and stupid. Destruction of property would be very on-brand for them. But when he looks, he doesn’t see anyone in the shadows. It’s a cool, clear night, but the only thing illuminated by the large swaths of moonlight is the marque on the building.

Roswell’s UFO Emporium.

Grant Green’s perpetual construction project has sat untouched in the center of town for just under six years. Town supervisors had been livid when construction began just before the height of tourist season, but Grant had assured them everything would be settled in a few months. Bigger and better, he had promised. At the time, Michael had bitterly hoped an electrical mishap might burn the place to the ground, so he’s more than a little confused when he instinctively pulls into a quick U-turn the second the traffic light turns green again. He parks at the curb and takes a deep breath.

The museum was defunct by the time Grant got his hand on it. Even on its best days, it hadn’t turned much of a profit. It was the kind of place people wandered into when they were looking for a way to escape the triple-digit temperatures, but it hardly received glowing reviews. No doubt Grant planned on using it more as a recruitment center for his delusional followers than anything else. Now, it’s only a matter of time before the town claims the property rights from his estate.

In a few months, after fresh paint goes up over a new layer of drywall and somebody replaces the old incandescent lightbulbs, the museum will open, lazily refurbished as a more lucrative tourist trap. Any damage done by a few trespassers will be patched and forgotten.

Still, Michael idles his truck at the curb.

With a scowl, he reminds himself that sentimentality has gotten him nowhere lately. It got him a couple of decent kisses and a few nights of sex that didn’t end with bloodshed or an acetone binge, but the net gain at the end was heartache and disappointment. He should go home.

He looks over at the building, twisting his hands mercilessly around the steering wheel. The stupid sign still hanging in the window of the ticket booth says “I’ve been abducted! Back in 5.” One of the chains that should be holding the front doors closed dangles uselessly from the metal handle.

Michael swears, ripping the keys out of the ignition, and shoves his way out of the car.

The UFO museum never inspired warm and fuzzy feelings. Most of the exhibits were grossly inaccurate, and the display descriptions all took on alarmist tones that made planet-wide invasions sound inevitable. He still gets a particularly troubling feeling in his stomach when he thinks about the room with the interactive dissection display. The dummy was six feet long and bright neon-green with three fingers on each hand and a head shaped like a spade, but the way its foam flesh had been peeled away from its chest cavity still sends shivers down his spine when he thinks about it. Children, two at a time, had been allowed to reach inside and squeeze the fake organs, coating their hands with green blood the consistency of papier-mâché paste. The first time he saw it, on a middle school field trip, he had run to the bathroom to throw up. Isobel told everyone it was because he ate too many chicken fingers at lunch, and one of Kyle Valenti’s friends joked that foster kids always got too excited about free meals.

But there was one day—one hour—when it was his favorite place in the world.

Tucked away in the back room with hands on his face and his shoulders and his back, he had felt potential stretch out infinitely in every direction. There was a whole summer to plan, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine sitting in the alleyway behind the building to share sandwiches on lunch breaks or loitering in the empty exhibits on slow days or riding out into the desert after closing and taking time to pick out fake constellations in the real stars. For the first time, his future wasn’t about escape.

The room is probably an empty shell of damaged drywall and scratched floors now, all the exhibits taken out and moved to Grant’s warehouse, and the energy of that afternoon had burned out and died by nightfall of the same day. Potential scattered in the breeze like ash. Everything changed. Still, the idea of Wyatt Long’s drunken friends littering the place with beer cans and pissing in the corners to cure their boredom makes his jaw twitch. The museum doesn’t belong to them.

When he slips inside, everything is darker and quieter than he expected. There’s no sign of anybody having been in the deconstructed lobby, and an eerie silence seems to inhabit the rest of the building. Drunken vandals wouldn’t be nearly so stealthy, and that should be enough to satisfy him, give him leave to turn around and go home, but the curiosity wins out. Somebody wanted to get inside badly enough to risk standing on the street to pick the chain lock. The only thing Michael thinks might be worth stealing in here is the copper wiring, which would require breaking open the walls, and that wouldn’t be this quiet either.

Listening for any signs of movement, Michael creeps forward, working his way between the forgotten sawhorses, and checks the room on the right that used to be the gift shop. A faint bit of moonlight streams through the front corner of the window where the newspaper has peeled back with age, and he runs a fingertip over the dusty glass countertop. It used to be filled with poorly-designed plush and cheap plastic necklaces with almond-shaped heads on them. Now, it’s just empty glass cabinetry waiting to be demolished.

