#about his rise and fall and his friends and enemies. it's so messy. the way I enjoy it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chaoticspeedrun · 2 years ago

Note

Hello! I hope you are well!

I saw that you wanted some ideas for a fic, i have a request if thats okay. I have an request for an donnie x reader (can be gn or fem!, either is fine), where the reader seems like the villain but is trying to protect them from a bigger badder villain maybe like big mama for example? Maybe like a lovers to enemies to lovers trope? Or just a enemies to lovers trope.

Anywho i love your work! Please remember to take breaks and please remember to eat and drink something today. Bye bye!❤

AN: You guys are worrying about me and my health, it’s so sweet, I’ll try though my ADHD brain might forget, thank you <3 also, your brain is beautiful anon, villain reader lovers to enemies to lovers?? *chef’s kiss* How could I pass that up?

This one took a while because I got excited and it got long, I love how it turned out though.

Trust fall

Pairing: Rise!Donnie x Fem! reader (No use of Y/N)

Type: Oneshot

Summary: Donnie fell in love with you slowly but steadily, he would have trusted you with his life, which is why finding out you were working with a villain was too hard of a hit to take.

Warnings: Angst with a happy ending, break-ups, reader says f*ck once.

MASTERLIST

Donnie didn’t think he was too trusting, but sometimes he didn’t have the insight to people Leo and Mikey would, his own ego made him think he couldn’t be fooled, and maybe, just maybe, that would be his downfall.

He met you at the Big Nexus Hotel, you were staying there for a couple of days to try something different is what you said, a human in a huge hotel full of yokai who was suddenly ran over by a mutant ninja turtle in his attempts to escape the claws of a big feral dog called Gus.

Donnie hurried to protect you, grabbing your hand and pulling you into a run alongside him, because you were a civilian suddenly involved in the situation since Gus had seen you together, so now you were in danger too.

The moment he saw Leo on the other side of the hallway waving and opening a portal Donnie didn’t hesitate to go through it, dragging you along and directly into the lair where Mikey and Raph were already staring at you in shock, Leo just whistled, closing the portal behind him before asking.

“Well DonTron, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Introductions were a messy affair, where you explained you’d been staying at the hotel for two days before what happened, and they explained themselves in a way. You took their explanation in stride, just accepting mutants and Yokai were a thing after the crazy persecution scene just a moment before.

Your easy acceptance put them all at ease, they were shocked at it, yes, but thought nothing more while Mikey excitedly asked if you wanted to stay for dinner and Leo just made a side comment about your attitude to them being a little weird.

Donnie should have thought it out further.

You were fitting right in and sitting at the table with them, but even after the crazy day you just had you still had enough energy to ask Donnie about his battle shell, the question then went over to his tech bō, him explaining how he got his hands on the titanium used on most of his things and then switched over to sci-fi movies, Leo joining the conversation in smalls bursts at that.

You left the lair with four new phone numbers and after a couple of months, you were already a new addition to their little found family.

You made friends with April real quick and then with Sunita, their father seemed to like you and whenever you came over you usually brought a little something with you, cookies, pizza, coffee, just something for the guys, waving off their thanks and telling them it was just good manners, even when Raph repeatedly insisted you didn’t have to, while Leo would immediately ask what you brought that day once you walked through the door.

The pride and warmth that came to Donnie whenever you’d ask about his projects, the new videogame he was into, with all your attention never straying from his rants, or when you’d laugh at one of his jokes started growing and changing into something else with each of your visits.

You were always considerate of them, but he couldn’t figure out how with just a small exchange of texts between the both of you before your arrival at the lair you always seemed to be able to tell if he was in the mood for plain black coffee or a lavender latte and would walk into his lab with a small greeting plus the steaming cup in your hands.

Small things like that increased and slipped into your interactions, making him feel like you knew and understood him better than anyone else.

It made him happy, it made him nervous at times. He started making things for you, gift giving was one of his love languages, why wouldn’t he use it with one of his closest friends? One of his favorite people.

But your reaction to his gifts made him short-circuit, you were so happy, so genuine in your excitement, asking questions about the gadget he made to facilitate your routine and communication with the lair and using it as much as you could.

He started making more things for you, and you reciprocated with your own little gifts to him.

At some point you were both just stuck at the hip, always together when you were at the lair, standing by each other’s side during missions, and texting or calling when you weren’t present.

The guys teased him constantly for months and he would deny what they said until April basically slapped him in the face with the knowledge they all had and he had been in denial about.

He was in love with you.

And it scared him enough to hide in his lab for a couple of days before Leo portaled Mikey wearing full Dr. Feelings attire inside for the longest lecture of his life.

With all the courage he could manage to get from his brother and your worried texts asking if he was fine, Donnie realized that he trusted you, and he trusted that regardless of how you felt about him you could continue your friendship just as normal.

You couldn’t, you couldn’t continue your friendship just as normal, because after Donnie managed to confess you jumped into his arms telling him you felt the same, and suddenly it wasn’t all the same, Donnie was practically vibrating in your arms with glee, it was way better.

The time you shared increased if possible and the laughs did too, freer and more frequent; because knowing one another so well was another love language you shared.

Donnie felt he understood you just like you did him, he knew you better than anyone could, had seen you happy, sad, angry, and he could read you just perfectly by now.

Which was why even though, occasionally, you would disappear for a couple of hours or even days, Donnie didn’t even think to ask much of where you were going most of the time, as long as he knew you were just fine, what did it matter? When you came back you would tell him of a lady at the store who fought with you for a box of cookies or about your aunt who lived out of state and always had a weird story to tell.

Leo did ask though, he would ask frequently, and you’d say you had some errands to run, you were going to the store, to a party or a family gathering, and Donnie would say good luck, while Leo would nonchalantly let you go, but his gaze whispered doubts.

One day he spoke them out.

He asked Donnie about what you did those days when you went completely off radar and Donnie looked at Leo like he was insane, telling him it was your business, but his brother wouldn’t budge, and the conversation switched tone quickly with Leo telling Donnie how your attitude was weird.

