#Word on the street says it might line up with Final Fest

[rev-velvet]

Erm, any Grizzco workers wanna tell me why yall's boss is saying the thing that caused Big Big Run isn't actually resolved 🧍🏾‍♀️

[macfrog]

if i had a gun cowboy like me chapter 12.5 (joel's pov)

long-awaited, pain-packed, and sealed with a bow by yours truly. i love y'all. thank you for being so patient and kind with me on this one. this chapter is joel's experience of the end of illicit affairs and all of hits different. you might wanna check those chapters out before you indulge in the angst-fest that is this one. hope you enjoy 🧡

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: walk a mile in joel miller's shoes. see if you'd do anything different

warnings: more heartache, more angst, lois, alcohol + drug consumption, mention of reader being roofied, very brief mention of joel punching knox, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 9.8k

terrible news! there is no more taglist! make sure you're following @macfroglets w notifs on if you wanna be buzzed when i post 🤍

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“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.” It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks – “Where is she?” “We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –” “’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

You’re still fast asleep when he lifts his head.

You’ve had this argument plenty before. I do not snore. Yes, baby, you do. I’ve heard you. I don’t! It’s alright, it’s okay that you do. It’s a cute snore. Joel, I don’t fucking –

Right now, he’s pretty certain you’re snoring. He just wishes you were awake to hear yourself.

He thinks about pulling his phone, taking a video so that once you’re up, you can hear the little bursts of air, the tiny rasps from your nostrils as you snooze. But if he ever did record anything like that – just like the Hillcrest pictures, until you’d found them last night – he’d keep it for himself. Wouldn’t offer it up so easily.

Just something for him to have, for all the time he spends without you.

Your hair’s still all over the place. Tangled in Joel’s right arm, still smelling of chlorine and sex. Your head rests softly on the crook of his elbow like it’s a pillow; your lips and eyes are puffy, tired. You have this ridiculously strong vice grip on his left arm; during the night he felt you wrap your wrists around it and pull it into your chest, tucking it gently under your chin until your entire upper half was drowned in his.

His chest snug against your back, his arms encasing you safely, and his hips…his hips lined with yours. His now semi-hard cock buried between your legs – he’d slept inside you last night, and it was like, after forty-eight years, someone finally took him by the shoulders and said: This is how you do it. This is how you rest.

He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, soon as his eyes fell shut. He stirred only to feel you maneuvering his arm, and then fell straight back asleep.

He felt comfortable. He felt safe. Big, old, tough guy Joel Miller. Never let anybody in since Sarah’s mom left. Alone for almost seventeen years, and fine with it. His cheeks heat at the idea of needing – of wanting to feel that. Safe. But then you came along, and he realized he’d been waiting his whole life to feel it. Didn’t even notice he’d been missing it.

That’s how these things go, right? Can’t miss what you don’t have, and all that.

But now he has it. Now he has you.

And you make him feel things he’s never felt before, or if he has, it was so fucking long ago that he’s forgotten. You drive him fucking insane. Keep him up at night, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. Make him do stuff that his reflection glares at him over. Are you being serious right now? Make him…different. New.

The night before last, when he’d picked you up from Frank’s after rodeo night, he promised to make you a big breakfast in the morning. Compensation for not swinging by McDonald’s on the way home. But then your dad called, and you had to take off before Joel had even properly woken up.

When he eventually rose from the bed, he went straight to the store. Stocked up on eggs, flour, sugar, bananas. He’d printed a recipe from his computer while you were gone. Marked the items off as he meandered through the store. Stood for ten minutes deliberating over which gluten-free flour would be best, before an assistant asked if he needed any help.

I’m good, he muttered, and then, as the kid wandered off, cleared his throat and said, Actually –

Greg – the kid assistant in question – had suggested the red bag. Said it’s corn flour, instead of wheat. Joel can’t pronounce the brand name. He just knows it’s tucked behind a box of cereal in the cupboard downstairs – he hid it there so you wouldn’t find it and snuff out his plan.

His plan, which he now has to put into action. Without waking you. He’d lie here forever just staring at you, if he hadn’t sworn to himself to make good on his promise and cook you some damn pancakes.

So he slowly pulls his left hand from between yours, loosening your death grip, and steals it back across your waist. He does the same for his right arm – more careful, though, so he doesn’t tug on your hair. Like some kind of wild cat creeping through the jungle, every moment calculated and careful.

He bunches the comforter up a little at your back, so that if you do stir, it might feel like he’s still there. Still a weight, curving around you. He takes a good five minutes just to travel the length of the room – the lightest he’s ever walked, dodging the spots on the carpet that he knows make the floorboards squeal.

When the door gently clicks back into place, he heads downstairs. Cracks out his frying pan – non-stick, obviously – and all his ingredients, pulls the printed recipe from its hiding place between two cookbooks and lays it out on the counter, flattening the creases and unfolding the corners. And gets to it.

His first egg cracks messily over the lip of the bowl. The yolk runs down the outside, and he curses before swiping it back up with his index finger. The second egg empties fully inside the bowl, but drags with it tiny fragments of shell. Joel spends five minutes focusing on picking every single piece out of the mixture. He crouches to make sure he’s poured the exact amount of milk, eyes level with the top of the liquid, and he double checks every step before he follows it.

This has to be perfect. Has to be. For you.

The entire time, all he can think about is you asking to sleep with his body inside yours. Wanting him closer than you’d ever wanted him before, as close as he could physically be. Your sleepy voice circles between his ears on loop – want somethin’ else. That safe feeling creeps up on him all over again.

He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He’s spent the last month purposefully pushing those feelings down, dampening them anytime they rose to the surface. Only allowing himself to feel them, to acknowledge them, when you’re around. Because he can’t fucking help but acknowledge them when you’re here – they stare him straight in the face.

So he’d been making peace with letting the floodgates open just a little bit at a time – one quick rush whenever you’d give him one of your meaningful glances, when your hot skin would brush against his, when your mouth would fall open at the feeling of his first deep thrust inside you.

And then he’d bolt them back up.

Except that, now…he’s not sure the dam can hold much longer. There are cracks he’s not repairing quickly enough. Unintended consequences hammering against the other side of the stone in the form of angry white waves.

He’s staring at the beige circle of batter in the pan, swept off with the waves into someplace far from his kitchen, when the sound of your voice draws him back.

“Joel? You down there?”

The floorboards at the top of his stairs creak. You’re leaning over the banister.

“Yeah, darlin’, I’m here.” He slips halfway out of the kitchen door, closing it over his body in hopes you won’t smell the pancakes. You ask what he’s doing, and he says, “Just makin’ a coffee. You want anything brought up?”

“I’m good,” you reply. “’m gonna take a shower.”

“Alright, baby. There’s probably some stuff in Sarah’s bathroom you can use.”

He listens closely as your footsteps recede, waiting to hear the hum of his shower before he relaxes again, flipping the pancake over. It sizzles away as he runs one thick finger along the inside of the bowl and tastes his handiwork. Pretty damn good, he thinks. He’s sucking his finger clean when his cell goes.

Joel swipes to answer, and before he can utter a Hello?, your dad’s voice is screaming down the line to him.

“Mornin’, pal! You in? You up?”

He figures this is the infamous speakerphone you rambled for ten minutes about last night. Like a fucking foghorn, man. I’m deaf in this ear now.

He doesn’t wait for Joel to respond. “I was just passin’ by, remembered you got that leakin’ pipe, or whatever it is. Under your sink, right? You good for me to drop in ‘n take a look?”

“Uh – uh, I’m –” Joel stammers his way through a sentence he doesn’t know the ending of, slotting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and giving the pan a rattle against the stovetop. He slips the spatula under the mixture, and when he flips it over, the pancake is charcoal black. “Fuck.”

“What’s that?” you dad roars, deafening in Joel’s ear. Fuckin’ speakerphone.

“Nothin’, it’s…” He sighs, accepting his new-found position: backed into a fucking corner. What’s new these days?

“Yeah, I’m up. See you in a bit.”

He hangs up the phone midway through an Alright, buddy from your dad, and whacks the chargrilled pancake on top of the pile. His phone surfs across the counter in a blur of blind panic, before Joel’s taking the stairs two at a time to get to you.

The door’s ajar. He can hear you quietly singing to yourself. Same song you’re always fucking singing, always trying to coax Joel into singing along with you. You’re humming the guitar solo when he whips the door open.

“Hey, hey,” he’s panting, taking your towel in one hand and reaching for the shower door with the other, a blur of movement before his eyes like he’s not in control of his own body. “Out.”

“Huh?” you reply, blinded by the soap suds running down your forehead and into your eyes.

“Baby,” Joel whispers, desperate, “you gotta get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”

He drags you over to the first place he spots: his closet. He knows it’s no fucking good, but he can hear your dad’s car squealing to a halt in his drive, and he’s in a blink panic wondering what artefacts, what evidence of your being here lie dotted around his house. Your bikini’s hanging up out back, there’s probably a hoodie still strewn over the back of his couch.

He doesn’t have time to think, though, because in the midst of his mental scan of every room whilst explaining to you what’s going on, your dad’s heavy boots just thudded onto his doormat.

“Miller?” he calls up the stairs. And Joel closes the closet over.

----------

He stands by the front door watching your dad’s car purr off down the street, waiting until it turns left and disappears behind the Dawsons’ back fence to shut the door. When he turns back into his hallway, the house is uncomfortably silent. You’re still up in his room.

The weight of your phone pulls at the waistband of his jeans. He slips his hand into his back pocket, fishes it out, and takes one step toward the stairs. The screen lights in his palm.

There’s a cluster of notifications from some film class group chat, a couple Snapchats from Sarah. A reminder to take your birth control from some pink-icon app, and then –

I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?

He stares at it until the text burns into his eyes. Blinks, and it’s seared into his lids. His breath leaves his chest in a heavy, burdened sigh. It trembles as it pushes from his lungs. He feels something burning under his skin. All over.

He’s angry. And he’s trying to keep it contained.

Keep it where it lies, keep it beneath the surface. Stop it from pooling right behind his lips, collecting in the light of his eyes. Keep it from revealing itself. But when his foot lifts to the first step, it’s like a deadweight in the air.

He’s angry. But he’s fucking exhausted.

The bedroom is empty when Joel pushes the door open. You’re still hidden in the closet. You don’t look up at him when he pulls on the shuttered door, letting light flood across your hands, still covering your face. There are flicks of dripping wet hair peeking out from under the towel on your head.

He wants to put his arms around you. Wants to kiss you all over. Tell you, It’s okay, it’s alright. He didn’t see nothin’.

But he can’t. Because neither of those things are true.

Your dad saw the cowgirl hat. Hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has. It sent a sharpened bolt of panic through Joel’s body the second the words came tumbling out. He might’ve seen your bag lying at the bottom of the stairs. Might’ve passed your car on his drive here. There are so many loose fucking ends.

And more than that – harder to accept: maybe this isn’t okay anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been the entire time. And maybe, despite all his good efforts and the fucking way you make him feel, despite it being weeks now of tiptoeing and lying and covering your tracks – maybe you finally crossed a line.

He can’t look at you a second longer. His heart’s in his throat. If he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll probably choke. Break down. So he walks away.

You follow him downstairs a few minutes later, fully dressed and silent. Your touch sweeps across his shoulder blades, and it takes everything in him not to turn to you then and there. Come here, kiss me. Pretend none of it’s happening, just for a moment.

He sets your plate down in front of you. He’s taken the burnt pancake. He follows a pattern: cuts into the food, glances out to the backyard, and back to the plate. It’s the only thing keeping the words from rolling out onto the table in front of him. The only thing stopping him from –

You kick his leg. So gently, he barely feels it.

“You gonna eat?” he asks in response, chewing on the smoky flavor of burnt batter. Your hands hesitate, and he feels his own flinch as if to take them, rub them, squeeze them. And then he watches as you drag your knife through your own breakfast.

He wants you to yell at him. He wants to give meaning to the guilt he feels. He knows what’s coming, and he isn’t so sure that you do.

This is…impossible. It has been, from the start. Always sneaking off, coming up with excuses. So many fucking excuses, he can’t even keep them straight in his head anymore. She’s here, droppin’ my flannel off. Now we’re upstairs, I’m showin’ her my guitar. Need her to help with decorations. Your TV’s broken, did you know that? Don’t mind us, just sat in this private corner of my backyard, out of view of fucking everyone. I’ll pick her up from her rodeo night, take her home. She’s at Anna’s all day today, right?

And your dad – kind and naïve, or maybe just so fucking gullible that every single one lands like the flour did in the egg mixture. Just gracefully floats down into his brain, absorbs itself and folds perfectly into place.

So, yell at him. Get mad. Make him feel like the fucking asshole he knows he is. Leading you on, and letting you get close to him, and then when it gets too hard – pushing you away. Doesn’t matter if that’s what he did or not; doesn’t matter whether he did or didn’t mean it. He wants you to be mad at him. To justify what he’s about to do.

He slides you your phone. Motions for you to read it.

“Fuck…” you whisper, and then he thinks you get it.

But then you say, “…he didn’t see me, though. Right?” and his heart sinks.

No. He didn’t see you. But he saw so many little pieces of you, that Joel finds it impossible to consider that he isn’t already seeing the entire picture. He’s picturing your dad at home in the living room, one hand on his hip, the other running through his hair, adding two and two and two and two and –

You’re bickering. Actually arguing. He doesn’t know how to navigate it, save for letting the frustration take the wheel and drive the point home: you came too close to being caught.

You’re smarter than this, he knows you are. He knows that you can see plain as day, everything that he can. The bag, the hat, the fucking home-cooked breakfast sat on his kitchen counter. He’s watching you argue your point, hands dancing in the air animatedly, eyebrows lifting, eyes widening. Hear me out. Listen to me. Hear me out.

“I didn’t fucking mean to let him see the b–”

“That’s not the point,” Joel says, before he has time to stop himself.

“Then what’s your point?”

He feels his voice carry off into the air with the images racing around his head. Hank’s shadow under the door. The roar of voices downstairs as you climaxed. Your body pinned under Joel’s on your couch. The way the morning light screamed into the house as your front door burst open.

He doesn’t sound like he has much of a point, even to himself. He’s in it just as much as you are. He’s lied and he’s hidden just as much as you have, and made mistakes that are…worse, as far as he’s concerned.

And the worst one of all sits directly opposite him. Head low, eyes boring into the wood of his kitchen table. He can see the tears swelling across your waterline. Can feel the heat from here as it spreads across your face. Anger thrums through his chest again, and his teeth grit.

He murmurs, pushing himself up from the table and away from you. Tells you there’s some stuff he needs to see to. You’re mad about it, like he knew you would be. Like you should be. He promises he’ll be back in a couple hours; promises you’ll talk when he gets home.

And then he leaves.

----------

Clark’s is on the other side of town. It takes him nearly forty minutes to get there, and more than half of that time is spent staring at the tail lights of a Honda in front of him. Some accident up ahead. His eyes bore into the burning red strip of brake light until it’s singed into them, a blur of blue when he finally rips his glare away and stares up at the white sky.

He thinks about calling you. Saying, Hey, I’m stuck in traffic, talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just…doesn’t.

Instead, he wonders what you’re doing. Whether or not you’re still at his place. He wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. But if you are – and he hopes you are – what are you doing?

He thinks: She’s on the couch. Bundled in blankets. Grey’s is on TV. She’s rewatchin’ her favorite episodes.

Least, that’s what he wants you to be doing. Wants you to be making yourself feel better, because he knows he was a complete ass earlier. You didn’t deserve any of it. Nothing that he didn’t deserve himself, just as much, anyway.

He thinks about coming home, and you hitting pause, pushing yourself off the couch and sauntering around to him. Wrapping him in the blanket until your bodies are pressed together under the woven red, and kissing him. Kiss me kiss me kiss me.

And the thought of you, standing on your tiptoes to press your soft lips to his, your fingers sifting through his hair, is like a cold pack on a searing wound. Dulls his anger, even if it’s just for a second.

His wide tires crawl silently across the smooth lot of the plant hire, parking right in front of the wire fence. The truck door slams shut when he gets out. He doesn’t mean it. Maybe he does. But he does it without thinking, and with a hot head, a temper sharper than nails, he strides over to the glass-paneled door and swings it open.

She’s sat behind the desk, same as always. Dark, deep auburn hair, groomed and set to perfection so that when she looks up, it doesn’t move an inch. Curls around the sweetheart shape of her face, smooth and shining. Her blue eyes twinkle in the glaring light from outside, and she stands.

She tugs lightly on the hem of her white blouse. You’d probably elbow him and say, That’s cream, not white. She smiles at him and it doesn’t look a thing like your smile. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw your smile. Fuck, he thinks, when did I last make her smile?

And he’s still wondering, when Lois says, “Hey, stranger,” and puts a gentle, pale, red-nailed hand down on the desk. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah,” Joel grumbles, clearing his throat and glancing at the man in a pair of thick, steel-toe boots, sat in a waiting area to his left. He thinks it’s probably polite to ask how she is. It’s been seven weeks since he blew off her hint for a date.

“Good, thanks,” she replies, cheeks swelling even more. They’re lightly shaded crimson, a soft shimmer to them against her snowy skin, dappled with light freckles. “You?”

He nods once. “Good,” he echoes, not sure what else to say. He’s lying, and she doesn’t seem to figure him out the way you would.

No. Instead, Lois steps back, straightens up, and twirls the pen in her fingers. “What can I do ya for?”

“Got some equipment I’m after,” he mutters, hand slipping into his back pocket for his phone. Lois’s eyes flit up and down his body as he taps his passcode in with his thumb.

She asks him something, but it sounds like she’s speaking through a closed door. He’s elsewhere.

The phone unlocks, screen lifting to reveal the last open app: his camera roll. His thumbs hover over the screen, tracing where yours would’ve tapped last night.

The video’s muted, she won’t hear it even if he let it play, but he swipes away the second he recognizes the tangled mess of your hair, his fist locked tight in it. His own hair, salt and pepper buried deep in the crook of your neck.

Something in his chest aches. Pulls tight, hurts his heart. He takes a deep breath and scares the feeling away. He’s staring at his camera roll. Staring at twelve little square thumbnails – couple of them work stuff, couple of them lists of supplies he has to remember to pick up – and then. Then.

You. At the Hillcrest. Dimples in your cheeks. That’s what made him take his phone out. The soft dips in your skin that appear anytime you smile, laugh, sometimes even just when you talk. He’d first noticed them when you had a mouth full of pizza, chatting animatedly about Meredith and Derek, and he’s noticed them every time since.

He’d seen them, as you posed with Sarah for a selfie at lunch. And his hand had slipped into his pocket before his brain even had the chance to finish the thought.

His quiet way of marking how he felt in that moment. How his chest seemed to fill as if with air, or something thicker. Sweeter. Like it was trying to push words up, a comment to tell you how beautiful you looked. Trying to make him move, run his thumb light as air across that tiny valley in your cheek and look at you with eyes that translated the words hammering behind his eyes.

But you had company. And all he managed to do was take two fucking photos.

Lois talks again, and this time, there’s no closed door.

“Huh?” Joel’s head snaps up, takes a few seconds to focus on the red hair in front of him. “Sorry, Lois, sorry.”

“’s alright. You okay?” She’s smiling so warmly, so sincerely. And there are no dimples in her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he clears his throat, “just checkin’ for the address.”

She holds out a pad, a stack of hire agreement forms hovering between her body and his, but he’s not looking. He’s still scrolling through his phone, thumbs searching your dad’s text thread for the information. Lois lowers the pad to the counter, places the pen on top. Fiddles with it until it’s lined up with the top of the form perfectly.

Then Joel looks up, and she smiles again.

“Not for you, then?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Just the messenger.”

“Got it. Well, you know what you’re doing. Let me know if you need anything.”

Lois takes a step back, eyes still on Joel, who smiles politely, then swipes the form from the desk and takes a seat between Steel-Toe Boots and some tall, leafy plant that he has to bat away when he sits down. He’s copying the site address, phone resting on his thigh, when the receptionist speaks again.

“How’s Sarah doin’? She home yet?”

“Yeah,” Joel replies, “been home a couple weeks now. She’s been in Nashville this weekend.”

Lois lifts her head, blinking slowly. “Nashville. Nice. So, you’ve had a weekend to yourself.”

He scoffs. “Yeah,” he croaks.

“And what does Joel Miller get up to when he has an empty house for a few days?”

His fingers squeeze around the pen, pushing deeper into the paper. His expression hardens. “Nothing excitin’ enough to share. Sat by the pool yesterday. Was nice out.”

She agrees. “Sure was. You have company?”

Joel shakes his head once. Blinks the image of you and your red bikini from his vision. Focuses on dragging the pen one digit at a time across the line labeled Phone Number. If he cared enough, he’d give the obvious hint a couple seconds’ consideration, even just to protect Lois’s pride a little.

But he doesn’t care. And right now, he ain’t interested in protecting anyone but you.

“Nope. Just me ‘n a few beers.”

“Better off that way,” a hoarse, forty-cigs-a-day voice rasps from his right. “Less fuckin’ problems.”

Joel’s jaw rotates a degree towards the work boots; notices the folds of dry, leathery skin piled atop the raised gray eyebrows of their owner, and then turns back silently.

Lois clears her throat awkwardly. “Well, I spent the day with my book. I’m readin’ a Colleen Hoover. Adam’s at camp, so – quiet house for me, too.”

Joel finds himself nodding. Autopilot. He’s pretending he’s listening.

You’re still in his sight, wandering over from the sliding kitchen doors, a bottle in each hand. He can hardly see you when he looks up, the sun’s so bright. You hold a beer out, condensation dripping down your fingers towards Joel’s when he takes it, and then you slump down in the sun lounger next to his.

His arm reaches across, and your small fingers wrap and then unwrap around his, running across his knuckles, nails lightly scratching his worked hands. And he’s smiling, and he doesn’t even notice it until his eyes meet yours and you laugh, and he asks, What? through a chuckle, and you say, Nothin’, you just look happy.

Your dimpled blush blurs back into checkboxes and scrawled handwriting. You’re gone again. He’s in a white office, and the gentle lapping of the water on the pool’s edge fades into the headache noise of a fan humming, and he feels the warmth of your gaze on his skin turn into the cold, harsh spotlight glare of Lois’s eyes on him.

He looks up. She’s still smiling. At this point, he finds it fucking unnerving.

He rises from his chair, swings a wandering leaf from that ugly green plant out of his way and paces back over to the desk, sliding the pad back across to her. Their hands brush as she takes it from his grip, and he pulls his wrist close to his body. Lois doesn’t seem to notice.

She’s running the pen down the form, checking everything he’s filled in. Her tongue moves around the inside of her cheek, sucking on a hard candy. “Delivery on Friday?” she double checks, and Joel nods. “Alright,” she says, tearing away his copy, “we’ll call ya.”

“’ppreciate it,” he mumbles, folding the paper into his back pocket.

She turns, reaching to slip the form into a blue tray, and Joel pauses. Thinks to say something – he hopes Adam has a fun time at camp, or that Lois enjoys the rest of her quiet week. But then he sees you sat opposite him, staring fixedly at the plate before you, tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. He feels your hand laced in his, hears your laugh still ringing in his ears.

He misses you. He should never have left you. You matter more to him than some equipment for a site. Matter more to him than anything. He should’ve never fucking left.

Joel nods. Reaches for the handle of the door. Glances back to Lois. “There a florist anywhere near here?”

----------

He pulls the truck in alongside the florist. Teal window frames, a little pink door. He can hear you now. How fucking cute is that store? Give me your phone, I gotta get a picture. Mine’s is in my bag in the back. Look, the traffic’s movin’, Joel, give me your phone – quick!

His fingers hook around the silver door handle. He pats his jeans once – wallet’s right there – and goes to pull, when his cell vibrates from the center console. He can see himself in the glass screen, your dad’s name written across the reflection of his forehead.

He bites down on his lip. Hard. Glances up to the road ahead. Blinks. And decides to answer.

“Joel,” your dad chirps down the line. “Sorry, buddy, you’ll be sick a’ the sight ‘n sound of me today.”

Joel manages a convincing laugh. “What’s up?”

“Just makin’ sure you’re rememberin’ to put Friday’s date down for delivery on that order. We’re gonna need the stuff over the weekend, so.”

“Yep. Just been to do it right now. Friday’s date, Harvey’s site, your card details ‘n everything.”

“’attaboy. Good job. You’re all grown up.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it. There wasn’t no chance I was gettin’ time to do it myself,” he lowers his voice, “I’m still stuck here with Kelman.”

Joel’s fingers trace around his steering wheel. “Oh, yeah? He keepin’ you busy?”

“You bet. Had to haggle with ‘im just to get a lunch break. Speakin’ of – I swung by the house and that daughter of mine wasn’t home. Haven’t seen or heard from her since yesterday mornin’. I’m just checkin’ she ain’t stop by to see Sarah or som’?”

His fingers lock tight around the leather. “Sarah’s still in Nashville, she gets in tonight. Couldn’t tell you where yours is. I’m not home yet, so.”

It’s a half-truth. He could wager a pretty good guess, but he can’t be certain, can he?

Your dad chuckles down the line. “She spent the night at Anna’s. My house must be like prison to her – she’s never around anymore. I’ll hear from her soon, I’m sure. Alright. Thanks, again, Joel.”

He drops the phone back into the cupholder with a sigh, leaning back against the headrest to stare at the roof of the truck. He’s still picturing you in his living room, head turning to the street at every sound of a car door, or tires rolling by. And then the image is marred by your dad, peering in the window back at you, catching you wrapped up in a situation you shouldn’t be in.

He doesn’t want your dad to find out. For obvious reasons. Because it would mean the collapse of their friendship, the collapse of the world they built between them – for you, for Sarah, for themselves. Comfortability, and normalcy, and routine and order all thrown to the wind on account of some month-long fling.

But more important than all of that: it would mean dragging you into all of that, too. Fucking up your relationship with your dad. Making things weird between you and Sarah. Ruining whatever’s left of what you and Joel had, before you both took it too far.

And if he doesn’t want all that – if he doesn’t want your dad finding out – then something has to change. Something’s gotta stop.

His fingers wrap tight around the key and turn, and the truck jumps to life. He turns away from the teal-colored florist as he pulls off.

----------

You take it about as well as he reckoned you might. About as well as you should, given the circumstances. He isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t blame you. He’s probably on your side, when you argue back with him.

“You’re not serious, right? Joel. You’re not –”

“Kid, I…”

“No. What? Because of a fucking bag?”

He lifts his gaze and pleads with you. “Because of the lying.”

You’re right, with your response: it’s never been an issue until now. He’s been more than fucking happy to sneak off, take you as his own, and then return with a satisfied grin and a mouth full of excuses to feed your company. He almost agrees.

It’s just: this time, your dad’s at your heels like a bloodhound. A little less sharp, maybe. Blind as a fucking bat, sure. But he can smell something’s up. And he’s circling it, nose to the ground, drawing nearer and nearer to the pair of you with each step.

You ask if he wants to tell the truth. That thought scares him just as much. Knocks him back a few steps. No, he doesn’t want to come clean.

The words fly back and forth like a tennis match. Too fast for him to keep control of what he’s saying and how you’re hearing it. He wants to break it off – is there anything to break off? – but he doesn’t want to lose you – how can you lose something you never had? – and then: did he ever have you in the first place?

You’re standing over him, between his knees. “End it,” you tell him. “I’ll go.”

There’s a casualness in the loose shrug of your shoulders that scares him more than the prospect of you actually leaving. How easy it looks like it could be, for you to just wander out. Sling your bag over your shoulder and revert back to the start of the summer, when he was just a ride home after a rainy day at work.

Forget how to touch him the way he’s certain only you can, forget the secret language between you, forget every stolen glance and whispered word and every thought that ever translated from your brain to his as easy as they would pass between your lips.

“You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?” He’s laughing. Disbelief, fear, shock. Whichever one it is, it pulls across his cheeks painfully. Somehow, you’ve ended up at the foot of his bed.

“Well, what else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”

It’s cold water over an already-dying fire. The words smother into ash on his tongue. No more come to the front. He just stares at you. His phone starts to chitter out into the silence between you.

You take a step forward. Your voice is low. “You don’t get to do this, you know. You don’t get to pull me in and then drop me…once you’re done with me.”

“Don’t.”

It’s not much, but it soars from the pit of his stomach, through his throat and past his lips like a final arrow. All he can muster up.

“Don’t.”

There’s a weight where the words originate from. Something deep in his gut, an ache pulling its way upward, swelling across his chest. His ears are screaming.

Of all the things you might think – he’s an asshole, he’s a liar, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing – the worst one would be that he spent this entire time leading you on. Making you feel special. Making you think you were something to him.

You are something to him. You’re – you’re fucking everything to him. It’s why he’s doing this, right? Going against every instinct, every gut feeling. To protect you. To do what’s right by you. He’s not fucking done with you. He wonders if he’ll ever go another day in his life without thinking about you.

“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper, and his lungs steal a breath. His lack of response flattens your expression.

Joel might not be done, but you are.

He can feel you slipping from his grasp like sand through his knuckles. Each grain rocking itself loose, choosing to throw itself to the depths below rather than spend another second wrapped in his clutch.

He’s trying so desperately to hold onto you. Listen to me, he thinks, and he knows you can’t hear him anymore. Because now you’re really going – you’re tripping out of his room. Your heel catches on the threshold, like one last-ditch attempt from fate to pull you back into him, but you stop yourself and spin, fleeing down the hallway.

He takes a loose grasp of your wrist, fingers barely meeting on the other side of your skin before you tear it away from him like he’s scalded you. The look on your face makes him think for a moment that he might actually have done it – burned you. Pained you. Raised the skin below your gentle palm in a furious, red glow.

He’s swapping words out like they’re tools, each one immediately breaking and being flung back into the box. He’s trying any combination, any useless, futile order of words to make you stop in your tracks. You know how much I care about you, ‘s why I’m doin’ it, baby, come back, we can talk about this.

And he opens his mouth to give voice to the only words he knows would stop you – the reason why he’s doing it in the first place, the only thought he’s had anytime he’s looked at you for the last couple weeks. He opens his mouth to say it, or say something like it, when the machine silences the ringtone and the pair of you, too.

Her voice is like ice down the back of his shirt. He stares at the machine, red light blinking like a rag to a bull. He could walk over to it and smash the ever-loving fuck out of it with his fists until it’s dust on his coffee table. Until it shuts the fuck up, stops interfering with his fucking business.

And then he thinks about Lois, and her cream blouse, and her red nails, and her big, blue eyes, and her soft drawl and everything about her that is so entirely opposite to everything about you.

And how much – despite how nice and friendly, or funny and good-natured she is – how much he hates her right now, and how much he fucking loves you.

But you’re gone, now. Washed away by the tide. No more sand in Joel’s palm.

He tries to stop it. Tries to wind back a little, tries to make the sea cough up what it just stole from him. Give her back, you fuck. His eyes are stinging like salt water. Why are they stinging? There’s a roaring in his ears – the waves laughing in his face. Sickly and deafening.

He’s doing his best to keep a hold on his trembling voice. He knows he sounds pathetic. But yours is louder, stronger, steadier. And when you talk, it’s with an air of finality. Like you’re turning over the horizon. The last time he’ll ever see you again.

“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”

----------

He doesn’t call or text you that night. He doesn’t know what he’d say. Doesn’t even know where he’d begin. You’re mad, and Joel figures you got every right to be. This entire thing – today, this weekend, the whole month you’ve been together – is one big fucking mess.

He spends the afternoon hunched over his kitchen table, trying to distract himself with work. Twirling a pencil between his fingers, reading three, four, sometimes five times over the same building plans before deciding that the words and numbers won’t fucking sink in. He leaves them strewn across the table, wanders aimlessly upstairs and takes a cold shower.

Sarah’s flight gets in at 8PM. Joel’s sat curbside, truck engine humming, scanning every single figure that walks out of the airport building. When he spots the gray hoodie, the brown hair tied back with a pink scrunchie, the much-too-big-for-four-days-away suitcase rolling at her heels, he gets out.

She hugs her friends, they nod in passing greeting to him, and she skips over.

“Hey,” he breathes as she wraps her arms around his waist. “How was your flight? Saw you comin’ in.”

She shrugs in response. “I’m hungry. Wanna go get McDonald’s?”

Joel grumbles, slotting her case in the back of the truck. “You don’t wanna get home? Take a shower first? You smell like plane.”

“Ha! No.”

She opens the passenger side door and hoists her foot up on the seat, retying her sneaker. Joel’s already in and buckled up, hands on the wheel, watching her blue nails loop the laces.

“There’s one, like, ten minutes away.”

He’s shaking his head. “We got food in the house.”

Her gaze lifts. Her foot drops. “Oh, c’mon, it’s on the way home. We’ll be, like, five minutes. I just got off a two-hour flight, dude, right through dinner. I’m starving, I –”

“Would you just get in the damn truck, Sarah?”

It’s shorter, snappier, angrier than he meant. But he’s parked in the middle of the packed pick-up area, and the rattling of suitcase wheels and the whistling of cab drivers and the fucking roaring of planes overhead are making the headache behind his eyes worse.

Sarah freezes, one arm still leaning on the doorframe. “Jesus. What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Joel mutters, shaking his head. “Sorry. Just – get in.”

“No need to be an asshole about it,” she murmurs, pulling herself up into the passenger seat.

Joel’s face is in his hands, elbows atop the steering wheel. “I’m not tryna be an asshole,” he says into his palms.

His daughter looks at him. Concerned. “Somethin’ happen? While I was gone?”

He shakes his head again.

Nothing happened.

He’s quiet the rest of the night. The rest of the week. Sarah notices, he knows she does, because she pries. In her own way. She’s smarter than he is. Less obvious.

She’s already up and in the kitchen when he rises on Tuesday morning. Spins around at the toaster, tells him the machine’s ready for his coffee. Asks if he wants her to make it. Asks if he wants any breakfast.

Thanks, kiddo. No, I’ll get it. No, you’re good, thanks.

They sit opposite one another in silence, save for the crunching of Sarah’s toast. He can feel her eyes on him, same way he felt Lois’s. Trying to burrow deep inside, take a look at his brain. Catch a glimpse of the words he’s thinking over and over and over.

There ain’t no words, though. It’s just images. Video replay of your back as you strode down his driveway, the way the wind caught your hair and brushed your cheek, the way your hand came up to wipe your tears. And the way he stood there, like a fucking idiot, and did nothing.

His chest hurts any time he thinks about you. Pulls in, knits itself together in knots. He’s good at pushing feelings down, good at turning them away from the sunlight like faded pebbles. But this is different. It’s a different kind of hurt.

It’s unresolved, it’s an open wound. It’s you. And it’s every time he hears REO Speedwagon, every time he pulls a flannel over his shoulders and catches the scent of your perfume on it, every time he’s flicking through the TV and catches a flash of a hospital setting, it’s a pair of hands deep inside the wound, pulling it a little wider.

It aches. It stings and it aches and it winds.

And then he turns the pebbles around. Back to the shade. Over and over and fucking over.

On Wednesday night, he caves. Asks Sarah if she’s spoken to you.

She’s chewing on a slice of pizza; licks the grease from her fingertips before she answers. “Not really. She’s been quieter than usual. Why?”

“She’s been quieter than usual?” he repeats, playing off the way his head shot up by looking straight back down at the pizza box.

Sarah narrows her eyes. “Yeah. I figure she’s working a lot.”

“Right. Right.”

“She gets tired of being in the house all the time, I think. Getting treated like a kid still. So I guess the more time she can spend outta there, the better.”

Joel nods slowly. He already knows that much.

Sarah studies him. Watches his hands as he dabs a pizza crust into the dip. When he tosses it in his mouth, he looks back up at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “You want the last slice?”

“You take it,” he mutters, sitting back and wiping his hands on a napkin. “I’m stuffed.”

She hums, reaching forward. “Whatever it is,” she says, pulling the dough apart, “that’s got you this down –”

“Ain’t nothin’ got me down, kiddo.”

“– whatever it is,” she continues, “I bet it works itself out.”

Sarah stands up, taking her water with her, and wanders out of the kitchen.

----------

Joel struggles through another sleepless night, Thursday through Friday. His eyes don’t close over once. He hauls himself out of bed early in the morning, forces a black coffee down his throat, and heads off to work.