He should be glad to see the kitsch go, but he isn’t. It leaves him feeling unsettled.

The old manager’s office on the other side of the foyer is undisturbed in its abandonment, and Michael drums his fingers lightly against the wall as he makes his way deeper into the building. The first exhibit room is completely empty, and it’s swallowed in shadows without the light from the front windows. He presses forward, gently nudging obstacles out of the way with a jerk of his chin. The second and third rooms are crammed tight with piles of garbage that was never removed, and he tries to ignore the way that gnaws at him. He works his way past the broken drywall and splintered two-by-fours, careful to avoid the exposed nails and razor-sharp remnants of display cases, and then a soft click echoes from through a doorway on the left. A soft glow from inside guides him the rest of the way across the room.

When he peers around the corner, two thoughts occur simultaneously: it isn’t who he was expecting, and it never would have been anyone else.

“Remind me again which one of us is supposed to be the criminal,” Michael says after a deep breath, and it’s a little satisfying to watch Alex startle. His crutch hits the side of an overturned spackle bucket, sending it skittering loudly across the floor, and he winces at how the sound echoes in the empty room. Alex has his own phone sitting face-down on a crate, and the flashlight splashes a dull circle of light onto the ceiling.

When the stillness settles over them again, Michael cross his arms and leans against the wall. The acetone he slipped into his drinks at the bar has officially worn off, which means the ache in his hand will return soon. It’s a constant, dull pain. With enough acetone in his system, it fades to the background like the hum of the electric wires or Grant Green’s alien podcasts, Roswell’s special brand of white noise. Eyes raking over Alex’s rumpled sweatpants and half-zipped hoodie, he thinks he feels the beginnings of twinges radiating from his wrist down into his pinky.

Finally, Alex licks his lips and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Really?” Michael raises an eyebrow. “I’m the one who just caught you breaking and entering.”

Lifting his chin defiantly, Alex squares his shoulders. “Well, unless somebody gave you a key, you’re breaking and entering, too.”

“You did all the breaking,” Michael says with a shrug. “I just entered.”

“That’s still trespassing.” Cocking his head, Alex says, “You do know that criminal records aren’t bingo cards, right? There’s no prize for filling in all the rows.”

Alex’s new mean streak is a delicious twist on his high school sarcasm, and Michael leans into it without meaning to. He likes when Alex pulls his hair, too. “Actually,” he says, “I’m in the process of executing a citizen’s arrest, so I think the sheriff’s department will let this one slide.”

“Doubtful.”

Michael clicks his tongue. “I have an in with one of the deputies.”

“I hope you don’t mean Max.”

“God, no,” Michael scoffs. “He’d be first in line with the handcuffs.”

That earns him a small lift at the corner of Alex’s mouth, and some of the stiffness in his spine eases away. Michael feels his own shoulders relax. Every interaction with Alex has been wrought with tension, and he wants desperately for this night to not end in a fight.

“Aren’t you staying out of town these days?”

Shuffling around an overfilled trash can, Alex works his way forward.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admits with a shrug. He flexes his grip around the handle on his crutch and averts his eyes. The shadows on his face sit heavily beneath his eyes, and Michael frowns.

“Most people would try warm milk first,” he says. “Or Ambien. Trespassing doesn’t usually make the list of top five insomnia remedies.”

“Then consider it my last resort.”

With an indelicate hop, Alex hefts himself up onto the crate in the middle of the room and settles his crutch between his knees. His cell phone sits behind him, plunging him into pure silhouette, and Michael steps farther into the room. Purple Heart Airman Alex Manes is not the kind of man to drive across town in the middle of the night in order to break into a construction site. But this isn’t just any construction site.

“Why would you want to come here?” Michael asks. Alex stares silently at his hands, and Michael taps the toe of his boot against a stack of two-by-fours. “It’s not exactly—”

“Don’t play dumb,” Alex interrupts, looking up sharply. “I’m not in the mood. You know why I would come here.”

It hangs heavily between them.

Alex had been swift and decisive when he ended things at the drive-in, leaving no room for interpretation. But it also hadn’t been the first time he walked away, so Michael can’t be entirely surprised to be stumbling into the middle of his late-night backslide. The pattern repeats again, a twisted version of an unhappy ending that hurts more than never having him in the first place.