“It’s the way she doesn’t look anyone in the eyes whenever she goes MIA, it’s different from when she just goes grocery shopping or something, why would she need to go without any communication like that anyways?”

“Please Nardo” Donnie rolled his eyes “It’s called privacy? And some people just feel like staring into the ocular globes of other people is uncomfortable.”

“Does she?” Leo insisted and Donnie knew the answer was usually a no, but he wouldn’t give his brother the satisfaction “It’s not only that Don, why is she always so sketchy when we ask to see her apartment?”

“Can you just drop it Nardo? Some people just prefer their privacy.”

“She is always hanging out at the lair though? But refuses video calls if she’s not out on the street. And how long have we known her for already? So long and not even her boyfriend has seen her apartment or even a picture of her family?”

Donnie winced but refused to give in “She’ll show us when she’s ready! Why is that such a hard concept for you to grasp Nardo? What do you even think she could be hiding from us? How can you be just spouting such baseless claims like my girlfriend is hiding something horrible from us.”

Leo sighed, shifting slightly in place before asking his next question, a bit more careful, Donnie faltered at the change of tone “Can you just check where she is? I want to believe you’re right Don, but there’s something that has just always seemed off about her to me, I won’t ask you again, the moment we see with your GPS that she’s at her parents’ place out of state like she said I’ll completely drop the topic.”

Donnie wasn’t like Leo, he couldn’t read people so easily, but he knew you, and he knew you way better than Leo did, so he knew there was no reason to doubt you and Leo was just reading a nonexistent text between lines that were as clear as they seemed.

So he caved, with an exasperated sigh, he turned to his computer and started typing something to pull out your coordinates with the chip he placed on your phone and hadn’t used, telling himself he’d only do so if there was an emergency, but he could make an exception, then Leo would finally get off both of your backs.

The algorithm showed your location and both boys stared at the screen, the calm expression on Donnie’s face shifted to something more worrying and Leo’s frown returned.

You were at the Grand Nexus Hotel.

There had to be a reason for what he and Leo had found out, and Donnie wanted to figure out what it was.

He was going to ask you when you came back because there was surely an explanation for you going there, so when you came back after a couple of hours with the flashing light of your location glaring at him through the screen, he asked how things went, sure you’d tell him your reasons.

Except you said it was fine and told him a story about your parents being worried about you and asking about your life, how the food was great and other things Donnie realized were pretty generic, too generic.

You were lying to him, and he didn’t even know how long you had been lying for.

Things were changing, and you had noticed, but Donnie avoided your questions, he avoided the topic all together even though it ate at his insides because a part of him still wanted to believe you and kept making excuses.

Only two days after they saw you at the hotel, Leo came into the lab through a portal; Donnie was about to yell at him, but Leo spoke faster.

“She’s at the hotel again, come on, I’ll go for Mikey and Raph.” Leo left immediately after that, and Donnie’s heart was beating faster, how did Leo know that? Had he been following you since then?

He met his brothers in the projector room and Leo’s portal took them to the Grand nexus hotel, Raph and Mikey were asking questions, but Donnie could barely hear them, just automatically following Leo’s instructions to check your location on his GPS, which confirmed that you were right there like his brother said, the turtles all followed until they were right behind the doors to Big Mama’s office, Donnie’s heart sinking further at the realization.

He barely remembers what happened after, the doors were wide open and there you were, dressed in all black, your clothes covering most of you except your eyes but it was you, staring back at him, first wide-eyed and then coldly, standing next to Big Mama comfortably, someone said something and he thinks there was a discussion or exchange of words, but he couldn’t remember, Big Mama herself gave you the order to attack them and he finally noticed a pair of escrima sticks suddenly in your hands as you rushed their way.

You were moving so fast, so practiced, like you had been trained, so unlike when you went on missions with them, you were flowing naturally, using your weapons against Leo, who had met you in the middle, like they were an extension of your body.

He’d tried to teach you to use his bō before, you were so clumsy with it when you tried.

Even that had been a lie.

It was all a blur, suddenly they were all fighting you when more yokai working for Big Mama joined in, Donnie was fighting with a newfound rage, all his scrambled thoughts making him see red, so much red Raph had to restrain him and carry him by force out of there, he heard Mikey trying to reason with him but Donnie ignored him with his eyes set on you.

“WHY?!” He managed to yell when you stopped following them near the entrance of the hotel “WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY GAIN FROM LYING? YOU LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING!”

“What could Big Mama’s guard gain from knowing everything about the turtles that get on her nerves?” You responded coldly and Donnie’s eyes were glassy with rage and pain while his brother pulled them both right through a portal back home.

He cried on April’s shoulder that night, over a pile of his brothers who must have felt betrayed themselves but quietly supported him through the heartbreak.

After that you kept meeting, thankfully you must not have noticed the tracker Donnie had placed on you, because whenever you were doing Big Mama’s dirty work, he got an alarm and they’d find you.

Every time you met, Donnie would remember everything you had done and couldn’t look into your eyes, thankfully he didn’t have to if he was shooting missiles at you from afar, why did he always go for your type? Cute and mean, he just hadn’t realized how mean.

And it wasn’t easy to fight you because despite his common sense and how much he hated himself for it he still had feelings for you, it was horrible, he hated it, he hated it so much, and he couldn’t help but ask himself every single time he saw you even from the corner of his eyes if anything you’d gone through had been real at all.

All the laughs, all the smiles, all the gifts, all your questions, had all of it been a lie? Was there anything in your relationship that could have been real? Was that how you could read him so easily?

It infuriated him to no end, to know he had just handed you over every weakness you could need to fight them.

Except that when they arrived at the lair one night after a successful fight against you, Leo pointed out that you hadn’t used anything you knew against them even once since they found you out.

It made no sense, but he was too tired after seeing you and was walking straight to bed, ignoring his twin’s plea to talk about it and his voice asking if you knew where they lived, why wouldn’t you try to use it? Why had you let them go that day at the hotel—

“Why has she failed every single time we’ve fought when she knows the controls to your tech?!”

Donnie halted and turned to Leo with wide eyes, he had forgotten, how could he be so stupid? He’d forgotten you knew every weakness, every button, every function of his tech.