He’s up at some new client in Waco. Andrew Curtis – or, well, Andrew Curtis’s father, but Joel’s been dealing primarily with the son, and the guy’s a fucking imbecile. Doesn’t know his head from his ass, probably. And he has a voice like nails on a damn chalkboard, and his shirt’s untucked around the back, but Joel ain’t got a tone kind enough, or half the wordsmanship, or an ounce of energy to tell him.

Anyway – he spends all day at this dusty site, trying to work and instead, thinking about whatever the fuck you’re doing. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. It’s almost seven by the time he’s leaving, packing up his truck and watching Andrew Curtis across the yard. He’s spotted his own shadow; he’s twisting around to reach the ducktail poking out from above his belt loops.

Joel thinks to call you about it on the way home. Tell you all about the guy: his dry conversation, his flannel, the fact he kept calling Joel Joe all day. He figures it would make you laugh, least the way he’d tell it, and he reckons that’s exactly what you need right now. That’s exactly what he needs, right now.

When Clark’s call him, he dials your dad. Has his ear blown half to hell by the speakerphone. Learns midway through the conversation that you’re right there in the car, too, and bites back a stream of incoherent, senseless words. Settles for a quiet reminder: he’s right here if you need him.

He doesn’t expect you to take him up on it. Knows you got better things to do than deal with some asshole who’d rather break your heart than have a few difficult conversations. You’re probably having fun, probably finally feeling good again. You’re probably fine.

But still. He doesn’t sleep that night, either.

It’s just gone two when Anna calls. He’s lying in bed, some shopping network on loop on the TV. His tired eyes bore into the screen, defocusing over the pixels, not watching nor listening and barely fucking breathing until he picks up the phone. Her voice is panicked, shrill, and shaking so much he wonders if his own phone is trembling with it.

“Mr. Miller?” she asks, and Joel sits up. “Got your number from Yelp. ‘m sorry it’s so late, it’s…oh, fuck – it’s, like, 2AM.”

“Anna,” Joel says hoarsely. Get to the fuckin’ point.

“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.”

It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks –

“Where is she?”

“We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –”

“’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

In one long, drawn breath, she spills. “She was fucked from the second we walked in here; she drank too much too quick, Mr. Miller – Joel,” she says when he corrects her, “and then she just – I dunno, she just – fucking disappeared with these guys, me ‘n Kara never saw ‘em in our lives – and they went upstairs we think, and she came back smelling like weed, and then this guy – he just, like, scooped her off, Mr. M– I mean Joel, like, totally dragged her away, and then –”

“Who–? Anna – Anna, wait,” Joel says, shushing her between her rambling, trying to rein in what she’s saying. When she finally shuts up, he speaks slowly and calmly. “Who dragged her away?”

“We don’t fuckin’ know!” she almost shrieks down the line. It cuts out for a second and Joel’s heart stops dead.“– so we don’t know,” she says when her voice filters back through into his ear, “but Sam said he saw the dude drop something in her bottle when he turned away. A pill or something.”

Joel’s body tenses. Freezes solid, with the blood in his veins. His eyes fix on one spot on his dresser: the loose handle that sits a little squint. He stares at it until his peripheral starts to blur.

“He – say that again?”

“He roofied her, we think. But we can’t fucking find them. Sam and Kara are in there just now looking. The guy pulled her away, that’s what I’m tryna say!”

“Right,” whispers Joel, nodding. He drags a heavy hand over his eyes, tries to push the image of you in danger out of his head for one second so he can figure out what to do.

Anna doesn’t hear him. She keeps talking. “…and then Sam said she told him not to call her dad, but I had to call someone, y’know? You’re the only person I think she wouldn’t – I think she wouldn’t mind me callin’. Please.”

He’s already halfway down the stairs, arms pushing through the sleeves of his shirt. He keeps the phone against his cheek when he bends to reach for his boots, ties them loose and grabs his keys.

“You call me as soon as you find her, you hear? I’m on my way,” he tells Anna, and hangs up.

He’s panicking. Fear, transferred between her cell and his, creeping over his shoulders, wrapping long, cold fingers around his throat. He’s panicking. He’s panicking. He never panics. Where the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you with?

There’s barely any traffic on the road, but the drive takes for-fucking-ever. The lights at the side of the road blur into long, thin streaks of orange. His hands are tight around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. Your name lies loose on his lips.

He pulls up right outside the bar. There are small clusters of people, congregated tight together under the streetlights; cigarettes hanging from lips, bottles loose in hands. He shoves by them on his way to the door. Some guy shuffles out of his way, looking up to cuss Joel out and quickly dipping his head again when he locks eyes with the grizzly expression.

He shoves the door open with his shoulder, and spots you instantly.

----------

His knuckles are throbbing. Skin stretching anytime he moves his hand, searing hot and sharply stinging across the bone. Your touch is the only thing soothing them right now.

He got two good punches in. Just two. Burst the guy’s nose. He would’ve kept going, had he not been in a bar full of people – people who knew who he was – and had you not been stood behind him, body liquid-like from how much you were swaying.

But he has you home now. Up in your room, settled in bed. You’re safe. You’re with him.

You’re fucking wasted. Like, can barely lift a glass of water to your lips unaided wasted. He spent the entire drive watching over you, stealing glances when your head turned or your eyes lulled closed, checking you were still awake, still talking, still fucking breathing.

Whatever that asshole gave you, you don’t seem to have had enough for it to do too much damage. The alcohol is the real culprit. Though you were cognitive enough to yell at him over Lois in the kitchen, which relieved him for a second before it fucking crushed him. He’s lying awake right now – listening to the sound of your snoring – replaying the argument in his head. Over and over.

You’re an asshole and a liar. Just stringing me along this whole time.

He’s some awful cocktail of angry and terrified and fucking heartbroken. You’re lying inches from him, your hand resting softly on top of his, and yet – you’re miles away. The space between you both – fragmented, treacherous.

In a perfect world, he’d have wrapped his arms around your shoulders. He’d have pulled you against his weight, against his strong, steady form. And he’d have walked you, as slow as you needed, out of the bar and to his truck. Maybe laughing. Maybe singing.

He’d have told you everything was fine, told you he loved you, told you he was gonna get you home, make you feel better. He’d hold you until the sun came up, and then hold you until it went back down.

He’d love you. And you’d let him.

Maybe that world doesn’t exist, Joel thinks. And maybe that’s for the better.

It fucking hurts, though. Stings like a hot blade through his chest. All this time, messing around, pretending there was nothing more to it. Letting his feelings through like water in a fucking dam. It was bound to break eventually.

And maybe he really thought, even just for a fleeting moment, there could be something here. Something worth holding onto. More than two idiots messing around, more than sex and secrecy.

He didn’t even realize. Didn’t notice the shift. When did he start feeling…more? When did it cross that line?

He’s staring at the end of your bed. Thinking about you under him, gripping onto his shirt, his hand between your legs. The very first time. And every other fucking time since then. Which one was the threshold? Who pushed who?

His ringtone bursts through the silence, making him jump. His arm swings to fish it from the nightstand, swiping to answer before he’s even read who’s calling, just to shut the thing up.

“Hello?” he murmurs.

“Hey, Joe? Uh, I mean, Joel? It’s Andrew Curtis here.”

He rolls his eyes. For fuck’s sake. “Mornin’, Andrew.”

“Hi. Sorry, I know it’s super early. I’m just checkin’ we’re still good to go. I got my guys ready, we’re rarin’ to get goin’ whenever you are.”

Joel clears his throat, pushing slowly off the plush mattress, resting your hand on the sheets. “Yeah, uh…” He slips out of your room, hopping over to the bathroom and closing the door over. “…I had a, uh…a family emergency durin’ the night. I’m gonna be a little late, but I’ll be there.”

“Oh, gee, I hope everything’s alright?”

He phrases it like he wants Joel to clue him in. He considers for a second actually saying, Yeah, my best friend’s daughter – who I’ve been sleeping with for the last month – got plastered at a bar – Frank’s, local place, you heard of it? – because I broke things off with her – but I didn’t want to, I was just tryna be fuckin’ noble – and I went and picked her up, punched a guy who was tryna hurt her, because guess what, Andrew – I’m in fuckin’ love with her.

He sums it up with: “Yeah. Everything’s fine now. Thanks.”

“Alright, well, great news! Call me when you’re twenty minutes out, I’ll have the guys here for you arrivin’. Safe journey, Joe!”

Joel breathes an Uhuh and hangs up, holding the bridge of his nose. He has a headache, like he’s the one who’s been drinking. It’s only going to get worse, too, heading off to go spend his Saturday with Andrew fucking Curtis and his loose flannel.

The sun’s rising slowly, lighting the hall in a warm glow. Joel pads quietly into your room and pulls the cover back over his side of the mattress. You stir; your head jerks only to move some hair from your face, and then you sigh, sleep pulling you back into its arms.

He watches you for a second. Wishes he could run a light hand down your cheek, kiss your head. Whisper a goodbye, the same way you did to him almost a week ago.

He shakes the thought, collecting his boots from the floor. His hand hovers over his shirt for a moment. And then he lifts it by the collar, lays it neatly on the pillow by your head, and leaves. You can keep it, trash it, burn it. But it’s yours. Everything about him is yours.

In the kitchen, he stands by the sink, nursing a cup of coffee. It’s a quarter to six. This early on a Saturday, he figures he’ll be in Waco by seven, seven-thirty latest. His eyes fix on the spot you two stood last night, yelling back and forth about Lois. She seems so far away, now. He can barely remember the shape of her face, the sound of her voice.

His grip tightens around the mug. He places it in the sink, and grabs his keys. As he passes the stairs, he pauses. Leans on one foot, head tilted to listen out for any sound of life. Any fucking sound – the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a door handle. Anything to keep him here. Anything.

Nothing comes. No sound, no movement, no you.

He closes the front door gently on his way out.

----------

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(psst! after this weekend my taglist is no more! follow @macfroglets + turn on notifs if you wanna be in the know when i post!)

[sagiow]

Fic Asks: for In Camera, ✿ &▵; ✦, if you're feeling generous!

✿ did anything major change when you started writing [fic] to when you finished?

Oh yeah. The word and chapter count.

I NEVER in a million years expected this to go over 30K words. I have NEVER written anything this long all by myself.

My initial plan was 5 chapters including a final smut scene. All over in ~10k because my typical batting average is 2K per story.

I fell into more than a few deep research holes that uncovered "fun" facts that I wanted to incorporate into the main story (that whole Cornelia = Horn = Pawnee thing ruined me, and *you* also took me on a ride with the whole "when is a talk about horses truly about horses?" side quest). And then there was all of Eli's trauma to at least try to deal with too.

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line

A favorite line out of 30K words is next to impossible. I know that one that popped up in my head fairly early and marinated there very long (because rabbit holes and side quests) was Eli's "[...] we should be finding us another orphan in a day or so." [...] What do you say we keep that one?"

which really represents the Happy Peak of Mount Ship for these two and when the whole thing starts tumbling down the other side.

And also because it was followed by "A new family. With you." which was a totally gratuitious recall to the found family discussion from the show (and the always hilarious ".....nono I was... merely reversing the argument" that sadly I still haven't found a way to call back BUT I WILL. (this is another gratuitious call back))

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

Well the one I'm working on right now -part time. extremely part time- feels like 50 pushups every sentence but Spring Baseball Tsunami has finally hit so that might be that. The Brain is Elsewhere. And after 4-5 months, the Heart has Healed.

Oddly, I think The English fics have been generally easier (or at least, quicker) to write than most of the Mercy Street ones, but maybe it's just the experience finally kicking in. North Star, Chief Star was really quick (probably because I was doing just about anything to avoid the Angst Fest that In Camera had devolved into, at that point. Same goes for writing that fun epilogue with Cornelia and Neil and Julian Potentially Reincarnated and Promptly Shot as a Goose.).

I think both the endings of In Camera and Acikskatakusiir have been really tough to write (hell, even the latter's title is still a "copy / paste from AO3" game). It pains me as much as my Dear Readers to leave characters in a sad, unresolved, canon-compliant place. And I may have my membership card now, but writing smut does not come naturally AT ALL. Maybe that's why that next one feels like flipping tractor tires across a field: I ower you all a SleeperCar Smut scene.

Going further back in your honor, Old Mansion House Friend, crossovers are My Special Place in Hell so I remember our Mercy Street Holiday "Silver and AU" Challenge being especially difficult to work on, but there was no way I was not participating in a Mercy Street Holiday Challenge with you fine folks.

Thank you for the ask (and the patience with a VERY long answer!)

[yeojaa]

( VELVETEEN RABBIT. )

What do you get when you mix Thumper and Bambi?  Answer:  Jeon Jungkook.

pairing.  french lop bunny!jjk x ragdoll cat f!reader.

genre + rating.   hybrid!au set in college.  super fluffy, a little angsty, with a dash of smut to balance it all out.  explicit towards the end because i just can’t help myself.  oops.

tags / warnings.  honestly, this jungkook should just come with his own warning.  but more realistically, mentions of kook using a scrunchie, kook being cute, kook railing his date after using the world’s worst puns...  the usual.

wc.  4.4k

beta reader(s).  @hobi-gif​ as always become, c’mon.  i’m me.  she’s her.  

author note.  this was written as part of @thebtswritersclub​‘s a hybrid fest and is gloriously late (i’m so sorry @ditttiii​​).  i’ve never written anything hybrid-related before so hopefully you enjoy.  feedback goes a long way!  xoxo

He orders the same thing every time he’s in.  Iced Americano, no room for cream, and a single almond croissant.  (Every once in a while, he switches it up for matcha but that’s exceedingly rare.)  He always pays with a tap of his wrist - a sleek black AppleWatch with rubber band - and flashes his trademark slightly too-big smile.  All the girls swoon.  So do the guys.  Everyone except for you.

He’s unnervingly handsome, with long dark ears that sometimes hang in front of his eyes.  You’ve caught him with them pulled back Lola Bunny-style, knotted with a loose silk scrunchie that looks nearly as soft as his fur.  His hair’s usually unkempt, tossed into a little sprout of a bun, overly long fringe falling all over his big round eyes.  He wears butterfly clips sometimes, though that’s usually on days where he isn’t freshly sweaty and carrying his gym bag.  They appear in his hair when it’s damp from a shower, the smell of papaya and honey clinging to every inch of him.  You know, because you have a great nose - one that’s sensitive to every smell under the sun but especially his.  (You try not to think about it much.)  

It’s a Wednesday morning when you notice the change.  It doesn’t register at first, acknowledgement coming in a curious sniff at the air.  Weird. 

“Thanks,” he says like clockwork, a well-oiled polite machine, deceptively slender hands receiving the exceedingly hot cup without a care in the world. He’s got his usual bag over his shoulder - overly big, black, almost tactical - and a pair of comfortable looking pants on that seem more like they belong on your beloved grandmother.  Somehow, he rocks it (but he always does).  “Have a nice day.”

Because of course he says that.  Of course he steals the words right out of your mouth, turns them back on you as easy as he makes your heart rattle around in your chest like it’s a Friday night bingo ball. 

He moves toward the bar - he only ever grabs three napkins, tucks them into the slot on the left side of his bag - but pauses halfway there.  Rooted to the same spot as always, sleek ears following the imposing line of his shoulders.  

One, two—

The thumping starts, so quiet it’s almost negligible.  But you catch it, because you always do and because you’re the reason for it. 

He turns then, levels you with a look from the corner of those pretty, pretty eyes and you can’t help but laugh, openly, unashamedly, with the back of your hand plastered to your mouth. A true ojou-sama. 

His mouth quirks - does that funny thing where he sucks in his cheek then rolls it back out with his tongue - and you think he might finally say something.  Call you out for writing his name wrong for the past five weeks, finding more and more creative ways to do so every time.  Even occasionally using nicknames - silly things you’d come up with while on the walk home, or during lunch, or in bed.

“Good one,”  he states, laugh lines threading over his face, prominent around his eyes.  His nose wiggles with the sound - another of his traits that comes out to play often.  Your favourite of them all, if you’re being honest.

“Anytime.”  

You don’t realise it’s him until it’s too late, until you’re practically running into him, bouncing off the broad expanse of his back with a startled squeak.  Lucky for you, you’re quick on your feet, catching yourself before your skull can become too well-acquainted with the red brick wall to your right.

“You okay?”  Though he asks, you have a sneaking suspicion he knows you’re not and an even stronger suspicion that he’d been waiting for you, hovering past the entrance of the cafe with his big university hoodie on.

“Barely,”  you manage around a laugh, straightening the backpack slung over your shoulders, packed to the brim with goodies you got to bring home at the end of the night and two of your textbooks.

“Should watch where you’re going.”  

This is the most conversation you’ve had - ever.  But it’s fun, easy, organic and natural.  You wonder why that is. 

“You should watch where you’re standing, actually.”

He’s so much bigger than you, imposingly tall (especially being part of the Leporidae family) and wide in the chest.  Not bulky by any means, but big.  Strong.  Threaded with a strength you don’t normally see in hybrids of his kind.  It probably has to do with how often you see him covered in sweat and panting, basketball hooked under his arm, soccer cleats tied to his bag.

When he speaks again, it’s full of mirth, squeezing his round eyes near shut.  “Got a problem with me standing here?”  

You nod, solemn as ever (which is really never, but that’s besides the point).  “It’s dangerous to block entryways, didn’t you know?”  You’re gesturing to the awning, the dark interior just past the window of the shop.  “You’re loitering, Jungkook.”

“So you do know my name.”  You can tell he’s not surprised - that he’s hamming it up for dramatics, softly pink lips rounded in a little ‘O’.  He’s cute like this, you think.  Playful in a way you’ve never seen before.  

“I do?” 

There’s that cheek thing again.  It’s even more attractive up close, the shape of his jaw thrown into prominent relief when he sucks in a breath.  

“You just said it.”

You nod, thoughtful, finger tapping upon your chin.  “I guess I did.”

“Say it again,”  he states, expression inscrutable, eyes bright.  They’re so glossy even under the dimmed streetlights, impossibly big and undeniable.  So easy to get lost in - if your attention weren’t caught by something else.

“What is that?”  

You’d noticed it earlier in the day, caught the scent in passing sometime during the early hours.  You’d been unable to place it then, too distracted by freshly ground coffee, a girl’s three too many spritzes of Daisy by Marc Jacobs, and baking banana loaves.

It’s heady, masculine.  A strong musk that sinks into your nose and makes it twitch, ears rotating as if that’ll help pin the smell down.  

“What’s what?”  You hadn’t realised how close you’d become, your face five seconds from planting directly into his chest.  (It’d probably be nice - you know how soft your school’s merchandise is.)  “Are you okay?”  He asks because you’re now, actually, planting your face right against the worn navy cotton.  It’s terribly nice, silk upon your cheek.  

You answer more to his clothes than to him, nosing into the fabric. “You smell different.”

You feel more than hear his laughter, the sound barreling past his teeth seconds later.  The vibrations running along his spine jostle you from your position face first upon him but you don’t mind.  It doesn’t send you far, dark eyes peering up into the face of the bunny hybrid.  True to his kind, his nose is twitching, puffs of laughter expanding his cheeks when he meets your stare. 

“No I don’t.”

“You do.”  Tone firm, a finger lands upon the neatly embroidered N on his hoodie.  The white stitching stands in stark contrast to your baby blue nails.  “You smell… off.”

Whether Jungkook’s offended or not, you can’t tell.  He’s got that same strange expression on his face - the one from this morning when he’d received his coffee.  It’s made up of too many moving parts:  the flutter of his lashes, the coil of his jaw, the minute tick of the corner of his mouth.  You can’t read him for shit, somehow more confused now than in your 300-level art history class.  (You’d taken it as one of your optional electives assuming it’d be an easy A.  You were wrong.)

“Sorry you think so,”  he hums, looking down at you.  You’ve seemed to fully forget the meaning of personal space, edged up beside him as if you’re best friends and not just two ships passing in the night. 

“It’s not bad.”  Really, it isn’t.  It’s strong and sensual, vegetal in a way, calming in another.  But it isn’t unwelcome. 

In fact, you think you might like this scent a little more - less sweet than what normally clings to his skin, natural honeycomb rather than processed sugar.  It zings across your teeth, pieces broken up and scattered behind your molars.  You can practically taste it.  Him.

“Is that so?”  

“Yep.”

You share a look - one that says more than all the words you’ve ever spoken, that threads together all the silly laughter, narrowed stares, (written) flirtations.  It settles between the two of you, filling the spaces with something akin to cotton, light and airy and soft.

The desire to speak lingers, hidden just beyond the cotton candy dusting.  Should you?  Shouldn’t you?  You still have no idea what he’s doing here, a street urchin making his rounds on the campus village.  

He beats you to it.  “Can I walk you back to your dorm?”  

You don’t think you could want anything more.  “Sure.”

Silence falls again but it’s comfortable, a caress rather than a crutch.  The grounds are surprisingly quiet - wayward students on their way to the library or heading home from lectures.  There are no picnic blankets spread across the grass, no gaggles of girls dressed in school colours.  It feels like the first day of fall, change sitting heavy in the air. 

“So—”  You start.

He finishes,  “do you wanna go on a date with me?” 

That’s surprising.  (Or is it?  You’re not really sure.)  You nearly trip over your own two feet in your haste to look at him, entire body swivelling on the spot because apparently you can’t just turn your head like a normal person.  Something something all or nothing. 

“What?”  

“Do.  You.  Want.  To—”  He’s being insufferable for the hell of it.  You can see it in his eyes, glossy things shining down at you like he’s got the entire fucking nightsky hung in them.  

“Not if you keep that up,”  you retort, though you both know you’re lying.  You’ve been waiting - wishing, wanting - for this moment since the day you laid eyes on him.  Since Yuri had elbowed you so hard in the ribs you’d thought you’d be bruised for days, since Jae had rambled on and on for his entire shift about the cute new bunny who’d come in that morning.  Since that very first wrongly spelt name on his plastic cup and every visit since.  

“Is that a challenge?”  

“You won’t get it in.”  

He scoffs, loud and drawn out, cheek rounding with disbelief at your disbelief.  How can you possibly doubt him - school basketball star and all-around athletic freak of nature? 

“What do I get if I do?”  The ball rests in his palm, poised to be shot through the hoop, sunk without making contact with the rim.  He’s confident - he’s done it a million times.  

“A pat on the back?”  As much as you tease him - loop mockery around nearly every syllable you speak, you’re endlessly supportive, already carrying the fruits of his labour under your arms.  A Pikachu shoved haphazardly into the purse slung across your body, a Snorlax tucked under your arm at an awkward angle that crushes his poor head, a Sylveon tucked into the side pocket of his joggers.  (The arcade was really into Pokemon, apparently.)  “Me saying thank you?”

“Not good enough.”  He leans in close - those big galaxy eyes practically swallowing you whole - and taps a single finger upon your nose.  It makes your nostrils flare, an itch blooming under his touch.  “Gotta sweeten the deal.”

You must look hilarious because Jungkook’s biting back a smile, smirking down at you.  Then, all at once, without breaking eye contact, he’s extending his arm, flicking his wrist, and— swish!  

In goes the ball, leaving him with a perfect score.  

“I want you to stay the night.”

You think he’s joking.  He must be joking.  This is your third date.  

But he’s staring at you like he’s completely serious, gaze expectant, lips pursed around something that reads like a smile but has your heart doing a strange little one-two step in your chest.  It soars for a moment, high above the clouds like the string orchestra of a choral work - Beethoven’s Ninth in D minor. 

“Are you propositioning me, Jeon Jungkook?”  It’s the same reaction he always has when you say his name: a twitch of his ear, the corner of his bottom lip quirking and then resetting, eyes so sparkly it’s almost absurd.

“No.  I’m just telling you what I want.”

“Huh.”  You should say no.  Guys like him - with charm that oozes out of every pore, whose offhanded smiles break more hearts than you ever have - are almost always bad news.  Too sweet, too funny, simply too much for your feeble heart to take.  

“Is that a yes?”  He’s got you in his clutches - a viper rather than a hare, with a smile so dangerous you’re paralysed by just the sight of it.  (Who needs venom?)

Your words catch in your throat, stick to one another like the deformed gummies at the bottom of the movie theatre bag.  What comes out isn’t what you expect.  “Okay.”

Damn you.  Damn him.  Damn how good he smells and the big dumb grin that spreads over his lips, sunshine in human form, undeniable and warm and cute enough to start a war over.  (That’s probably what’s happening - a vicious battle between your head and your heart.)  

Damn his stupid thumping foot that you can make out over the sound of the video games, the boisterous din.  It’s so cute you can’t help yourself from smiling, mouth pulling and pursing around the delight that begs to be freed.  

“Cool,”  he says, and you almost think that’s not very cool.  He’s so nonchalant, cavalier about it as if it means nothing.  You’d be bothered if you felt like you didn’t know him so well - hadn’t learnt his idiosyncrasies over the last two months.  

How he looks when he laughs really hard, his slightly too-big front teeth taking up all the real estate in his mouth.  How he sounds when he’s tired (groggy, with a lisp that rarely sees the light of day otherwise) or when he’s told he’s wrong (pouty, with his bottom lip jutted out so cutely you want to scream).  How he runs every morning, hits the gym every night, and eats double your protein because fitness, bro!  How his cheat meal of choice is soy garlic fried chicken from the place off-campus and he hates tangy, tart desserts (your lemonade lip gloss not included, he insists).  How he can’t sleep if he’s too hot - which he often is - and he spends way too long combing through his ears with a specialty brush he doesn’t let anyone touch.  How he’s secretly raindrops and gummy bears and hand holding in the car, so much more than his high school superlative of most likely to grace the cover of GQ.

You wonder, because you know those things, does that make you special?  Does it make you immune to the heartbreak that you swear you imagine whenever your mood drops (not often, but often enough)?  

You hope so.

“Let’s go shoot guns?”  He’s tearing you from your reverie, planting an open-mouthed kiss to your temple.  It’s sloppy and not very refined, much less suave than what you’d expect from your school’s soccer captain (and basketball small forward and swim team stand-in).  You suppose that’s why you like him so much - because he’s always surprising you, keeping you on your toes. 

“Let’s.”  You agree, letting your date drag you toward the Time Crisis machine.  It’s blissfully unoccupied, allowing the two of you to slide into place.  He takes the blue gun, you the red.  

He squeezes your hip when you take up position, one eye squeezed shut as you look down the barrel of the plastic weapon.  “Better not let me die.”

“Better not get shot,”  you return.  

He doesn’t listen - failing halfway through the helicopter scene, his shot missing and resulting in some sad miserable death in the form of Continue? blinking across the screen.  Neither of you mind that much though.  He occupies himself on his phone, free hand tucked into the back pocket of your jeans.  You play better when he’s not shouting terrible call-outs, nearly crashing into you because he gets so into it.

(How he’s never got a concussion on the basketball/soccer/etc. field before, you’re not sure.)

By the time you’re done - a good five minutes later, you think - Jungkook’s growing restless, tugging at your belt loops enough that you stumble with every shot, nearly knocking yourself out when you have to steady yourself on the centre console.  

“Kook!”  Your glare is barely that, too affectionate to dissuade him from his childish antics.  

He pulls you forward, traps you between his thick thighs, tattooed hands settling comfortably on your hips.  “Let’s go home.”

“Someone’s in a hurry.”

Of course, he doesn’t deny that.

It’s not the first time you’ve been over.  Not even your second or third.  You’ve met up with him before his games, thrown his jersey overtop and helped him wrap his fingers before hitting the court.  You’d even had to grab his cleats for him once, running across campus as he did drills in his socks as punishment.

This time feels different.  You know why but it doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow.  It lodges somewhere in your throat, makes it hard to breathe when you kick off your shoes and tuck them neatly beside Jungkook’s.  

“Are you hungry?”  He’s already in the small kitchen, glancing over his shoulder at you as you linger in the adjoining hallway, bag halfway over your head.  

“I’m good.”  You are, really.  You’d eaten one donut too many at the arcade, indulged in a little too much disgusting nacho cheese goodness.  You don’t really understand how your date’s still hungry, a cucumber crunching between his teeth when he turns back to you. 

Standing there, vegetable devoured in quick, decisive bites, he looks every inch the French lop bunny he is.

You reach him in the same instant he finishes his midnight snack.  Arms fold around you like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing, head dropping to rest comfortably upon yours.  Like this, his ears tickle your cheek - velveteen fur lost to the silk of your hair.  “Are you tired?”  

Another no comes - spoken into the fuzzy fabric of his sweater - and he hums above you, whole frame rattling with the noise.  

“No bed then?”  

At least he’s transparent, you think.

“One track mind much?”  You’re only teasing.  A part of you looks forward to… whatever it is that sits over the horizon, lost past the creaky bedroom door and somewhere beneath his surprisingly soft sheets.  (You’d asked about them once - he’d told you his mother liked to send him housewares to remind him of home.  He was a real mama’s boy that way.)

The monster only laughs, snuggles into your hair like it’s home.  “Can you blame me?”  

You can’t do much of anything when he’s like this - so utterly adorable and enticing and good for your heart that it feels as if you’ve taken a straight dose of morphine.

“Let’s go to bed, Wookie.”  Another nickname, recently coined after you’d spent an evening watching Star Wars for the first time.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You whack him on the way to his bedroom, smack a hand over the arm curled around your shoulders.  He pretends like it hurts, howls in a way he he thinks resembles a wounded animal but really just sounds stupid.  “Not a ma’am.”

“Sir?”  He asks, just to make you laugh. 

“If you don’t shut up—”  

He pushes you through the door of his bedroom while giggling to himself, sound puffing out of his cheeks.  “Don’t be mad, kitten.”  The two of you drop to the bed, a tangle of limbs and silken fur and squeaking laughter.  “You’re so purr-ty when you’re annoyed.”

He’s doing it again.  Dropping those stupid cat puns that make your nose wrinkle, ink-tipped ears folding back against your head.   

“I think I’m hiss-terical, don’t you?”  

Face adamantly buried into his sheets, you don’t give him the time of day.  You don’t even care that your mascara is probably rubbing off against the charcoal fabric, lipstick tint doing potentially irreversible damage.  He knows how unfunny you find these jokes, how you’ve heard them your whole life and roll your eyes so hard your optic nerve might sever every time you face another.  

What’s the point of sharing your pet peeves with him when all he does is lean into them?  Use them against you like it’s the cool thing to do.  Make you wonder what you’d seen in him when he was just another customer, another boy in Seoul National indigo and bedhead so dishevelled it begged to be managed.  

(You’re not sure why you’re so irritated suddenly, caught in the clutches of a moodswing as you curl into your side and ignore his bad jokes.)

Stupid Jeon Jungkook.  Annoying, silly, too-cool-for-his-own-good Jeon Jungkook.  

Jeon Jungkook who makes you second guess your choices, leaves you breathless and confused with just one dumb look.  Who has convinced you into his bed and teases you mercilessly, snickering to himself as his foot bounces against the floorboards because he finds himself that funny.

“Baby?”  The pet name comes, presses itself past your curtain of hair and invades your thoughts.  

You say nothing, adamantly faced away.

He doesn’t like that, sneaking his hands around you and cradling you into his chest as if that’ll lighten the mood.  (It does, a little bit, but you don’t tell him that.)  “Don’t ignore me,”  he mumbles, warmth breath tickling your ears, fingers dancing over the rungs of your ribs as if they’re ivory and not bone, playing a tune only he can hear.

“Stop with the shitty jokes,”  you retort.  You’re being difficult - can feel the vinegar turning your blood even as he tries to will it all away.

You feel the intake, the rise and fall of his broad chest.  You can only imagine how hard he’s biting his tongue, careful to keep his next errant pun at bay.  People don’t tell him no - only you.  Maybe that’s why you do it, to remind him you’re not just like everyone else.  

“Sorry.”  

You don’t tell him to show you how sorry— but he does anyway.

You’re astounded by him, utterly entranced by the way he moves.  How power runs the length of his frame, manoeuvres each of his limbs and turns your own to jelly.  

He’s got you face down, ass up, hands cradling your hips like they’re his home and he can’t bear to let go.  Every upward stroke feels like heaven - feels like a million lifetimes of pleasure you can barely wrap your thoughts around.  He’s impossibly big, thick and long.  The first thought you’d had when he’d stripped his black Calvin Kleins was pretty.  

You realise now there’s nothing pretty about him.  He’s filthy - the devil come to collect as he fucks you across his bed, nearly loses you to the pillows at the head with each snap of his hips.  (What they said about rabbits was true, you think.)

“B-Bunny,”  you sob, scratch over cotton that’s worn soft and smells exactly like your favourite sweater of his.  The linens are defenseless, tangled up and wrinkled with each flex of your fingers, bunched up within your palms every time he buries himself like he’s looking for the answer to life, thinks he might find it within the fluttering walls of your pussy.

“Not my name.”  When he sounds like this, he’s more predator than prey, a thousand volts of electricity shooting up your spine.  He’s demanding and unrelenting.  It makes your head spin.

“Wook—”  

“Not.”  Bunny teeth are just as painful as a feline’s, doing their job as they dig into the flushed skin over your back, marking his territory with two prominent indents right between your neck and shoulder.  “A.”  He ruts into you as if he’s got something to prove, snaps his hips to a beat you can’t keep up with.  “Wookie.”  Grips you so tight you might snap, red blooming beneath his hands.

You sob under him, drool against the pillows because you can’t seem to keep your mouth shut.  (You feel like Jungkook post-win, spewing nonsense as he prattles on about game winning plays with his teammates.)

“K-Kookie.”  It’s what he wants to hear - hits him right in the chest, a bull’s eye to the thing that beats wildly and in tandem with your own.  

His rhythm stutters.  The bed is shaking and not because he’s practically breaking the weak wooden frame.  No, his foot’s thumping, bouncing across the sheets even as he tries to regulate the roll of his hips, return it to the assured, teeth-numbingly good tempo it’d been at.  

It doesn’t work.  You love it anyway.  Like it more, because it means he’s just as affected by you as you are him. Your heart sings, leaps out of your chest on hummingbird wings, and dances around your head.  You’re a goddamn cartoon - Pepé Le Pew in ragdoll form - animated pink shapes circling like a crown.

You don’t care.  You can’t.  Not when he plasters himself to your back and asks you to say it again, begs you to tell him how good he is, tells you how he wants to make you his.  

Who cares if it’s three dates in, if your meeting was cliched and silly and he’s the campus heartthrob?  

You don’t - because he’s yours and when he flips you onto your back and you curl your fingers into his hair, it’s your name he stutters out.  It’s you who has him coming apart beneath your hands, the feel of his ears like velvet, the little whines he huffs growing louder each time you tug at the base.  It’s you who knows what he sounds like as he falls to pieces, throws himself against you as if gravity demands it.  It’s you who holds him to sleep, whose skin acts as a canvas for the doodles he traces as he drifts off.  

It’s you and it’s him and that’s enough.

tag list.  @neverthefirstchoice​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​ @snackhobi​ @codeinebelle​​

[sirius-archive]

Bite Marks (The Mandalorian x Reader) SMUT

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Warnings: Unprotected sex (don’t be silly, wrap that willy), Dom/Sub, Rough sex, Oral sex (Reader receiving), Swearing. IF YOU’RE A MINOR, KINDLY FUCK OFF 

Word Count: 3.6k? I think? Who knows at this point

A/N: Nothing sexier than Jealous!Mando, amirite? 

***

The bounty was supposed to be easy.

All five mercenaries were dudebro fuckbois with high prices on their heads and a habit of pissing off the wrong people. They were all expected to be at the same club, too, which meant that you just had to flaunt some skin and purr honeyed promises and they’d be in the palm of your hands.

The bounty was supposed to be fucking easy .

It wasn’t.

***

The Mandalorian is suspicious. He always is.

“What are the chances of all six of our targets being in one place?” He says, “Seems suspicious. Could be a trap.”

“I considered that, too,” you remark from over your shoulder, searching idly for an outfit, “That was before I realised it was a Solastice festival. Literally hundreds of thousands of people rock up to this sleeze fest. No one wants to miss out on the free booze and the orgies,” Your fingers skim across a velvet mermaid dress, “How about this?”

Mando huffs out a grunt, “I should come.”

You toss the dress aside and search for another, “Who’s going to look after the Child?”

The Mandalorian stares long and hard at the Child, who blinks owlishly back at the Mandalorian, his inky eyes filled with adoration, “I know someone.”

“You sure you can trust them?”