With a huff, he hops up onto the crate beside Alex. It groans beneath their combined weights but holds firm, and he claps his hands down on his knees.

“Look around, Alex. Everything that made this place what it was? It’s long gone,” Michael says. The wall to the left is where the model UFO hung, backlit by a wall of twinkling little lights. It’s half-torn out sheetrock now. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not here. Not anymore.”

Alex shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. This place doesn’t just stop being important—” He breaks off, tapping his crutch against the ground. Michael watches him swallow. “Never mind. You obviously don’t— forget it.”

Scoffing, Michael leans back and looks at the ceiling. The only reason he even walked through the front door was because of some desperate need to protect the memories living in the walls. But he never loved the cheesy UFO museum. In the years since Alex left town, he never felt himself drawn back to the building itself. Even before Grant took the exhibits out, Michael never felt there was anything inside for him. It’s strange that now, when Alex is finally on the same continent—in the same town, in the same room—he felt drawn to it. Or maybe it isn’t strange at all.

“I try not to think about that day,” Michael says. It’s a truth and a lie at the same time, and it’s much bigger than a secret kiss or a shattered hand. At first, everything had bled together for him. He couldn’t think about the cave without thinking about the toolshed without thinking about the museum. When he closed his eyes, he saw burning cars and the curve of Alex’s naked hip and his own blood all at the same time. But his mind has worked miracles compartmentalizing that day. Certain parts have never left him. Others are best forgotten.

Alex spins his crutch in his hands and says, “I think about that day all the time.”

“I’ll bet. I hear PTSD is a bitch.”

“Actually, it was one of the best days of my life.”

Michael scoffs. “Shit, Alex. That’s not saying much for your life.”

“Don’t do that.” Alex frowns.

“Do what?”

“Don’t minimize it.” Wringing his hands, Alex keeps his eyes fixed on his lap. “I’m not stupid, alright? We only had a few hours, and I’m not delusional enough to think— I know what it was. But you have no idea what it meant to me.” His voice wavers, and Michael feels frozen on the spot. The ten lost years have reduced them to unfamiliar strangers, and sometimes it feels like they don’t even speak the same language anymore. They hadn’t needed to say much to each other for things to things to fall into place the first time. It hasn’t been nearly as easy on their second—third, fourth, fifth, he loses count—try.

Alex takes a deep breath and turns away, offering the rest of his confession to the empty room.

“You were mine when I didn’t have anything else. And I know— I know how it ended. I know what it cost you. But you’ll never understand what it meant to me to have you for as long as I did.”

Heart in his throat, Michael stares at the darkened silhouette of Alex’s profile.

A few weeks ago, he stood in front of Alex and laid himself bare entirely by accident. I never look away. Not really. Alex had seemed surprised and then pleasantly flustered, but Michael had assumed it was because of how much time had passed. Ten years is a long time for a heart to stay alone someplace, just waiting to carry on, but Alex had admitted to it first. Alex had reopened the door.

But he doesn’t sound like a man who understands how pathetically Michael has wanted him.

With Max’s voice still whispering in his ear, Michael bites back, You still have me.

It isn’t the sort of promise that can be a comfort to Alex now. Michael isn’t really what he wants anymore, isn’t what he remembers having. He isn’t that boy from the back of the truck that just wanted a safe place to sleep. Or maybe, somewhere deep down, he still has it in him to be that soft, but he’s built up a layer of callous and scar tissue on the outside that makes him unrecognizable.

I can’t be with a criminal, Alex had said, and he hadn’t even known the half of it.

Max was right when he said that they couldn’t be with the people they love. And still, he’s angry at Alex for the way he’s been hurt, and it makes him feel like an idiot. He hates that the two contradictory truths can live inside him so easily. Like a trap getting angry at a bear for being wary, he resents Alex for running away while hating himself for being undeserving of keeping him.

It says a lot about Michael that his greatest regret is not letting Alex kiss him the first time he tried.

Alex takes a shuddering breath suddenly, head ducked low, and rubs a hand against the back of his neck. He seems embarrassed, curling in on himself like it can erase his admission. Leaning closer, Michael bumps their shoulders together to stop his retreat.