“You knew that! You knew she could use it if she wanted to sabotage it! Why didn’t you say anything?!” He asked Leo, Raph looked surprised too.

“She can do that? Leo! She could have put us all at risk!”

“But she could have done that from the beginning!” Leo told them, stressing out the last part “She could have done so anytime we fought but she hasn’t! She had a grasp of Donnie’s bō at one time and conveniently touched a button that electrocuted her! Isn’t that suspicious?!”

It was, it was suspicious.

But what about it? There was no questioning you were the bad guy, you had been lying to them about everything, you had been helping Big Mama get her claws into strange artifacts—

Except, Leo was right, Donnie was tired of Leo being right, but you hadn’t gotten Big Mama all those artifacts, you had failed.

Donnie rushed over to Leo and took the latest artifact out of his hands, he rushed with it to his lab where the rest of what they had gotten from you was stored, his brothers following behind.

He hadn’t taken the time to study them, got a couple books that may have some answers about what they were, but studying them had felt like a pain, he lacked motivation, until now.

He rushed through the books, pulling artifacts and making mental notes about them and what they could do together, his brothers tried asking questions and touching them but he pushed them off with his metal limbs.

“Why would Big Mama even use this?” He mumbled, catching their attention “It’s like a defense mechanism against her type of yokai, and this other one is a mechanism against—”

Against a serpent, a chimera, it was a neutralizer.

A smudge on it caught his attention and there it was, in your own writing, ‘Amphisbaena’, one of Big Mama’s champions, the two-headed serpents.

He reached out for another one that had written ‘Cortex’ on it.

‘Operator’

‘Sprite’

‘Troll’

All of them were names of Big Mama’s champions, all of the artifacts labeled with the name of a champion it could either restrain or knock out, they had been hidden deep into the city, guarded carefully but unassumingly, yet you had known exactly where they were.

‘Why has she failed every single time we’ve fought when she knows the controls to your tech?!’

You hadn’t failed, Big Mama hadn’t asked you to get these artifacts in the first place, that’s why you never had backup, you always acted alone, guiding them to these.

Donnie was worried, because why would it be so easy? Why would it be like that? Whatever Big Mama was planning were you really trying to stop it? Was it foolish of him to believe that? The slight glimmer of hope he hadn’t managed to discard begged him to believe it was true, but could he? Why would he?

Why should he fall again for your lies? This could all just be a trap.

So he turned to his brother, who’d been putting together the pieces while watching over his shoulder, turned to Leo, so he could wake him up with the cold harsh truth, squash that small last glimmer of hope Donnie had so he could move on.

But when he did Leo had that look in his eyes like the cat that caught the canary, there was relief in his face and Donnie’s eyes widened while his twin turned to him.

“We need to get through Big Mama’s security and find out her plans, we’ll infiltrate her office tomorrow if you can figure out by then how these things work” Leo spoke confidently, starting to explain a plan to the rest of them while Donnie was unable to stop the hope from growing in his chest.

The boys were right in Big Mama’s office, the others guarding while Donnie looked through her computer for anything that could help them.

Finally, he found something, a whole file, but it was better if he just took it and read it at home, he started downloading the information and looking it over to make sure it was what they needed when he heard a thump and Mikey’s yell.

“Turtley-boos, I thought we’d already talked about this” Big Mama’s voice echoed through the room and Donnie saw her right at the door “No stealing from Mama.”

Leo and Raph went to attack while Donnie kept glancing at the tab’s process and cursing the size of it, just one more moment just one moment.

And then he remembered the artifacts, he took the one labeled ‘Big Mama’ and threw it “Leo!”

Leo caught it with an “ahá!” and pointed it at the spider before realizing he had no idea how it worked “Gah!” Leo was pinned against the wall by a web while Big Mama took the artifact in her hands with a new expression on her face.

“HOW did you get this?” She asked but the artifact was taken from her hands by a pair of five-fingered ones.

“Guess” You said before pressing on the side of the artifact and opening it, a burst of light came from Big Mama like the artifact was a vacuum for her energy and the spider yokai dropped, glaring up at you, a hint of amusement in her otherwise angry eyes.

She chuckled humorlessly “Oh I knew there was something I liked about you, I just hoped you were as smart as your parents when choosing a side.”

“My parents have never controlled me BM, and neither could you” You snarled before hearing guards approaching your door.

You rushed out to take something from Big Mama’s pocket, she tried to claw at you but you were faster.

You quickly made your way to Leo, using a laser to destroy the web, he fell with a screech before you pushed his Katana onto his chest.

“Get us to champion’s row, now!” You yelled.

“We still don’t know what she’s planning!” Donnie replied from where he stood at the computer.

“I’ll tell you! But we need to reach her champions NOW!” Your eyes were looking at him imploringly and while Donnie wanted to fight you and ask why he should trust you at all the familiar steps were getting closer and he cursed pulling himself away from the computer while Leo opened the portal, you all went through, and appeared at the entrance of champion’s row, where the halls were silent.

Mikey suddenly jumped into your arms making you stumble a bit with your eyes open wide.

“I knew it! I knew you couldn’t be on Big Mama’s side, you were always hiding something but I had the feeling you were protecting us!”

WHAT?

Donnie’s exasperation was slightly clouded when you closed your eyes and hugged Mikey back with all your strength, breathing with what Donnie knew was relief before you pulled back from the hug, your expression firm.

“Big Mama has been looking for an old jewel that is said to possess the power to control all yokai, she found it just recently and hid it under the surveillance of her champions, she was waiting for a big event, but because of what just happened she’ll want to use it now, that’s why we have to neutralize her champions and get the jewel before she recovers and comes for it—”

“And you know this because?” Donnie asked, glaring at you, and seeing how your shoulders tensed before sighing and reaching up to remove your mask.

“My parents work with Big Mama” You mumbled, the silence was dense for a moment “They work for the human part of the hotel’s business and raised me to continue their work, I was trained from a young age because a human working with the yokai mob boss is clearly not a safe job.”