“She’s taken care of him before.”

You give a noncommittal hum and hold out a lacy, navy-blue dress, “What about this?”

“That’s it?”

“What? You don’t like a bit of lace—?”

“—you’re not going to argue about me coming on this bounty with you?”

“It’ll be fun,” you smirk, throwing the dress away, “Besides, I like watching you in action. You’re sexy when you fight.”

Mando tilts his head. His expression is impossible to read but you suspect he might be amused, annoyed or confused.

Beaming excitedly, you flatten a sleek, backless dress with a plunging neckline against your body, imagining how the dress will hug your curves and flaunt your cleavage. A long split down the side will give you access to the blasters and daggers strapped to your thigh holster too. It’s classy with just enough sexy to keep the imagination stirring.

The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything for a long, measured moment. Somehow, perhaps ironically — the silence seems to whisper his approval.

You untie your silk dressing robe, letting it fall to the ground and pool around your feet. The Mandolorian averts his gaze. suddenly taking a keen interest in the small plant you’ve been watering. You wish you could see his face. Is he blushing? Is he horrified? Is he aroused?

Sliding into the dress, you turn and gesture to the zip kissing the small of your back. “Do you mind?”

The Mandalorian hesitates at first. Somehow, you can almost hear the clink of his thoughts colliding, like he’s mentally solving dynamical system calculations and differential equations. Finally, he stalks toward you and you feel the hesitancy begin to thaw as his gloved fingers twitch around the zip and tug.

His ghostly, featherlight touch lingers on your skin, following the line of your spine until he reaches the thin straps sitting elegantly on the knob of your shoulders. Summoning every ounce of your ex-assassin courage, you slowly turn to face him and stare deeply into the slit in his helmet, imagining the colour of his eyes. Are they a dazzling shade of blue? Or a lovely, rare shade of teal green? Perhaps a smokey umber or steely grey? Or were they like yours; a kaleidoscope of colour always shifting and changing and never one distinct shade?

The air thickens, electricity crackles.

Suddenly, the Mandalorian nods stiffly and stumps away, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You sigh, realising that there’s more than Beskar armour hiding his thick, prickly layers. Perhaps... , you muse, in that childishly naive way that only deep affection can stir, ... Perhaps  I’ll find a way to pry it off.

***

Outside, the festival rages.

The dancing crowd of celebrants are like a splash of vibrant colour against the bland backdrop of the surrounding buildings as they flood the streets, filling the air with hoots and cheer and vivid shades of life .

You perch on the barstool, keeping an eye on both your targets and the festival. The Mandalorian is sitting at a table in the far corner, close to the exit in case the targets are as dumb as they look and decide to make a break for it.

The bartender slides yet another drink your way from a hopeful suitor. You smile and take a sip, winking at the nervous, young man stealing furtive glances at you.

“My, my...” a greasy voice says from over your shoulder, “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing in dump like this?”

You spin in your stool and smirk.

The lead dudebro of the fuckboi boy-band is trying to make a pass at you. He thinks he sounds smooth but his pick up lines are equal parts cliche and cringy and they come off polished and second-hand, like he’d heard it from a grainy, amateur porn movie and decided it was a winner.

“Hoping to find myself a handsome fella,” you purr, flashing him your most alluring smile.

Dudebro leans against the counter, reeking of smoke and sweat and virile fuckboi testosterone. He trails a lewd gaze from your eyes down past your neck, spilling indulgently between your breasts, along the sloping curve of your hips, down to the skin of your thigh peeking out from where you have one leg crossed over the other.

“How is that working out for you?”

Your lips tilt into a cat-like smirk, like a spider watching the squirming wreck of their prey struggle against the sticky fibres of a carefully designed web, “You tell me.”

“Beautiful, clever and single? Seems too good to be true.”

“Yet here we are.”

A dodgy grin hooks around Dudebros chapped lips. He slides a calloused hand along your thigh, his grip bordering on possessive.

“Here we are.”

You pause, stretching out a silence to create tension. Dudebro slides his tongue over his bottom lip.

“You should know that I give generously to women who know how to please a man,” he says, “And you look like you know a thing or two about that...”

You lean over, your lips ghosting over the shell of his ear, “Why don’t we get a room and you can see for yourself.”

Dudebro shudders. You’ve got him.

Suddenly, a blur of grey and silver charges toward dudebro, slamming his head onto the counter. Dudebro crumbles into an unconscious heap by your feet.

The Mandalorian has swooped in to save the day. What a knight in shining fucking armour.

“What the fuck was that about?” You hiss, incensed, “I nearly had him!”

The Mandalorian doesn’t answer. Instead, he’s twirling his blaster between his fingers with well-practiced movements.

The other dudebro’s jump to their feet, steeling themselves for a fight.

Chaos erupts.

***

You’re quiet on your way back to the Razor Crest.

Your blood is boiling, your throat itchy and dry from all the insults you want to scream into the dull, black, bottomless void. The Mandalorian’s anger is an icy contrast to your fire; his broad shoulders steeled and his posture hard, unforgiving, like he’s still hunting down a bounty.

Your temper spikes as you watch him pay Peli Motto, your jaw clenched and your lower belly fluttering with a confusingly irritating concoction of venomous seething and hot, syrupy desire.

“It didn’t have to end in a fucking bar brawl,” you snip, waspishly, as he closes the hatch to his ship, “Thanks to you, though, it did.”

The Mandalorian gives you his usual response: silence.

Your nostrils flare.

“Three dudebros nearly escaped. It was lucky I was able to catch them before they raced off.”

Still no response. He’s too busy scaling the ladder up to the cockpit. You stomp up to the ladder and call up to him.

“You undermined me! And for what, exactly? Because some guy was getting a little touchy feely?”

You hear the engines roar to life and feel the ship rise, hover, then launch into the air.

Fuming, you pace the length of the ship, clutching the daggers in your thigh holster  and hurling them in quick procession. They lodge themselves into the bullseye, trembling from the force of your strength.

“You’re making dents in my ship.”

Your jaw clenches, molars grinding as you storm toward the daggers and pull one of them out.

“So now you want to talk!” You snap, scathingly, wheeling around to face him.

Mando’s helmet tilts as though he were evaluating you. He takes three deliberate steps forward, forcing you take a surreptitious step back.

“I’m not exactly a conversationalist,” he states, his voice clipped and tight. He makes no effort to disguise the anger in his tone.

You ball your fingers into a fist, clenching and unclenching, “So you’re not going to explain to me why you nearly let three of our bounty’s escape?”

There is a crackle and whir from the modulator as he speaks again, low and even with an intensity that sends shivers traipsing down your spine.

“You don’t know?”

You squint at him, wondering what he’s playing at. He acted rashly and impulsively; in a way that he’s never done before, betraying his years of careful training and defying all common sense. His timing was peculiar, too, just when you had suggested finding a room...

It hits you like a blaster to the chest, “You were jealous.”

Mando takes another step forward, neatly eliminating any space you had tried to regain. Your back is pressed against the wall as he takes another step closer, closer, closer , his arm reaching out grazing against your cheek, caging you in, closer, closer, closer—

He grips the handle of your dagger and pulls it out of the wall beside your head with a strong tug. The dagger dances between his fingers as he twirls it then parts the split in your dress just enough to slide the dagger back into its holster. His fingers glide along your inner thigh and you gasp, his touch electric.

“Not exactly,” he says, “Just a little protective.”

You exhale slowly, evenly, your chest fluttering with a thousand hummingbirds, “Is there a difference?”

He pulls his gloves off and trails his fingers along the delicate skin of your inner thigh, “I suppose not.”

The tension in the air is almost sentient, alive with a frantic, crackling energy that’s hotter than a heatwave in Tatoonie. Mando’s fingers dig into the spot where dudebro fuckboi had his hand back in the bar. Slowly, slowly, his hand snakes up your thigh, grazing across your hipbone, tickling the sensitive skin...

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” you sneer, your upper lip curled.

“I guess I am,” he admits, his eyes boring holes through the visor of his helmet, “But you’re no angel, either.”

With that, he whirls you around and pushes you up against the wall, your flushed cheeks pressed up against the cool metal of his ship. You moan when he drapes a bandage across your eyes then tugs tightly at your hair. You hear him pull his helmet over his head, dropping it onto the ground with an obnoxious clang. Then he’s behind you, his voice in your ear, sultry and thick.

“You waltz around teasing me with those looks and that body of yours,” he grips your ass through the fabric of your dress, squeezing with bruising strength, “You drive me absolutely fucking crazy.”

He presses a searing kiss to your neck, teeth clamping around the flesh. You moan and arch against him, desire pulsing through your veins like velvety liquid chocolate.

“Then I saw you with our bounty, the way he eyed you, like he was undressing your right then and there,” the Mandalorian grazes his teeth along your neck, biting and nipping hard enough to draw blood, “Only I get to look at you like that. You’re mine.”

With a sudden burst of strength, the Mandalorian grips you by the waist and spins you around, pressing your back against the wall. He crashes his lips onto yours in a searing kiss, teeth scraping and tongues clashing, his mouth ruthless and bruising in the most delicious of ways. He kisses you with the hunger of a starved man, as though he’s deciding whether to savour you or swallow you whole.

The Mandalorian spills his lips down the column of your throat, biting and sucking and bruising, planting blossoming purple roses in your skin. Bite marks swell beneath his lips; a brand you’ll wear proudly for the next few days. It’s ironic how being claimed by the Mandalorian can make you feel so liberated.

He pulls away from you and clutches the zipper to your dress, tearing it from your body. You gasp, the cool air caressing your exposed skin. You feel the prickle of his eyes travelling across your body, capturing and collecting, memorising every detail.

And then he’s on you again, kissing your lips fiercely, stealing the breath from your lungs, swallowing your gasps, your moans, trapping your bottom lip between his teeth and biting. Your hands roam through his hair, tugging the roots, letting it melt between your fingers like honey.

The Mandalorian reaches behind you and rips off your bra followed by your panties, pulling an involuntary gasp from your lips.

“You’re going to have to pay for those,” you pant, “They weren’t cheap—“

You trail off into a moan as you feel the Mandalorian’s hot lips close around one of your nipples, teeth scraping and nibbling. You arch into his mouth, massaging his scalp as you play with his hair. His hand paws at your other breast, rolling the soft flesh in his palm, sending shivers throughout your body.

“Consider it payback for denting my ship,” he counters, and you hear his armour clink against the ships floor as though he were kneeling.

You’re about to ask him what he’s doing when he begins pressing butterfly kisses down your stomach, tasting the salty sweetness of your skin, tongue mapping out the canvas of your body. You moan when he bites your hipbone then travels lower, lower, until his hot breath is hovering over your slick entrance. He slings your leg over his shoulder and inhales your scent as though he were taking mental notes, cataloguing your natural fragrance with everything he knows about you, and then—

He dives in, curling his tongue over your clit, rolling the sensitive pearl of nerves as he drinks you in like sweet nectar. You moan and gasp and whimper his name, your voice hoarse as your lower belly crackles with ethereal-like energy; a nest of frayed, live wires sending currents of azure-blue electricity through your body.

Thick fingers push into you; first the index, then the middle finger, then both. Your back arches and your fingers fly into his hair, gripping hard enough to draw a groan from the back of his throat. It doesn’t take long for you to climax; you cry out his name as you shatter into oblivion, coasting a high that jolts you into hyperspace.

The Mandalorian kisses his way back up your body, and then he kisses you deeply. You slide your tongue over his lips, tasting yourself. Your head spins into a state of euphoric delirium.

“Your pleasure belongs to me,” he snarls, transforming your spine into a quivering live wire, “I’m in charge. Understood?”

“Yes, sir ,” you whisper, light as air, tone teasing.

“Good girl.”

The Mandalorian breaks away, the absence of his warmth leaving a ghosting greyness where he once stood. You shudder as you hear armour clicking and the whirr of zipper teeth being pulled apart. Then you feel his hands tug on the knot behind your head, keeping your bandage together, and the fabric falls away, returning your vision.

You blink, eyes adjusting. The Mandalorian stands before you in his armour, including his helmet. His codpiece is discarded; the lump of metal sits abandoned on the floor near your shredded clothes. You trap your bottom lip between your teeth as your gaze dips to his huge, thick cock.

“Wow,” you gasp, “You’ve been holding out on me, Mando.”

The Mandalorian steps toward you again, hooks his arms around your thighs, and hoists you up against the wall. The cold metal bites into your back, penetrating your skin and crawling down your spine. He presses his cock against your entrance.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a brat...”

Without further ado, He pins you to the wall of the Razor Crest with his long, thick girth, sinking into you with a loud groan and a roll of his hips. You cling onto the pieces of his armour and rest your head on the cool metal of his shoulder as the Mandalorian sets a pace. He rocks his hips slowly at first and you move your own hips against him, for once perfectly in sync.

“Fuck,” you curse, wrapping your thighs around his hips and pulling him further into your warm depths.

The Mandalorian snaps his hips against you, building up a fast, unrelenting pace. His movements are steady and deliberate, his grip plunging into your thighs, shooting sparks of pain and pleasure throughout your entire body. He’s silent for the most part, occasionally grunting and gasping in your ear when the muscles in your pussy contract.

“Yes,” you cry, biting into the fabric of his shoulder, “Just like that, don’t stop.”

A familiar tightness begins to curl inside your lower belly again, sloshing around with the chemical cocktail of champagne,

dopamine and serotonin. The feeling rolls and crashes within you, filling you up like seawater and sunlight and bright, glittering gold.

“Every time a man lays his hands on you, I want to cut them off,” he growls, each word punctuated with a sharp thrust, “Each eye that follows you makes me want to dig them out of the socket.”

“I never — oh — never knew you felt like — Ah, fuck yes — like that.”

“Bullshit. You knew...you’re just such a — fuck — fucking tease .”

“So what are you going to do—do about it?”

The Mandalorian groans and increases his pace, slamming his cock inside of you. He balances you with one, strong arm while the other snakes between the two of you and reaches up, up, up, his fingers wrapping around your neck, flexing gently. The added pressure makes you moan as you crest higher and higher, scaling the wobbling, tipsy-turvey ladder of a crashing crescendo—

Suddenly, the tight coil inside you snaps, spirals, sending pleasure surging through you, fluttering in your chest, pulsing through your arms and legs. Your pussy quivers around him, hugging his cock as the muscles spasm and quake with the force of your climax. The Mandalorian follows you over the edge, gritting his teeth and growling your name as he buries his twitching cock inside of you and comes, pouring his seed deep inside of you.

The air around of you smells like sweat and sex and grease and is filled with your combined pants. After a few lingering moments, the Mandalorian slides out of you and places you gently on the ground, tucking himself back into his pants. Your thighs are sticky with his dribbling cum and your head feels like it’s been crammed with fluffy cotton buds but your entire body tingles like light dancing off the ocean.

“That was—“

“Incredible...” you finish, biting your lip. The Mandalorian’s faceless mask stares down at you, but you have a sneaking suspicion that he’s gazing sheepishly at you, perhaps shy or maybe even aroused. Maybe he’s like you — an amalgamation of conflicting emotions, some old and nostalgic, some surprising and new.

***

Morning light drenches the Mandalorian’s quarters, shimmering like gold dust. You moan gently, consciousness slowly returning to you. You become aware of your surroundings, recognition settling in, delicious memories of being tied up and blindfolded while the Mandalorian worshipped your body...

The gentle caress of a warm kiss tickles your inner thigh.

You moan as the kisses dot along your thigh, climbing higher, teasing around your entrance, licking and nipping like he can’t get enough...

Your fingers fumble then clench around the bed sheets as his tongue finally laps at your clit, swirling and sliding in tantalising rhythms. You gasp and mewl, whispering words of encouragement as the Mandalorian feasts on you, plunging two fingers into your slick entrance. You begin to draw closer and closer to your climax, your toes curling as you throw your head back and moan—

A small whimper suddenly jolts you back into the present.

You sit up on your elbows and gasp, clambering to cover yourself as the Child stares up at you, distressed by the sound of your moans. His bottom lip trembles, his large eyes unusually glassy as he waddles up to you.

Beneath you, the Mandalorian shifts, and you turn away from him as he slides his helmet on.

“Hello baby,” you soothe, reaching down to scoop him up with one arm, “It’s okay, mummy’s here.”

The Child coos in delight as he snuggles into your embrace. You gently turn on your side to face the Mandalorian — who is now wearing his helmet — and place the Child between your bodies. He stares up at both of you and beams; his smile could light up a thousands suns.

When the Child begins to doze, you gaze up at the Mandalorian through your lashes, bracing your head on your hand bent at the elbow.

“I think he was jealous,” you whisper, stifling your giggles.

You hear the amusement in the Mandalorian’s tone, “Of you or of me?”

You shrug, leaning down to press a tiny kiss on the Child’s head, “Who knows?”

[littlenahsstuff]

In love, I swear.

A/n Literally my first time writing actual fanfiction. This might be a flaming dumpster fire idk. I will persevere and cringe later, but for now, enjoy.

supreme!Cordelia Goode x reader

TW:nothing much, just a big old fluffernutter sandwich. A little angst. Swears I guess.

Synopsis: Cordelia has just recruited you to be a counselor at Robicheauxs and it's safe to say you are head over heels for the supreme. Unfortunately, you aren't the one to tell her.

You always thought that you weren't too special of a witch, you had the basic witchy spells down and specialized in the people who struggled on the inside... but in a more witchy sense. You also helped the witches who needed to get their powers more developed or who ones that are just behind in school. A sort of glorified counselor you suppose. It's sorta funny, especially since you aren't the most confident, how you can talk to all of the girls. When it boils down to it you are just a witchy gal searching for love. Specifically Cordelia's. It could never happen though.

Your love life wasn't the only area you lacked in before Robicheauxs, you had been struggling to find a job suited for your interests. Let's just say that you have a lifetime ban from one of the Mcdonalds in Louisiana. Fire and grease doesn't mix.

Of course, if it wasn't for dear, sweet, precious, Cordelia, you would be living on the streets. Luckily that didnt happen and so here you are today, three months in to your teaching position at Robicheauxs.

Oh, the moment, "You're hired. I look forward to expanding the academy's family and getting to know you better especially," left the Supremes lips, the better off you were.

And yet, even with all of the joy that comes with finally getting paid, there were the challenges as well. For starters, everyone was extremely nice to you, even though you kept mostly to yourself, there was this one person that made this heaven more hellish. Madison the bitch witch Montgomery.

You had been warned by Zoe, your closest confidante in this new place and also Madisons freaking girlfriend, that she was no pleasant peach. Never in all of your doubtful thoughts, had how bad it actually was crossed your mind. It was never the cockiness that got to you, you had a different appreciation for it than most. Found the confidence refreshing almost. No, no no no no. It was in fact, that she was constantly trying to dig up dirt on you.

"You're too much of a goody two shoes y/n," she once stated with a glare. The same day you had heard Zoe squabbling about something and your name came up. Your name and the fact Madison had stolen your wallet to look at your license. It turned up later on your bed stand.

Madison's a lover of Zoe and drama you've come to find out.

It's harmless though really, you dont mind the extra bit of attention that comes with it. Its flattering so no need to complain to anybody, especially not Cordelia.

Cordelia, mmm, yeah now shes the biggest threat here. She is the reason you got this job and might be the reason you lose it.

She once caught you with your doodle journal. It was a harmless question,

"Y/n, what're you drawing?" She looked over your shoulder. You almost jumped out of your skin and your sketchbook went flying.

"Oh dear, are you alright?" She worried her lips a bit. Her big, plump, kissable lips. Come on Y/n, get out of it.

"Yes," you squeaked. Sinking farther into the sofa. She chuckled her beautiful chuckle and sat on the couch arm.

"So, what was my favorite school counselor drawing just then?" She questioned. Glancing to the thrown book.

Your face went red.

"Uh-" you paused, come on you're making it a bigger deal than it has to be, "you." You couldn't look into her eyes.

She gazed at you at you and it felt like a hole was being burned into your skull.

"Okay," Cordelia said, leaving it at that. Stood up and made to walk away.

"Wait!" She paused and turned back to you, seeing you scramble to get your sketchbook.

"Yes?" Her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I- don't you want to see it?" You said and you slapped yourself mentally for about the hundredth time she walked in.

She smiled softly at you, "Of course, I thought you didn't. You looked scared to death, like bambi."

"Okay," you flipped back towards the page and cringed. It wasn't your best peice. You could never capture her beauty right.

Her eyes scanned over it, widening before squinting with her grin.

"It's so good!" She gasped.

"Yes, that is Cordelia Goode," you joked in a monotone manner. She slapped your shoulder jokingly, making you snort.

"You nerd, I didn't mean it that way. Either way, you did a fantastic job! I wished I looked as good as you make me seem," she muttered the last bit, bit you heard it. It saddens you to remember the damage Fiona did.

"Hey, Cordy," you started. You realized that you used a nickname that Madison did, but she doesn't seem to care.

"You know what I think? I think that you're wrong. You see I just can't for the life of me get your soft proud loving smile right. Your eyes aren't as warm and glowing as they are in reality. I couldn't manage to picture the right placement for those worry lines or crowd feet you have. You might not like them, but to me they show that you worry and care and that you laugh at the stupidest of things, which is a trait I adore. You are more perfect than any Davinci or Van Gogh," you say. You don't like when your friends feel bad about themselves.

Cordelia's tearing up a bit and wiles it away. "Didn't know you were a goddamn poet too?" She joked with a giggle, "thanks y/n, sometimes I need to hear something like that."

"No problem Cordelia," I can't help it, you're my muse, is what you want to say.

"Well, I have some paperwork, but it was nice to see ya," she hurriedly excused and rushed out.

Unbeknownst to you, Madison was watching. She knew exactly how to get dirt on you now. She had something all along.

The next week you spent daydreaming about Cordy...elia, you couldnt help but go back to that conversation. You needed to be more discrete, way more descrete.

So you made sure to draw your crush no more. That didn't change the fact you forgot to destroy the evidence in writing.

You had slept in a little too late, so in a rush you were to get to your office. The reason you had being you daydreaming about Cordelia and yours faux life together a little too long.

A bunch of new juicy stuff for Madison as she snatched it from your bedside table. It was too easy really.

She opened it up to the first page. It acted like a normal diary, just stating checklists of things to do and things you did. The size was fairly large, so skipping a few pages till she got to the juicy stuff and the part where you actually did know Cordy wasn't harmful.

It was a barf fest of emotion. "Oh Cordelia is so awesome, oh I'm so lucky to work with Cordelia, oh my, I won't ever get a chance with Cordelia, she's the supreme!"

"Ew," Madison groaned, whipping out her phone.

Then she found it, the goldmine of confessions. It was all the way in the back, meaning you had wrote it recently.

"Dear, myself

Cordelia today caught me drawing a picture of herself and said something I didn't particularly enjoy listening about herself. I can't believe Fiona would send her into such a deep hatred of herself that even with her gone she's hurting. She's no mother. Cordelia is the love of my life, even if I'm not hers, she deserves all the love I can give. She's not broken, but she just needs someone to love her and I do. I promise to give her as much love as possible without her finding out what kind it really is, I'm in love, I swear.

Sincerely, Y/N."

So she snapped a picture of the page.

After school was over Cordelia was not expecting Madison to barge into her office. Let alone with something regarding YOU of all people.

"Cordy, I've got something to tell you about y/n!" Madison sang out, waving her phone in front of Cordelia's face as she sat on top her desk.

Madison was just careless with others and too carried g about herself. It was the perfect storm. The only person who could ever take it too far to just prove a point. That there was something wrong with you.

If Madison Montgomery had taken one moment to actually think about it, she was just jealous. Jealous that another person at the coven was better than her to Cordelia. She was one spoiled bitch growing up. Guess it backfired.

"What?" Cordelia questioned in concern, "Is she okay? Madison what did you do to her!?" Her thoughts raced, Madison's pranks often went a little too far. She did kill Misty.

"Now now Cordy, don't get your panties in a twist. Here read this," Madison demanded to her supreme, she shoved it into her face and Cordelia grabbed it.

Her eyes expected headlines on the news or a mugshot, but she realized it was just your writing.

"Madison," she warned.

"Come on, I know you can read!" Madison poked Cordelia's forehead, prompting a slap from the Supreme.

Ms. Goode exhaled, "Fine."

Her eyes fluttered over the words, brows furrowing with every sentence. She couldn't comprehend, could she read?? It seemed to her as if her brain was creating what she wanted to see, but no, you wrote it. Unfortunately.

Everything's silent. Then the thought flits across her head, you like her back.

"In love, I swear."

Oh she's mad. Not at you, no, she could never. Madison on the other hand better,

"Get out of my office right now," Cordelia whispered. Madison's smile faltered.

"What, didn't you want to know your feelings are reciprocated? Come on, I'm just trying to get you two to speed up the process." Madison hopped of the desk and sauntered out.

What has she done.

Cordelia was wracked with guilt for awhile, with no way to tell you either. How does one even go about telling someone they read their deepest darkest secrets. How!?

She couldn't, so she did what she could. She pulled away from you and into her work. All of those lunches spent together stopped. The nights in the green house gone. Reading together on the weekends by the fire, gone.

And it left you empty. You had no idea what you did, but you must've done something.

So you decided to confront her, you hadn't gone much sleep since, so you were literally and figuratively tired of all of this shit.

Your knock on the door startled Cordelia, but your presence startled her even more. Both of you looked like wrecks.

"Oh, Y/n! Please, come in," Cordelia gestured and you did, closing the door behind you.

It was then that you finally broke down.

"What did I do Delia!?" You sobbed, falling to your knees. Yes it was dramatic and not even you expected it but you were holding your emotions for so long.

"Oh," Cordelia briskly moved over to you, concern painted on her face. She was watching you carefully, you looked so fragile. Just like she had felt at times.

"I'm sorry," you whimpered, "What did I do?" Her hand tilted your head towards her, but you still couldn't look into her brown eyes, opting for the floor. If you did, you probably wouldn't be able to look away.

"Y/n look at me sweetie," the nicknames never failed to make your heart soar. It was your weakness, your eyes met and they were glued there.

"What did I do?"

"Nothing nothing!" She took a deep breath, "I saw a page from your journal."

You froze, terror crept up your spine.

"Oh my god. Um Cordelia I am so sorry, you, wow I- god I'm so creepy! It's perfectly fine if you want to not be my friend or fire me. I didn't do it to be weird, it was how I expressed myself. I was trying to hide it I promise, i dont even know what happened!?"

"I'm gonna kill Madison, faster than my mother did," Cordelia groaned.

"Wh-" your brain malfunctions. Is-Is Cordelia kissing you? Right now?

Indeed she was and just like you dreamed about, her lips were so soft and her kiss gentle.

Maybe Madison could be forgiven... but not without a harsh talk.

"In love, I swear," she repeated in a whisper against your lips.

[kjack89]

An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 4/?)

Continuation of the E/R Bridgerton AU, regency-era fake-marriage shenanigan-fest. This time, with duel-shenanigans as well! (Chapter 1 tumblr | AO3, chapter 2 tumblr | AO3, chapter 3 tumblr | AO3)

Dearest Readers, 

This Author recommends that young women prone to swoon do not read this most peculiar of updates without someone there to catch them, as the most shocking of scandals has broken, and not, as one might expect, from the city but rather from the country.

If you have guessed that it involves our two unlikely friends out for a country jaunt, you would be correct, but we doubt even the most voracious of readers would guess the nature of the scandal. It turns out Mr. Grantaire is not an only child, as many have supposed, but instead has a sister of the marrying age. Why she was not presented to society is anyone’s guess, but we expect she’ll be along soon enough, given what has occurred. 

Details are still forthcoming, but suffice it to say, the Marquess of Enjolras, perhaps least likely amongst his cohort to find himself in this situation, appears to have been found in a compromising position with Mr. Grantaire’s sister. A quick, quiet wedding is the fastest way to deal with a scandal of this nature, but the salacious nature of this situation doesn’t end here:

The Marquess has allegedly refused to marry Mr. Grantaire’s sister, so Mr. Grantaire publicly challenged the Marquess to a duel for his sister’s honor, and the Marquess accepted. 

Tales of Mr. Grantaire’s prowess in physical contests are well-known, so this Author hopes for the Marquess’s sake that his aim with a gun is less impressive. Fear not, dear Reader. This Author suspects that both the Marquess of Enjolras and Mr. Grantaire will emerge from the duel with all limbs intact, but we also suspect that Grantaire will emerge with a soon-to-be brother-in-law – and the Marquess with a fiancée. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 4 May 1831 

It was, charitably speaking, ungodly early when Enjolras was roused from his bed by the ever dour-faced Le Cabuc. There was not even a hint of sunlight when he glanced out the window before getting dressed, and when he and Grantaire set off a half hour later, there was still just the beginning rays of sunlight creeping over the horizon.

Usually, Enjolras did not mind waking at an early hour, though he was more inclined to work late into the night and have a bit of a lie-in the next morning whenever possible, but he had slept poorly the previous night. Undoubtedly, he thought sourly as he followed Grantaire away from the house, because of what they were setting out to do.

Not that he had much real cause for concern – after all, if Grantaire was going to shoot him, surely he would have done it long ago.

That said, he would also have felt slightly more comfortable if he was carrying one of the guns, rather than Grantaire carrying both as he currently was.

But he suspected his tossing and turning was more related to the grand scheme they were attempting to pull off, and his very real concern that they were not going to be able to. Thus far, certainly, all pieces of the plan had fallen in place, but that as much as anything was setting him on edge. After all, it would take but one thing going awry from the whole arrangement to unravel, and Enjolras was not thoroughly convinced that—

Grantaire heaved a sigh and glanced over his shoulder at Enjolras. “Could you please be quiet?” he asked, sounding as tired as Enjolras felt.

Enjolras scowled at him. “I haven’t said anything!” he protested.

“No, but I can hear your mind going a mile a minute,” Grantaire groused, waving a dismissive hand. “It is positively spoiling what should otherwise be a magnificent morning.”

It was a lovely morning, Enjolras supposed, especially as the sun inched further up in the sky. “There is only so much I can do about the relative volume of my mind,” he told Grantaire, half-smiling as he did.

Grantaire pursed his lips slightly before shaking his head. “No, I suppose not,” he said, pausing in his stride to allow Enjolras to fall into step besides him. “Which means that I shall have to distract you instead.”

“And how do you intend on doing that?” Enjolras asked, more amused than curious.

“Well, I could regale you with what little I know about the vegetation in this area,” Grantaire offered, and when Enjolras wrinkled his nose, he laughed. “Very well. Then what conversation topic would you prefer?”

Enjolras considered it for a second. “I suppose you could start by telling me where, exactly, you’re taking me.”

“So banal,” Grantaire said, half under his breath, and he laughed and dodged when Enjolras tried to elbow him in the ribs. “Fine, fine. There’s a field not far outside of town that’s up on a small bluff. Isolated so that no one will see, but the elevation and lack of foliage between the field and town will allow the sound to carry, which is what I am banking on.”

“Not a lot of shooting out this way?” Enjolras asked, mostly jokingly, though Grantaire seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking his head.

“No. A fox hunt every now and then or something or the sort, but usually advertised well in advance and taking place further afield.”

The terrain sloped upward at that point, and both Enjolras and Grantaire fell silent as they trekked along. Finally, the slope evened out, and as Grantaire had promised, they were standing on the edge of a fairly flat field overlooking the town below. “Well,” Grantaire said, rather unnecessarily. “Here we are.”

He handed one of the pistols to Enjolras, who took it, feeling unusually out of sorts, even though this was hardly his first time wielding a weapon. “Ten paces?” he asked, mostly for lack of anything better to say.

“I suppose so,” Grantaire said, before winking at him. “Of course, in keeping with our attempt at verisimilitude, I could shoot you, if you wish. Just a flesh wound, in the shoulder maybe – just a little something to demonstrate how coerced you were into this whole affair.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “While I am certain that you would have no compunction shooting anyone, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

Instead, he squared his shoulders and dutifully marched ten paces away before turning to face Grantaire again. “Here?” he asked, but Grantaire was frowning, his gun held loosely at his side.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

Enjolras blinked. “I mean, is this the correct distance?”

“No, by my not having any compunction about shooting anyone.”

There was something unfamiliar in Grantaire’s tone and Enjolras frowned, trying to figure out what exactly he had said to put Grantaire out. “I meant no offense,” he offered.

Grantaire shook his head. “I do not necessarily take offense,” he said. “But I would still wish to know what precisely you meant.”

Enjolras considered him for a moment. “I know that you are an accomplished boxer,” he said after a moment. “And I have it on good authority that you know also how to wield a blade, so it can only stand to reason that you know how to use a gun. That s all that I meant.”

“Know how, yes,” Grantaire said, “but I’ve never shot anyone, and I’m not certain that I could bring myself to, were it to come to that.”

Now it was Enjolras’s turn to frown and ask, “What do you mean?”

Grantaire shrugged, glancing down at the gun in his hand. “I mean, with boxing, with fencing, hell, even with street brawling as Bahorel and I are wont to do—”

“Wont is certainly one word for it,” Enjolras said sourly, too aware of how many times those two had gotten themselves into scraps.

“—with all of those,” Grantaire continued, ignoring him, “the goal is surrender. You wound or injure to get the offending party to back down. But with a gun?” Again he looked down at the gun in his hand, hefting it as if testing its weight. “With a gun, the outcome is too often death, no matter the intent. And I am not certain that I could bring myself to shoot a man, knowing the likely outcome is his death.”

It had not been at all the answer Enjolras was expecting. “Oh,” he said, a little stupidly. “I suppose I did not think of it that way.”

“What of you?” Grantaire asked, with a wry half-smile, as if aware of the absurdity of this conversation when the two men were facing each other with pistols in hands so as to duel. “Have you ever shot a man?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I don’t think I would have the same hesitation you would. Death is a tool, and there are times when, in order to bring about the best future possible, killing someone is the only option.” Grantaire shifted as if he was about to interrupt, but Enjolras did not let him. “But the law of progress is that this will no longer be the case some day, and that is the moment for which I would fight, and kill if necessary, so that none after me would face that choice.”

Grantaire was silent for a few moments after, and he was too far away for Enjolras to be able to read every line in his face like he normally would be able to. “I understand,” Grantaire pronounced finally, the two words spoken almost like a vow. 

Enjolras felt strangely tongue-tied at that, and looked away. “Shall we?” he asked, his voice strangely thick, and Grantaire nodded.

Both men faced each other once more, lifting their pistols to aim in the rough direction of the other, ready to get this over with. Later, Enjolras would never know what possessed him in that moment, but as he stared down the barrel of the gun at Grantaire, he could not help but blurt, “I could have sworn that you were going to kill that soldier.”

Grantaire lowered his pistol, his brow furrowing. “What soldier?”

Enjolras lowered his weapon as well. “Do you remember the demonstration we hosted outside of parliament last spring?”

“I am fairly certain the authorities deemed that less a demonstration and more a riot,” Grantaire said, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Even so,” Enjolras said, refusing to allow himself to get distracted. “Soldiers were called in to ‘enforce the peace’, though I am certain they were more violent than any of us—”

“They certainly were,” Grantaire murmured.

“—and there was this one soldier in particular who seemed quite determined to…”

Enjolras trailed off, and Grantaire cleared his throat. “To beat you to death in the street?” he supplied, a false, sharp cheerfulness to his words. 

Shaking his head slightly, more at the memory than in disagreement to Grantaire’s words, Enjolras swallowed before continuing, “That’s one way of putting it.” He met Grantaire’s eyes. “But you stopped him.”

“Yes.”

“Quite violently, as memory serves.”

Grantaire’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Yes.”

“But you did not wish to kill him?”

“Oh, I wanted very much to kill him,” Grantaire said, an ugly look crossing his face. “But I did not.”

Enjolras had the sense that continuing too far down that path was not going to end well, so he changed tacks slightly. “So then you too agree that death is a sometimes necessary tool.”

Grantaire jerked a shrug. “I suppose, yes,” he allowed. “If the circumstances were right.”

“And the circumstances were not right that day?” Enjolras asked, because he couldn’t resist prying, just a little.

Grantaire shook his head. “No.”

He did not seem inclined to elaborate any further, and Enjolras frowned. “Because you feared that you could have been arrested?” he asked, though he doubted that was the case, as Grantaire had been arrested as many times as any of their number.