“You know,” he says, “you and me getting together was kind of, like, the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in this town.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m serious,” Michael insists when he catches the bitterness in Alex’s tone. He isn’t trying to tease him, and he doesn’t want Alex to think he doesn’t appreciate the weight of what happened between them. “It was like a movie.”

“Are you incapable of sincerity, or do you just enjoy being an asshole?”

“I don’t know. Do you enjoy expecting the worst of me?”

Alex kicks his heels against the side of the crate. “We made out under the UFOs for ten minutes, and then you went to wait at The Crashdown until my shift ended. If that’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in this town, the population should be dwindling. People should be fleeing.”

“I wanted to wait with you,” Michael reminds him. “You wouldn’t let me into the booth.”

“I was trying to be subtle.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “There was nothing subtle about that eyeliner. Or the nose ring.”

“You didn’t mind.”

“No,” Michael says. “I didn’t.”

Alex turns towards him, still mostly a silhouette, and licks his lips.

“No,” he breathes. “You didn’t.”

A beat passes between them, and Michael’s breath catches in his chest as the realization settles over his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Alex loves him. He’s suddenly surer of it than anything else in his life, and heat rushes to his cheeks. It should be a pleased flush from his racing heart, but his stomach twists with misery as he stares at Alex’s shadowed face. Alex loves him. Alex has always loved him, maybe, for reasons neither of them can fully explain. They could have been happy. If things had just been a little different, they could have been happy.

The light disappears suddenly as Alex’s phone dies.

Michael stares out into the dark to where he knows Alex is, and then he lets his eyes drift shut just long enough to steel himself.

“I guess that’s our cue,” Alex sighs.

“Yeah, I think I’m parked next to a hydrant,” Michael says, clearing his throat as he slips off the crate. He rolls his shoulders, trying to settle the rippling tension radiating down his back, and then holds out a hand to help Alex back to his feet. “Can’t afford another ticket.”

“I thought you had an in with the deputies.” Alex dusts off the back of his jeans and then returns his hand to the crook of Michael’s arm as he adjusts his crutch. Michael figures it’s the steadiest influence he’s has ever had on Alex.

“We both know that was bullshit. Come on. Let’s try to get out of here without killing ourselves.”

Alex fists a hand into the back of Michael’s shirt as they pick their way through the dark, and Michael adjusts himself to the task of subtly moving obstacles out of their way without being able to see what he’s moving. They make it to the first exhibit room, less than a hundred feet from freedom, and then Alex loops his fingers loosely around Michael’s wrist.

“Guerin.”

The word is a whisper against the back of his neck, and the hand slips off his wrist and finds his hip instead. Alex curls his arm around Michael’s waist, and he presses himself forward until the lines of their bodies curve together seamlessly.

This part always comes so easily to them. It’s the rest that gets messy.

Alex nudges his nose against the knob at the base of Michael’s neck, and he splays his hand wide across the middle of Michael’s chest. Body flushing, Michael lets his eyes drift shut as he relaxes against Alex’s warmth. Alex inspires stillness in him that he imagines total peace is meant to feel like, but he knows it’s only the eye of a hurricane. The rest of the storm still rages around them.

“We can’t,” Michael exhales.

Pressing his mouth to the curve of Michael’s shoulder, Alex hums. “Why not?”

There are so many answers, all of them true.

He can imagine the seductive tilt of Alex’s head as he leans forward, and he can imagine the anxious hunch of his shoulders in the morning light as he slinks out of the Airstream before anyone notices where he spent the night. If Michael closes his eyes, he sees sweaty strands of Alex’s hair sticking to his forehead and spread out on a pillowcase as easily as he sees the angry sneer of disgust that will follow Michael laying his secrets bare.

The truth is that Michael is a coward. He won’t survive having and losing Alex again.

“Because I love you.”

Without the light from Alex’s phone, all they are to each other is shapes in the dark.

It’s fitting, considering how lost Michael feels navigating the foreign terrain of an emotion this elusive. Anger is easy. He’s seen enough anger manifested in front of him to know exactly what it is. It’s curled fists and free-flying hands and bared teeth and acidic vitriol that seeks out a person’s soft spots and eats away at the tender flesh until he’s crippled by it. It’s ugly and familiar. But Michael has never been loved. He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to look like. All he knows is that being with Alex makes him feel still. It changes the energy in the air, slows the vibrating chaos inside him, and splits him at his loosely-patched seams when it’s over.