“Woah, Okay! So, you are supposed to inherit their side of the business? And why should we trust you then? Why should we help you?!” Donnie asked, his voice getting louder and echoing through the halls as he walked up to you, he knew it, there it was! They couldn’t believe you.

You didn’t react much, looking back at Donnie with something akin to resignation, like you weren’t expecting anything less, calmly you continued speaking “I’ve hated what my parents and Big Mama do my whole life” you said while Donnie looked for any shift in your expression “When I was a kid I was exposed to the battle nexus, I saw the fights and then I saw the warriors trapped in their cells down here, saw them battle to the death with other people who didn’t even have a chance and how the yokai enjoyed the show, making bets for the next fight when there was a corpse left down in the arena.” Donnie faltered slightly, listening to the hurt in your words.

“I threw up the first time I saw it, while my parents told me I’d get used to it eventually, and I refused them, I had a rebellious phase, they called it, until I realized, if I was here, I could learn how to change things and tamper with BM’s plans, so suddenly, I became their golden child.” There was a new glint in your eyes, Donnie wished you’d stop giving him reasons to hope.

“How long had you been working with her?” Leo asked, and you sighed.

“Two days before I met you guys, BM took me in to become a guard at her side so I could see how she ran the business from up close and that’s when I learned about the jewel.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Raph who had been mostly quiet so far asked a little defensively “We could have helped you if we knew.”

“It was risky” Your voice sounded pleading “After meeting you BM started suspecting me for being around you that one time, so I had to prove I had nothing to do with you to her, if you suddenly seemed to know things about her plans that you shouldn’t she would have immediately distrusted me.” Your eyes strayed to Donnie’s with so much sadness in them and he would have pulled at his hair if he had any, it was so hard to not give in to that look, but he knew better than to do so.

“The day you found me out at the hotel I wanted to talk to you guys and come out clean with everything, but Big Mama was angry and suspicious because you clearly knew who I was, so she started keeping information from me, leaving her side would have made everything I’d worked for meaningless and I wouldn’t have realized when she got her hands on the jewel, I panicked but knew she wouldn’t just use it quietly, she would have gone with a big event, so I found out where she was guarding it and started guiding you with Donnie’s tracker to the artifacts, if I had them BM could have found out, but with you, they’d be safer.”

“All right!” Leo sounded chipper “So where is the jewel? So we can get out of here pronto and talk over pizza about how disowned you are.” Raph and Mikey hummed in agreement, Mikey mentioning something about getting your favorite before Donnie raised his hands up.

“Just like that? We are just going to trust her and welcome her back to the circle?! Like nothing happened, she still lied to us! She still lied to me!” Donnie pointed at himself with his thumb, an angry glare directed straight at you, and he saw you wilt in place, his glare trembled but there was a loud hiss coming from the hallway right at that moment.

You all hadn’t exactly been quiet that whole time.

“It’s Amphisbaena! Quick, this way!” You reflexively took hold of Donnie’s arm, pulling him through another hall before letting go “The artifact! It will knock them out, just turn the cover!”

Donnie rushed to pull the artifact out before Mikey took it from his hands, pointing it excitedly at the serpent that was getting too close for comfort.

There was a screech and a thump before both heads were on the floor completely knocked out, you pointed to another hall and went running, the boys all following you while Donnie passed them each one of the artifacts.

“We’re close! Just this one and the jewel should be behind the bars—” your voice was interrupted by a loud growl and you seemed to pale

“Who’s that?” Donnie asked going through the labels of artifacts they’d already gone through, one of them held a little tiny Sprite in there, the angry champion unable to get out and hitting the glass with her fists.

“It’s Kraken Tom, I couldn’t find anything for Kraken Tom” you said in a panic, right at that moment a black tentacle reached out from your right and took you in its grasp while you screamed.

Donnie yelled your name before taking out his staff “Let her go you outgrown cephalopod!” A big missile launcher construct in neon purple materialized before shooting at the Kraken right in the face, the Kraken screeched before letting go of you due to the pain, you were falling rapidly before being caught in Donnie’s arms, you looked up at him enamored but he wasn’t looking back, glaring at the Kraken before letting you back down.

“Hey buddy, miss me?” Leo asked the Kraken before slicing through one of its tentacles while another tried to reach him “Donnie! You two go for the jewel, we’ll take care of this.”

Donnie and you looked at each other before rushing down the hallway, finally, you found what you were looking for, behind a strong container was the jewel.

“why can’t Leo just take it out with a portal?” Donnie asked as you rummaged through the pouch on your waist.

“It has a barrier against mystic arts, I took this from Big Mama back at her office” you said holding up a key in your hands and twisting it through the lock, immediately the jewel was released but a green portal opened behind you, sending chills through your spine.

“Oh darling, I thought your parents taught you better than this, they’ll be very disappointed” Big Mama was right behind you and you pulled out the artifact again but your hand holding it was pinned to the wall immobile a moment later with her web goop.

“Donnie take the gem!” You turned to him with desperation and he did quickly pocketing the thing before pointing his staff at Big Mama but she was already holding her claws to your neck.

“You should think twice turtley-boo, it’s the gem or her neck” She hummed, her claws already pulling at the skin but you refused to express your pain.

“Take it Donnie! You must leave now!” You yelled and he growled.

“Don’t be daft, like that would happen, this though, looks interesting” Donnie smirked with the jewel pointed right at Big Mama who gasped and pulled more blood from your neck before a beam of light made her eyes whiten, suddenly over the control of Donnie.

“Come on!” He said taking your hand in his and pulling you away from Big Mama who was starting to wake up from the trance since Donnie didn’t know how to use the jewel.

You both reached the guys who were finishing with Kraken Tom, when Leo saw you he immediately created another portal “let’s blow this popsicle stand” he said and you all ran through it.

You were in the med bay with Leo as he treated the cut on your neck, which was thankfully superficial, while Mikey prepared some dinner for you all.

It was really quiet for a bit, you were clearly uncomfortable after everything and couldn’t read what Leo might be thinking, as far as you knew he was the one who found you out, he suspected you for a while and you couldn’t blame him, it may have been to protect them and your mission but you had been lying to them this whole time, going as far as to hide your fighting abilities so they wouldn’t ask too much, the idea of pizza at their dinner table wasn’t something you entertained, your plan was to leave after everything and give them space.