Indeed, Grantaire snorted derisively. “As if the threat of incarceration has ever once stopped me,” he scoffed, before arching an eyebrow at Enjolras. “Or you, for that matter.”

“It helps knowing that you or I would only be incarcerated until the police realized who we were and released us,” Enjolras said dryly. “The perks of nobility – or gentility, I suppose, in your case.” 

“Gentility,” Grantaire repeated, smirking again. “I dare you to use that the next time you’re arrested, just to see what the officer placing you in irons has to say in response.”

Enjolras just rolled his eyes and ignored him, steering the conversation back on track. “What did stop you, then?” he asked, and when Grantaire looked confused, he elaborated, “From killing the soldier, if not the possibility of incarceration.”

Grantaire’s expression was unreadable as he locked eyes with Enjolras. “You were no longer in danger,” he said simply.

The stark words left Enjolras feeling as if his chest was suddenly a size too small, and it took him a moment to compose himself. To know Grantaire had reacted that way when the man was not convinced he could take a life, and all because Enjolras had been in danger...it was too much. Finally, he met Grantaire’s eyes once again, and hoped the two words he could muster conveyed everything that he wished they did. “Thank you.”

Grantaire seemed suddenly flushed, and he cleared his throat and looked away. “In any case,” he said loudly, “can we kindly get back to the business of shooting each other?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Shooting at each other,” he corrected.

Grantaire smirked at him, all traces of the previous conversation disappearing. “Is that not what I said?” he asked innocently.

Again Enjolras rolled his eyes before once again raising his gun and aiming it in Grantaire’s general direction. Grantaire followed suit, a half a beat later. “Are you ready?” Enjolras asked.

“As ready as I will ever be,” Grantaire said. “On your count?”

Enjolras jerked a nod. “On my count,” he affirmed, taking a deep breath before counting, “One...two...shoot.”

Both guns went off with a flash of powder and smoke, the gunshots echoing loudly in the still morning air, loud enough to make Enjolras wince – though that may also have been from the recoil, which left Enjolras’s arm feeling weak. “Do you yield?” Grantaire called, and it took that question for Enjolras to remember the absurd reason for which they were there in the first place.

“Yes, I yield,” Enjolras told him, the first and only times those words had ever come out of his mouth.

Grantaire smirked at him. “And do you agree to marry my sister?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “There is no one here to hear my answer, you realize.” Grantaire returned his look with one of his own, and Enjolras sighed. “Yes, I will marry your sister.”

“Then I have my satisfaction,” Grantaire said, sounding just a little smug.

But as Enjolras handed his pistol back to Grantaire, as lingering pieces from their conversation played over in his mind, he could not help but feel that they had both gotten satisfaction that day.

[cherrynojutsu]

Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

Trigger Warning: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm

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Chapter 5/?: Housewarming

Sasuke spars with Naruto for the better portion of the afternoon into evening, until they are both sufficiently exhausted and slightly sunburned, on the condition that he will eat anywhere but Ichiraku’s and anything but ramen for the dinner his friend is trying to goad him into after. Naruto agrees all too quickly, grinning too much for his liking, and saying a little duplicitously, “That so? Happens that I know a place!”

The blond refuses to tell him where he’s leading him after their fight finally concludes in a draw, weaving tiredly through village streets around six at night with bruised ribs. Sasuke begins to suspect it’s an elaborate ruse to lure him to his house to eat. Sure enough, eventually they turn a corner and marigold, cobalt, and fuchsia invade his line of vision.

“You’re so stupid. I’m not eating anything you’ve put your hands on.”

Naruto laughs, evidently not the slightest bit offended. “Don’t worry, Hinata-chan made me a bunch of food for the next few days! There’s more than enough to share, and I haven’t touched any of it.”

Sasuke grumbles, but his friend assures him that at least some of it’s not ramen, so he acquiesces cautiously and follows him through the threshold of his home.

It is pretty nice, as Sakura said, though he’s sure that’s because of the dobe’s wife and not him, and what he’s comparing it to - Naruto’s old apartment, littered with trash and expired food items in the fridge - doesn’t set a very high bar in the first place. The house has wood floors, and a spacious kitchen with plenty of storage, at least from what he discerns when he first walks in. He assumes he’s going to be forced on the tour shortly to view the rest of it.

There is an absolute mountain of pre-prepared food in clear containers when his friend opens the fridge. Sasuke will admit pretty much everything looks good, though he’s not sure what specifically the dobe plans on them eating. He’s not sure Naruto knows, either; he stares at the contents of the fridge for a long minute, squinting as if making a life-changing decision.

“...Does she think you can’t feed yourself or something?” Sasuke deadpans.

Naruto laughs nervously, in a way that gives Sasuke the impression that Hinata Uzumaki might not be as quiet and reserved as most people assume, at least behind closed doors. His friend almost sounds fearful, as if there may be consequences for him if he doesn’t eat what his wife has prepared for him in her absence in its entirety.

“...Or she just knows you’d eat instant ramen the whole time she was gone, otherwise.” This time it’s not a question.

Naruto has the grace to at least feign embarrassment. “Well, uh, you know what they say… Quickest way to a man’s heart is through his food, or whatever!” Sasuke wonders for a short few seconds what kind of repercussion Hinata could possibly be holding over him, but then remembers Kakashi’s warning earlier in the day, and decides abruptly that he doesn’t care to further pursue that train of thought.

Eventually they decide on vegetable and shrimp tempura with plain onigiri, all premade. Sasuke is hungry, and tempura has a high caloric intake. Naruto dumps the tempura in a mysterious device called an air fryer to warm, and while they wait, the blond shows him around.

It’s commodious, with extra bedrooms as Sakura said. Most of the furniture is rich dark wood, accented with slightly vibrant colors, inclusive of the walls, that are perhaps a little intense for his own preferences. It is obvious that Naruto helped pick the paint colors, but he assumes Hinata must like them, too. The Hyuga are an old clan, deeply rooted in tradition as the Uchiha had been; Sasuke imagines that many of the interiors at the Hyuga residences are varying shades of white, gray, or brown, also with darker wood, as many of the Uchiha households had been; a more colorful interior would have been a change for her. He supposes a proclivity for brightness makes sense, given that she’d married Naruto. Their house overall smells vaguely like jasmine blossom and nectarine, though not overbearingly so. Naruto’s apartment had never smelled like that, so it must be Hinata’s doing. Sasuke spies a candle the color of honey that might be the source, perched on a corner table.

It sits next to a framed copy of their original Team Seven group portrait. Sasuke eyes it as they pass through the living room again to the back door.

It opens up to a sizable backyard situated on the north side of the house, framed with a fence for privacy and a number of lush trees, dangling greenery swaying in the breeze. A small garden sits in the far back left corner, the area with the least tree cover; it’s been recently tilled and sowed, small sprouts beginning to poke through the soil.

“We get lots of fireflies back here in the summer. Hinata-chan loves them, so we sit back here all the time! She’s thinking of getting a birdbath, too,” Naruto mentions fondly, a bit more hushed than his usual timbre; he must have some good memories back here already.

“It’s nice.” Sasuke remarks at the end when they go back inside, because it is, and his friend grins from ear to ear, stupidly proud. Then the timer dings from the other room, and they eat.

Hinata’s cooking is good. Sasuke sorts out all of the sweet potato chunks to shove onto Naruto’s plate, but eats the rest: squash, bell peppers, eggplant, broccoli, and shrimp, coated in spiced breading that tastes slightly of rosemary, along with the onigiri, more simple but also filling.

Naruto prattles throughout as always, but chews his food before launching into each new topic; it really must be a habit by now. Sasuke doesn’t hold the scroll over his head just yet; he figures Saturday night will be enough opportunity for that. Instead, he solidifies plans for another spar, this time late Saturday morning, because through the nearly endless chatter he has learned that Naruto’s schedule includes normal weekend days off, unless assigned a mission.

The dobe asks him to go drinking with him afterwards; he declines, but thanks him for dinner. Eventually, he departs, after his best friend reminds him for the fourth time today to meet up at Ichiraku’s on Saturday night at six.

As he walks home, lone hand in his pocket, Sasuke finds himself pondering once again what Sakura’s living space will be like. She doesn’t strike him as someone who would like darker wood, for some reason. It’s an apartment, so it will be smaller than Naruto’s house for sure. He assumes it’s probably one bedroom, like his own.

The cadence of crickets creeps in again as he leaves the more lively area of town, buoyed into something quieter by the swishing of leaves through the trees. It’s a sound he craved on his travels often. There are similar sounds elsewhere - insects and trees are not uncommon - but something about Konoha’s particular lilt sticks out in his memories. A clement wind from the north carries an aroma tinged with flowers and loam. When he turns the corner, the breeze blows just right to shift his hair away from his left eye, and his neck heats as he thinks of Sakura’s words from this morning, not for the first time today.

Once he gets back to his apartment, he strips, then tosses his clothing directly into the washing machine, before enjoying a long, near-boiling shower; after the workout he’s had, he needs it. He thinks as he scrubs that this way he won’t need another one until after he gets back from seeing Sakura tomorrow. He contemplates whether they will eat somewhere, since he’s meeting her at the hospital at four. He’d liked the tea shop; she probably knows of other places worth trying.

He is so exhausted that he saves washing his dishes for tomorrow and falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. His last thoughts are of gentle jade eyes and kind words murmured in an exam room.

Sasuke is thankful that he doesn’t have another nightmare, but his brain decides to fill the time in other demiurgic ways involving soft fingertips, and when morning comes, he does need another shower, after all; this time, a cold one.

He pinches his nose guiltily as frigid water engulfs him, until his teeth are near chattering. Once that’s done, he throws on a black shirt and pants before grabbing a book. He huddles up under his comforter to chase away the chill, drowning his thoughts in icy history ripe with distraction rather than lasciviousness.

He finishes it eventually, convinced towards the end that he needs to acquire a small lamp; he doesn't like overhead lighting in general, but he especially doesn’t like it for reading. His teeth have stopped clacking together, so he gets out of bed and spends the first portion of the day washing dishes, sharpening his chokuto, and then making lunch, seared beef with green tea noodles and miso dressing. It’s simple, but good, and filling. His throat hurts less than yesterday, but he has another cough drop after, because it helps.

He washes and dries the dishes from today, putting them away before he leaves his apartment to pick up a few more groceries to fill the time. The market he visits is sold out of loose leaf sencha tea; the one he’d visited the first day in his apartment hadn’t had any, either. He settles for a small box of single-serve packets for the time being, and has a cup upon his return to his apartment. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t taste quite as fresh. He reads more of his other book for a bit, until it’s time to leave to meet Sakura at the hospital.

He leaves a little early again, because he’s eager to see her.

Sakura greets him cheerily, lovely with a tote bag on her shoulder that is starting to become familiar. She tells him that she dropped off his paperwork earlier today, and that his bloodwork has all come back normal. He thanks her, and they spend a nice late afternoon together, roaming around while she points out areas of interest, most of it new development on the more southern part of the village. Wandering with her is much preferable to solivagant ambling on his own, he is coming to find.

He learns that Sunday and Monday are indeed her days off, unless there is an emergency; she mentions that she has a standing date with Ino every Monday morning for training and lunch, but other than that, she keeps her free time pretty open.

“Would you… like to do something on Sunday, then?” He asks carefully, hand twitching a little in his pocket and stomach churning a little in nervousness, though she has given him no reason to be. He hopes he’s not being avaricious by asking for too much of her time. She might prefer to spend some time alone on her days off.

Glittering green eyes beam up at him in response. “Of course,” she answers, and the storm brewing in his belly settles while the vines reach upwards into his chest cavity, because she says it with an inflection that implies there’s nothing she would rather do.

“I think it’s supposed to rain,” Sakura tells him as they walk further southwest; they’re nearing the edge of the village now. “So we probably don’t want to walk around too much. I usually…” Her eyes flick to him, and then away, as if self-conscious. “I usually curl up inside with a book on rainy days. Or... watch documentaries. Sometimes I play go or chess.”

A ghost of a smile overtakes him, because reading on a rainy day is very characteristic of her, but so are the other two things, which he hadn’t known.

Then she’s asking, somewhat shyly, “What do you like to do, on a rainy day?”

It’s a good question; he hasn’t been home for a rainy day in a long time. When he was traveling, he would find shelter - an inn, or the inside of a tree or a cave - and do various tasks that needed doing, like sharpening weapons or writing a letter to her. On those days, he would also often read her old correspondence to him, too, but he’d be embarrassed to admit that to her.

When he was younger, though, he would complete any neglected chores in the morning, and then spend the rest of the day reading, though he did it mainly for productivity to the point of distraction. Sasuke did not like being cooped up in his house for long periods of time, for obvious reasons. Occasionally he would venture to a training ground anyway, if the rain was more light drizzle than downpour, but most of the time he opted not to, because getting sick would delay his progress more than sitting out a day; he could advance in other ways, look into new techniques and practice taijutsu forms inside, if he really focused.

If it rained heavily for more than a day or two consecutively, though, trapping him in the house, he tended to struggle more with it. Sometimes he would stare at a kunai or shuriken left behind in Itachi’s room for too long, and end up sticking his wrist out a back window to watch the water cleanse the wound he’d carved into his skin until it coagulated. It wasn't something he did often, because he knew it was stupid and weak despite the small semblance of control it afforded. It also wasn’t something he only did when it was raining, but being entombed in that house due to inclement weather poured salt into his baser self-destructive tendencies, irritation burning until it was too much and it had to escape his skin to go somewhere. When it rained, it felt like it was an opportunity to rinse it out of him, a tiny increment of relief, rivulets reaching down to turn him over in the grave of dark wood and dull paint colors it felt like he was suffocating in.

Sasuke would go get groceries most of the time, before it got to that point, even if he didn't need them, just to get out of the house for a bit and away from the temptation. He’d come back soaked, tracking water everywhere before curling up in his bed to try to chase away the chill with more distraction, books or scrolls or trying to watch something. Eventually he’d warm up on the outside, but his insides still felt icy for a long time, most days.

He's in an apartment now, though, a long way from what used to be the Uchiha District. He takes a grounding breath that he hopes is subtle, trying to emerge from the glaucous recollection and subsequent smothering feeling lining his lungs. “...I do any chores that need doing, and then I like to read, too,” he finally answers. It's the truth, now. Keen but soft eyes hold his for a moment, and he worries maybe he didn’t fully succeed at the subtlety, but she doesn’t press. He’s thankful for it; he doesn’t want to think about that when he’s with her.

They make plans to have lunch and spend the afternoon reading their respective books at her apartment. He might finish his other book by Sunday’s end; maybe she would go to the library with him again Monday afternoon, if she’s not too busy. He wouldn’t mind playing go or chess, either, if she asks him. It would be a challenge; he hasn’t played either in years. He’ll save it for Sunday, though.

“I can cook,” she offers, looking very pleased, which makes his heart flutter in his chest. “Maybe soup and something to go with it, if it’s chillier? I have a slow cooker I can start it in, the morning of.”

He agrees immediately; he likes soup, and it’s been a while since he’s had a good bowl. Most of the soup he made on the road was limited to whatever ingredients were readily available, with simple water as stock. The result was usually something bland, warming but not hearty by even the barest standards; soup made in a kitchen is much better. He’ll eat any kind, really, especially if it’s cold out. He wonders what Sakura’s cooking is like; she excels at most everything she does, so he imagines it must be good.

By just after five, they’ve ended up at a fairly new and distinctive quadrant of training grounds a little beyond the southwest edge of the village, sharp quartz rock jutting up from uneven ground in several spots and a small creek running down its center. Parts of it sit at a raised elevation, offering a unique vantage point of Konoha. Sasuke realizes as he eyes the surroundings that he would like to train here sometime; the craggy terrain could prove an interesting element to contend with, an exercise of both the mind and body. He’s glad she showed him; he wouldn’t have ventured to this side of town for a long time, on his own.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, thinking he could buy her dinner if she knows any places nearby. It’ll be busier now that it’s dinner time, once they get back into the village, but he doesn’t mind.

Sakura doesn’t answer at first, and instead starts to fiddle inside her bag. His brows knit in confusion, but then she pulls out two bottles of water, two bento boxes, and two pairs of chopsticks.

They’re in reusable containers, not takeout ones, which means she must have made them herself. Sasuke stares at the one she gives him, dumbfounded; it’s filled to the brim with cooked rice topped with black sesame seeds, tonkatsu with sauce, shredded cabbage, green beans goma-ae, and a large number of tomato wedges. Her own has less tomato; a few grapes round it out instead. He also notices the tonkatsu sauce is already poured over hers, but his is in a small sealed container, so he can eat the pork plain if he decides he doesn’t care for the tangy but also slightly sweet dressing.

“I thought we could eat these here... if you want. We could avoid the dinner rush that way. I made the sauce a little less sweet than usual, but I still wasn’t sure, so I thought I’d let you decide,” Sakura offers, soft and kind. He’s too stunned to say anything right away, so she adds somewhat sheepishly, “If... you’d rather get something else, though, that’d be fine, too.”

He thanks her very quietly, then, a little dazed and throat closing up, because he would not rather get something else; he hasn’t had a bento in a long time, let alone one that was prepared specifically for him. The training ground is empty, so they hop up one of the small cliffs and eat it there as she suggests, in view of Hokage Rock framed by trees. It is very good, clearly made with fresh ingredients; the pork is juicy on the inside and texturally crunchy on the outside. The sauce is good, too; not too sweet. He makes sure to eat all of it, as well as to tell her he enjoyed it at the end. She flushes at the compliment; she is very pretty, pink hair and pink cheeks to match.

"How long do you think it'll be before Naruto's up there?" She asks him after they’ve been sitting there for the better part of an hour, food long finished and eerily echoing his thoughts from a few nights ago.

Sasuke regards the mountain, empty space next to Kakashi's likeness. He recalls dinner yesterday at his friend’s home, Naruto sharing food with him made by his wife, and Ichiraku’s the day before that, how he no longer talks with his mouth full, and how he has not pressured him to share about Sakura. Sasuke is sure his rare tact won't last forever, and that he'll be hounded about his relationship with her eventually, but he has appreciated the space gifted to him. For all of their teammate’s fatuousness, he really has grown. If he can get an increment better at deciphering scrolls...

"Not long," he responds eventually. "Five years. Maybe six, with the sculpting."

Sakura nods in agreement, an evocative smile playing at her lips; she must suppose the same.

He speculates, then, tearing his gaze away from her mouth, who else they will see on the mountain in their lifetimes, in the empty space extending to the right. He thinks Naruto is the type to live to be pretty old, especially if Hinata is coercing him into eating balanced nutritional meals now; he might make it to a point where he actually retires from being Hokage, like Tsunade, or Kakashi, eventually.

The next Hokage could be in the village already, maybe in the Academy still, or a Genin. Sasuke remembers a scrawny kid with atrocious camouflage techniques who used to follow Naruto around and challenge him to battles over the position; it may have been the Third's grandson. He hadn’t seemed particularly talented at the time, but then again, neither was Naruto at that age. It’s possible that the kid has progressed since then. It’s also possible, though, that the next Hokage has not even been born yet.

Sasuke walks Sakura home a couple of hours later, dark violet light of dusk cast on her through diamonds on her doorstep. Her expression is the same as the other night, eyes sparking with gold affection, so he kisses her again, hesitantly hoping it’s okay, because he really wants to. Apparently it is, because she rests her hands on his shoulders and kisses him back without an ounce of uncertainty. His hand is free this time, so he rests it on her waist carefully, and enjoys a sweet breath of spring.

XXX

Sasuke arrives at Ichiraku’s at six on the dot to find both of his teammates already there, with an empty seat left between them and three glasses of water on familiar currant red counters. He is unsurprised to see that Kakashi’s not here yet. There’s an empty seat to Naruto’s left that is clearly being saved for their old sensei using one of Naruto’s sandals, off his foot; it’s pretty busy, being a Saturday night. He also notes Sakura’s tote bag situated beneath the counter, underneath the stool she’s sitting on; perhaps her afternoon with Ino went longer than anticipated, and she hasn’t had time to go home yet.

Both of them turn their heads as he approaches, brightening and greeting him in unison beneath fluorescent lighting.

“Teme!”

“Hey, Sasuke-kun.”

It is terribly nostalgic. He takes the place between them, responding, “Sakura. Dobe.” The streets themselves are busy, but within the actual enclosure of Ichiraku’s, it’s not as loud.

“We haven’t ordered yet,” Sakura tells him good-naturedly, smiling and pushing him a menu. His gaze lingers on her for a second before looking down at it. She’s pretty beneath fluorescent lighting, too.

“We’re not fucking waiting for Kakashi-sensei, though. I’m hungry , and who knows when he’ll turn up? He’s probably reading one of his stupid books and lost track of time again,” Naruto grumbles, peckish, from his other side. His friend’s stomach growls, as if on cue.

Sakura laughs, then sighs from his right. “He’s probably lost in a pile of paperwork. At least this time it might be true.”

“...He might be trying to finish breaking the cipher on that scroll you can’t seem to solve,” Sasuke quips smugly towards his left, eyeing the menu, though he doesn’t really need to; he knows his order already.

He is way too satisfied by Naruto’s huff. “Ugh, I’m fucking sick of staring at that thing. It makes me feel like my brain is melting. I wish he’d just give me a mission. I want to fight something.”

“I’m sure you’ll both get one eventually,” Sakura remarks with confidence. “Try to enjoy the peacetime a little. It’s a good thing. Besides, if you really want to, you can just go battle it out at the training grounds...” She eyes them both with a critical and calculating scrutiny now, a single pink brow arched and something in her tone shifting. “...Though by the bruising, I’m sure that’s already happened.”

There is a fist shaped smear of violet he knows is on his forearm, clearly visible from her vantage point. At least his ribs are hidden; there are nasty bruises on three of them from the first spar, and another two developing from this morning. Naruto looks a little scared, when he glances over at him; despite the fact that the blond is laughing nervously, his hand is held awkwardly, obviously trying to shield the bruise he has on his chin, turning purplish-blue by now.

It was another draw. Sasuke expects he’ll be able to beat him, next time. He’s found he’s a bit rusty, not having too many excuses to use his more advanced techniques in a long while.

Sakura rolls her eyes after a tense moment, and the spell is broken. “If either of you break anything, just don’t be stupid; come to the hospital or my place so I can fix it.”

“Sure, sure, anything you say, Sakura-chan!” The dobe responds next to him, hesitant laughter still tinged a little with fear. Sasuke nods, then thinks for about the fifth time today that he’s going to see her apartment tonight.

Once Sasuke slides the menu back, Naruto catches Teuchi’s attention; the blond orders garlic tonkotsu, Sasuke orders hakata tonkotsu, and Sakura orders shoyu ramen. It’s the same as what they used to get when they were kids.

It’s a nice evening for this, he thinks.

“So what’s new at the hospital, Sakura-chan?” Naruto asks conversationally. “Anything exciting?”

Sasuke shifts his gaze to his right, where Sakura looks as if she’s giving it a lot of thought, lips shifted to the side; he forces his eyes upward. “Eh, nothing too exciting, yet. Just appointments and research, for the most part. I’ve got some long-term projects I’m working on, but I’m just kind of waiting to see how the data pans out at this point while I monitor. It’ll be another month or so yet for anything concrete there, I think.” She cocks her head to the side a little. “I’ve got a transplant patient we’re waiting on an organ for, so we’ve been trying to prep her so she’s ready; different medicinal cocktails, testing, and such.” She pauses. “Tsunade-shishou sent over some things that arrived this morning, though, and one of them was a sample of a new poison found in a few Shinobi in Wind. I guess that’s… interesting. She’s going to work on it, too, so hopefully we get an antidote quickly, but I started some tests on it today.”

Sasuke’s lips turn downwards. That doesn’t sound good.

“Ehhh, between you and Granny Tsunade, I’m sure you’ll find an antidote soon!” Naruto chirps positively from his left. Then he quiets, in a manner that suggests he’s cogitative. “How bad?”

“Well, it’s slow enough progression-wise that they’ll live if we find an antidote in time; they’ve got at least a month, we think. Maybe more, if Tsunade-shishou keeps siphoning it out via the Delicate Illness Extraction Technique. It’s not... pleasant for the patient, obviously, but it works. She’s already run most of the preliminary tests; calcium chloride, pyridoxine, sodium bicarbonate, so we at least have some stuff ruled out.,, There might be others eventually, though, so it would be best to nip it in the bud and have an antidote readily available, really.”

“...What do you know about it so far?” Sasuke asks. “In terms of the type of toxin.” Having been dosed numerous times with poisons to build up resistance, he knows he is essentially immune to many of them, but a new one popping up is never something one should disregard in their line of work.

Jade shifts to him. “We suspect it might be a mixture of several venoms, plus a heavy neurotoxin. Epinephrine doesn’t work at all, though; that’s why we’re leaning towards it being a combo. Something has to be continuing the effects while that cycles through the system.”

Neurotoxins are troublesome; a mixture with it is nothing to scoff at. “It causes paralysis?” He questions.

Sakura inclines her head in a nod. “Immediately after Tsunade-shishou uses the Extraction Technique, though, they gain some movement back, so if we can find an antidote, it won’t be permanent.”

There is a contemplative silence.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re gonna kill a lot of rats,” Naruto finally jokes from his left, gauche as ever and clearly trying to lighten the mood.

“They’re mice, not rats,” Sakura responds, rolling her eyes. “But yes. We probably will. Necessary sacrifice, I suppose.”

There is a substantial length of time that feels heavy, even with the distant background noise of people going about their evening.

Sakura is the one to break it. “What about you, Naruto? Anything new? Hinata’s on a mission, I heard. What have you been doing to fill the time?”

Sasuke glances back to his left, where Naruto is grinning suspiciously.

“You mean other than kicking the shit out of teme?”

Sasuke narrows his eyes. “As I recall, both spars were draws, dead last .”

Naruto laughs, unbothered and waving his hand jokingly. “Eh, really I dunno. Mostly just helping Kakashi-sensei at the office. He’s torturing me with homework , since Hinata-chan’s gone.”

Suddenly their food is being placed in front of them. His smells good, charred pork belly swimming in spring onion, nori, mushrooms, noodles, and ginger. Sakura says thank you to Teuchi, and then he hears her break her chopsticks. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Hypothetical mission assemblages again?”

Naruto groans as he snaps his own chopsticks. “Yeah, it’s a nightmare. I know most of the people our age fine enough, but you basically have to memorize everyone’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, or you spend hours doing it because you have to refer to The Binder.” The way the dobe articulates The Binder makes it sound ominous.

“Huh. Now that I know it’s a nightmare, I’ll make sure to give you even more of it,” a familiar voice lilts behind them.

The three of them turn, and Kakashi is behind them, clad in simple Jonin dress instead of Hokage robes, for all appearances completely unbothered by the fact that he’s nearly twenty minutes late.

All three of them give him a withering look, slightly tinged with nostalgia, and say nothing.

“Sorry. Got lost in a pile of paperwork.”

Their old sensei removes Naruto’s shoe from his saved seat, and places it directly on the blond’s head. It promptly falls off and nearly lands in the idiot’s bowl of ramen as he splutters to catch it. Kakashi orders hakata tonkotsu without even glancing at the menu, same as Sasuke.

“So. Isn’t this nice,” The Hokage drawls. “How are we all? Enjoying the springtime?”

“It’s good! Hinata-chan planted a garden! We’re gonna have broccoli, and sweet potatoes, and maybe even pumpkin!” Naruto responds as he shoves his shoe unceremoniously back onto his foot before reaching for his chopsticks again.

“The weather has been nice," Sakura pipes up from behind him, though her tone of voice makes it sound as though more than that has been nice. Something in him twists pleasantly.

“...It’s good,” Sasuke comments last, before taking another bite of his food. It’s an understatement.

Kakashi looks content, head nodding in agreement. “Everything’s really greening up. I think it’s going to be a good year. No wars on the horizon, either, at least that I know of; that’s always preferable. Gets one into a reflective headspace.”

“About what, having time to read porn in your office?” Naruto quips sarcastically in between inhaling bites of bean sprouts and noodles, though Kakashi doesn’t seem at all fazed. Sasuke hasn’t seen any orange books in the times he’s visited the Hokage’s office so far, but he’d been sure they were stowed somewhere within easy access.

“Can’t a Hokage take a break to enjoy fine literature once in a while?” Their old sensei asks good-naturedly, but Naruto rolls his eyes as Sasuke, and he assumes Sakura, continue to eat their food at a normal pace.

“Fine literature? As if ! You forget I’ve read all those books. They’re full of good ideas, sure, but they’re still fucking porn ! And anyways, no, you can’t take a break. Not when you’re piling homework on me like I’m in the Academy still. I know , by the way.”

Now Kakashi’s smile turns a little nervous. To most people, the change would be imperceptible, but it’s there for those that know him well. “Know what, exactly?”

The blond’s eyes narrow accusingly. “That you’re actually using my homework to put together squads for real fucking missions! I shouldn’t have to find out from Shikamaru. In the Academy, they expel kids for that shit.”

Judging by the caught expression on Kakashi’s face, there is at least some element of truth to this, which means Naruto must be doing an okay job, at the very least. Interesting .

“So a sensei isn’t allowed to appreciate and value the advice of a cherished student?”

“Whatever. Just keep giving me days off when Hinata-chan’s home and maybe I won’t tattle to the other kages.”

Kakashi smiles. “I can do that.”

There is a beat where everyone besides their sensei is quiet, taking a few bites of their food. Sasuke’s is good; he’s hungry. Going near all out against Naruto has given him a little more of an appetite, the past few days. He’s been trying to eat more, as Sakura suggested.

“Sakura, I received an interesting letter from Tsunade today.” their old sensei drawls after a bit. Sasuke shifts slightly. She’s swallowing a bite, and looking curious.

“About the poison?”

Sasuke glances back to his left in time to see Kakashi nod. “The poison, and also other worthwhile projects. Let me know if you need any funding for such things, and I’ll find a way to take care of it.”

Sasuke wonders what kinds of projects, but assumes it might be rather confidential when Sakura blinks, then nods, answering simply, “Thank you, Kakashi-sensei; it’s greatly appreciated.” Perhaps it has to do with her research.

Naruto finishes off his first bowl, and orders another. Now that he’s not inhaling food, he begins chattering again.

“So anyways, when are you gonna send us all on a mission together again?! I feel like I’ve been trapped in that office with you like an old croney for eighty-four years.”

Suddenly Kakashi appears very tired, eyes narrowing in exhaustion. “If you feel trapped now, I’d hate to see how you feel in five years or so.” He pauses, as Naruto narrows his eyes at him and crosses his arms. “I have a lost cat mission you could complete, I suppose. Or would you rather clean up the river? It’s good weather for it. Water’s warming up.”

Naruto looks at him indignantly. “As if. I want a real mission!! One that suits our strengths.”

The way Kakashi considers Naruto then is fond. Sasuke vaguely recollects a time where Naruto begged the Third for a ‘real’ mission a long time ago; that must be what he’s remembering.

“Well, the problem with that is that Sakura formally outranks you,” he finally retorts. His food shows up a second after he finishes talking.

Naruto groans. “This shit again?” Sasuke assumes this must be a running thing Kakashi likes to hold over his friend’s head. Technically it’s correct; Sakura had told him she’d made Jonin at the exams in Earth Country a while back, in one of her earlier letters. He’s sure she could have made Jonin sooner, but she’d been occupied with things at the hospital, he thinks. Naruto and himself, meanwhile, had never taken the exams, though it hadn’t affected their ability to take A and S-rank missions, given their role in ending the war; they held honorary Jonin positioning in all but the actual title itself, and weren’t held back from missions because of it in any way, but still, Sakura is the only one of their team that has taken them officially and passed. Naruto had told him that Tsunade didn’t want to promote Sakura like that, despite her contribution in ending the war, too; he’d assumed it was because the Fifth didn’t care for Sakura’s promotion to be in any way weighed down by assumptions of nepotism, especially with her taking over the hospital. Kakashi hadn't, either; he'd assumed for the same reason. Naruto and Sasuke getting special treatment regarding what missions they can accept is fine, because currently they hold no official titles, but with Sakura heading the hospital, it’s a different matter.

“How many times are you gonna hold that over my head?! Quit fucking around already. It’s not my fault Granny Tsunade wanted to show Sakura-chan off to all five nations, and besides, I was literally there, so it’s not like I don’t know.”

Sasuke blinks in sudden interest, as Kakashi quips, “If you were there, why didn’t you take the exams yourself? I seem to remember someone getting banned from the Kage’s seating area. That looks great for a future Hokage candidate, by the way, and was fun to try to de-escalate with the elders of Earth Country. Maybe you could have set a better example if you had also been taking the exams… Though I suppose it would have been embarrassing for you when Sakura beat you in three seconds flat.”

Sakura laughs a little to his right as if she is amused as Naruto complains some more, while Sasuke considers that he has never been given a detailed account of her performance at those exams, though he’s sure it was excellent. He’ll have to ask her or Naruto about it.

Naruto’s still whining. “Come ooooon. Just ONE teensy little mission. No bullshit. We’re all back; you basically have to, it’d be illegal NOT to. It can even be a B-rank.”

Kakashi doesn’t miss a beat. “I have a nice C-rank you two could probably handle.” Sasuke twitches a little, because he knows that’s directed at him, too, now. “Simple escort to Sand. Don’t want to take a prestigious Jonin away from her important work at the hospital, though, for such a measly thing.”

Sakura’s laugh twinkles. “Send Shikamaru. I’m sure he’d love to go.”

Kakashi grins, as if he is in on a joke. “Yes, Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikamaru. That would be an interesting team, to say the least, though perhaps a little overpowered. I’ll think it over… If nothing comes up that we desperately need Shikamaru for, that is.”

Naruto grumbles and turns to finish emptying his second bowl of ramen as Sasuke surmises inwardly, finishing off his own, that it would be an interesting team, even if it was just an escort. From what he knows, Nara is a capable leader and excellent strategist. He’s sure Shikamaru doesn’t like him very much, which is more than fair, but watching Naruto annoy someone else for a change would make the heated trek to Sand bearable. He wonders what Sakura’s comment was about, though. Maybe it was sarcasm, regarding most peoples’ general disdain for the sweltering weather there.

Sasuke notices, as he pushes his bowl forward, now empty, that Kakashi still hasn’t touched his food. He makes a mental note to keep an eye on that. When he glances to his right, he sees that Sakura has finished hers, too.

The restaurant is starting to clear out a little, it being closer to seven now. Naruto finally stops mumbling insults towards Kakashi, and instead peers at him as if he’s waiting for something. Maybe he wants to go home; his friend might have plans after this, though he’s not sure what they would be, given his wife is away.

“...Sorry to disappoint you, Sasuke, but we’ve been less than honest about dinner tonight,” Kakashi begins after meeting Naruto’s gaze. Sasuke’s brow furrows in puzzlement, and the dobe starts grinning smugly. When he glances the other way towards Sakura, she smiles, too, and looks a little guilty.

“It is also… a housewarming party.” The Hokage grins. “Though we thought we’d just have it here, and you could take your gifts home with you tonight.”

Sasuke frowns. “You didn’t need to-”

Naruto butts in, indignant and cutting him off accusingly with a pointed finger, “And don’t even TRY to say no, because I got you the best gift.” Sasuke has a brief premonition of his sparse kitchen cabinets suddenly filled with a month’s supply of instant ramen, and it takes everything in him not to roll his eyes. The dobe motions to Teuchi, gesturing towards the inner portion of the ramen stand, just below the counter. Sasuke then recalls the bag beneath Sakura’s chair, and frowns deeper, turning to her; though he’s sure the shoe box was free, she’s already given him the drying rack, which he’s sure was not. She didn’t need to get him anything else.

She just grins at him, eyes flashing with mirth as if she finds this amusing. He’s about to say something - he’s not sure what - when Naruto taps him on the shoulder. He turns, and the most poorly wrapped gift he has ever seen in his life comes into focus, a long thin mess of too much tape and intensely colorful paper, scrunched together haphazardly as if put together by a child with little motor control, and shoved directly into his face.

“...Why did you wrap it?”

His best friend rolls his eyes. “Because it’s a PRESENT, jackass. Besides, you guys wrapped yours too, right?!”

When Naruto looks from their old sensei to their teammate, Kakashi wears a jovial smile that tells him he didn’t, and Sakura doesn’t say anything behind him, but Naruto narrows his eyes, and that’s enough to tell him that she didn’t, either. “What the fuck, you guys are the worst! This is supposed to be a party!!”