He’s never said those words before.

“I love you,” Michael repeats into the dark, and he reaches down to cover Alex’s hand with his own. His scarred fingers ache as they twine. The bones don’t bend like they should, and most of the strength is gone, but this feels like the last chance he’ll get to hold Alex’s hand. Distantly, it occurs to him that this is also the first time he’s ever held Alex’s hand. “And it’s too easy to think it can still be like it was.”

Alex shuffles forward. “Guerin—”

When Alex finds out, he’ll hate Michael like he deserves.

Michael has never given a damn about the people of Roswell because they never gave a damn about him. A decade in foster care taught him that humans can’t be depended on for anything more than consistent disappointment. He survived just long enough to get himself out, and he did it without help from anybody. Then things went sideways, and then then things turned upside down, and then everything got blown to hell.

He spent the summer after senior year telling himself new truths. He repeated them like a mantra until they were fully incorporated into him. Katie Long was an asshole, just like her brother, and so was Jasmine. Rosa Ortecho was an on-and-off crackhead on a long road to nowhere. If not them on a slab in the morgue, then Isobel, Max, and himself on gurneys in a secret government facility, locked away somewhere nobody would hear them scream.

Reality is too terrible to bear if those aren’t his truths. That day, what he is became inextricably linked to what he did, and it can never be undone. There are no apologies to offer. Besides, it spiraled out towards disaster more horribly than any of them could have ever imagined, so even their apologies wouldn’t have mattered. There’s no forgiveness, no absolution, and he would do it again in a heartbeat, if given the choice. Sometimes that feels like the worst part.

Still, knowing that the people of Roswell would hate him for what he is and what he’s done doesn’t mean much. He’s had years to practice turning his own guilt inside out, and he doubts that public opinion would weigh too heavily on him. The more pressing concern has always been discovery, capture, and the inevitability of experimentation. Fear of being strapped to a table, of hearing Max and Isobel scream through a vivisection, the worst word he ever learned, is a more persuasive motivator than anything else.

But when Alex finds out, he’ll hate Michael like he deserves, and Michael will feel every ounce of it.

That, in itself, is all the evidence he needs to know that he isn’t a good man.

It’s unlikely that their DNA has corrupted them or that they carried murderous instincts halfway across the galaxy, but their hands are soaked in blood from what they did and they will leave fingerprints on everything they touch. Max may have found his way to that conclusion in a heap of self-pitying misery, but Michael hasn’t been able to find a flaw in his logic. Always terrified of being unloved, they have made themselves unlovable.

Alex has suffered plenty at the hands of people pretending to be good men. Michael can’t stomach being just another in a long line of betrayals. If the best Michael can do now is stay away, it should be enough to redeem some small part of him that remembers an Alex who just wanted to be safe.

“It doesn’t have to be what it was,” Alex finally says, voice unbearably soft. “It can be new.”

Michael pulls their hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss to the center of Alex’s palm.

One day, Alex will have to ask himself what it means to be loved by a monster. He will think back on every time that Michael touched him with softness and reverence and wonder what it means that someone so drenched in horror could look at him and want so desperately. If he asked, Michael would tell him that it means he embodies the best of what lesser men want for themselves: bravery, integrity, and an unyielding capacity for kindness. But Alex won’t ask. Instead, he’ll consider every time he walked away and wonder why he came back. He’ll scrub himself raw trying to get rid of an invisible stain. He’ll thank saints he barely believes in for the narrow miss of almost that Michael will cherish for the rest of his life.

“We can’t.”

“Guerin—”

Alex isn’t the type to beg, so Michael is entirely unprepared to feel the grip around his waist tighten in protest. He holds himself shock-still, terrified to hear what Alex will say to change his mind and what he’ll need to say to protect himself from it. But Alex doesn’t say anything else. He just squeezes his fingers around Michael’s gnarled hand and draws a long inhale through his nose.

Then, Alex lets go, and, for the first time, Michael is the one who runs.

#michael x alex #malex #malex fic #me: put it in the main rnm tag for the exposure #dark me: no #so normally i would stress about editing this for another three weeks but 1x09 already jossed it and it would probably be dumb after 1x10 #so here is 4.7k words of a thing i wrote #that i had to repost because this site was being annoying about the ao3 link #my fic

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