Give Donnie space, despite how much it would hurt you.

“I know he understands why you did it” Leo broke the silence, still looking at the wound while cleaning it “It makes sense, it was logical and by this point he knows you only had good intentions, he does it all the time himself, good things that look wrong.” You snorted looking away.

“He’s right though, I lied, and he has no reason to trust me again after everything.” You said bitterly “I fucked up Leo, and Donnie deserves way better than me.”

“Maybe let him decide that?” Leo looked at you and you expected him to look stern, but his gaze was full of concern, for you? For Donnie? It was a brotherly concern you didn’t think would be directed at you again “I’m not saying it’s fine, you hurt him, he has every right to be angry at you, I know I was pissed” he gave you a lazy grin and you looked down again “But you were protecting him, weren’t you?”

“Big Mama would have gone after you all if she’d known I was friends with you.”

“I’m not talking about that” He rolled his eyes “I’m talking about the fact that you could have found a way to tell us everything and you didn’t because you knew Donnie would have tried to help you and put himself at risk, you thought it was better for him to hate you.”

You kept looking down, but then you heard a very familiar voice at the entrance of the med bay.

“That’s just so stupid” Donnie snarled lowly, and you tensed up, Leo finished bandaging up your neck and stood up, sending a reassuring look your way before walking out of the bay and leaving you with his purple-coded brother.

There was only silence while Donnie sat down in front of you where Leo had been, you finally broke it by speaking “What did you do to the jewel?”

“I destroyed it” He sighed sounding bitter “I wanted to study it but it’s probably better that no one gets their hands on it” he said as if he had been trying to convince himself of that “I also recovered a bunch of data from Big Mama’s computer”

At that he looked into your eyes and your own widened slightly as you realized what he must have found.

“She was planning to control me specifically” It wasn’t a question, just a fact “to create something that would allow her to increase the range of the jewel, is that why you were there when we broke in? To slip the info over to us somehow?”

“Yes” you mumbled and heard him sigh, he slumped slightly in his place, but his posture was a bit more relaxed, and you dared to look up, just to find him staring straight at you, his eyes softer than they’d been since that day at the hotel when he’d seen you with Big Mama.

“What was the truth? Were you dating me just for convenience? So you could help us because you knew I was in danger?”

“No!” You scrambled to answer quickly, eyes open wide and startling him for a moment, you looked pained at the thought “No of course not, none of that was a lie” you pleaded “About working with Big Mama and my disappearances, that was, my relationship with my parents and about my fighting skills those were because otherwise, you could have found out the first part, but none of our interactions were fake or staged, I wasn’t trying to get to you in the beginning, it was pure coincidence.”

The corners of Donnie’s mouth twitched down slightly as he tried to school his expression, but he was having a hard time doing so when your glassy eyes made him want to hold you tight back in his arms.

“Donnie I was never planning on falling in love with you, I just did” your voice had gotten lower, almost scared and he decided he’d had enough, quickly pulling you into a tight embrace, he felt you stiffen before relaxing and hiding your face in his shoulder, it felt wet, and he realized you were crying, so he held you tighter, holding back his own tears of relief.

“You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do, I want a full essay on everything that happened from then to now and no more lies, not even small ones, about Big Mama, your parents, everything” you didn’t say anything but nodded into his shoulder, he started drawing circles on your back with his fingers before continuing “But for now I just want to get some food into my system and hold my girlfriend in my arms while we watch Jupiter Jim Pluto vacation IV”

You separated from the hug looking up at him with teary eyes open wide, you looked so confused but he just reached up to wipe the tears while you attempted to form words “Ar-are you sure? Donnie, you don’t have to get back with me or hell, even forgive me if you don’t want to”

“Why would I not forgive the person who sacrificed her own well-being for mine? Your methods may have been less than ideal but I’m not stupid enough to let you go after all of that.” His voice was chiding, but his expression was soft and a small smile had started forming in his face.

You reached up quickly to place your lips over his and he held the back of your head to pull you closer.

You felt like you still had to make up for much, but Donnie was fine, and if anything was true it was that he loved you as much as you loved him.

#rise donnie x reader #rottmnt donnie x reader #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt fanfiction #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise! donnie #rottmnt donatello x reader #donatello x reader #donnie x reader

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delulu-sushi · 1 year ago

Text

Part 2 - Always by your side

Previous! -> Next!

Contains Tokyo Revengers spoilers!

Yes, there is lore surrounding this "Timeline", and yes, I started spouting shit but I swear it will all make sense.

Please read till the end I swear it gets better :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Enjoy!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 6, 2005

You look at your wrist.

An old, partly broken watch cuffs your hand as you watch the second hand go click click click, the minute hand stops

Time stops

Then it rewinds

You glance at the handsome boy next to you - your life, your everything. He's eating his dorayaki; it's messy, the crumbs covering the lips you dreamed of kissing every day "N/N-chan?" Mikey cocks his head towards you, "What are you looking at?" You were staring into the distance for so long, even Draken started squinting his eyes to see what was so enticing about the trail. "Nothing, I just - I had a feeling-" "RARR KEN-CHIN" Mikey wails with his pouting face "NOW Y/N WANTS ME TO STOP OUR DATE" Kenny laughs at his childish behavior as you start bickering with Mikey. "IT'S ONLY OUR FIRST DATE -" You stop his words when you suddenly cup his face, Ken-Chin slides away, and Mikey cups yours, "You're serious?" "Yeah" Your hands stay on his face, but you loosen your grip, as your eyes leave his face and stare to the end of a trail.

"I think you and Draken should check out the park at the end of a trail... it reminds me of Kiyomasa"

You watch the pair walk on, confused, but also cautious. You glance at your wrist again

The watch is working again.