Naruto sets the gift down on the counter in front of him, and Sasuke frowns at it stubbornly for a short while. The three of them are staring at him expectantly, though, so he sighs and reluctantly starts to peel the shoddy wrapping job away, curious as to where the idiot got instant ramen that comes in a long skinny box. He’s careful as he peels, so the paper doesn’t fly away in little chunks and litter the restaurant or the ground around them.

His brow creases as he peels away the final bit of paper and tape, because it’s not ramen, after all. Naruto’s gift is a paring board of a unique design, new from the store in an unopened box. The picture shows a maple wood finish, but with small skewers jutting vertically from it on the bottom center, on which one can spear vegetables or fruit to help hold it in place while slicing. It also has a corner guard on the upper left with an edge sealer to help keep other things one wants to slice, like bread or sushi, secure. In addition, it says it has silicone feet, so it doesn’t move around when you use it.

He didn’t know anything like this even existed. It is a surprisingly thoughtful and helpful gift, one that he’s sure comes from a deep understanding of the challenges that come with living with one arm, though Naruto has had the prosthetic, now, for a while.

Sasuke studies it for a long moment, genuinely touched. “...It’s nice. Thank you.” Truth be told, it’s more than nice, and will be incredibly useful. He won’t have to summon a clone anymore to cut things.

Naruto laughs and slaps him on the back, prompting Sasuke to glare at him. “Beat that, losers!” Kakashi smiles and casts his eye towards Sakura behind him, so Sasuke turns, brows furrowed again. She’s pulling a white container out of her bag, now in her lap, and then sliding it on the countertop next to Naruto’s gift.

He can see now that it’s a first aid kit. He looks back to her, meeting green eyes and slightly tinged cheeks. “I thought there might be some things you didn’t have, after traveling for so long.”

This is odd, because all ninja travel with a rudimentary first aid kit at the bare minimum, and Sakura of all people knows this; it’s an occupational hazard and frankly foolish not to. He stares at it as if it is a riddle, trying to figure out what could possibly be inside. Perhaps medicine or painkillers? Even those come in standard first aid kits for ninja, though. A hefty stock of food pills? He supposes he could take those on missions with him, if needed.

He’s sure both Kakashi and Naruto are thinking the same thing, but they don’t comment on it.

Finally, he responds, meeting her eyes, “Thank you.” He’ll open it later, when he’s alone, to see what’s actually in it. She really didn’t need to get him anything.

Her smile grows wider, and her eyes catch the light, gilded fervor that he thinks he could drown in. “You’re welcome.” After a beat, she glances at Kakashi, so Sasuke tears his irises away from flashing jade iridescent with metallic lambency and turns, too. When he does, he sees that Kakashi’s bowl is now empty. He tries to resist an annoyed twitch; he doesn’t know how he keeps pulling this off, after so many years.

Then his old sensei reaches into his vest and pulls out what appears to be a frame; it must have been tucked there this whole time, for safekeeping, out of sight.

When he reaches past Naruto to gift it to him, Sasuke realizes it’s their original Team Seven picture, in the frame he saw sitting on Kakashi’s desk the other day.

His eyes sting as it’s pressed into his hand, thoughts of mask hypervigilance forgotten in an instant in favor of an overwhelming sense of plenary peace and belonging. There is a small inner voice emanating from a house lined with dark wood and darker penchants, gnawing and protesting that he is deeply undeserving, but he extinguishes it for now, just for tonight; the world is not going to end because Kakashi gave him a picture rife with memories. Fighting to remain detached is what got him into trouble in the first place.

Sasuke blinks a few times, and a paper-thin layer of sediment peels away, messy and getting everywhere, like the wrapping paper he tried to collect earlier to avoid a similar problem. Then he utters, “Thank you,” quietly, but loud enough for all three of them to hear.

“No problem. I can get another copy developed from the village archives for my desk,” Kakashi replies, smiling. “It’s good to have you back.”

Time passes somehow both quickly and slowly. The four of them sit there for well over another hour, visiting casually about topics that aren’t as heavy as perplexing poisons. Sasuke moreso listens than genuinely communicates, but he comments every now and then.

Naruto chatters about an elaborate date he’s going to take Hinata on when she gets back to the village, involving feeding ducks at her favorite pond. Sakura mentions that he should bring cinnamon rolls, because that is Hinata’s favorite treat, and Naruto exclaims that he knows, but he also asks Teuchi for a pen to write a reminder on his hand, so he doesn’t forget to pick them up the day after tomorrow when she’s supposed to get back.

Kakashi mentions how he’s supposed to be getting some new mission requests in on Monday morning, so he might have something for Sasuke by then; the dobe is indignant when it doesn’t also include him, and launches into another five minute whining session.

Sakura tells a story about Sai and a misunderstanding involving an order of art supplies that she heard from Ino that morning; apparently, Ino works at the hospital on occasion, both to do some part-time medic duties and to help Sakura, which Sasuke was unaware of. Naruto shudders when Sakura brings up Sai, Ino, and art supplies; Sasuke gets the distinct impression that there is a story there, but doesn’t ask.

It is a little after eight when Kakashi mentions quite astutely that everyone is probably tired and should get going. Naruto laughs mischievously, then, meeting Sasuke’s eyes.

“Teme, what do ya say to all of us going out for a drink or two after this? There’s a fun place just down the road from here.”

Sasuke blinks, because that sounds objectively terrible on any night, let alone a Saturday, and it is not the first time since his return to the village that Naruto has mentioned going to drink; he really wants to get him drunk for some reason. Even though Kakashi has just said they should wrap it up, he looks at Sasuke as if waiting for a response anyways, as though he would actually go with them if they all chose to.

“Can’t. I have plans.”

Naruto huffs and grumbles under his breath about the plans probably involving training or reading or watching his laundry air dry. “Alright, alright. But you can’t escape it forever. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to accept.”

Sasuke smirks, then. “If you can beat me in a spar, I’ll go. Dobe.”

A fire has been lit in blue eyes. “You’re ON.”

Kakashi then sets enough money on the counter for all four of them, at which point they all begin to stand. Sasuke and Sakura both say thank you, but Naruto begins protesting that if he knew he was buying, he would have eaten more. Kakashi smiles cryptically. “Which is why I didn’t tell you. The Hokage position pays lucratively, but I know from experience you’ll eat me out of house and home.”

Naruto and Kakashi wave goodbye and set out to the west, in the general direction of their respective residences. Sasuke and Sakura both watch them go with something like amusement; he can hear Naruto complaining until he’s halfway down the street, which is a feat, because this area of town is still quite busy.

He turns to the gifts and stacks them carefully in preparation to leave, finally; they are all flat, so they’ll be easy enough to carry. They really didn’t need to get him anything... but he is appreciative, gaze lingering on them for a little longer than an instant.

Sakura is smiling at him when he turns to her, weight shifted to the side casually. “Do you want to drop those off first, or bring them with you?”

Sasuke thinks of the time; he still doesn’t know when she usually goes to sleep. “...I can bring them with.”

Her lips quirk upwards more, and she nods. They start walking east, him gripping the gifts carefully.

The moon has risen a bit higher in the sky by now; the streets appear much like a desaturated dreamscape, cloaking everything in a layer of alleviation. They pass under street lights casting flaxen ambiance, as well as other smaller hints of glow from various lit-up signage, tinctorial flashes washing over them both occasionally, only to be rinsed clean as they pass into astronomical dusk again. Sakura’s hair is surprisingly reflectant, brief notes of neons catching atop pale pink: electric blue, candy red, apple green.

“Naruto’s going to hold you to that bet, you know,” Sakura pipes up to his right once they’ve made it a block away, tilting her head upwards, expression soaked with mirth.

“Tch. Don’t remind me.” She laughs a little in response. It’s a lovely sound, dulcet in his ears.

They’re coming up on a bar that appears to be pretty crowded, people spilling out onto the street outside. Wordlessly, they both change course to cross to the other side of the street, avoiding the gathering of people, for which he is appreciative; he’s still not much one for crowds. They’re almost to the main stretch of road where they’ll turn south to go to Sakura’s; just two more blocks and the people should disperse a bit.

As they cross, Sakura informs him, “I’m pretty sure that’s the one he was talking about, by the way.”

“...Great,” He murmurs, frowning. He really doesn’t drink often. A place like that wouldn’t do much to encourage him to.

“It’s not so bad, if you go on a weeknight. Less people.”

He considers, then questions, “...Have you gone drinking with him?”

She averts her eyes, as if she’s a little embarrassed. “A few times... Usually it’s for celebrations, though, not just us. Birthdays, that sort of thing. I’ve gone with Ino more.” She ponders for a bit longer, as if shuffling through memories. “I guess I’ve gone with him and Kakashi-sensei a couple of times, though we don’t always go to that one. Once we went with Tsunade-shishou to that casino.”

Sasuke is pretty sure he knows the answer to his next question, but he asks it anyway. “...Is he any good at gambling?”

A short but rich giggle blooms from her throat that makes his lip twitch upwards. “No. His betting history is just as bad as shishou. He’s worse at baccarat than she is, actually, which is quite an accomplishment. She hadn’t won in a long time, before she beat him.”

It stands to reason that Naruto would be bad at table games, but the fact that he’s bad at arguably one of the easiest ones to learn amuses him more than it should. “...Will probably be awhile before I get dragged with him, then.”

“Probably,” Sakura agrees.

They turn south towards her apartment, and sure enough, the people milling about in the streets begin to thin. Being a Saturday night, there are more lights on than usual around this time, but they’ve arrived into an area of town that doesn’t really cater to a night crowd like bars do; the lit windows here are mostly residential.

Plants are continuing to unfurl everywhere in Konoha, though the rain tomorrow will probably be good for them. It stands to reason that it will get even more lush, after; perennials are starting to bud back to life, soon to join the annuals already adorning most buildings’ exteriors and windowsills. There’s a breeze picking up tonight, too, slightly shuffling leaves and the fabric of awnings attached to the buildings they walk past, a quiescent whispering that seemingly drowns out the usual sound of crickets. It might be cold enough for soup tomorrow; he’s looking forward to it.

Sakura notices, too. “Kakashi was right; everything is greening up. The rain will do some good tomorrow; we haven’t had some in a bit.”

“...Probably,” he echoes her words from earlier. Her hair is fluttering a little in the wind, too, eye-catching and gossamery. Sasuke wonders if it’s still soft like silk. He had accidentally felt it several times, on various missions when they were younger.

They reach her building, and she noiselessly opens the glass door for him. Sasuke steps aside so she can pass after she shuts it behind them. Then he’s following her up the stairway, something like anticipation unfurling in him, much like the greenery he noticed on the way here.

Sakura unlocks her door, glancing back at him for a moment with her hand lingering on the doorknob. Then she turns to push it open, and he trails behind her carefully.

He follows her into a small enclosed area - a dedicated entryway - with a threshold straight ahead leading into the rest of the space. It is dim until Sakura flips on the light of a compact but surprisingly luminous lamp to their right, and he sees that the entryway area itself is painted the color of pale cream. The floor beneath them is aged wood, light in color, that appears to extend into the rest of the dwelling. A single wall-mounted shelf floats to the left that holds several multifarious storage containers: one woven, one white, one that looks like an antiquated rice basket. Out of the top of the last one peeks the well-worn handle of a spade; it must be gardening supplies. Beneath the shelf are hooks studded to the wall; Sakura is stepping towards them to shrug off her bag and hang it from one of them, next to a green jacket and a red and pink coat with fur trim.

There is a console table made of aged wood that near matches the shelf - white oak, he thinks, because it’s not as richly colored as normal oak - to the right. It might be an antique; it is close in color and stain to the flooring, though not an exact match. Her fiction book from the other day sits atop it, a bookmark protruding from around halfway through its pages; he assumes she must keep any non-work-related library books there, when she’s not reading them. Beneath the table is a patterned rug in neutral tones, on which rest a small collection of sandals that are not entirely lined up straight, as well as a pair of green rainboots. It is the only part of the entryway that does not appear overly organized.

Sasuke begins to toe off his sandals as Sakura does, too. She crosses over to the table and opens up one of the drawers, placing her lanyard of keys inside. “You can set your gifts here, if you’d like,” she offers helpfully, gesturing to the table and sounding almost shy, so he does. He turns to grab his sandals and sets them neatly on the rug beneath the table.

She reaches beyond the enclosing wall to the other side, flipping what must be a lightswitch; the rest of the overhead lights in the next area of space flood on. She angles her head back towards him, shifting her weight to the side a little. “I’m afraid it won’t be as long of a tour as Naruto’s.”

It’s small, but cozy. They step into an open space with a wall trailing to the right and openness extending to the left, which houses her living room. The ceilings are high for an apartment this size; it makes it feel bigger. Two towering bookshelves line the west and south walls, and a small dining table sits in front of the window on the north end, over which hangs a simple but worn pendant light, sap green in color; it is reminiscent of the kinds one usually sees at indoor markets. Between the two spaces lies a comfortable-looking sage green couch, classic but also well-worn, placed in front of a small entertainment center. He notices that the furniture pieces are all of slightly different construction, not a matching set, though the colors of everything are very similar to the flooring. On top of the surfaces are various decorative knick knacks: little glass jars in varied colors with dried flowers, another lamp, a candle. The entire open area is painted a pale, pale desaturated viridian; Sasuke likes the color. From what he can see of the room past the expanse of wall to their right, it is painted a different color - linen white.

“Sai and Ino helped me with the paint colors when I moved in.” She pauses. “Well, Sai helped. Ino mostly just helped narrow down color selection. It needed painting anyways; my landlady said I could do pretty much anything as long as it wasn’t black or something.” She walks over to the lamp on the end table by the sofa, and switches it on. Then she wanders over to switch the pendant light over the table on, too.

Sasuke nods, still absorbing. There is an expanse of framed photos to his right, on the space leading up to what must be the kitchen. There are many, leading all the way down the wall, arranged in more of a collage fashion than straight across. He scans them quickly, and is surprised to see that their original Team Seven photo isn't among them. He knows it must be elsewhere in her apartment; she is too sentimental to not have it displayed somewhere. It makes him consider where he’s going to put the one Kakashi has given him.

“The layout is kind of unique,” Sakura continues, walking back towards him through the living room area. “There’s not really room for a dining table in the kitchen, so that table over there-” She motions towards where she just was, in front of the north window, “-is used for that. It’s kind of nice, that way; you can look out the window when you eat.” Sasuke notes upon further inspection that there are a few small plants sitting in the window there, similar coloring to the ones on her doorstep. A thriving jasmine plant is hung higher up, against the glass, fronds twisting downwards. He finds he can picture Sakura eating there easily.

Sakura crosses over into what he assumes is the kitchen; he follows, and notes as he does so that there is a faint aroma of tea, though it is a challenge to place the flavor. It’s simple, but with nice floor to ceiling white cabinetry, aside from a single area in the corner where there is open shelving of the same wood finish, as well as a window on the east wall, over the sink. This one appears to be lined with a small herb garden, more mismatched terracotta pots perched in the windowsill. The countertops here are also wood, in a similar colorway as the rest of the wood he’s seen so far. Most of what’s stored on the open shelving appears to be general dry goods, flour and sugar and oatmeal in clear containers. There is also a fern-colored teapot, decorated with a white floral design, sitting on the end of the shelf for easiest access; she must make tea often. There is a knife set on the counter, as well as a few ceramic containers holding various utensils such as whisks and wooden spoons. Nothing appears out of place, and there are no dishes in the sink; she must keep it pretty tidy. In the only empty corner, there is what he assumes is a pantry door, as well as a small wooden stool. He realizes then that she must not be tall enough to reach the top of the cupboards.

“Sai said keeping it a lighter color would make it look bigger. I think it helps. It’s pretty nice, otherwise.” She glances at him, then away, slightly flushed as if she’s nervous. He realizes, reciprocally, that he is kind of nervous, too, being in her space with her alone.

“Not much left but the hallway,” she adds after a moment, leading him out of the kitchen and further, to a hallway leading east. There are three doors towards the end of it; one to the left, one in the middle, and one to the right. Two of the three are sitting open; the small room straight ahead holds a stacked washer and dryer, as well as cabinets that match the ones in the kitchen. Once he follows her a few more steps, he sees a hamper, as well. The walls appear to be painted a lilac color in the laundry room, slightly darker in hue than the rest of her space thus far. The flooring is different, too, in the laundry room; a white tile, inlaid with a touch of black sparingly in a symmetrical pattern. The style of it is very in tune with the age of the building, reminiscent of an older time.

“Left door is the bedroom.” She gestures towards the closed door, then points to the next one. “Middle is the laundry room; that’s also where I keep any cleaning stuff, like the broom or mop.” She nods then towards the bathroom, so he steps closer to peer inside; it is painted a light sand color, with the same white tile accented with black, only here it also goes halfway up the wall. “And that’s the bathroom.” The same white cabinets appear here, too. It has a tub/shower combination, and a plain white shower curtain. It appears spotlessly clean. A window lies above the sink on the east wall, with another hanging plant dangling in front of it, towards the corner so it’s not in full light all of the time; it looks like a satin pothos. There is also a small wicker stool, on which are folded powder-white towels, and a small glass tabletop lamp, an interesting statement in a bathroom.

He remembers that there are three lamps she’s turned on already. She must not like hard lighting. He tries to resist the urge to smile, because neither does he.

“It’s nice,” he compliments as they make their way back to the living room area. It’s more than nice; he really likes it. Everything about it is as her as he expected it to be, more of a home than an apartment, eclectic combinations painting a picture very indicative of the life she lives here. Sasuke muses that it is especially characteristic of her that she would like different colors throughout the rooms, and that the colors fit their respective spaces well. He finds himself wondering what color she selected for her room, what color she deemed the most calming, though obviously he would never ask.

A deep blush inks it way onto her skin, and she smiles, seeming very pleased. “Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” Her gaze flits away, then back again. “Would you want to maybe watch something? I could make some tea, decaf, if you’d like.”

He nods.

“Okay; I can show you what I have.”

They go back into the kitchen. She opens one of the cabinets, the one nearest the teapot; the entire bottom shelf is filled with packaged tea, labeled jars of loose leaf, sugar, and a container of honey. The shelf above it contains teacups that match the teapot, and more jars of loose leaf, though these ones are labeled caffeine free. There are a few small boxes of packaged tea there, too; she must sort them separately based on caffeine content. The third shelf contains a few miscellaneous mugs and glasses. It’s quite a collection; he understands the mixed aromatics of different tea flavors he noticed earlier. It’s unique, enjoyable without being overwhelming, small hints of sweet spice and citrus drifting into the kitchen space more now that the cabinet door is ajar.

“Most of my packaged teas have more specific flavors, desserts and things like that,” Sakura mentions. “For loose leaf, I’ve got quite a few; caffeine-free ones are oolong, chamomile, lemon ginger, jasmine…” She shifts some of the jars to the side of the middle cabinet to reveal the ones behind it. “Silver needle, white coconut creme, Earl Grey, caramelized pear…”

“...Earl Grey sounds good,” Sasuke murmurs, moving slightly out of the way. She tips her head in acknowledgment before pulling that jar down, then reaching for the teapot.

“I’ll make some; I like Earl Grey at night. Do you want any cream or lemon or anything like that in yours? I have some in the fridge.” She moves to start the water boiling, removing the strainer from the teapot before she fills it. After it’s on the stove, she begins sifting loose leaf from the jar into the strainer so it’s ready.

“...Lemon would be good.” He likes adding lemon to Earl Grey; it makes it more tart. He feels like he should help, so he adds, “I’ll get it. Do you want cream in yours?”

Jade eyes flick to his, and her cheeks color a little. “...Yes. It’s on the top shelf of the door. There’s…” She pauses, as if embarrassed. “There’s normal creamer there too, but I have a coconut milk sweet cream that I like with mine. Just a little bit. It’s… meant for coffee, but…” When he smiles knowingly back, she looks away, back towards the teapot.

He opens the fridge; it’s extremely well-stocked. He doesn’t hover too long before he reaches to grab a lemon and the creamer she mentioned from the door’s upper shelf, but he notes there is a large container of strawberry topping on the top shelf towards the front, as well as a clear container with what may be banana nut muffins. She really does have a sweet tooth, he thinks, amused.

He shuts the door, and she procures a small cutting board from another cupboard and a knife to slice the lemon into wedges. She’s also grabbed two teacups, the ones that match the teapot.

“Thank you.” She’s smiling as he sets down the lemon and the creamer. “I can finish making this, if you want to maybe pick what we watch?”

“...What would you like to watch?”

Sakura blinks. “I’m honestly fine with anything. I’ve got some movies in the cabinet of the entertainment center… Otherwise I have cable to flip through, too.”

She must not go to bed too early, since she mentioned movies. He decides to ask. “...When do you usually go to bed?”

Something in her eyes softens. “Usually ten or eleven. It’s my weekend now, though, so I can stay up late, if you pick something longer.”

He nods, and she turns to slice the lemon halves into quarters, so he pads back to her living room. When he opens the cabinet below the television, he finds it nearly filled to the brim with movies. He settles down to siphon through them, skimming through various synopses. He comes across five or six shoved to the corner of one side haphazardly; those must be the ‘bad’ movies she watches with Ino. The rest of them that he finds sound fairly interesting. He ultimately picks one called A Tale of Archery; the summary makes it sound like a period drama with a twist. As he sits there, he tries to remember the last time he watched a movie; it was probably after he returned to Konoha but before he left for his journey, a rather stupid one with Naruto in his old apartment.

This one should be better. He hopes, brows furrowed, that it’s one she likes; he assumes she must like most of them, given that she owns them.

Sasuke stands with it as Sakura comes out with the tea, cups placed on small plates with dainty teaspoons. “Oh, that’s a good one,” she mentions. His heart flutters, and he feels a little less nervous. He puts it into the player on the next shelf before standing as she sets her plate and cup on her coffee table.

“Thank you,” he says softly when she hands him his, two slices of lemon perched on the side.

She smiles at him, dimple appearing, before grabbing the remote and flicking on the television so it starts setting up. “Do you mind if I shut off the overhead lights? I’m... not much one for hard lighting.”

“Not at all.” The space will be well-lit without it, with the lamps.

He takes a seat on the sofa while she walks over near the entryway. Sasuke realizes now that the couch isn’t terribly big; probably just enough for one person to lie down on, if they wanted to. It’s comfortable, as he’d anticipated. He sets his plate and cup on her coffee table so he can squeeze the lemon wedge into it, grabbing the spoon to stir as the overhead lights go out.

With the lights off, it is very cozy.

Sakura takes a seat next to him, not too close, but not the furthest away she could be, either. She fast forwards through the opening portion of advertisements as he stirs.

By the time he brings the cup to his lips to take a sip, the opening credits are playing. She sets down the remote and stirs her own cup once more, before also taking a sip.

It’s good; flavorful but not too intense, with a hint of bergamot orange rind and maltiness. The lemon gives it a slightly more acidic twist. He’s not much one for creamer, unless he’s in a rare mood on a cold fall or winter day, but he can see how the coconut milk sweet cream would compliment the taste, if one liked sweet things.

“It’s good,” he murmurs, meeting her eyes for a moment.

She glows at the compliment; he can make out a blush in the dim lighting. He feels his own neck heat up.

The movie is pretty good. It tells the story of a bygone feudal era a long time ago, peasants and samurai and daimyos with estates sprawling across countrysides lined with rice paddies. An archer passes away, and his son follows in his footsteps and becomes respected competitively. The twist is that the father actually went into hiding, and returns at the end of the movie.

It’s close to eleven when it’s over. Their teacups sit on her coffee table, long emptied.

Sasuke feels very content, and a little loath to leave, if he’s being honest. She seems slightly tired when she meets his eyes, though, so he slowly stands and reaches for his plate and cup. She does the same, and he trails after her to the kitchen, following her lead; she empties the lemon rinds into the garbage, so he does too. She then rinses her cup clean in the sink, extending her hand for his after.

“...What time should I come over tomorrow?” He asks in a hushed tone, when she turns to him. He’s not sure if the walls are thin or not, and they’re in the kitchen, so it’s not against her neighbors’ unit or anything, but he still somehow feels he should speak quietly; it’s somewhat dark, dimly lit only by cast light from the lamp in the other room.

Her countenance changes to one of consideration. “I was thinking maybe around eleven? I should have lunch ready around then.” Her eyes flicker to his, and her lips curve upwards; he tries not to look at them too long. “If that’s okay.”

He nods. “I’ll be here, then.”

Her lips curve upwards more. “I’ll walk you to the door,” she offers softly. He turns, and she follows.

“Do you like avocado?” She asks him as they shuffle into her entryway, where he stoops to retrieve his shoes. “I was… thinking about making avocado grilled cheese, to go with the soup.”

He glances upwards. “...I do.” He’s never had a grilled cheese sandwich with avocado before, but it sounds like it would taste good. He wonders again what kind of soup she’ll make; she knows his food preferences well, and she hasn’t asked, so it must be something she knows he’ll like. It makes his heart flip behind his ribcage a little.

“Oh, good. I’ll make that, then.” Her eyes drop down to her feet for a second as he rises back to his full height, sandals situated; it’s hard to tell in the lack of light, just the one lamp turned on in here, but he’s pretty sure she’s blushing again.

Her next words are near a whisper. “Thank you for… hanging out.” Multi-faceted jade seeps into him again, seafoam ebbing around dark pupils. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of it, after yearning for it for so long. “I had a nice time.”

He takes a quiet step closer to her, heart suddenly twisting in his chest as he tries to swallow his nerves, because she looks so happy, and it’s making his breath get stuck inside his lungs.

“...Me, too,” he whispers, barely audible before his lips brush hers gently.

It feels different, kissing her in the privacy of her apartment rather than on her doorstep. It’s like they can finally take their time, no real chance of interruption. His mind comes up with the word intimate, and his neck warms. Her mouth is all plush affection, bergamot and lemon and a subtle sweetness, stirred, that isn’t too much, accented by berry. It makes him want to try all of the varieties she has in her cabinet, even the sweet ones, just to see what they taste like on her lips in the hours that follow.

Delicate hands brush his shoulders, fingertips skimming the lower part of his neck, subtle beckoning but also gentle, respectful of boundaries, so he decides to corrode, give in and do something that he has wanted to do for a very long time. He cups her cheek with his hand, careful and barely there, gingerly sweeping a thumb over flushed skin, gliding atop a freckle that rests further back on her cheekbone. He’s had it memorized since they were kids.

The strands of pink he inadvertently touches are as soft as he remembers.

Her face is ablaze when they draw back from each other, tender smile and viridescent eyes laced with ardency just for him. Warmth pools in his belly as he studies her, decay long soothed and forgotten as he carefully strokes her cheek once more before he pulls away.

“...Good night, Sakura.”

The dimple makes one last appearance for the evening. “Good night, Sasuke-kun.”

XXX

Sasuke opens the first aid kit upon his return to his apartment, having been curious about what was in it all evening. Vines grasp his heartstrings as he discovers what’s inside.

There are two jars of loose leaf sencha tea that he’s sure came from the tea place they’d visited together a few days ago; one is labeled caffeinated, the other decaffeinated. Along with it is a basic tea infuser, new in its package. There are also three blue packages of cough drops, mentho-lyptus flavor, so they won’t be sweet.

Jade irises, he thinks, are also mollifying, for when the corrosion is done, an aether easily risen into, floating to the top.

Sasuke brews a mug of the jar labeled decaffeinated to enjoy before he goes to bed, a helpful succedaneum with which to conclude an evening well spent. It's not exactly the same shade of green, he thinks, before taking it to his living room so he can look out his window as he savors it, but it's close.

[hockeyboysiguess]

five golden rings -> five silver rings | m. rantanen

a/n: an hour later in all the rest so far, but here’s fic number five in my 12 days of christmas series! rest of the series linked here.

word count: 2,470

warnings: mentions of alcohol

You took a deep breath and smoothed out your dress before adjusting your hair one last time, deciding after all this time it was best to settle for that one pesky curl being out of place so you could get going. You grabbed your earrings off the dresser, a gift from Mikko, and headed to the living room where he was waiting for you. His suit jacket was tossed onto the couch next to him, his eyes trained on his phone. In the faint light of just the Christmas tree, illuminating his jawline his free hand came up to scratch, his blonde curls outlined by the light, he looked every bit as angelic as you thought he looked the day you met him, and every bit as angelic as he proved to be since that moment, worthy of the top of your grandmother’s Christmas tree. He had to settle for her mantle next to it though.

“Ready!” was how you announced your presence to him. 

Mikko lifted his head from his phone as a lazy smile pulled slowly at his lips. His light eyes danced up and down your body appreciatively in a way that told you the dress was worth its uncomfortableness. You smiled and your cheeks heated under his gaze, but he just heightened it by letting out a low whistle. 

“Merry Christmas to me,” he spoke through his smile. 

“Christmas isn’t for two more days,” you reminded him as you grabbed your coat from the closet, attention away from him for a moment. 

“Well then.” Mikko’s voice was suddenly in your ear and you gasped as you felt his large hands slide around your waist from behind. You hadn’t even heard him get up. “I guess Christmas came early for me then.”

You slid a hand down his forearm until your hand covered his. You slid your fingers into the gaps between his, lacing your hands together. He squeezed your fingers between his and pressed his hand against your stomach to push you firmly against him. A kiss to your neck followed by another and you knew you had to be the one to put your foot down and stop this so you could actually make it to the party sort of close to on time. 

“Mik, you can do this later,” you mumbled out as he kissed your neck. 

“Is it a crime that I want my fiancée?” he muttered out against your skin. “Especially when you’re wearing this dress…”

He trailed off and you were slowly getting pulled into the warmth that was Mikko Rantanen, but you had to stop this for now. Mikko needed to make it to this party seeing as it was for him. Well, him and the rest of his teammates, but your vested interest was in your fiancé. You pulled his hand away from you and stepped forward toward the closet, wrapping your hand around your coat again. Mikko groaned, but reached for his coat hung up next to yours instead of trying to pull you back in. He knew you were right, even though he didn’t want you to be. 

You flicked off the Christmas tree before following Mikko out the door, hand in one of his large ones. He held your hand as he drove, a habit he picked up early in your relationship neither of you wanted him to shake. Especially after the ring Mikko agonized over made its way into your hand, he never let it go in the car. He frequently pressed soft kisses on the back of your hand periodically at stop lights. Under the streetlights decorated with wreaths lining the street of Denver, like under the lights on the Christmas tree earlier, you were looking at him and were reminded just how much you loved every part of him, every single thing he brought to your life. The holidays made a lot of people sentimental, you included, and there wasn’t anyone who deserved your sentiment more than Mikko.

With his hand on the small of your back, guiding you into the party, it didn’t feel as overwhelming as it was. The Avalanche Christmas party, not the ugly sweater drunken Christmas-fest that occurred at the Landeskogs, but the formal one that required a dress this nice that you could barely breathe in and heels as high as you could manage. It was all heightened this year by the silver cup on the table at the center of the room, visible from every angle. With the season shifted back this year, you had watched Mikko hoist the cup in October, shifting everything back and causing events and timelines to converge. The decision to give the team their championship rings at the Christmas party this year gave the whole event a little more fanfare and a little more weight. 

Mikko grabbed two champagne flutes off a passing waiter’s tray and handed one to you with a wry smile, his dimples showing alongside that beautiful smile you loved so much. You tapped your glass to his before raising it up to him, the first of many silent toasts for the evening to celebrate his greatest accomplishment to date. The cup in the center of the room took you back through the times it starred in your memories. You looked at the Cup, shining under the lights, and remembered the way Mikko looked at you on the ice as the realization that his childhood dream was a reality hit him. You remembered the moment you watched him hoist it over his head like it weighed nothing, when from your own experience trying to lift it in his parent’s backyard in Finland, you knew it wasn’t all that light. The look of joy on his face, the brightness in his eyes, every single time he saw the Cup and knew he had won it, that his name was engraved on it, the feelings that expression on his face gave you reminded you of a lot of things. The warmth of a steady burning fireplace, the innocent untampered with joy of a child on Christmas morning, but most of all, it brought back the memory of Christmas two years ago, when he had the same look on his face, the look of a dream coming true, when you told him that you loved him too.  

“Ready to mingle?” Mikko asked you, stealing your now empty champagne flute from you to place it on a tray passing by. “You know they all just want to talk to you instead.” 

Coaches, executives, owners, and what felt like endless people with endlessly similar yet different job titles later, your feet were killing you and you’d had a few more flutes of passing champagne that you were definitely feeling. Mikko dropped down into his seat next to yours and you sighed with relief when you realized he’d grabbed two drinks on his way to the table. 

“My savior,” you smiled at him as he leaned in closer to you. You stole a quick kiss before adding, “Did it hurt when you crash landed in Santa’s sleigh? Because you’re the best gift I’ve ever gotten.” 

“Did you just make a terrible Christmas themed, ‘Did it hurt when you fell from heaven,’ joke?” Mikko was laughing as you nodded in response. “God, I can’t wait to marry you.” 

You both turned your attention to the stage. One of the people you’d shaken hands with and turned on your most charming smile for was up there giving another congratulations speech. You were sure it was supposed to reflect the hard fought sixteen wins the team put in for the Cup and all the hours before and in between those, but you’d heard so many of these speeches since the team won that glaringly shiny cup in the center of the stage now that they all blended together, even as they were happening. The garland in the background and Mikko’s fingers tracing patterns on your shoulder were the only two things that made the speech stand out from all the others. You still gave it a standing ovation, like everyone else around you did. 

Two more speeches later, and a veritable army of people suddenly emerged from doors you hadn’t realized were there with stacks of black boxes in their hands. Mikko rubbed his hands together excitedly. You knew he’d never wear it, but it would be an understatement to say he was excited to see his championship ring after months of waiting. As soon as the box was placed in front of him, Mikko’s hands were dancing on it, dying to open it and see its contents, but he was waiting for his teammates spread around the room to receive theirs as well. Everyone had been waiting for this moment and he wasn’t about to be the one to spoil it. Still, he looked like a child who had just had a present placed in front of them that was so uniquely shaped it could only be the one thing they most desperately wanted who was then told to wait for everyone else to get their presents too. 

Mikko flipped open the top of the box as fast as humanly possible when he finally could. You could practically see the glint of the ring in his eyes as he reached forward with shaking hands to pick it up. He whistled long and low as he appraised it in his hand, turning it over and over slowly to see it from every possible angle. He shook his head softly, a youthful smile pulling at his lips. The championship ring was always a small part of the dream, the most material part, but also one of the more physical representations of it he would get to keep with him forever. It was a moment, winning the cup, that might not come again, no matter how hard he worked and your fiancé worked harder than anyone you knew. Because of that, you filmed him opening the box and sliding his hard earned championship ring on for the first time, wanting to give him every single opportunity to savor this moment over and over again. 

“Baby, look!”

Mikko’s mouth was pulled into a wide open smile, absolute elation on his face, the monstrously large ring on his finger. You laughed as you filmed his reaction, his wide-eyed, wide-mouth joy burned into your phone memory forever. You couldn’t help but ruin the moment for just a second to lean forward and kiss him. Mikko didn’t hesitate for a second before kissing you back. 

“I’m so proud of you,” you whispered softly to him, making him smile impossibly wider than he had been all night. 

“Thank you,” he replied just as softly. “That reminds me. I have something for you actually.” 

You groaned as Mikko leaned back into his chair and fished around in his suit jacket pocket for a moment. He pulled out a small black box, thin and long like it contained a bracelet, but slightly wider than that. Mikko had a penchant for getting you far too expensive jewelry, a habit he picked up early on your relationship that culminated in the ring on your left hand you hadn’t even wanted to venture the cost of when he slid it onto your finger. You didn’t think this Christmas would be any exception, even though your ring had come this year already. You knew Mikko better than to think this Christmas would be any different, except he was two days early.

“You’re early, Mik,” you sighed, tossing your napkin onto the table. 

“Fits better with today,” he told you as he extended the box out to you. 

You placed it on the table and gave him a small glare out of the side of your eyes, which only made him laugh. You opened it slowly, as painstakingly slowly as you could, just to make him suffer a little before getting your reaction since he cracked and was giving you a gift two days early. When you finally had it fully open, you gasped softly at the contents. Five silver rings sat nestled in the velvet, of various sizes and thickness, all beautifully polished and shining. 