October 31, 2005, 3 pm

"COME ON YOU IDIOTS," A figure in a Valhalla hoodie and mask rise up the moment your Mikey falls, "LETS GET HIM"

Valhalla executive Chouji leads a hoard of members to the fallen Mikey as Toman tries to stop him with no avail (I tried to make it more interesting). With the 300 Valhalla members vs. 150 Toman members, Chouji was able to reach to the leader and pulled out his pole

"LET'S KILL HIM"

WHAM

You're eyes frantically search for Chouji as you try to get through the crowd, unseen

Kisaki Tetta

You hated that guy with everything you had. The moment he joined Toman, you knew it was bad

You glance at the watch

"I AM TETTA KISAKI, THIRD -"

BANG

The watch has stopped. You wait. You have to reset time

"BAJI-SAAAAN" Chifuyu's voice shakes you as you look up to the chaos.

Baji reached on time and struck Kisaki down, the danger arises.

You're head is splitting as your legs start running, "BAJI KUN! GET DOWN FROM THERE" Nothing will come in your way.

The members watch you as Draken realizes what's happening, "Y/N WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??? Y/N STOP RUNNING"

Nothing was going to stop you from running. Not when Baji was in danger.

SWOOSH

Kazutora comes out from behind as you reach just on time to strike him down with one. swift. move.

CLINK, you see the knife and it falls down, down, down.

No time to think. You run up to Mikey as everyone stares in shock. His heart is beating

You stop. You're hands cradle his hair and wipe his blood away, making sure no speck of dust enters his wounds

"why, mikey? why didn't you just tell me?" you whisper in his ears, immune to your surroundings.

"It's all Mikey's fault" Kazutora's voice sends a shiver down your spine as you turn your head to be greeted by the attack of his pole.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baji runs up to Kazutora and pushes him off the mound "ARE YOU INSANE?"

Kazutora has no words. The friend he thought was always there for him is now turning against him.

"MIKEY IS GOING TO KILL YOU!" Baji's words make no sense to Kazutora. Mikey is the enemy. Mikey was always going to kill Kazutora.

"no." The whole arena goes quiet "I am going to kill YOU" Kazutora grabs his pole and whams Baji's head as Baji wobbles to the side, falling down, down, down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Wow. Kazutora lured Baji into Valhalla to kill him, and called Y/N to kill her. He wants to take everything away from you. Isn't that right, Mr. President?" Takemitchi hears Kisaki's lying words to provoke Mikey, who gets up emotionless.

His weak y/n is unconscious on the ground and his best friend has just been fatally hit, "Is this really what you wanted, Kazutora?" Mikey's voice is dead.

He's gone

"To kill the only people who could stop me from killing you?"

Tetta wears a grim smile on his face as Mikey meets Kazutora

"Hey now Mikey - ", Hanma goes down with a swift move of Mikey, who's only focus is Kazutora.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake up, your head in a splitting pain as your eyes do their best to make the picture clear. You look in front of you and catch on to the only clear thing... a tall figure, lean, but still strong. His hair was funky and standing up... "Nnng" you grunt as the figure turns around

An ugly face, geez that really had to be the first thing I set my eyes on?

"I see you've regained consciousness Miss" ugh, Tetta

"Wow. You really don't know how to talk to girls, do you" You reluctantly take his hand as his face his struggling to keep a pleasant tone with you.

"Kazutora's done for. Don't you worry about Mi-" you ain't got time to hear his bullshit

"MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY" That took all of your energy

"I'm still alive" you mouth as you drunkedly walk towards him (y/n is a master at drunkenly walking down a pile of cars fyi)

You're blurry eyesight finally starts to get clear as you set sight on Baji pulling out his switchblade

[Blood, dripping down, down, dow]

You slap your head as you run towards Baji and push him down, the switchblade falling out of his reach.

"ARE YOU ALL INSANE?" Takemitchi catches on to your sanity and rushes in between Mikey and Kazutora, throwing his jacket as Baji's charm flies out and catches Mikey's eyes.

"All for one and-

one for all" Mikey completes Baji's phrase as he returns back from the darkness, Kazutora also getting the wave of sanity.

"I'm sorry Baji" Mikey says

"Don't be sorry for anything" You answer for Baji, and say it to Kazutora as well.

The siren.

"SCRAM IDIOTS, The police are here"

October 31, 2005. Toman vs. Valhalla. No casualties, one Mikey impulse, two leaders regained.

One more to go

1 hour later

You're at Mikey's house, treating his wounds. Emma left the house in anger when neither of you told her what happened, and it was just the two of you (with the exception of Grandpa Sano sleeping) in his house.

He stares at you, intently. It's kind of cute, the way he smiles. He scans your face, looking for any rough marks you might have and watches your hands treat him. His unusual concentration makes you smile, and your mouth starts curving up -

"How'd you know?" Huh? Mikey cocks your head at you. He takes a hold of your wrist and, moves his face inches away from yours.

"Tell me N/N"

You look away as your face starts feeling hot, but Mikey moves even closer to you, as impossible as it seemed.

His breath was warm

"Someone told me" You quietly answer

"Who?" He asks as he pulls you closer to him, this time placing his forehead on yours and looking straight in his eyes.

She's blushing

"Why didn't you tell me?" You pull your head off of his and dig it on his chest, tears falling down your face, "Why didn't you tell me that Pah is gone and Kisaki joined and Kazutora wanted to fight and Baji left?"

He doesn't answer, and you don't need it. You know he's scared. He knows you can fight, but you can't face the gangs. Just like Shinichiro.

His arms tighten around you as he nuzzles his head into the crook of your neck.

He's scared you'll end up like Shinichiro.

"I love you" His whisper is breaking and his body is shaking. His tears falling down your body as you hold him closer like never before.

You start crying too. It's silent, but it hurts so much, like there's a wound in your stomach and your blood is dripping down

down

out of your body.

"Just promise me, you'll tell me everything"

"I promise"

June 19, 2003

Mikey, Draken, Mistuya, Pah, Kazutora, Baji, and Y/N meet at MUsashi Shrine at Mikey's request.

June 19, 2003, the creation of Toman

#baji keisuke #manjiro sano #manjiro sano x reader #mikey x reader #sano manjiro #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo rev x you #mitsuya takashi #draken #tokyo revengers baji #hanemiya kazutora

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dreamingofthewild · 26 days ago

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100 Bloodweave Fanfic recommendations

As there are over 3,000 Bloodweave fanfics, I have been wanting to do a fanfic rec list for a while. To share some of the works I enjoyed and to offer support for the talented writers in the fandom. I opted for 100, as it is a nice number for a rec list. It was very hard to narrow it down, and there are many good fics that, unfortunately, didn't make it too the list. This is not meant as a 'Top 100' list.

The recommendations will be shared in 6 parts as it is too much for one post.

Part 6: Alternate Universe - 18 fics.

Driven by Nivasi. 105,334. Angst and Feels, Anemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff. Gale is a four-time Formula 1 World Champion at the top of his game, until he's involved in a crash that nearly ends his life as well as his career. Two years later, he's invited back. The only catch? His new teammate is a rich, spoiled daddy's boy who represents everything Gale hates about the sport.

Astarion is an F1 rookie, with only one season under his belt. As one of the sport's most promising talents, he's thrilled when he's invited to be part of the renowned Weave Racing team. The only catch? His new teammate is a failed relic who expects Astarion to be his Number 2 driver.

Now, the two unwilling colleagues will need to learn to work together or watch both their careers go up in flames.

Getting Carried Away by bluebeebalm. 122,582 words. Fake/Pretend Relationship, Academic Trauma, Hurt/ Comfort, Healing, Smut. A fantastic AU character study, where struggling actor Astarion is hired by Gale to attend a party with him to help get his ex celebrity scientist Mystra off his back.

Watch The Fire by Aldaphrodite. Ongoing. Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Relationship. Gale Dekarios, a seasoned, respected rockstar losing steam with the younger audience. Astarion Ancunin, a popstar on the rise who can’t seem to keep his reputation (or his nose) clean. What better way to boost both of their careers than to sell a fake relationship to the press? That’s what their managers seem to think, anyway.

Still Breathing by cweepa. Hurt/Comfort, Smut, Trauma. Fresh out of a messy divorce, disgraced academic Gale Dekarios finds himself biting off more than he can chew when a seemingly innocuous encounter with an enigmatic camboy, Star, leads him down a precarious path of lies, liberation and eventually—love. Hold on to the handlebars because this one will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions.

Derailed by DeepSeaAngerfish. Ongoing. Grooming, Domestic Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, Falling in Love. Five years after escaping from the man who groomed him, Astarion is working for a train line and meets Gale and his abusive wife Mystra as passengers. Difficult feelings ensue.

Roasted by TheBusyBaker. Ongoing. Fluff, Angst, Pining, Smut, Eating Disorders. Astarion is a model working in a cafe, Gale is an author. When their paths come together, they find that a life worth living is better in good company.

The Season by Linnetagain. Ongoing. Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Angst. In which Astarion is an ex-olympic figure skater and Gale is a famous musician. They get paired together as Dancing on Ice's first ever same sex couple. Shenanigans ensue.

Hustle by Nivasi. 65,463 words. Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humour, Romcom. Astarion works hard on his YouTube channel, sometimes spending weeks on the beautiful fashion films that show off his handcrafted gowns. His audience may be small but he's proud of his content. Which is why it's so godsdamned irritating when the self-named 'Wizard Of Waterdeep' starts posting hideous videos of his endless rambling and gets two million subscribers almost overnight.

Afterlife by cweepa, Dummptruck. Ongoing. Dark Comedy, Drama, Romance, Slow Burn, Thought Provoking. Amidst the softly thrumming melancholy of a dystopian, cyber-punk city, former corporate-rat Astarion Ancunín, who has long since lost the will to live, finds himself in possession of a G-413 or "Gale" - an amnesiac android who, strangely enough, enjoys living.

The Fall of the House of Szarr by dirty_whorchata. 69,175. Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Cazador related tags. Beauty, tradition, and perfection: these are the pillars of the House of Szarr, a centuries-old perfumery owned by creative director and artist Cazador Szarr and shouldered by its next-to-nobody nose, Astarion Ancunín.

Overworked, underpaid, and determined to claw his way out, Astarion finds the perfect blend of unusual charm and genius—and the key to toppling the house for good—when he meets chemistry professor Gale Dekarios.

The Allure of Thermodynamics by rynzler. 3,650 words. Dr. Dekarios's students try to rescue him from the handsome stranger that comes into class to shamelessly flirt the physics professor into a flustered mess. A cute one-shot.

Ex’s and Oh’s by Kalaide. 81,028 words. Angst, Feels, Romcom. Astarion encounters Gale a year after their breakup at a reunion, only to find him with someone new. As Astarion struggles to move on, he can't help but feel the pull of their past, especially when Gale seems intent on reconnecting.

I Carried A Watermelon? By SpellSparkler. Ongoing. Strangers to Lovers, Smut. Astarion didn’t believe in love stories. But life had accidentally thrown him into one of his own when he meets Gale, who is in the middle of a messy divorce, on an airplane.

hanging on your words by vampyreerotica. 10,147 words. Written for the Bloodweave 31 gays of summer event, day 12: mail. Professor AU where Gale and Astarion argue over a double-booking and slowly fall in love.

Kintsugi by autumnpicker. 8,438 words. Mystra’s grooming, Hurt/ Comfort, Anxiety. Written for the “Pride” prompt for the 31 Gays of Summer event from the Bloodweave Brainrot Discord! Five times Gale had his heart broken at Pride. And the one time he didn’t.

folie à deux by binder. 8,344 words. Reincarnation. Astarion is a college student plagued by dreams of a life he's never lived.

Memento Vivere by HylianWorrier. 11,666 words. Gothic, Spooky. Hopelessly lost in a rainstorm, Gale happens upon a beautiful country mansion. Hoping to find help making his way back to his car he finds himself enraptured by the hospitable homeowner.

All I Want For Christmas (Is My Mother To Stop Meddling) by IndiWritings. 24,297 words. Fake Relationship, Feelings Realisation, Christmas. When Gale's mother threatens to invite his ex-wife Mystra to spend Christmas with them, Astarion offers to pose as Gale's boyfriend instead. What could possibly go wrong?