“I know you like those sets, with smaller rings that go like, on the top of your fingers and the bigger ones that go where your rings normally sit?” Mikko was pointing to his own hand to try and show you. “I thought um, five silver rings on the Stanley Cup, five silver rings for you? It didn’t feel right to get a ring myself and not get you one, since you’re my biggest supporter.” 

It was a little cliché and you knew it, but your eyes teared up a little anyway. You let your fingers dance over the rings slowly, tapping over the one with the smallest diameter first and working your way up. You knew they were completely custom, and platinum not silver like Mikko was trying to make you believe for the sake of his homage to the Cup, which wasn’t even entirely silver itself to begin with. When your fingers reached over the biggest and widest ring, Mikko cleared his throat.

“There’s, um, you should take a good look at that one.” 

Which was your cue to slide it from the box and look for an engraving on the idea. You ran the tip of your finger over the letters before your eyes became too cloudy to see them clearly anymore. It was just one word. Kiitos, in his native tongue. Thank you. That’s all he’d engraved inside, but it meant the absolute world to you. You saw Mikko as a part of all of your successes, your highest highs made possible and sweeter because of him and his steadfast love and support. You were holding evidence he saw you as part of his greatest success too. 

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he told you softly, “and thank you. Thank you for everything.” 

Everything was vague, yet all encompassing as a word. All encompassing because Mikko meant it so. He was thankful for you, saying yes when he got down on one knee earlier that year. He was thankful for your support. He was thankful for your love. But most of all, he was just thankful by some miracle that felt a lot like Christmas itself, you picked him back and were working on vows just like he was to say that you would pick him for forever. By this time next year, he would have heard those vows and you would have heard his. But Mikko didn’t want to skip ahead. He chose to live in the now, in that night with you, cherishing the Christmas that was to come in two days, while looking forward to his lifetime of them with you.

[jj-ktae]

(M) Squirt Pro Quo

Banner : courtesy of  @jaebeomsmullet​

Pairing : Bambam x Fem!Reader Genre : Smut (Oral, body fluids, penetration, raw language) Words : 2669 Saturday nights are the busiest ones and starting midnight, most party-goers are either drunk or comatose, if not both. Tonight though, as you are taking your last fare, one regular customer enters your taxi with a whole new destination he wishes to penetrate into. 

This scenario is part of The Pleasure Chest ~ A Cringe Fest Collaboration

Squirt Pro Quo

You will never understand people who drink until they collapse.

Alcohol is a good way to make a party wilder but what is the point of wasting all this money if you’re going to forget about what actually happened? It’s part of your job, taking care of drunk customers who get left under your care like it’s your duty to make sure they make it home safely.

You have no other choice though. It is part of the job; no driver can drop a dead weight on the street and leave.

But how many times do you have to do this every weekend? It’s tiring and it fills your car with disgusting odours of liquor you wouldn’t even pay to drink. The application is beeping every five minutes with new requests. It’s the end of the night and people are more and more wasted, turning fares into a chore you wish you could live without.

It’s good money though. Weekends are good money.

This is what you tell yourself when you take the last fare. Money is needed. You might even get tipped. You usually check who you’re taking; you never know what type of person could enter your car. Some are regular users, others are new. You often pick the ones you at least took one time, just to make sure.

Drunk people aren’t only hard to deal with, they apparently gauge their level of attractiveness accordingly to the number of shot they drank.

You stop by one of the familiar nightclub, phone laying on the passenger seat and already signalling your customer that you are waiting. You turn the music off, just in case you end up with someone who thinks you’re holding an after party in your car.

You see a few people stumble and laugh at their clumsiness, others are dancing to no music at all and oh is that a man peeing against that tree?

“I’m late I’m late-, oh it’s you!” The voice makes you stop judging the bystanders to look at your rear-view, where one of your regular customers is looking for the seatbelt.

Bambam.

You should have seen it coming; there was not a week when you didn’t take him back home. He always goes out of the same club, looking like a hot mess and being overly flirty.

He also gives huge tips.

“Am I the last customer?” said boy asks, finger pressing the button to lower the back window. He takes a deep breath and you suspect he is feeling nauseous.

You start the engine, nodding and sighing heavily when a guy almost falls right in front of your car, in the middle of the road. “Tough night?” You try.

Bambam shrugs. “The usual routine night, alcohol, dancing, doing weird things.” his comeback is only funny to him and he notices it, because you see him nod toward the back of your head. “How about you?”

“The usual routine night, alcohol, puking, doing weird things.” You joke back, stopping at a red stop and looking at the rear view again. “I can’t wait to go to sleep.”

“Do you ever party?”

You shrug, barely turning around to look at him. “When I see how you people end up puking and having no dignity, I wonder if I ever will.”

Bambam laughs, dodging your remark with ease. “You’re too pretty to collapse on the streets anyways.”

“Always the smooth talker.”

“Yet you refuse to give me your phone number.”

You pull up at another red stop, feet pressing the brake hard just to shake him a little bit.

Bambam jumps, his pitiful whine quickly replaced by another pick-up line. “I love girls who know how to handle big engines.” he smirks afterward, a brow wiggling up in an obvious attempt to be lascivious.

“You whistle, amused.” This is what you say to the girls in that nightclub, right?”

“None of them hold the gear level the way you do.”

To this you laugh. Bambam always does the same thing; he flirts and flirts until you almost give in before leaving a big tip on the backseat and offering numerous winks.

Tonight, he seems different, though. Almost serious.

“How many car metaphors do you have?”

“Probably less than your horsepower.” He says, taking the seat belt off to lean toward the driver’s seat. “You obviously have a lot going on under that hood.”

You chuckle, taking a turn before stopping again. How many more red lights will you have to deal with?

Bambam feels your irritation, for his hands reach your shoulders to massage your tense muscles. “You’ve never been this cranky, what happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just tired.”

He presses harder, his lean finger feeling like heaven. He does have some skills. “So it is probably a bad time to tell you that I forgot my wallet at the nightclub?”

You turn around abruptly, forcing him to stop massaging you and looking bewildered. “You what?”

“I just noticed, it’s not in my pocket anymore.” He doesn’t even look panicked and merely makes an apologetic face.

“How are you going to pay- great, I will never have that money, right?” You should have known. Turning on the feature I take cash on the application was a very stupid move.

“Well…” Bambam starts, not really getting the part where you would need so little money when you can have him in your car. “I could give you the money next time or…”

You stop, nodding toward him to make him continue.

“Or I could make you relax.”

The light turns green and thankfully there’s no one behind you because you’ve been proposed...sex in exchange of a free ride?

Bambam’s hand finds your shoulder again. “Look at that awful pout. Such a beautiful car body yet such a bad temper…”

You see the way he enjoys the teasing and the way his eyes lit up when you frown at him. He likes it when it’s a losing battle, it seems.

But it might not be that much of a losing battle when the probability of hot sex in your own car crosses your mind.

You lack too much sleep. It has to be the reason why your pussy is clenching.

“Love, the light is green, or you probably would like me to-”

You turn around before he can finish, pressing the accelerator so hard it plasters him again your leather seat.

Bambam laughs, your uneasiness more amusing than disturbing.

He finally looks confused when you don’t turn left like you should be doing. You see him cross his legs, eyes boring into you through the rear view.

“I live the other way” he tries, amused.

“Did you think I would go all the trouble of accepting that fare and leave without getting anything in return?” You answer, irritation mixed with a sudden urge to destroy Bambam’s smug face.

And smug he is, with his lip-smacking and quiet nodding. He lets you take him where you want, still slightly surprised that you finally accepted his overtures.

You stop near a tiny park. The road is empty if not for a couple of taxi, already going around town to pick the last partygoers.

No one is walking by this side of the park so early, either.

You turn around when the engine stops, observing a curious Bambam who is checking outside to test the waters.

“Now how about I lubricate the camshaft?” You lift a brow and earn an impressed look from Bambam, who wastes no time reaching for your seat bell to free your body. His clothes create funny sounds against the leather but he is already too caught-up in the act.

Instead he pulls you at the back of the car with much difficulty.

“Babe, I don’t need no GPS do get into your pants.”

And it is true. Bambam pops your jacket’s buttons with one snap of his fingers and pulls on your sleeves to let it fall. His long coat is easily forgotten when you straddle him and sneak your hands under the thick fabric to let it slide off his shoulders.

He grabs your hips, leaning properly against the leather seat and creating more questionable sounds. They all fall to deaf ears though, especially when he raises his pelvis to make you feel how aroused he is.

“Which gear do you think I’m at?” He teases, head dipping to lick the curve of your neck. His thick lips feel like fire and even cause tiny desperate thrusts against his now hard dick.

“I’m not sure...but you might need to slow down before your engine goes overheating.”

He laughs, warm breath tickling your moist and sensitive skin.

Your clothes fall rapidly, piling on the carpeting and each layer reveals an even better view, Bambam thinks. He lets you return the favour, manoeuvring his hips when you start pulling on his expensive Gucci belt to reach for his ripped jeans’ zipper.

Fog paints the back windows –and you wonder when did he even pull if back up- , hiding your shadows and allowing Bambam to open your bra without you being too conscious about anyone seeing you.

You lean back when your breasts meet the chill air, your hands leaving the bulge in his boxers. Bambam stares for the longest time, his eyes obviously drawn to your nipples, now perky and oh-so-inviting.

You roll your hips against him when he grabs one of your breast and wraps his mouth around a nipple. A satisfied sigh leaves your parted lips and your back arches, automatically sticking more of you against him. The boy welcomes you gladly, bringing you even closer while subtly grazing his lips over your skin.

You jump, giving him a particularly hard thrust in the process and he can only groan, before sucking hard in retaliation.

He is not going to get a free fare and tease you.

Bambam releases your nipple with a popping sound when you part from him. He stays seated, looking at you questioningly as you get up from his lap.

“Let’s check that dipstick before it goes into the oil hole.” You wink seductively, your inhibition out the window as you pull on his boxer’s elastic to free his painful hard-on.

Bambam hisses, your cool fingers short-circuiting his already poorly functioning brain. Two pumps are enough to turn him into a mess of thrusts and grunts, your grip a little bit too tight if he wants to last long enough to keep his promise.

But you don’t seem to care for you lean - and hit your knee against the seat - to gobble his dick in one go.

Bambam jerks away, head shaking violently. “Easy,” he breathes, eyes glued to your parted lips, now against that one very swollen vein.

The feeling is too exciting. The situation is nothing but thrilling; anyone could walk by and see you, kneeling in the back of your car and feasting on a man’s cock. It feels wrong, like you shouldn’t mix work and pleasure but at the same time, you’re merely paying yourself for that free ride.

Bambam is breathing heavily, the tip of his cock turning redder with each stroke of your tongue, now flat against him. He lets you have your fun, satisfied with his self-control. He would love to fill your mouth right there and then. You’d look so beautiful, with a string of semen dripping from your chin.

You look up when you feel his finger threading into your hair. It’s too delicate to be one of a horny man but it isn’t unpleasant; you definitely don’t know him enough to allow any sort of choking with his thick dick.

Surprisingly, the thought doesn’t bother you.

“Touch me,” he adds, “pull on me like you pull on that handbrake.” he demands, now at your mercy. Your hand automatically goes to his navel and travels down until it reaches the base of his cock.

“Like this?” You ask candidly, hand devastating as you pull on his dick way too hard.

It almost hurts, but Bambam enjoys every second of it. “Just like this…”

You keep going, alternating between hard sucking and dick pulling and Bambam grabs your chin when he finds himself reaching his peak

“Turn around.” He adjusts himself on the seat and grabs your hips. Your head hits the ceiling in the process and Bambam has to spread his legs even wider if he wants you to keep a good position.

You end up looking ahead, eyes going wide when you notice how clean the windshield is; anyone could see you, bent into your car and ready to impale yourself on a guy.

“Come on, sit on me babe…” You hear Bambam’s needy whispers and you comply, aligning yourself perfectly and feeling him enter you with a switch motion. “...ride me.”

You moan, the position tiring but also offering one of the best angle you’ve ever experienced. You do exactly as he says, your butt bouncing rapidly on his lap and allowing him to nestle his dick into you to the hilt.

And nothing more happens, nothing more but the sound of wet skin and pleasured moans. You end up grabbing the head-rests for balance when your legs start to quiver and Bambam decides to end your misery.

He feels the signs of release, so powerful they are tickling his legs and hips. Everything gets too hot, too satisfying to resist the urge to fill you up.

And that’s what he does, when he can’t take it no more.

You feel it, the warm semen and the jolting legs informing you of what is happening.

Bambam gives one final thrust, his head falling back and body sweating.

It was mind-blowing.

You’re about to protest. How dare he finish before he even-

“We’re not done.”

You find yourself being pulled back on the seat, his cum dripping on your thighs and you’re sure the leather is going to be ruined but you’re also curious.

“Let me take you somewhere nice.”

He has difficulties moving and you totally blame it on how long his legs are but he doesn’t complain, even if he looks ridiculous with his pants down and shiny dick.

He spreads your legs and somehow finds himself between them. His finger graze the wet skin and you cannot help but blush at how satisfied he seems to be when he looks at his own cum staining your beautiful skin.

“So fucking pretty…” he muses, fingers reaching for your engorged pussy to thrust two fingers into you.

You close your eyes, legs shivering when he picks up the pace and starts ramming into you. You hear him grunt, like he is enjoying this as much as you.

And he is. “You know what works best with overheating engines?” He looks up at you and tries to get up. His voice is a tad deeper and sensual, like he is going to completely end you. He grips the seat and ends up towering you, his hand now allowing him to press his thumb against your clit while finger-fucking you.

You shake your head, eyes glued to his predatory smile and shiny eyes.

He accelerates his hand, stimulating you more and more with his stroke. “Coolant.” His hand goes crazy, so fast it’s almost unbearable.

You scream, hips shaking from the hectic thrusts and you don’t expect to cum this hard.

So hard you are now squirting all over Bambam.

He looks down, admiring his masterpiece and stimulates you even more to keep you going until there’s nothing but a trickle of cum, ridiculous and dripping down the seat.

You keep your eyes closed, the realisation of what happened hitting you like a truck - or so to speak.

Bambam sits back, his hands grabbing your exhausted legs to let them rest on his half-clothed lap. “How about I never get my wallet back?” he tries, his cheeky smile tearing a tired snort out of you.

“You’ll have to because my car is a mess now.”

[pergaias]

excerpts from books i’ll never write ; ii

the varying lengths of these excerpts mess with me  and my perfectionism istf - some are long, like this one, others are short, but hey - all of them lead to the same place. nowhere. 

this is the entire first chapter of a story that i will never finish so um - enjoy ?

title: checkmate word count: 3030

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 ‘YOU THINK YOU’RE FUNNY, RIGHT?’

“VENETIA VERNE, INTERN FOR The White Knight Herald.”

Venetia Verne was done. Done with her job-- being a reporter only sounded fun in theory-- done with her outfit-- what in the world was she thinking-- and of course, done with Octavia Tyrell.

Tavi. Her buttercup. 

Venetia was pretty sure her eyes were so swollen that her cry-fest would be painfully obvious, and was also pretty much positive that she looked like a wreck. 

Not even the fancy perfume she stole from Octavia last night would mask the smell of abject heartbreak.

Seventeen years old but acting twenty-three, Venetia always prided herself for being mature, collected, and a total bitch. 

Of course, the bitch part was usually used affectionately-- Tavi had always called her you bitch! as an endearment, just like the way Venetia used to squeeze her hand and whisper buttercup.

Seventeen years old, but acting twelve when it came to breakups.

“Right this way, Miss Verne,” a female assistant led her across the hall, and Venetia surreptitiously straightened her skirt out. She had chosen a dove-colored skirt and a very vintage white blouse-- vintage chic had always been her style, even though Tavi always pushed for her to look more preppy-glam.

As if. Octavia managed to look like Elle Woods but black-and-white. Venetia was stuck as a Forties poster ad.

“Thank you,” Venetia tried for a smile, but it came out vaguely grimace-like. Had she spent all night crying? Possibly. Was she tired of life, the universe, and everything? Also possibly.

For the record, the answer was not forty-two. Screw the flying dolphins and their musical number about fish.

The assistant nodded, her hair in a bun so tight that Venetia’s scalp sympathized. “Our director is quite excited to meet you, Miss Verne-- he says you’re the best in your generation, and our boss at the Herald has never been more excited about a high school prospect-- you must be doing something right.”

Venetia tried for another smile, but this one looked like a leer. The assistant smiled sympathetically, her heels clicking rhythmically against the tiled floor of the building. She was probably tired of everything, too-- the office had the feel of a morgue. 

As Venetia trailed behind her, her mind kept wandering to Tavi’s coily dark hair, her rich laugh, the way her brown eyes caught the light and turned to gold. Tavi’s lips on the other boy’s, her hands reaching up his shirt--

Venetia broke off. Octavia didn’t know she saw-- to Octavia, everything was still all well and good. Of course, Tavi was used to having everything she wanted. Spoiled, rich, princess bastard--

“We’re here, sweetie,” the assistant motioned to an imposing-looking door, a slightly condescending note to her voice. 

“I appreciate the concern, but it’s Venetia, love.” Venetia allowed herself a smirk at the now-shellshocked assistant before opening the door herself.

Venetia Verne had no interest in being polite or heterosexual. 

“Hi, Dad,” Venetia deadpanned, plopping down in front of the central feature of the office-- a heavy, fancy desk-- and all but putting her feet up. Today was just punch after punch after punch-- of course, Venetia could have rescheduled, but all that bitch energy had to go somewhere, right?

“Venetia.” Cyprian Jung looked no different from the day he divorced her mother, choosing a career and a fancy business conglomerate instead of a wife and tenacious daughter.

Let’s face it. Venetia was still just a little bit bitter. Just a little. 

“Hi. Venetia Verne, intern for the White Knight Herald.” Venetia kept her coy smile, putting emphasis on her mother’s surname. “My final high school project involves me reporting on the crimes of--”

“You’re reporting on the crimes of the White Queen?” her father’s face snapped up, dark hair and hawkish nose and slanted eyes the color of pond scum. 

“Yes,” Venetia said primly, her eyes narrowing. 

“Venetia, sweetheart,” 

“Don’t sweetheart me.” 

“Venetia.”

“Venetia what, Father?”

“Venetia, do you know why I let you interview me?” Cyprian sighed, stroking his nonexistent beard with two fingers. Like, if he actually had one, Venetia was so going to pull an Aang-and-Firelord-Ozai and yank him down by the stupid goatee.

Think calm thoughts, Ven. Less violent, more… Passive-aggressive? Put salt in his coffee instead of sugar?

“Because, like you said. I’m the best of my generation.” Venetia’s gray-green eyes glittered. “And as we both know, the pen is greater than the sword.”

“What do you need to know?” 

ON CYPRIAN JUNG

AS HARD AS IT may be to believe, Cyprian Jung wasn’t always a douche CEO and The Worst Father of the Year. 

Once upon a time, Cyprian might have been Venetia’s favorite person in the world-- but Venetia always skips over that information, and more often than not, likes to pretend that her father didn’t exist. 

Because being raised by a single badass mother sounded a lot cooler than “yeah, my dad decided that his business was a better child than I was, lolol”

But when an new upstart reporter’s article landed on his desk one drizzly Monday morning, Cyprian was shocked to realize that his very gay, very disappointing daughter was the one who wrote it.

Now, we can go two directions here. We can say that Cyprian was so proud and so moved by his daughter’s shrewd reporting skills and her article, or we can say that Cyprian saw something in his daughter that he realized he could exploit, like any good, cunning businessman.

Venetia Verne, who looked-- and acted-- nothing like her father (who seemingly embodied every single fucking Asian stereotype-- how did he even do that?) was proud that she was her mother's daughter.

She hated every resemblance she had with Cyprian, of which she unfortunately had a multitude.

And here comes the plot twist: Cyprian Jung, even though he seemed like he didn’t care for his daughter at all, did. 

That was why he called her into his office on an unnaturally-bright Saturday, the day after Venetia and her girlfriend went to a Friday night house party and Venetia stumbled in on her girlfriend in the middle of a hot make-out sesh with a boy.

And before Venetia turned to her mother for advice on her problem, and before she decided to become who she wanted to be for herself, her father would do one good thing for her.

And it would be the only good thing that Venetia would ever, grudgingly, accept that he did.

1.2 ‘CALLING ME DRUNK WHEN IT’S TOO LATE AT NIGHT’

VENETIA CAME BACK FROM her interview with her father a little satisfied and a little angry. 

Satisfied because she had the outline for her next article all set out and ready to go-- complete with quotes from her father about the White Queen-- and angry for two reasons. 

One, because her father really thought that way? Screw him. 

And two, because Venetia had always gone to lunch on Saturdays with Octavia at their favorite boba shop, munching on Taiwanese food and complaining about how difficult ‘life-ing’ was. Octavia had always managed to make Cyprian (and her own father’s) bigoted ideals about feminism (and gay culture, honestly) seem funny.

Venetia pressed her lips into a tighter line as she finally got out of her father’s ice-cold office building and onto the street, where the motion and movement of the city slowed, if not stilled, her thoughts.

Her flat shoes dragged against the gritty pavement as Venetia trudged towards, actually, Venetia didn’t know where she was going. She just kept walking, her bag over her shoulder and one hand brushing against the folds of her skirt.

Venetia hated not having purpose. Saturdays were hard because those were the days that lacked the most schedule-- school days had school, with designated wake-up and go-the-fuck-to-sleep times. Saturdays were full of freedom, and Venetia Verne didn’t know what to do with it.

So she continued walking, wishing that she had something to do. There was always lunch with Tavi to look forward to, or thrift shopping if she wanted. She could walk around the city aimlessly, or she could go home and mope around--

In her bag, her phone buzzed insistently. Only one person ever texted and didn’t call-- Tavi.

Tears burned the backs of Venetia’s eyes, and a lump formed in her throat. Octavia was probably calling wondering why she wasn’t at the shop yet, knowing about her girlfriend’s affinity for punctuality and structure. 

Octavia was just going to ignore it.

She didn’t confess to a fuming-but-hiding-it Venetia last night that she had cheated, nor had she acted any differently. With her cheerful I love you, bitch and her insistent flirting with anyone who spared her an appreciative glance but her fake assurances that she was Venetia’s and Venetia’s alone.

Venetia’s fingers tightened around the material of her skirt, twisting the fabric until she was positive the texture would be printed onto her fingers. Her calculating eyes swept over the people around her, dresses in shades of black and white and navy. All business suits or pencil skirts.

Her phone buzzed again, and Venetia ignored it further. 

If Octavia was going to ignore the elephant in the room, Venetia sure as hell wasn’t going to point it out. She remembered the way her stomach had dropped when she pushed the door open looking for her jacket, the way that outrage pulsed through her veins, tempered by shattering disappointment. 

If Venetia had marched in and screamed at Octavia, what would it have changed? Tavi was used to getting everything she wanted. 

So Venetia had gently shut the door and crashed into a different-- thankfully unoccupied room-- and splashed her face with the coldest tap water she could get, staring directly at the bathroom light so she wouldn’t cry. 

Venetia hated crying, hated showing any form of vulnerability. Because Venetia Verne was a sphynx, carved out of stone. Her father had always called her Sphynx, because when she was upset she tended to not show it. 

Well, Venetia’s resting bitch face was downright legendary.

If Venetia had said something, what would it have changed? Octavia, skillful with words, would have laughed and said that her girlfriend was drunk, or sleep-deprived, or both. 

And Venetia knew that she herself would have believed it. 

Octavia could paint pictures with words in a way that Venetia had never seen before-- and her mother was a supervillain. 

And that was the other reason why she was angry.

Because her mother was the White Queen, and her father’s opinion made her blood boil.

It really puts opinions into perspective when people are ignorant: if you uploaded a picture of yourself to an internet forum-- not saying that it was yourself-- and asked people to describe it, what would they say?

Venetia’s phone kept buzzing.

Her fist kept clenching.

And the spiral-- no, noose-- of her thoughts tightened. 

1.3 ‘TELLING ME TRUTHS THAT YOU KNOW ARE LIES’

“OKAY, AM I ALLOWED to be done with this?” Venetia fumed to her secondary best friend Gray, who Venetia was positive was sick of her. She only came running over to the mild Australian boy when she lost another of her friends, and ditching him once she made a new one. If Venetia wasn’t such a heartless bitch, she would have felt bad for the way she treated him.

“Yes, you are,” Gray said patiently, trailing meekly behind her.

 “Well, good,” Venetia snapped, storming through the halls of the local high school.

The rest of her dreary Saturday had come and gone in a whirl of anger-grief-bitching-stress eating, and Sunday the same. 

“Hey, Ashie!” Venetia was in a seriously pissy mood, and decided then and there that she was going to call everyone by obnoxious nicknames only that day. Asheton Shore, who adamantly went by Shore, was her first victim.

“It’s Shore!” the boy bellowed.

Behind her, Venetia heard Gray scurry behind a wall of imposing-looking seniors. “Ashie,” Venetia drawled, walking closer to him. Her skirt swished with each step she took-- while Asheton Shore’s close companion Maeren Sepia liked vintage too, Venetia always secretly knew that her style was better.

“Fruck,” Shore muttered-- no, it was Ashie, Venetia told herself firmly. 

“Come on, Venetia.” Gray was back, his eyes shifting around nervously as he carefully took her by the arm and steered her away.

“Damn it,” Venetia hissed, digging her fingers into the material of her skirt. 

“Okay, I know you’re--” Gray cringed, “bitching about the whole Octavia thing, but--”

“You can say the word bitch, Gray.”

“I don’t want to call you a bitch, Ven.”

“Oh my fucking god, Gray. When you think of the word bitch you should think of my face.”

“I don’t like cursing.”

“Fuck that.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Right back at you, Gray.”

“You’re such a bitch.”

“Thanks.”

Venetia huffed; Gray bit his lip, sighing. Yes, he was very much done with Venetia and her bullshit. Venetia herself was done with Venetia and her bullshit. 

Like Ashie, Gray went exclusively by his last name. Then again, when you had a name like Devlin-Tibereus, you wanted to purge that name from your memory. And ‘Asheton’ didn’t even seem so bad if you had the misfortune of being named Devlin-Tiberius Gray-- the Second.

And no, Venetia was not allowed to call him Take Two.

“Come on, we’re going to be late to class.” Gray was tugging at her sleeve insistently. Sometimes Venetia thought of him as an insistent-yet-adorable puppy, the kind that was a total sweetheart until they gave up and peed on your carpet.

“I wanna ditch,” muttered Venetia, who was very acutely aware that Octavia would be attending the same class. 

And even though Venetia spent a weekend moping around mooching off of Octavia’s Netflix and eating half-melted ice cream, ghosting Octavia when she tried to call, and doing everything except think about Octavia-- which was a form of thinking about it-- she wasn’t ready to face her. 

At all. 

Gray blew out a breath-- yes, he was very, very sick of her already.

“Let’s ditch.” Gray said suddenly, planting his feet and nearly throwing Venetia off-balance. 

Venetia gaped. “Where the fuck is Gray and what did you do with him, Take Two?”

“I am not take two! Ven, how many times do I have to tell you? Come on, let’s ditch.”

“You’re finally speaking sense, Gray.” Venetia patted his back appreciatively as they blew past the classroom they were supposed to be in and towards the exit. “About time.”

Gray smiled, flashing his elusive dimples. “No shit.”

1.4 ‘YEAH, YOU THINK YOU’RE FUNNY, RIGHT?’

“SO,” VENETIA SAID LAMELY, her feet dragging against the dusty pavement as she and Gray trudged away from the school, casting furtive looks over their shoulders to make sure that they weren’t being followed. “How’s Teddy? Do people still get to call her Taffy?”

“Taffy’s fine,” Gray said, and didn’t elaborate. Venetia didn’t press-- she knew she was already pressing her luck with her friend-- if Gray could even call her that-- by dragging him with her.

Teddy-- or Theodosia-Amélie Frances Gray-- was Gray’s little sister, who was affectionately called ‘Taffy’ by her close friends and family. Venetia wasn’t sure if she fell in that category, but like most only children, she had a fascination with siblings.

Like how both Gray and Teddy had the same smile and mousy hair and dimples, but they shared different things with their parents, like how Gray and his mother had the same nose but Teddy had the same pattern of freckles across her cheeks.

“That’s nice. Where do you want to go, coffee?” Venetia asked, and suddenly laughed. Out here there was no Octavia, no pressure, no teachers breathing down her neck as she struggled through trigonometry. 

Gray’s elusive dimples flashed. “Coffee sounds nice-- as does the idea of ditching, honestly-- and you can rant to me about Octavia. You know, you shouldn’t call her Octavia or Tavi. What about Tyrell?”

“Why shouldn’t I call her Octavia?” Venetia asked, bemused. 

“I don’t know!” Gray grinned. “Maybe… I don’t know, Octavia sounds too nice. I’d say ‘call her a bitch’--”

“But I’m the bitch.” Venetia finished, mirroring Gray’s grin. She and Gray always clicked-- no matter how Venetia abandoned him or pushed him aside for her other friends-- not that she had any, which was the irony of it-- Gray was always waiting with his remarks and banter and coffee-fueled highs.

“Exactly.”

“I really am a bitch, you know. Makes you wonder how Buttercup-- I mean Tavi-- I mean Tyrell-- fell for me in the first place.”

“Eh, probably the bitchiness itself.”

“True, true.”

Gray grinned again. “I missed you-- which probably is the wrong thing to say, but hey-- Taffy tattles on me for swearing all the time, while you swear just as much--”

“More. I swear more than you, Tibe.” Venetia smirked and quirked an eyebrow, and Gray sighed. 

“I’m never going to win that argument, am I?” he asked, half smiling. 

Venetia winked-- or tried to, since she couldn’t wink to save her life-- and nudged Gray’s shoulder with her own. “Never, Take Two.”

“You know, I can call you Veni Vidi Vici.”

Venetia scowled. “My mother really had something against me naming me Venetia Lavinia, didn’t she? Veni Vinny Verne, I mean, seriously?”

Gray smiled, flashing his dimples again. “Someone’s in good spirits.”

“Just drink your damn coffee, Gray.”

“Just let us get to the damn coffee shop, Verne,” Gray mimicked her tone, his wavy hair bouncing as he walked. 

“You’re almost as annoying as,” Venetia paused to snap her fingers, “whatshisname Lock. Lochlan Ryals-- don’t some people call him Cinnamon?”

“Lock?” Gray asked, his eyes lighting up. “That’s a compliment.”

“Well, I sure didn’t mean it that way,” Venetia said dryly, her eyes trained on the coffee shop that was coming into clearer view.

“Well, time to order coffee black as my soul,” Venetia said brightly, swinging the door open and following Gray inside.

“Yeah, right,” he muttered, but he was smiling.

“I’m hilarious,” Venetia deadpanned, tossing her pin-straight hair. 

“You really do think you’re funny.”

Venetia smirked. “Yep, I think I’m funny, right?”

[jamaisvuandyou]

I can send them seperate if you want, but can I request a reaction to hybrid!txt and hybrid!bts smelling (and thus meeting) their s/o for the first time? Are they the type to just introduce themselves or to just engulf them and immediately start a scenting fest?

So, because there are 12 people in this one, I’m going to put in a keep reading cut. In the future I’ll probably ask people to separate them so that it’s not so much. This was way more daunting than I thought it would be! Sorry it took so long to put out!

--

Namjoon

It was summer when he found her, while he was out for a ride on his bike. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was he was smelling. He thought maybe his nose was communicating better with this stomach than the rest of him. So he was following the barest whiff of a smell around the park, but when it got stronger, he couldn’t see any sort of food vendor. 

He wandered around for a bit, before finally finding the sources of the scent.

She was beautiful, completely lost in a book while sitting with her back against a tree. One leg curled underneath her, hair pulled away from her face. There was an intrigue and intensity to her face that was alluring.

His mate.

He set his bike down carefully, cautiously approaching her so as not to come off creepy or scary. 

He knelt in front of her, hoping his ears didn’t scare her away.

She blinked a few times as her gaze slowly pulled from the pages of her book. “Hello?”

“Sorry, hi. I’m Namjoon,” He held out his hand.

She shook it, a confused look in her eyes but a hint of a smile around lips. “Y/n. Nice to meet you.”

He smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

--

Seokjin

He didn’t let go. He just held onto her, afraid he was hallucinating or that she would disappear.

“Um…?” She looked at her hands, trapped in his, then back at his face. She looked bewildered, and slightly panicked and worried. 

“Hyung, you have to let go,” Taehyung muttered, nudging him. “What’s wrong with you?”

A whine made it’s way out of Jin, but that’s all he managed. He needed to keep her, he needed to let her go. He needed her in his life. He couldn’t let people know she was in his life. He needed to protect her. He needed her to be with him.

“Hey,” She said quietly. “It’s okay. You can let go. I’ll be around.”

“But…” He whispered, desperate.

She met his gaze, smiling a little. “I know. Let go.”

He saw the way her eyes began to fill with tears.

He let go of her hands. “I’ll find you.”

She nodded, smiling. “I know you will.”

--

Yoongi

Stay cool, he instructed himself, just sort of eyeing her from where he stood. He was next in line, so he had until the person in front of him finished their ridiculous coffee order to fit in something nice while also being normal and ordering his iced americano. If he could just keep his damned tail from giving him away.

She had such a bright smile as she handed the receipt to the customer in front of him, then her gaze locked onto him with a slightly brighter smile. “Hello, welcome to Café Crème. What can I get for you today?”

Now that he was closer he could really smell her, a fan from behind the counter blowing her scent out while also blowing his scent away from her, but he could also see the twitch of ears that weren’t actually part of some sort of cutesy uniform. She was a hybrid. She was a cat hybrid. Like him.

“Coffee? Hot Chocolate? A muffin?” She prompted, a little amused.

“Oh, uh, iced americano,” He said, flustered now. That was not cool. That wasn’t even close to cool.

She nodded, ringing it up and telling him the price.

He handed her the payment, backing out. He knew she was here, he could come back at some point. “Thanks.”

She had frozen, then suddenly smelled his money and then looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh.”

He felt his eyes widening, and he was pretty sure his cheeks were read.

She snapped out of it after a second. “Will I see you again?”

He shrugged. “Do you want to?”

She nodded. “I would like that very much.”

--

Hoseok

She shrieked in terror, trying to get away from him, and he let go—also surprised at himself. “Who the hell—”

“Sorry! Sorry, I don’t know…I…” He whimpered, ears back and tail between his legs. But then he smelled her again, like a drug.

She looked him over, utterly confused and alarmed. “Did you mistake me for someone?”

“Uh…maybe? Possibly. No. Yes. Um,” He rambled, glancing around for one of the boys to help him get through this without getting pepper-sprayed by his ideal mate. “Sorry. Hoseok. Sorry.”

“Y/n,” She replied, just looking bewildered. “Are you lost? Do you need help getting home? Or finding your friends?”

Well there was the pickle. He really wasn’t sure if he was lost or not, his senses seemed all focused on her. Y/n.

“Are you hurt? Sick?” She asked, looking more and more worried.

He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, no. I just…I…sorry.”

“Maybe we should take you to a doctor to be certain.” She put her hands on cheeks, bringing his face closer and looking at his eyes. “Maybe you have a concussion?”

“You…” He whispered, looking into her pretty eyes. “Sorry, it’s just…you’re…ideal.”

She looked even more confused. “Ideal…?”

He looked down, nodding. “Ideal. For me. For my mate.”

“Oh…oh,” She said, her hands coming just a couple inches off his cheeks.

“I think…I think I just saw…not red, red is bad…uh…pink?” Hoseok noticing her cheeks were a little pink and he poked it gently, “Like that, soft pink. Everything like that.”

She gently grabbed his hand to prevent him from poking her cheek again. “Mate, huh?”

He nodded. “Sorry, I know that’s—”

“Cool, that probably makes dating much easier,” She said, suddenly seeming calm. “Come on. Let’s find your friends or your home. You can tell me how this whole mate thing works while we walk.”

He let himself be pulled along by her, grinning. “Is this how you treat every stranger who hugs you?”

She laughed. “You’re really lucky I’ve got a soft spot for lost puppies.”

--

Jimin

“Hello then,” She said, a laugh to her voice as she gently patted his back.

Jimin breathed in her scent shaking his head to rub her scent on him in case she didn’t take him home. “Hello.”

“You okay, kitten?” She asked so softly and her voice was lovely.

“You’re…you smell really good,” Jimin said.

“Is that so?” She sniffed him, causing him to sputter in disbelief. “Sorry, you smell like shampoo to me.”

He laughed, pulling away and grinning at her. “Could be worse. I could smell like cat litter like the pompous persian in the yellow hall.”

“So, we’re a little proud?” She teased, flicking the bell on his collar.

He grabbed the bell to silence it. “Don’t flick the bell.”

“Why do you have the bell?” She asked, folding her arms.

He shrugged. “Part of the uniform?”

“I can fix that.” She smirked. “After all, I’m one of your ideal mates, yes?”

He grinned, taking her hand as she held it out.

“I mean, I make no promises, but it would be easier to figure it out without you locked in here. And if things get awkward, my friend has a house where you can live…,” She tilted her head and batted at one of the feather string toys, “Like a person instead of like an actual cat.”

He hugged her, letting her drag him along.

--

Taehyung

“I can’t get him to let go,” She told the police officer. “He hasn’t done much of anything except scent me. But…it’s a little awkward. I thought this might free me, but he seems pretty…attached?”

Taehyung just grinned at the officer.

He looked between the two, then shrugged a little. “It happens? Um, usually when they find their ideal mate?”

She looked back at Taehyung, then nodded. “I understand. Thank you.”

The officer nodded as well. “So, you’re good?”

“Yeah, could be worse. I figure you can’t actually do anything about it?”

“Not really. Not unless it was a case of sexual harassment but since you don’t seem to be…concerned by it?”

She nodded. “We’re good here. Thanks officer.”

He nodded and walked on.

She tilted and turned her head to look at him. “Still got nothing to say?”

Taehyung grinned at her. “Cutie.”

“So nothing useful. Got it. Come on, potential mate. I want ice cream. Do you like ice cream?”

Tae’s tail wagged as he waddled down the street like a penguin with her, hugging onto her and making it difficult for her to walk because he wasn’t ever going to lose her. And maybe he was hoping she would imprint on him and vice versa like ducklings did.

“You’re a silly pup, aren’t you?” She sighed.

He kissed her cheek. “Yup.”

--

Jungkook

“I’m Jungkook,” He blurted out as he finished running up to her and grabbing her hands. His mate. His beautiful, gorgeous soulmate.

She looked surprised, head tilting. “Y/n. Hello.”

“Hi,” He replied, working on the words.

“You’re a pretty…buff bunny.” She smiled at him to make sure he knew she was teasing. “Are you here to kidnap me?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No! No, nothing like that. Sorry, I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?” She asked, brow wrinkling slightly as she thought. “Ask someone out?”

“Uh…yes, yes,” He replied, thinking that was a little less extreme than telling her he was her mate. Dating still had the same goal, it would just be way more devastating for him if it didn’t work out.

She nodded. “Oh, okay. What did you have in mind?”

“Uh…” He scrambled mentally before his gaze landed on an ice cream shop and his hand pointed. “Ice cream?”

She grinned. “Okay. I like ice cream and I totally wasn’t already headed that way.”

He smiled back, heart lightening. “Okay.” That was a really good start. Next time he’d just have to be cooler.

--

Soobin

He was blocking the exit. He knew that. He knew that the other boys were calling for him.

But she was too beautiful and perfect for him to look away.

And she looked back at him, her ears perked up just as his were. “Hello.”

“Hi,” He replied, smiling shyly.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m y/n.”

“Soobin, nice to meet you,” He stepped forward a bit and leaned down slightly.

She stepped in and hugged his neck, tucking her face against it and breathing deeply.

He did the same since she basically offered. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Glad I found you.”

“Glad you did too,” She replied.

--

Yeonjun

“Hi! I’m Yeonjun and you smell like an ideal mate for me,” He told her, sticking his hand out.

She looked a little like a deer in the headlights. “Um…y/n? I’m sorry, did you just say that I smell…?”

“Like an ideal mate for me,” he finished. “So I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner and maybe get to know one another since I know humans don’t really have the same sort of concept of ideal mates—”

“You mean like soulmates?” She cut in, eyes narrowed.

His mind stuttered and he felt his shoulders drop. “Huh.”

She folded her arms, one eyebrow raised triumphantly. “I do like food though, so I suppose we could meet and try that out.”

“Good, because you’re pretty.”

“Good, because you’re handsome,” She replied without missing a beat. Then she smirked. “And not nearly as smooth as you think you are. It’s adorable.”

He scoffed a laugh. “Then tomorrow, at six.”

“Sure.”

He nodded, and started walking away.

“Yeonjun! Forgetting something?” She called.

He turned around, confused.

“My phone number? Or the restaurant we’re meeting at maybe?” She grinned at him.

--

Beomgyu

How had it gone so wrong? He wondered, staring up at the clouds. Meeting his mate should have been perfect. They meet, they hug, they scent, they live together forever.

So how did he end up on the ground?

“Is he okay?” He heard his mate ask someone.

A different girl peeked at him from overhead. “I think he’s just dazed. Maybe a little confused. Hopefully you didn’t hurt him.”

“He practically tackled me, what did you expect me to do?”

“Well, I didn’t expect you to judo-flip him. I didn’t even know you knew how to judo flip someone.”

“Neither did I,” His mate muttered, finally peering down at him. “Hello? Are you okay?”

Oh. That’s why it went wrong. She wasn’t a hybrid. She didn’t know they were perfect for each other.

He groaned and pushed himself up, slowly, a little sore already.

“Uh, are you okay?” She asked, helping him up. “I didn’t mean to throw you like that, I mean, you deserved it, grabbing me like that but…are you okay?”

He nodded. “Sorry. Um, I don’t know what came over me?”

“Well, that’s a lie. You obviously recognized her as your mate,” Her friend supplied helpfully. “Have a nice chat, you two!” She waggled her fingers and walked away.

They both stared after her, then shyly let their eyes meet.

“Beomgyu.”

“Y/n.”

--

Taehyun

“You’re my mate,” A voice said to his left.

Before he even laid eyes on her, he smelled her and knew. Knew that she was right.

She was smiling softly as he looked at her in surprise.

“Wow, you found me first,” He said, not really even thinking about it. He was just…so happy.

She took a seat at the table. “I did. I’m y/n.”

“Taehyun,” He replied, smiling happily at her. He offered his wrist and she rubbed hers against his in the most decent form of public scenting they could do.

“Whatcha working on?”

“Lyrics, I was trying to write a song for my band.” He felt shy about them, but he also felt like he might be able to get through them now, with his mate here.

She nodded. “Well, don’t let me stop you. Mind if I work on a term paper?”

He grinned and nodded. “That’d be nice. Working together, I mean. I mean, not together but in companionable….”

She finished kissing his cheek. “Together but separate. Yeah, it will be nice.”

--

HueningKai

He wasn’t sure what to do about this. Sure, he could smell that she was his mate, but did that mean he should introduce himself and tell her? Would that scare her off? Should he just casually introduce himself and then ease into the slow getting to know her process while all the while knowing that she was his mate? His soulmate?

What he ended up doing was tripping over himself and knocking them both to the ground. She was on top of him, so at least he didn’t have to worry about squishing her.

“Sorry,” She groaned, even though it definitely wasn’t her fault.

He dragged in a breath, finally registering that he had the air knocked out of him. “My fault,” He breathed.

She got off of him and helped him get up. “I twisted us.”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” He rubbed his ribs. “Besides, if you hadn’t we might have fallen on the cement.”

She nodded, gaze on the sticker on his shirt. “Oh, I love the aquarium. Did you hear they’re getting new penguins?”

He smiled and nodded. “Penguins are my favorite.”

“Mine too! We should go together!”

Slow play it was. But he really wasn’t going to object. After all, he did just fall for her.

–

Masterlist

[everlarkficexchange]

Sunset on Grass

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt 67: Her parents said that it was just a childhood crush and that she will outgrow it. But why does her heart flutters. When she’s finally old enough to get a job, she immediately gets a part time job to be close to him. Will is pursue her love against people’s negative views because he’s so much older than her. Or go for it and make him fall in love with her. Age Gap Older!Peeta. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

  Rated M: for later chapters/ this particular one is actually G. 

  Tags: Age Difference- Peeta is 19 years older than Katniss, but there won’t be any romance until she’s of age, so I might as well tag this as Slow Burn. Time Jump. Mr Everdeen is alive in this one, which makes Katniss OOC. Tags will update according to chapter posted.

Unbetaed. All mistakes are mine. This chapter closed at around 4200 words. Happy reading.

Thank you to @javistg and @xerxia31 for once again hosting Our Beloved Exchange. You guys are the best!!! 

—————

CHAPTER ONE:

It was a very cold day; Mama made us wear hats and gloves and clunky snow boots, but the worst offender in my 8 year old opinion, was the fact she forced me to wear a fleece over my long sleeve shirt with the sparkly pink hearts, and then a heavy winter coat to top it all, covering my favorite outfit that happened to be perfectly apt for the month of February… who had time to worry about layering for the weather, when Valentine’s Day gave us the perfect excuse to wear mushy, pink, glittery hearts in public?! 

  Prim had just turned four recently, and Daddy decided she was finally old enough to sit through a movie at the theater with us ‘grown ups’ like a big girl. Normally, he would’ve let Prim pick the movie, since it was her first time joining us, but when we got to the theater, I begged to see Bridge to Terabithia, because all the girls in my class had a crush on the main character actor, some Josh Hutcher-something or another, and I really wanted to see what the fuss was about with the boy. 

  Well, none of my little girlfriends bothered to tell me the movie was so darned sad! 

  Prim wailed and sobbed despite not really understanding what happened in the story. All she knew was that Mama sniffled and dabbed at the corner of her blue eyes with a wadded-up napkin, and that was enough for her to let her tears fall freely, clinging to Daddy’s neck until hiccups raked her tiny frame. 

  At the end of the movie, Mama’s eyes were red rimmed but she at least was done sniffling. Daddy and I just sat there stoically, like the hardened leaders of our small clan, we were… if my lips trembled, it had nothing to do with the sap fest we just endured. 

  Daddy sighed, “Some movies should come with disclaimers.” He grumbled, adjusting Prim on his hip while pulling open the exit door.

  “I thought it was great. The young actors were marvelous. Such range of emotion…” Mama gushed, before wiping the corner of her eye daintily. “I’d recommend it to other people, personally.”

  Daddy gave her a look, and then Mama amended, “With a warning for grief and depression.” Her lips formed a thin line, but Daddy seemed satisfied, so we walked into the frigid February afternoon and winced in unison as soon as the cold hit our faces. 

  Prim was still intermittently sobbing.

  “Primrose, honey, will a treat help you cheer up some?” Daddy asked quietly, tenderly caressing her cheek.

  My baby sister nodded, her pitiful big o’ blue eyes shining with unshed tears. 

  “Let’s get you a nice treat then. Let’s take advantage of those neatly shoveled sidewalks our tax money afforded us.” Said Daddy smiling sweetly, his gray eyes twinkling. 

  We crossed the street and kept on going until we reached the square a block away and then hesitated for a second in front of the ice cream parlor, finally settling for the quaint little bakery two doors down. 

  Immediately, my cheeks warmed up and I tried to walk with my back a little straighter, just in case a certain baker boy was working that day. My heart rattled against my ribs and I tried real hard to keep my eyes up, but as usual, chickened out last minute and all I could see was the ground. 

  Daddy walked in making the bell above the entrance chimed cheerfully; he held the door open so Mama and I could scoot into the building. We all stood just inside the door, taking a collective sigh of relief at the warmth and inviting aromas of the bakery: Yeast, sugar and freshly brewed coffee mingled in the air, welcoming.  

  “Afternoon Everdeens!” Called a deep, velvety and familiar voice from somewhere ahead. “Come on in and make yourselves at home, please!” Mister Peeta smiled, like us, walking into his family’s shop was the highlight of his day. 

  It surely was mine, of course; not that anyone would’ve been able to tell just by how gun-shy I acted, except from my parents that is. 

  They knew alright. 

  They knew all about my crush on the young baker, and at least Mama thought it was cute. Daddy wasn’t too comfortable acknowledging it, so he usually rolled his eyes at Mama about it.

  But who wouldn’t have a thing for mister Peeta, really? He was nice, polite, and handsome, with a soft looking face and bright blue eyes, always smiling, and wavy blond hair that curled under the many baseball caps he wore (currently, he donned one with the Mellark’s logo on the front.). He was also strong… or at least I figured he had to be, since he was school wrestling champion and all. I hadn’t witnessed it myself of course, mister Peeta and my folks were ancient compared to me, but I grew up hearing the stories. 

  Mama and Daddy had been high school sweethearts who’d been in the same grade as mister Rye— mister Peeta’s older brother— so they knew the Mellark brothers some. Daddy said Mr. Peeta was the pride of the town as a teenager, since he became State Wrestling champion in his senior year of high school, a full two years after my folks graduated Panem

high. 

  “How are you doing, Peeta?” Said Daddy reaching a hand over the counter to shake the baker’s.

  Mama waved and smiled, offering her own little “Hello, Peeta.” Then nudged me to do the same, and my eyes about popped out of my sockets when the baker smiled and winked one of his bright, blue eyes at me. 

   “I heard you’re leaving for Europe soon?” Asked Daddy.

  Mister Peeta smiled widely, “Yes! Got accepted to study pastistry at a prestigious school in France. I can’t wait.” His excitement was contagious.

  “That’s great, Peeta!” Interjected my mama. “I bet your folks are pleased. The bakery will boom with everything you’ll bring back with that training.” 

  Mister Peeta nodded, and though he was still smiling, he didn’t look happy. “Full scholarship ride, and I came up with my own ticket and expenses money from a year’s worth of savings. My mother is really pleased.” 

  For some reason, it didn’t sound like Mrs Mellark was truly pleased. Not for the first time, I thought adults could be so weird when they talked, not saying what they truly meant. 

  Still, Mama and Daddy offered congratulations again and I felt my stomach knot when Mister Peeta spoke again, and for once my eyes were glued to his kind face. 

  “Enough about me. Y’all came in right on time,” Mister Peeta clapped his enormous hands once, “I just pulled a tray of cheese buns out of the oven, and sat them to cool on a rack in the back. Let me go grab y’all some. I heard cheese buns are Miss Katniss’ favorites!” 

  I almost choked at that, and turned my head owlishly to glare at my parents, wondering who’d spilled my secrets behind my back to the handsomest man ever. 

  Mama was already sitting at a table; she was covering her smile behind the gloves she just pulled off her hands, while Daddy rolled his eyes slightly before sliding into the bench with Prim still wrapped around him like a baby Koala. 

  So Mama then. She tattled on me. 

  Traitor! 

  At Daddy’s behest, I came and sat next to him; Prim on his lap, and all of our coats in the space next to Mama on the opposite side of the half booth. 

  Mister Peeta came back with a tray bearing hot chocolate in white mugs engraved with ‘Mellark’s’, and a dish piled high with pastries. He placed four small plates in front of each of us, and gifted us with one more of his wide, welcoming grins. 

  “Tuck in, Everdeens! Enjoy!” The bell above the door chimed with more customers, but right before he left, mr. Peeta leaned closer to me and suggested, “Dip your bread in the chocolate. Is my favorite snack on cold days like today.” He winked again and I almost fainted.

  He truly was the handsomest man ever! 

  Mama’s smile just widened. She tried to hide it behind her cup of cocoa though, but Daddy let out a noise, like a grudgingly amused grunt of sorts. 

  “Lily,” He warned halfheartedly. 

  Mama looked up at him, wide, blue eyes innocently. “What?” She mumbled.

  “Stop teasing.” He said, sinking his straight teeth into his cheese bun. “She’s too young for crushes. Even on bakers that make amazing cookies and cheese buns. Ain’t that right, Catkin?” Daddy looked at me, arching one bushy eyebrow. 

  I scowled and turned my nose up at the lot of them before tearing chunks of my bun and dunking them in my hot chocolate. At the first bite, I had to admit, the baker was onto something! 

  “I don’t know what y’all are yapping about,” I said haughtily. 

  “There you go,” said Daddy grinning smugly at Mama, “That’s my girl!”

  Mama rolled her eyes and waved us off. “Oh well, it’s just puppy love. She’ll grow out of it soon enough, especially when he’s away in Paris and out of sight.”

  I chewed on my chocolate infused cheese bun, and my eyes lifted to watch mister Peeta bagging a customer’s order, taking payment with a grateful smile. 

  My heart drummed harshly in my chest. 

  I had no idea what the love of puppies had to do with anything, but I found it hard to believe the strange feeling of bubbles popping in my tummy would go away any time soon, even if I didn’t see the baker ever again. 

  ————————-

  My 16th birthday brought me a set of wheels, in the form of my daddy’s ancient but still reliable pick-up truck. But with the wheels, came Daddy’s caveats. 

  “Young lady, if you want to be driving around town, here are the rules,” he stated, “You gotta drive your sister to and from school. No boys—“

  “Or girls!” Interjected Mama, passing to the couch with a bowl of popcorn in hand.

  “Or girls,” Daddy continued glaring at Mama, “Unless Mama or I are in the truck with y’all.” 

  That one earned him a big groan from me, not that I’d planned on having friends ride with me places; after all, Gale had been driving his daddy’s old Jeep for the last two years, and Madge just got a new Volkswagen Beetle for her birthday, despite having failed her driving tests… twice! So we all had our own transportation, thank you very much. 

  “And, you are to keep the tank of the truck at least half full at all times.”

  “Alright. That’s cool—“ I started, but was swiftly interrupted. 

  “What your daddy means is, Sweet pea, you are responsible for your own gas. We won’t pay for it, unless it’s an emergency.” Said Mama delicately, her eyes shifting to Daddy’s for support, which he gave in a curt nod of his graying head.

  “Wait… what?” I stared at them in turn. “You mean I need to come up with my own gas money?” I asked just to clarify. “Even while having to chauffeur Prim around, like I’m a courtesy shuttle driver?” 

  “Lily, our daughter is a genius!” Said Daddy with his goofy dad smirk, “Haven’t I said so a million times before?”

  Mama giggled, “You sure have, Dear. Our Katniss is one bonafide genius!” 

  Truth be told, the prospect of having spending money of my own was actually exciting for me. We lived a decent life, not luxurious like the Undersee’s, or as tight as the Hawthorne’s, but comfortable enough to always have a pocketful of allowance dough; but having my actual money, without having to ask for it or justify why I needed it, was very appealing to me.

  I still groaned at my folks for their exuberance. I didn’t mind working hard; I’ve always helped Daddy doing house work around our place, and never complained about the daily chores imposed by Mama growing up; having an honest to God paying job sounded kind of… liberating. Like I was an adult, instead of a kid. 

  “You should try the shops in town,” Mama suggested. “Something close by that won’t interfere with school—“

  “Or archery club—“ Father chimed in.

  “Or soccer.” Said Prim crossing the room out of nowhere and plopping on the couch next to Mama, to munch on her popcorn. The demand was for her, since I didn’t play the sport. “I can’t miss practice. Rue would have a fit if I get kicked out.”

  “Fine! I’ll go ask around town if anyone needs help.” I made a show of rolling my eyes and shrugging, but inside, my blood quickened with the excitement of my impending job hunt.

  Twenty eight hours later, I was stumbling out of the Sweet’s store in town square, walking backwards and grinning like a lunatic. 

  “Thank you so much, Ms. Donner! Really. You won’t regret it! Thank you again!” I gushed and barely repressed a squeal of excitement, “I’ll see you Monday. Bye!” 

  I had to grab on to the frame of the open door, not to fall on my bottom like an uncoordinated noodle when I tripped on my own feet, and finally pulled myself away from the store front. I turned on my heel and practically skipped down the sidewalk, giggling non-stop. I managed to reel it in and climbed on my truck before pumping the air with my fists in a tiny victory dance. 

  Everything was coming up Katniss, and my spirits soared high! 

  I got myself a job, and while it wasn’t my first option— Mr. Mellark said his bakery was fully staffed at the time— I had effectively secured myself a source of gas money, which was my main concern and the literal driving force behind my job hunt. I counted as a perk, the fact that Mellark’s Bakery was sitting across the square from the Sweet Shop and I was granted an unobstructed view of the front room of the bakery from behind my counter, because watching the Mellark men working was just inspiring. And I meant that in a non creepy way… hopefully.

  I tried not to be as obvious with my crush on Mr. Peeta, but I wasn’t deaf and his mama— dubbed The Witch, by the town youngsters— enjoyed bragging loudly about her successful business, and a good chunk of that came from Peeta’s success as a baker. I pretty much knew anything a nosy sixteen year old girl could know about a guy twenty years her senior, hoarding all kinds of gossip about him like a dragon hoards gold.

  Being only a few years younger than my own father, Mister Peeta graduated from Panem U when I was a toddler. He earned a business degree he’d really never used; then, he went to Paris-France for almost three years, and trained with the best chefs in the pastry business, returning to our small town to open up his own high end patisserie, but since the economy had taken a dive those days and his shop was so new and fancy, he was forced to close up and take over the cakes and pastry side of Mellark’s, until things stabilized for new businesses. Sadly, he never ventured back on his own, which was a downright shame, because the man was a culinary genius and so artistic at that. 

  Currently, he worked weekend’s at Mellark’s while teaching at the Pastry school in Capitol City… not that I was keeping tabs on the man or anything. 

  I was just observant that way… 

  Sort of. 

  Mrs. Mellark liked to boast about things she had no hand in doing, like her youngest son’s accomplishments and success abroad and locally, but she was also a ruthless disparager who couldn’t care less when and where she criticized her sons or husband when something didn’t go her way. The Witch was always going on and on about Mr. Peeta going to France and becoming an expert cake decorator, and teaching pastrity at some hoity-toity culinary school in Capitol City, as if she herself had done it for him, and in the next breath she’d be groaning about how much of an inconvenience to her it was he went overseas for the training. The woman was a hag, but I couldn’t help people in town were so gossipy and when she started with the stories. I just perked up my ears and gobbled up all the information she was sharing. 

  Anyway, my mama’s prediction about my infatuation with Mr. Peeta ending, kind of flopped. The crushed endured all the years between his absence to Europe and his return; it was still going strong even at age sixteen, but I had learned to pine discreetly, surreptitiously sneaking peeks at mister Peeta from a distance and daydream about scenarios where the handsome baker finally noticed me, and we fell madly in love with each other and lived happily ever after in a marzipan house, eating all kinds of bread and cake without ever gaining an ounce of weight… Also, in those scenarios, Mr. Peeta was like ten years younger, and nobody batted an eye at us being together. 

  Of course, I wasn’t delusional. I knew nothing like it would ever happen; after all, Mr. Peeta was nineteen years older than me and devoted to his craft. But dreaming was free, and as long as the fantasies stayed locked in my head, I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself.

  ————————

  My first Saturday morning working at the Candy shop, I parked in the public parking lot, diagonal to the town square, before opening time. The lot was built adyacente to a few city offices to accommodate anyone running errands downtown, like paying their license tags, filing taxes, getting permits of miscellaneous natures, or simply taking a stroll around the square at dusk, licking on a frozen treat from the ice cream parlor or having dinner at the pizza place. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to park there if one worked in one of the mom-and-pop shops littering the picturesque merchant center of Panem. 

  I could’ve used the designated parking spaces on the road behind the sweets store, but there was a humongous dumpster next to ours, and Ms. Donner hadn’t given me a key to the back door yet, so even if the threadbare upholstery of my truck wasn’t threatening to absorb the stench of the whole neighborhood’s trash, there wasn’t any benefit to me parking there. 

  I yawned dispassionately tossing my keys in the new purse Prim gave me when I announced I’d found a job, because according to her, I was now a grown-up and needed a proper purse instead of my ratty messenger bag, that honestly had seen better days. I swept the bag off the bench and slammed the door shut without bothering to lock it. There was nothing in the cab worth stealing; everyone knew me and my folks, we were just another run of the mill middle class family, without any wealth to our names. 

  “Ouch!” A velvety, deep voice spoke from a little ways over, and my whole body went rigidly straight. “Shouldn’t treat your steed so harshly, Hunter. I don’t think old Francine appreciates it.” 

  I turned on my heels and peered at Mr. Peeta trying to keep myself from screeching in a panic or something equally embarrassing. 

  The man was just straightening up from retrieving a chef jacket from the back seat of what I surmised was his car, and lifted his gaze in my direction with a slight smirk on his lips that quickly fell off, giving way to a confused expression, as his bright, blue eyes fixed on mine. “You ain’t Hunter,” he mumbled, squinting a little.

  To his credit, it had been a while since he saw me last, despite me keeping tabs on him and stealing glances when I could. He had no reason to seek me out or anything, plus he was a busy man, always in the back room of the bakery working his pastillage gifts. Then again… ‘Francine’— my daddy’s former ‘89 F150– was like forever linked to Hunter Everdeen’s persona or something.

  “Katniss?” Mr. Peeta frowned, like fog was slowly lifting from his mind and vague recognition finally set in, making my heart lurch and beat unbearably fast. 

  I nodded mutely, but soon I answered a spastic, “Morning, mister Peeta. How do you do?” My mama hadn’t drilled sixteen years worth of relentless Southern hospitality for me to stay silent for long. I hesitated a second and trudged along without giving him a chance to respond, scowling at the ground, “Francine, she’s sturdy,” I chance a glance at his face, “But you’re right, she’s too old to be treated poorly. I’ll make sure to be gentler with her in the future.”

  Mr. Peeta arched his eyebrows, as if surprised by my mere voice. He tugged the collar of his plain white t-shirt, and then huffed a chuckle. 

  “Little Miss Katniss is driving now,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. He eyed me curiously, “Well, I guess you’re not little anymore. But wow! What a way to humble a man about his old age.” A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest, making me shift in place in mild arousal.

  He draped his chef’s shirt over his forearm and closed his car door softly. “I have no words to describe how I feel, discovering young Katniss Everdeen is old enough to drive Francine,” He tsked at his boots, but his smile made his eyes crinkle in the corners. “End of an era… for me at least. Beginning of a new one for you, I supposed.” He smiled self deprecatingly. 

  My face burned and my chest tightened at his words, not sure if I felt elation or embarrassment. 

  “Oh… you ain’t old, sir.” I waved him off, still scowling for no good reason. 

  Mr. Peeta laughed. “You’re too kind, Miss Katniss, but my I.D. disagrees. Plus, knowing you’re old enough to drive is a sobering thought.” He smiled kindly again. 

  “I turned sixteen a week and a half ago. Daddy gave me the truck for passing my driving test.” I volunteered without prompting.

  “Neat! Spring baby, then. Makes sense. Suits you.” Mr. Peeta smiled, and I got incredibly shy, excited and happy at his short words.

  “Yeah, May 8th.” I offered softly, “That’s me. Spring baby.” 

  “As I said, it suits you. I’m a wintry kid myself, so I try to be extra warm to counteract any cold disposition I might have.” He said, checking his watch. 

  I panicked slightly; I knew time was closing in, and I’d be dismissed soon, so I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. “What brings you out here so early on a Saturday morning, anyway?”

  Mr. Peeta cocked his head sideways and glanced at me curiously. “Work.” He said in an amused, lilting tone. He lifted his arm to point at his chef uniform laid neatly folded. 

  I clamped my mouth immediately, to prevent any other ‘brilliant’ questions might escape. 

  Mr. Peeta smirked, probably realizing what a dork I was. “How about you? It’s awfully early for a kid to be downtown.” His face took a distant quality for his next words. “When I was your age, my mother would beat me out of bed for my Saturday shifts at the bakery… all I wanted to do was lay in bed until noon, you know. But, baker’s hours aren’t exactly flexible.” 

  My whole face twisted at that tidbit of information. I couldn’t read his emotion about his comment, which bothered me somehow. I started talking just because I disliked the way his face turned blank. 

  “I’m a morning person myself.” I shrugged. But my folks made me get a job so I could finance my gas addiction,” I was smuggly pleased when the baker started laughing heartily at my silly joke. It felt nice, knowing I said something he found funny. “Anyway, I’m working too. At Ms. Donner’s shop.”

  “Nice! Good taffy. Did old Maysilee offer to pay you in candy? I swear she did that to my brother, Bannock, one summer he decided to give another shop a try. ” He said conversationally, activating the alarm of his car. 

  “Oh, gosh!” I laughed, “No, she offered to give me a check every two weeks.” Then I looked at him dead in the eye, “Now the Christmas bonuses, those are in candy.” 

  We both laughed at that 

  Mr. Peeta nodded. “Well, Miss Katniss, I won’t keep you much longer, but if you need anything… a cheese bun for example,” He winked, putting my heart a flutter again, “Don’t hesitate to come in!” 

  With that, he started walking towards the narrow street behind the row of shops, no doubt heading to the back door of the bakery. 

  “Bye, Mister Peeta!” I croaked out belatedly. 

  Peeta waved over his shoulder. 

  All I could think after the encounter was how wrong my parents had been about my “puppy love” being a passing crush. 

……………………………..

Josh Hurcherson starred in Bridge to Terabithia, which came out in February of 2007. To this day, I can’t watch that movie without bawling my eyes out. Everyone should see it!

[song-of-storms162]

The Way Home Part 1

You’re a globetrotting trainer who’s seen what the world has to offer. You never stay in one place because of your work, but you think it’s time you started looking for a place to settle down. Enter Leon, your cousin who’s also Galar’s Champion, who claims he has a perfect job in mind for you in Galar. So with one last hurdle to clear, you head to where you’ve always heard a voice calling your name, the Galar Region. But things have changed since you were last there, and one of those changes goes by the name of ‘Raihan’, Leon’s rival and one of Galar’s most beloved Gym Leaders.

There was always something nice about going to Galar. It wasn’t just the curry cuisine, the culture and the region’s battling style. It was the fact that you were born there.

Your parents had lived in Galar for a while (too short for your liking) before moving to a number of different regions for work until they decided it was time to settle down. So they left for Unova and you and your sister spent your lives in the Village of Dragons with Dragon type Pokémon. Your parents were travelers, but you had a hunch the reason they settled down back then were their two daughters, one a newborn and another who was beginning to feel the effects of all the past traveling.

Of course, there were still trips to Galar as part of your family lived there. And growing up to be your parents’ daughter, you had inherited their wandering soul, for better or worst. You had been to other regions for experience and self-discovery, all while making a name for yourself. While you became a globetrotter, your sister trained under her master to be Unova’s next Champion. Unova had a special place in your heart, as did all the places you had been to. But there was always something in Galar calling out to you.

You got off your ship at Hulbury’s port, your luggage in one hand and your Rotom phone in the other. The sight of the familiar harbor with its salty breeze along with the familiar night sky was a breath of fresh air you happily breathed in. You were about to check the messages on your phone when you heard a familiar voice call out.

“(Name)! Over here!” You picked Nessa out of the crowd from the blue streak in her hair and her waving arms. “Nessa!” You cried with a grin before quickening your footsteps to break free from the crowd of newly arrived passengers.

Nessa met up with you halfway, the passengers clearing a path when they recognized her. “It’s so good to see you again!”

Nessa’s hug was one you welcomed and returned. “Did Leon tell you I was coming?”

“Of course he did,” said Nessa as she took your luggage before you could protest. “It’s all we’ve been talking about ever since he told us you were coming.”

“Speaking of Lee, where is he?” you ask before attempting to make a grab for your bags. “Is he busy or is he lost? He was supposed to come get me.”

“He’s a bit of both right now.”

“Oh dear...”

“He’ll be fine,” said Nessa as you both made your way out of the harbour. “So how was your trip?”

“It was alright, but going from Driftveil to Hulbury without stopping is taxing,” You sigh before going on to tell Nessa about the wild Pokémon who wanted to battle the trainers on the trip. The two of you made your way down the streeets of Hulbury, you could hear the fain teill of Wingull and the distant sounds of the Hulbury’s famous market. Nessa in return told you how she was the one who came to fetch you.

“I was at the lighthouse-“

“Of course,” you quipped with a smile that caused Nessa to smack your arm.

“And I got a call from Leon saying how you’re about to arrive at Hulbury in less than 10 minutes with no one to greet you. So naturally, I rushed to the rescue.”

“Naturally,” you said. “Though I would’ve been fine. I know my way around, unlike a certain champion.”

“I do hope you’re not talking about me, Cousin.”

You and Nessa stop walking at the sight of Leon and Sonia, their Charizard and Yampee with them.

“Leon! Sonia!” You beamed before throwing your arms around them and squeezing them both making the latter let out a laugh. You felt both ease their arms around you before you let them go.

“Is this how you greeted Nessa? Can’t say Galar’s prepared for all the hugs you’ll give,” said Leon with a chuckle. “Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t bring everyone, what a fest that would be!”

You rolled your eyes at your cousin. “Oh hush, I’m not going to go around chasing after strangers for hugs.”

“Perhaps not strangers but what about your friends?” Sonia asked and you wag a finger at her.

“My friends are an entirely different matter. For them I’d be-“

“A touch starved Bewear?” quipped Nessa.

“If you want me to be one,” you said with nonchalant look. “Though I’ve never met one before. I’d probably have to observe them in the Wild Area first if I want my hugs that lethal.”

“Well,” said Leon patting your shoulder. “You can do us all a favour and keep away from there.”

“No promises.” You grin at your cousin leading the others to laugh as you headed for the station.

###

“So tell me what’s been happening,” you said as the four of you take your seats on the train to Wedgehurst. “Feels like everytime I’m gone, something major happens.”

“Well, where do we start?”

And so began the outpour of news of the region’s most recent events. From how Leon brought home Pokémon for Hop and Gloria with an endorsement following along: how with the help of Hop and Gloria, Sonia became a professor and was currentky writing a book based on Galar’s history and how Gloria and Hop were nearing the end of their gym challenge with only three more badges left to obtain.

“Seems like Hop’s gone a long way, huh?” You mused. “Feels like it was only yesterday he called to show me his Wooloo.”

“Oh I remember,” Leon chuckled as he stared out the window. “Nearly dropped his new Rotom Phone while he was at it too.”

“Feels nice looking at you two like this,” said Nessa. “Whenever I see news of either of you, (Name) looks too serious and Leon’s too happy.”

“Is happy even the right word for it?” asked Sonia as she ran her fingers through the fur of her sleeping Yamper. “I think you both bear the weight of your responsibilities to the point where it’s your persona.”

You and Leon looked at each other, curiosity written on your faces. “Do we? Well with the Championship match coming up, Lee here might have to actually fight for his title for once.”

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder who I’ll be facing in the match,” mused Leon. “Will it be Raihan? Will it be Hop? Or will it be Gloria?

“Raihan?” You questioned and the three pause to glance at you.

“That’s right,” Nessa said. “You’ve never met him before, have you (Name)?”

“There’s a couple of people you haven’t met, it’s not just Raihan. I don’t think you’ve met Bea and Gordie too.” Sonia placed her chin on her hand, recalling the people you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting.

“Well, she’ll be meeting them all pretty soon,” said Leon as he leaned back on his seat. “What with Mr.Rose approving of the plans to make the Rose tower part Battle Tower, I’m pretty sure everyone will be seeing much of (Name) soon!”

Leon’s grin had you smiling yourself. “It’d be nice to meet everyone and I’ll be here for a while so company’s welcome.”

“A while?” Nessa laughed. “(Name), you’re never in Galar for just a ‘while’.”

“That’s true,” agreed Sonia. “Everytime we think you’ll finally settle down, something major happens and it ends with us seeing you off for who-knows-where.”

“How’s that job of yours treating you?” Leon asked quietly. “Nothing too harsh these past few right?”

You shook your head. “Everytime I’ve encountered anything close to a problem, I solve it Lee. And it’s not that bad.”

“(Name) can handle herself, Leon,” said Sonia and you beamed at her. “We all know that.”

“And all the traveling doesn’t hurt either,” said Nessa. “One of these days, I’m gonna close my Gym for a few just to travel to some far off region.”

“I think you all need a break from work,” you chuckled. “And thank you Leon for worrying about me, though my Pokémon would be insulted that you didn’t mention their protection.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the trainer?” Leon’s lips quirked in a smile.

“That I am, but off the battlefield we’re more than just Pokémon and trainer, Lee. We’re family.” You smiled fondly at the Poké Balls on your belt before patting one. “Lee, lend me your shoulder will you? I need something to sleep on after that boat ride.”

“Go ahead.” Leon adjusted his position so you could snooze on his shoulder and soon, you were out like a light.

Wedgehurst Station was where you parted with Sonia and Nessa, the former saying how she still had to process the new information for her book and the latter claimed she had to get back to close her gym.

So you and your cousin began your way to Postwick, the later hours of the night leaving less people wandering streets. Leon had taken one of your bags leaving you with dragging your suitcase along. You were grateful for the quiet streets for you were traveling with Leon after all, Galar’s ‘Unbeatable’ Champion. Speaking of your cousin, he had been oddly quiet since you parted with Nessa and you wondered where his usual cheeriness went.

“Leon, you’re awfully quiet,” you said, concern lining your features. The only sounds around were the sound of your baggage on the rougher road along with faint Pokémon trills. “Where’s my usual ‘Champion’ of a cousin right now?”

Leon sighed before smiling at you. “Sorry (Name), I’ve got something on my mind right now.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Leon stopped walking, the smile gone and replaced with a more serious look on his face. “Maybe.”

You paused in your steps. “Must be quite the something if it’s got you this bothered.”

“Well,” you saw Leon’s grip on your bag tighen. “It’s something to do with Mr. Rose.”

You frowned at him. “What’s he got to do with this?”

Leon couldn’t meet your eyes. “He has a task that he wants me to do.”

“What sort of task?” You asked as Leon started walking again. The two of you passed by the Pokémon Center and reached Route 1 before Leon finally continued.

“Do you know of Eternatus?” asked Leon, his tone solemn as you both headed for the shortcut through Route 1. It seemed as if other Pokémon had heard the name and went quiet at the mention of said Pokémon.

“Eternatus?” You echoed before remembering the Legendary Pokémon from the stories told at the Village of Dragons. “Yes, but what does a mythical Pokémon have to do with this?”

“Everything.”

“Wh-“

“Lee! (Name)!” The both of you look up to see Hop waiting at Postwick’s entrance with a humongous grin on his face. With him were his Inteleon and Gloria with her Rillaboom, the former and latter smiling as you and Leon drew closer.

You saw the solemnity wipe away from Leon’s face at the sight of the two. “Hop! Gloria!” He exclaimed, the grin showing no traces of his past emotion. “Why are you both waiting here?”

“I came to greet my favorite cousin!” said Hop with a grin. “And to make sure you guys got here on time.”

Gloria nodded. “If you had taken any longer, we would’ve gone to Wedgehurst!”

“Of course we got here on time,” you said with a chuckle. “I mean one of us actually has a sense of direction here!”

“Hey!” Leon pouted and this prompted you to laugh. “I didn’t come here to get knocked down a peg. I came to have a champion time with my family!”

“Speaking of family, lets go inside before mum starts wondering if you really are late,” said Hop. “C’mon! We even brought the grill out for tonight!”

“Are we eating out?” You asked as the four of you began making your way to Hop’s house.

Gloria grinned as she walked backwards to face you. “That’s right! Mum said it would be a waste to not eat under a sky like this tonight!”

At her words, you looked up and you had to admit, you wondered how you didn’t notice the interweaving dark blues and the million stars dotting the night sky. You breathed in Postwick’s fresh air with a smile. You truly missed this place.

“Hey (Name)! Hurry or me and Lee are gonna finish all the sausages!” Hop yelled from the outdoor grill they had already set up, the smell of sausages beginning to waft through the area. You hadn’t realised the three of them were already in the outdoor area of Hop’s house. Grinning, you ran to catch up. “Leave some sausages for me!”

###

“I can’t eat another bite!” Hop exclaimed as he rubbed his tummy. “Man, mum pulled out all the stops tonight!”

“I most certainly did,” said your aunt as she tugged on Hop’s cheek causing your younger cousin to protest. “You and Gloria deserve a proper meal for all that traveling you’ve done. And we have two extra special guests tonight.”

“I’ll help with the plates,” you said before getting up from your seat, Gloria also getting up to help.

“No, both of you sit down,” tutted Gloria’s mother as she quickly began clearing plates. “You’re our guests tonight and I’m sure you all are more than tired from your trip here.”

“But-“

“No buts,” she said firmly before swiping your plate and adding it to the ever growing stack in her hands. “Besides, you’ll be living here until you’ve found a place to stay. The chores don’t have to start tonight.”

Gloria’s mum and your aunt make their way into the house with the dirty plates as your uncle starts cleaning the barbecue. You listen to Hop and Gloria recount their battles and gym challenges, smiling at the way they talk with animated gestures. Your hands unconciously find your Poké Balls and you nearly jump from your seat when you feel one of them rattle into your palm. Leon, noticing your startled expression chuckled. “Are your Pokémon finally awake?”

“Seems like they are,” you said with a laugh as you took the Poké Balls off your belt and flung them into the air. “Come on out everyone!”

You had caught numerous Pokémon from all your travelling and there were times when your team would change, but for your trip to Galar you had brought six of your Pokémon while the rest stayed back in Unova.

Your Salamence, Salem, let out a cry when it came out, as did your Lapras, Kai and your Decidueye, Nox. Your Hydreigon, Byron, let out a low growl at finally being released from its Poké Ball but the ones who were quiet and stretched their bodies were your Alolan Ninetails, Jasmine and your Silvally, Amit.

Nox, Salem, Kai and Byron, who had been on your team longer than Amit and Jasmine, let out noises of happiness when spying Leon and Hop. When your aunt and Gloria’s mother came out of the house again, they came out holding bowls of Pokémon food, Poffins, Poké Puffs, PokéBlocks and berries of all sorts.

“Was wondering when you’d let the cavalry out,” your aunt winked at you. “Gloria, Hop, it’s time for your Pokémon to eat. We’ve had our feasting, it’s their turn to eat!”

You watched in contentment as you saw Jasmine and Nox gently coax Amit into eating with the larger group of Pokémon, which included many from Hop, Leon and Gloria’s team. You smiled at the sight of the Silavlly pausing midway in its food at the curious stares it got from the other Pokémon, it’s mouth open comically for a while but Hop’s Dubwool had been the one to break the ice with a happy cry.

“Interesting Pokémon you got there,” said Leon as his eyes trailed after Amit’s form. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a Silvally so shy.”

You blink in surprise at your cousin, facing him instead of the crowd of Pokémon eating away. “I’m surprised you know what Amit is.”

“The Champion of Alola has one, added it to their team for awhile,” said Leon as his eyes cast over the group of Pokémon again.

Ah.

You remembered Alola’s current champion from a previous trip to Alola, one circling around your job. Even though they were much younger, you were still in awe at the Pokémon who seemed to trust their trainer to a whole new level. When you two finally sat down for a meal, they told you they thought your friendship with your Pokémon was something else. And somehow you left the region with a Pokémon that had been entrusted to only two people in the world then.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your work right?” asked Leon but you only say: “Lee, when does anything I do not have to do with my work?”

Leon opened his mouth to answer but before you knew what he would say, Hop and Gloria came bounding up to you with excited grins.

“(Name)! (Name)! You’ve gotta introduce your new Pokémon to us!” exclaimed Hop and Gloria nodded.

“Well,” you said. “I’ll consider it, if you tone it down a bit, Hop.”

“I will! I will!”

“What region is your Ninetails from?” asked Gloria as she glanced at where Amit had started playing tag with Gloria’s Cinderace and the Dreepy that usually stayed in Leon’s Dragapult. It seemed both fully evolved Pokémon had come to a silent agreement to always let Dreepy win.

“Jasmine’s from the Alola region,” you said. “Amit, my Silvally over there, is from Alola as well.”

You motion Jasmine over from where she sits inbetween some napping Pokémon and she shakes herself free before heading to you two. Gloria’s eyes are sparkling when she sits in front of you and you chuckle at the younger girl’s expression. “You can pet her you know.”

Carefully, one of Gloria’s hands skim over Jasmine’s fur, the fox Pokémon letting out a low purr at the sensation. “She’s so pretty!” squealed Gloria.

Before you could comment, you saw Leon waiting behind your Ninetails, expression amused at the younger trainer’s delight. You got up without a word and your cousin promptly brought out his Rotom Phone. The picture of 11 people was new to you.

“I recognise a few faces,” you said as you inspected the photo. “Of course I remember Milo, Nessa, Kabu, Allister, Opal, Melony and Piers. Who are the others?”

The few you don’t recognise are the rest of the gym leaders you hadn’t mentioned and Leon’s quick to give you a little intro to each person.

“This is Bea, fighting type expert.” Leon points out a stone faced girl, her mouth set in a determined line.

“Let me guess, Stow-on-Side?”

“That’s right, and this is Gordie.” The name of the man in the visor brings back a memory between you and Melony.

“Isn’t that the name of Melony’s son?”

“He is Melony’s son,” said Leon as he flips through his phone again. “But he’s a rock type expert.”

“She’s okay with it?”

Leon shrugged. “Not exactly.”

The next photo he shows you is a different one. This time there’s only two in the frame, only one of which you recognise.

“This is.... Raihan right?” You squint at the photo of Leon and the person you don’t recognise. You can tell he and Leon are close from the goofy pose and expressions they’re both doing. But there’s a sort of carefree aura emanating from the two that you can’t help but smile at.

“Yep, he’s my rival,” said Leon with a smile.

Even though they’re rivals, they both look so open with each other, You thought. Well I guess it shows how deep their friendship goes.

“You’ll be battling everyone sooner or later. But I had an idea of how to introduce you to everyone.”

“I already know most of fhe gym leaders, Lee.” Your aunt comes out with drinks for everyone and you smile at her in thanks.

“I know that, but when I say everyone, I really mean everyone! I’m talking all of Galar here!” Leon’s excited smile, maybe the first really bright one tonight, relaxes you a little.

“Well then, what’s this idea of yours?” You ask as you sipped your drink.

Leon’s eyes were brimming with excitement. “How would you like to partake in a special gym challenge?”

###

The guest room inside Hop’s house was already filled with your belongings, the bed was even decked out in your favorite comforter. You let loose a sigh as you plopped on the bed and leaned back to lie on the soft sheets. There was a turmoil of thoughts in your head and you weren’t sure where to start.

You heard a buzzing sound and saw your Rotom Phone floating around in the corner of your eye, you made no move to reach for it but raised your head to look at it. On the screen was a familiar name, one that was trying to get on call with you.

You motion for Rotom to come closer and answered the call. The familiar sound of your superior crackled through the phone.

“Hello agent, I take it your trip went well?”

“Evening to you, Sir Looker, my trip was alright.” Your eyes were on the ceiling and Rotom settled beside you so you could keep your conversation going

“I’ll get straight to the point then, have there been any difficulties since your arrival?”

You chuckled. “No, I’ve been here for less than a day. Are you asking out of concern or for Headquarters?”

“Concern, of course.” A pause. “I don’t need to ring headquarters to prepare backup for you. You’re one of our best.”

“You let my Pokémon over the border” you said with a smile. “You best believe I’ll be giving it my all in this one.”

“I’ll tell Headquarters to settle then. Have you found a place to live in yet?”

“I misjudged the size of the house.” You frowned as you sat back up and surveyed your room again. “I don’t think my cousin’s place will be large enough for my Pokémon.”

No, you remembered how the backyard was barely big enough for all those Pokémon to eat in, even if a smaller number of Pokémon were to be kept in your cousin’s house, they would not be able to get the space they required to run around.

“I can arrange to find you new lodgings.”

You nod. “That could help, if I’m going to be here awhile, I’ll need a bigger place to stay in.”

“And one that’s more connected, perhaps? Postwick is accessible but it’s definitely a location that takes a while to travel to.”

“I guess so,” you mumbled at the prospect of not being close to your aunt and uncle soon.

“I know this might sound a bit rushed agent but...”

You hear Looker trail off and chuckle because you know what he’s asking.

“You want to know how I’ll go about my mission?”

“...yes.”

“My cousin already came up with one and don’t worry, I haven’t told him the real reason why I’m here yet.”

You hear Looker sigh in relief. “Thank Arceus for that, and what’s your plan so far?”

“He wants me to battle the Gym Leaders in a formal setting, sort of like the Gym Challenge but instead it’ll be promotion for the upcoming Battle Tower.”

You can see Looker nod his head through the phone. “Of course and because it’s going to be a significant part of the Rose Tower, Chairman Rose is bound to watch and oversee.”

“Leon said it’s also going to be a way to advertise Chairman Rose’s latest plans and business ongoings which I’ll soon be a part of anyway since I’m going to be one of the Trainers for the Battle Tower. And I’ll also be meeting him to start plans for the Battle Tower.”

“I see you have the situation under control, agent.” You can see Looker nodding. “And you must always remember your mission, understood?”

“Understood.” You nod. “My mission is to find out what Mr.Rose has been doing in the Power Plant under Hammerlocke Stadium.”

[biwenqing]

open

Lan Xichen thinks about his relationship, what it means to make a home, and to trust again. Third (and final?) part of my little Mingxicheng Modern AU (part one, part two).

for fytheuntamed on tumblr's untamed spring fest day twenty-five prompt: harmony

teen | words: 2036 | ao3

For many years, Lan Xichen’s Monday mornings had been nothing but a routine. He liked to get to work a little early to go over any cases that came into the clinic over the weekend, so he would merely shower, dress, and grab a fruit to go. It was quiet, lonely, and Lan Xichen was always glad to escape the muffled existence of his loft. It had only gotten worse with his previous... partner. He learned that silence could hold a sharp edge.

This morning there was no time for such thoughts to weigh him down, as his loft was far from lonely or silent. Even though Lan Xichen was the first to wake up. He took the time to enjoy just lying in bed for a long moment, between his boyfriends, before getting up to make breakfast. Their soft and steady breathing, Nie Mingjue’s arm thrown around his waist, while Jiang Cheng’s back was pushed against his arm on the other side.

Holding that moment with him, Lan Xichen couldn’t stop the smile on his face as he slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen. The noise of the others waking up started as the smell of bacon (and Lan Xichen’s tofu bacon) filled the loft and woke up the other two. Making them each a little breakfast sandwich and wrapping it to grab later, Lan Xichen put the pans in the sink and wandered back towards the bedroom.

Nie Mingjue was in the shower and he had music playing on his phone and sometimes singing along, which Lan Xichen found a rather endearing habit. Jiang Cheng was standing in the bedroom just in low slung pajama pants, digging through the drawer of his clothes in Lan Xichen’s bureau. He and Jiang Cheng had been dating for over eight months now, and Nie Mingjue had joined the relationship now two months ago. As natural as they both fit into Lan Xichen’s life, it still didn’t feel quite normal.

What it did feel like was home, warm and sometimes too good to be true.

“Like what you see?” Jiang Cheng asked, looking over at him a lopsided smile on his face.

“Yes.” Lan Xichen pushed off the door frame he had been leaning on. He kissed Jiang Cheng briefly. Pulling back, he smiled, running his hands over Jiang Cheng’s strong arms.

“Now there is no time to start something,” Jiang Cheng said, but his smile was soft.

“I know.”

“What’re you thinking about?” Jiang Cheng asked, a worried line appearing between his brows.

Lan Xichen shook his head. “Nothing bad,” he assured. “Just about lucky I am...”

Jiang Cheng took one of his hands, pressing a kiss to it. “It’s what you deserve.”

Lan Xichen huffed but kissed Jiang Cheng briefly once more. When he pulled back, he asked, “Want help with your t shot?”

Jiang Cheng nodded, going over to sit on the bed, grabbing what they needed from the bedside table. It had taken a while for Jiang Cheng to feel comfortable being able to accept Lan Xichen’s help on anything. Helping him with his hormone shots was a kind of open trust Lan Xichen held close. They had a rhythm to it each Monday and they were finishing as Nie Mingjue walked back into the room.

It was good they were done because Nie Mingjue's entrance was nothing but distracting. Nie Mingjue was only in a towel, his shoulder-length hair loose and slightly wavy. He caught both their eyes and just smiled, embarrassed by their obvious admiration.

“It’s my singing right?” Nie Mingjue asked with a wink, before turning to get dressed.

The towel dropped and Jiang Cheng murmured just loud enough for Lan Xichen to hear, “That ass.”

Lan Xichen hummed in agreement before straightening. He moved slowly to the door before running. “I get the shower next!”

“Unfair!” Jiang Cheng called after him, Nie Mingjue’s booming laughter accompanied it. “You waited till I was distracted!”

Lan Xichen didn’t think there was ever a time in his life that he got to be so playful or to feel so unconditionally cared for. After he was in the shower, he heard a knock on the door.

“Coming in to brush my teeth,” Nie Mingjue called. “I’ll try not to take your hot water.”

“Wait I need to as well,” Jiang Cheng said. Peeking around the curtain for a moment, Lan Xichen saw the very domestic scene. The bathroom had two sinks and both his boyfriends had everything they needed already here, making a near-permanent home among Lan Xichen’s own toiletries.

And this was the difference, the harmony in what could be chaos, that made Lan Xichen hope he could spend every Monday morning like this. He would spend every morning like this, if allowed.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Jiang Cheng said, toothbrush making his words muffled.

“Which one of us are you talking to?” Lan Xichen asked, adding his conditioner.

“Both of you really,” Jiang Cheng said and Lan Xichen was just able to make out.

“I should shave, I have a meeting today,” Nie Mingjue muttered.

“Not the mustache!” Lan Xichen protested though he knew that the mustache was not truly in any danger.

“He wouldn’t be so cruel to put an end to one of the world’s greatest treasures,” Jiang Cheng assured.

Nie Mingjue laughed. “Don’t fear, I just want to make sure the rest of my face doesn’t get scruffy.”

“You wouldn’t want to look like Lan Qiren,” Jiang Cheng pointed out.

“Please, never say anything like that again,” Lan Xichen called. “I will need to scrub that image from my brain.”

“As long as you leave me hot water,” Jiang Cheng called back.

“Either of you want a smoothie to go with the breakfast Lan Xichen so kindly made?” Nie Mingjue asked, between the scrape of his razor.

“Yes please,” Jiang Cheng said. “Are you still able to meet me at the gym after work?”

“Of course.”

Lan Xichen let their voices soothe him as he finished getting ready for the day.

~.~

Lan Xichen was the first one home in the evening. He hadn’t asked if Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue would come back tonight. All their things were still there, taking up those spaces that had been empty since he moved in. As he slipped out of his shoes, he got a text from Jiang Cheng telling him not to worry about dinner.

Taking a deep breath, Lan Xichen settled to read until they got back. Walking into the bedroom, he snagged his book and one of Jiang Cheng’s hoodies before settling on the couch. This quiet didn’t feel oppressive. It felt nice to spend a little time on his own, with the knowledge that soon the others would be home.

This was what it was to be happy in a relationship. Lan Xichen wished it wasn’t such a realization. Sure, he had been happy when he had been with Nie Mingjue in highschool. But they had just been kids then, still changing too much to know if they would actually fit together in the long run. Lan Xichen still believed it had been best for them to part ways.

Just as it seemed it was for the best that they reconnected once again now. Lan Xichen put his book down, realizing he wasn’t focusing on anything he had read in the past several pages. Standing, he made his way through the loft, tending to the plants that filled most of the windows. When he first moved in, he had purchased a lot of plants to fill the rooms with life. Now they had grown to fit the space, the light of the setting sun turning some of the leaves glowing green or vibrant yellow.

Perching in a windowsill to gently prune a colleague’s abandoned office plant he’d saved, Lan Xichen had a view of the sidewalk below. He spotted Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue when they were coming down the street, and his heart settled. He couldn’t help the smile as he watched them. It seemed Jiang Cheng was telling a story, complete with fast hand gestures, while Nie Mingjue was laughing, his gym bag over one shoulder as he carried what must be dinner in the other.

Lan Xichen felt that contentment wash over himself again. This relationship, this home they were building together, was something special. And while they might sometimes stumble, they were also there to pick each other back up.

‘I deserve this,’ Lan Xichen reminded himself. ‘I deserve to be loved.’

No matter what anyone else in the past might have said.

The rattle of a key in the door brought Lan Xichen back, and he stood up. As soon as his boyfriends were through the door, Lan Xichen tugged Nie Mingjue into a quick kiss, then released him to do the same with Jiang Cheng.

“We’re all sweaty,” Jiang Cheng warned, even as he entwined his hand with Lan Xichen’s and reeled Lan Xichen in for another kiss.

“Did you miss me?” Lan Xichen asked as if it were a joke. And it was, really, they had only been apart a few hours but-

“Always,” Jiang Cheng answered back easily, earnestly, stopping Lan Xichen’s thoughts from running away again. “But I am now going to take a shower.” He slipped away from Lan Xichen with another quick kiss, before running. “Now I get the first shower!”

Nie Mingjue huffed. “And just when I thought he was distracted again.”

Lan Xichen chuckled, turning back to Nie Mingjue. “I’m sorry, I’ll try harder to distract him next time.”

“Mmm, I could handle a little distracting myself,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice a rumble as he rested a hand on Lan Xichen’s hip.

Lan Xichen smiled, leaning a little closer. “I could be persuaded.”

Nie Mingjue tipped his head up and pressed a kiss to Lan Xichen’s jaw. “I will take you up on that after dinner.”

Lan Xichen followed him into the kitchen and leaned a hip on the counter. “How was your day? Starting to get the feel of the office?”

“It’s still weird not to be the boss anymore, but maybe I’ll get to contract on my own someday,” Nie Mingjue said, as he put everything together. He moved around the kitchen like he was at home which made Lan Xichen warm. “But... I’m liking my other coworkers on the innovation team.” Nie Mingjue paused to chuckle. “Apparently I’m the “ideal project manager”.”

“That’s hot.” Jiang Cheng’s soft laughter announced he had finished his quick shower. He wandered in wearing sweatpants and a loose tank top. At least the sweatpants were Lan Xichen’s, but that was only fair when he was still wearing Jiang Cheng’s hoodie.

“Thanks,” Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes, though he wore a fond smile. “I’m going to clean up so we can eat.”

“We’ll wait for you,” Lan Xichen said, taking over and setting the table.

“Are you okay?” Jiang Cheng asked, sitting and watching Lan Xichen after a minute of silence.

Lan Xichen nodded, though he didn’t answer right away. He could see Jiang Cheng wasn’t fully convinced. “I am,” he promised.

Jiang Cheng relaxed. “Good. You’ll let me know if you’re not?”

Lan Xichen smiled, coming around to press a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s damp hair. “You’re the first one I’ll tell. I am... I am really happy, happier than I thought I’d be able to be.”

Jiang Cheng gently took Lan Xichen’s wrist and pressed a kiss to it. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m happy too.”

Nie Mingjue padded in a few moments later, footsteps muffled by his socks so Lan Xichen was slightly surprised to find his arms wrapped around his waist. “I missed you too,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the back of Lan Xichen’s neck. “I forgot to say that.”

Lan Xichen hummed happily and asked, “How fast was that shower?” Even as he looked back to smile at Nie Mingjue. “Also your mustache tickles.”

“Dinner is getting cold!” Nie Mingjue explained, letting him go and sitting down.

Lan Xichen followed suit and found he couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the evening.

[ceealaina]

Title: Standing Face to Face Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: S3 - Anger Issues Ship: Gen Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Civil War Fix-It, Making Up Summary: When Tony gets an emergency call from Nat after the events of Civil War, he doesn't hesitate to drop everything to help.

... He's never trusting Natasha again. Word Count: 2792

Tony trudged into the workshop, exhausted after another round of Accords meetings. He was done with the entire world -- except for Rhodey, who was beautiful and wonderful and had never betrayed him -- and this close to calling the whole thing quits. He was ready to lose himself in some War Machine upgrades, let that numb his mind for a bit, when his eyes fell on the flashing light on the landline tucked in the corner. 

“Shit,” he hissed, exhaustion suddenly gone. “Friday, baby? Stealth mode, please.” 

“You got it, boss,” she told him, the windows already going opaque. 

The thing was, the tale of the Avengers breakup had been slightly exaggerated. Sure, Steve and his gang of merry assholes were, technically, on the run and, even more technically, no longer classified as Avengers. But they were still out there, actively fighting crime to their heart’s content. Which Tony knew, because he had regular check-ins with them to see if things were okay and to keep them apprised of the Accords situation. He was their ‘in case of aliens’ emergency back up, he sent updates for all their equipment, and once a week -- give or take -- he and Rogers would get into a yelling match over the phone, and usually end up hanging up on each other. They were still his team, and Tony would do anything required to help them (the fact that anyone anywhere thought Steve was capable of breaking into the Raft, without leaving a trace, on his own, was frankly insulting) but he was also about ready to dropkick Captain Asshole off a very tall building. 

But regardless of his personal feelings for Steve, if the emergency line was ringing, he was going to answer it. 

Natasha’s voice was ruhed and harried, sounding like she was trying to keep from being heard. “Tony? Budapest. Right away,” she told him. There was a burst of static, and she gave him a set of coordinates, and then the line went dead. 

“Shit,” Tony muttered, already suiting up. “Friday? Cancel… Everything.” 

“On it, boss,” she reported as he took off into the sky. 

***

The coordinates that Natasha had given him took Tony to some hole-in-the-wall local bar so far on the outskirts of town that he didn’t know if it could really be considered Budapest anymore. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds, but he knew better than to think Natasha might have made a mistake. She hadn’t given him a stealth warning so, still fully wrapped in the armour, he stepped through the front door. 

The bar was dimly lit, a few tables scattered around the room, all sitting empty. There were only two occupants inside: The bartender, who didn’t look up, and a drunken patron half-slumped over the bar, who did. 

“Ayyy!” he cried, holding up his stein and sloshing beer over the counter. “Iron Man!” A moment later he was slumped over the bar again. 

Tony popped his faceplate up, blinking incredulously at the scene before him. “Uh… Okay.” 

The door to a back room opened then, and Clint sauntered out, a beer bottle in hand. “Bout time you got here,” he drawled, and Tony stared back at him. 

“Some emergency, Barton.” 

Clint shrugged, not even looking embarrassed. “Had to get you here somehow,” he replied, and before Tony could ask why, he was opening the door again to stick his head back into the room behind him. “Hey guys!” he hollered. “He’s here!” 

Tony stared as Nat filed out through the door, followed by an extremely put-out looking Sam and then, finally, Steve. Tony took a tiny bit of solace in the fact that apparently Steve hadn’t been told what was going on either. He stopped at the sight of Tony, taking up the entire doorway, and his eyes narrowed. 

“What’s he doing here?” 

Tony resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him. “Yes. What am I doing here?” he asked instead, feeling increasingly more bewildered. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to, and he didn’t like it. The last time he had been this confused was when Rhodey had kissed him back in college, and while that had turned out pretty fantastic, he wasn’t holding the same hope here. 

Natasha and Clint shared one of those freaky spy twin stares, having an entire conversation without words, but it was Natasha who finally spoke. “So the thing is, Clint and I and… Well everyone, really. We’re sick of your shit.” 

Beside her, Clint nodded sagely, folding his arms across his chest in that way that he thought was supposed to be impressive (it was, the man had biceps for days, but Tony wasn’t going to tell him that). “The two of you,” he said, gesturing between Tony and Steve. “You can’t go five minutes without having a screaming fest. It’s fucking annoying.” 

“So you’re going to sit here, with Sam, and have couples therapy until you work out your anger issues with each other,” Natasha continued.  

Sam drew in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I feel obliged to mention for the millionth time that I’m not actually a therapist. What the fuck even?” 

“You’re the closest thing we have!” Natasha and Clint replied in unison. It sounded like a well-worn argument. 

“And I don’t have anger issues,” Steve mumbled, sounding petulant. The four of them turned to stare at him incredulously and he shifted a little uncomfortably, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Okay, maybe I have a bit of a temper,” he admitted. “But I don’t see how this is going to help anything.” 

“Not to mention the potential security risk,” Tony added, with a pointed look at the bar. 

“Yes!” Steve practically shouted, clearly looking for an excuse to get out of this. “Exactly.” 

“Don’t worry about them,” Natasha said, waving off their concerns. “They don’t speak English.” 

“And see?” Clint added. “You’re getting along better already.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “This is bullshit, and I can’t believe you hauled me all the way out here for this. I’ve got forty million actual things to do, so... I’m going. It’s been, uh… Great catching up?”

“Uh-uh.” All of a sudden Nat was holding a gun in each hand. “We’re serious about this, Tony. You’re gonna fix this thing between you.” 

Tony blinked at her. “Are you… Are you threatening me?” 

Natasha just shrugged, arching a brow at him. And the thing was, Tony was pretty sure she wouldn’t really shoot him, but he couldn’t say it with 100% certainty -- he was still wearing the armor. He met her gaze for a long moment, trying to call her bluff, but she didn’t flinch and Tony sighed, feeling his entire body sag. 

“Fiiiiine,” he said, dragging the word out to about five times the length so that she’d know how displeased he was. Pointedly not removing the suit, he stomped over the bar. For a long minute, nobody joined him. Then, after some loud whispering that he ignored in favour of trying to piece together enough Hungarian to get a scotch from the bartender, Steve came over and slumped down on a stool beside him. He didn’t speak, or look at him, leaving it to Tony to start the conversation. Tony kind of regretted putting the faceplate up, because Steve would definitely notice if he made a face at him. “So, uh… Where’s the rest of your motley crew? Simon, or Sean, or whatever his name was. The shrink ‘n gro guy?” 

Steve gave him an unimpressed stare. “I know you know his name is Scott. Just like I know you know that he made a deal with the Feds, and that he’s under house arrest stateside.” He turned away again, and Tony rolled his eyes at the sticky bartop. 

“Excuse me for making conversation,” he muttered. “And, uh, what about Wanda?” 

When he looked at him again, Steve’s gaze had hardened, his expression unreadable. “I’m not telling you where Wanda is.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered. “What, you think I’m asking so I can call up Ross and sell her out? Really, Rogers? The back-up, and the checkins, and making myself available to you all the goddamn time is just so that I can fuck you all over at the first available opportunity? Fuck you. I’m the one out there trying to get things fixed so you idiots can finally come home!” 

“Oh yeah,” Steve scoffed. “How altruistic of you. Like how locking Wanda up in the first place was for her sake, not yours, right?” 

“It was!” Tony insisted. “I had her staying on the compound, Steve. You know, the giant ass place where we all chose to live? The one with walking trails and an Olympic size pool and six different gourmet kitchens in addition to the private quarters that are bigger than most NYC apartments? It wasn’t exactly a 6x8 cell.” 

“It doesn’t matter! You can’t just lock people up. People deserve freedom, Tony!” 

“Oh my god. I wasn’t locking her up, I was keeping her from being locked up. They wanted to take her in for questioning, Steve. Do you know what happens when people like Ross take people like Wanda in for questioning? They disappear. Keeping her on the compound meant they couldn’t just waltz in and take her. Not to mention what could happen with random people on the street. She’s misunderstood Steve, I get that. But when people misunderstand things, they tend to fear them. And they can react to fear in pretty violent ways.” 

“I think Wanda can handle herself.” 

Tony scoffed. “Yeah, I saw how well she handled herself in Lagos. You really want a repeat of that in upstate New York?” 

Steve opened his mouth, clearly ready to lay into him, but before he could there was a sharp whistle from across the room. They both whipped around to see Natasha, Sam, and Clint glaring at them pointedly. 

“This!” Clint said. “This is exactly what we’re talking about! Come on, you two were really good friends. I get this is a big disagreement, but...” He gestured between himself and Natasha. “Look, Tasha and I were on opposite sides of the Accords. You don’t see us going at each other’s throats every time we look at each other. We’re still friends! Don’t you want that back?”

Tony felt himself deflate a little. He chanced a glance over at Steve out of the corner of his eyes and found him looking equally subdued. Neither of them actually said anything, but Clint got a smug, self-satisfed look on his face anyway. 

“That’s what I thought,” he told them.

“Okay, so.” Natasha planted a hand in the middle of Sam’s back and shoved him hard, getting a yelp out of him as he stumbled over toward the bar. “Sam’s gonna stay here and... guide you, while the two of you sit here until you get all your shit talked out.” 

“I’m really not qualified for this!” Sam informed them again. 

“And Nat and I’ll be waiting right outside the door until you do,” Clint added, with a look that suggested they’d be doing more guarding more than waiting. 

So, with Sam as mediator, they talked. It didn’t start out well, the two of them doing more screaming than talking, every topic veering into anger. Sam had to interrupt them every five minutes to try and get them to refocus, grumbling the whole time about how he wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit. Once, Clint and Nat had stuck their heads back in, presumably to make sure they didn’t actually kill each other. Tony had been screaming about how if Steve thought Tony had been acting selfishly, he’d better look in a mirror, or was he trying to claim that not telling Tony that his parents had been murdered was really for his benefit. But Steve hadn’t yelled back, and Tony had gotten his breathing and heart rate under control -- without kicking Steve’s chair out from under him, as tempting as it was -- and they had left again. 

And eventually, things had shifted. Tony was still mad, but he could understand some of the fear and reasoning that had led to Steve being so against the Accords, and Steve had admitted that while he still didn’t agree with them, he could see how some oversight was virtually inevitable, and that he probably should have had more faith in Tony, and the possibility of a middle ground. He’d admitted that it hadn’t just been the Accords, that between that, and Lagos, and then Peggy dying, he’d felt like the ground was falling out beneath him and hadn’t reacted well, and Tony had admitted that he could have done more to see where he was coming from -- he wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the sensation of the ground falling out beneath him himself. 

“Shit,” Tony mumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he looked around the bar for what felt like the first time in hours. He didn’t actually remember when he’d stepped out of the Iron Man suit, but he was sitting on the barstool beside Steve in a business suit, Iron Man standing guard in the corner. There was no sign of the bartender or the other patron. “How long have we been here.” He frowned. “And where the hell did Sam go?” 

“I think he gave up and called it quits around the time I called you a hack,” Steve offered. His voice was dry, but he offered Tony a crooked grin, and Tony felt a pang; it had been a long time since he had seen Steve smile like that and he’d missed it. 

He sighed, fiddling with a bare spot on the counter. “I didn’t want to kill Barnes,” he admitted quietly. “Not really. I know it wasn’t his fault. I just… Seeing my mom killed like that? It brought everything all back, and I just saw red. I wanted him to hurt as much as I was.” He gave Steve a wry look. “Not very superhero-y of me, huh?” 

“Yes. Because I’m known for my even-temper and measured responses,” Steve deadpanned. “I get it, Tony. I probably would have done the same. I didn’t want to hurt you either, for what it’s worth. I just wanted to get Bucky out of there. I was scared I was going to lose him again, and you were a little terrifying. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kind of a badass.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “You trying to flatter me, Rogers?” 

“I’m just saying, it did take two fully grown super soldiers to even slow you down.” He grinned, then sobered again. “But what you said back there? You were right, Tony. You were my friend. I should have had respect for that too.” 

“Ye-ah…” Tony shrugged. “I get it though. If our places were switched, and that were Rhodey? Full offense, Steve, but I would lay you out to save him.” 

Steve gave him another soft smile. “I don’t doubt it.” 

Tony’s phone gave a loud jangle then, buzzing harshly against the counter, and he and Steve both startled, jolted from the hazy peace they’d fallen into. WIth a rueful smile, Tony picked the phone up and grimaced at the message waiting for him. 

“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He looked over at Steve, an apology on his face. “I gotta get going. Ross has decided to come by in a couple hours, and if I’m not there he’s going to start trying to look into where I am…” 

“Yeah, yeah, no,” Steve said quickly. “I understand.” He hesitated a moment, chewing at his lip. “I haven’t said thank you, Tony. All of this, dealing with Ross, and the Accords, and trying to bring us home…? I appreciate it, I really do. I know it’s a lot, and it’s all on you, and I know I’m terrible at showing it, but I do appreciate it. Thank you, Tony.” 

Tony smiled softly. “Thank you,” he answered, nodding his head back toward the front door. “For keeping them safe.” 

Steve snorted. “Because Nat needs so much looking after?” he teased, earning a soft chuckle from Tony. 

“I missed this,” he told him. “I mean, not the screaming and the yelling and the wanting to murder each other, obviously, that’s all horrible. But…” He gestured between them, not having the words but knowing Steve would get it anyway. “This. I’ve missed this.” 

“Yeah. Me too.” Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. “Maybe we could do it again sometime?” 

Tony grinned, stepping back into the Iron Man suit. “Find me somewhere with a decent scotch, and you’ve got yourself a deal, Steve.”

@tonystarkbingo