Part 1: In Universe Canon Multi-Chapter - 15 fics

Part 2: In Universe Canon One-Shots - 17 fics.

Part 3: In Universe Canon Divergent - 16 fics.

Part 4: In Universe Post-Canon Multi-Chapter - 20 fics.

Part 5: In Universe Post-Canon One Shots - 14 fics.

#bloodweave #bloodweave fanfic #gale x astarion #galestarion #astarion x gale #fanfic recs

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taughtdefense · 1 month ago

Note

[ ROMANCE ]: the sender, in a well-established romantic relationship with the receiver, sits in their lap just because they can

you’re lying in bed, trying to focus on something—anything—other than the chaos of the karate war, especially given the craziness of your life as of late (tory, your enemy-turned-ally-turned-friend, snapping at you while at the water park, for one, johnny & his unorthodox methods to get miguel & robby to work through their feud for another), but your mind keeps wandering, drifting back to him. robby. he’s been so close to you lately, & you swear, every time he looks at you, your heart does this crazy flip. it’s like you can’t breathe sometimes, caught in that magnetic pull between you.

the sound of the bedroom door creaking open pulls you from your thoughts. you glance up, & there he is—robby. his hair’s a little messy, like he’s been running his hands through it, & his smile—soft, easy, & unguarded—melts something deep inside you.

"hi, my love," you greet softly, sitting up slightly against the headboard. your voice carries that familiar gentleness, the kind reserved just for him. @taughtpain crosses the room with unhurried confidence, like he doesn’t even have to think about it, like this space—this moment—was always meant to include him. to be fair, though, it is his apartment now, just as much as yours. he didn’t move in just to tiptoe around your space.

he stops at the edge of the bed, his gaze steady. you can feel it, the weight of his affection. if gods knew what devotion looked like, you’re certain they’d take his shape.

before you can say anything more, he moves with that quiet, deliberate grace you love so much, climbing onto the bed & sliding into your lap.

the shift of his weight is steady as he straddles your thighs, his knees sinking into the mattress on either side of you. the motion is natural, seamless, like he belongs there. his arms loop around your shoulders as he leans in, close enough for you to feel his breath against your cheek. your face warms. even if you've sat on his lap plenty of times since your relationship, this is one of the first times where he’s sat on your lap. before you started dating, he had only sat on your lap one time: to clean the wounds you’d obtained thanks to cobra kai. this is different. this is much different.

his presence is grounding, like the world outside could fall apart, & it wouldn’t matter as long as he’s here.

you smile, wrapping your arms around his waist, holding him like you never want to let go. because you don’t.

the way his chest rises & falls with each breath against you sends a calm you can’t describe flooding through you. it’s like he’s a part of you, fitting into your world in ways you didn’t even know were possible.

your hands run lightly over his back, tracing small circles on his shirt, feeling the muscles beneath it. you can’t stop yourself from pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. you just love him. it’s simple, really.

but then, something stirs within you—more than the warmth of the moment. robby’s body fits against yours like he belongs there. you feel the heat of his breath against your neck, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against your chest.

you tilt your head, lips lingering in his hair as you whisper, "you’re perfect, you know that?" your voice is barely audible, but you know he hears it.

you can’t help yourself. the pull is too strong, the need to show him just how much he means to you overwhelming, every atom in your body singing, attuned to his. you gently pull back, just enough to slip your fingers underneath his chin, letting them linger there. gently, you tilt his head up, then close the gap, your lips finding his in a kiss that starts slow, deliberate.

the world seems to blur, narrowing down to the way his lips feel against yours, soft yet insistent, the way your bodies fit together, to this moment.

after a few moments of gentle contact, you deepen the kiss, your hand sliding up his back, your warm fingers tracing the curve of his spine through the fabric of his shirt. you feel the subtle shift of his muscles beneath your touch. your other hand rests at his waist, steadying him, grounding the both of you as the kiss grows more intent. you don’t want to pull away.

#taughtpain #in character. / season 5.#main verse.: miyagi fang. — ❝ i ached for warmth & peace. the universe laughed at me. ❞#alexa play crazier by tay.lor sw.ift

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grandlance · 4 months ago

Text

GRAPHICS HAVEN'T BEEN MADE YET BUT THIS IS A PERMANENT STARTER CALL!

and by this i also mean i will elaborate on things when I have more time,

so you want to hang out with the grand lancer well guess what he wants to hang out with you too! he might be a conglomerate of a lot of things and sometimes he is just going to Talk About Rome ⎛ the fact he hasn't done this too much yet is because he's still settling in but dont worry he'll be obnoxious about it eventually ⎠ but here are

places you can find quirinus

basically anywhere in archimedes he loves that place with his entire self!!!

he's also fond of looking around the upper levels of fibonacci because he is also a machine god at his core ⎛ it's a long story but take a look at that 3rd ascension! ⎠ and so there's some sort of familiarity there

he hasn't thought much about golden or cotes? but cotes sorta reminds him of the age of fae which reminds him of the england lostbelt which he wasn't even involved in but he knows it was MESSY ⎛ actually all the lostbelts are messy ⎠ ... this may change tho

bonds to form

friends and family! quirinus is big on this, he wants to be kind to everyone ⎛ see: normal lancer romulus is nice to everyone, and quirinus is also romulus ⎠ and basically everyone gets to be family because he sees the world in general as something to hold and protect or something, so most people will hit this category real fast

romantic romance! he's got no idea what that is, but he'd probably like it a lot! on this note, quirinus is single ship. he doesn't have a ship yet and it will probably take a lot of plotting because he DOESN'T understand romance, he just talks about it in a deity sort of way. he'd do well with someone patient but fun loving, someone he can share adventures with. he'd like someone who likes nature! who wants to run with wolves with him?

rivals and enemies! so honestly why would you do that? quirinus may not have his powers yet, but he's not a grand servant for nothing, and he's not going to be powerless forever, and don't forget, quirinus was a god of war and do you really want to get on his bad side? but he naturally dislikes people who have ill will toward humanity.

the category for anyone from rome. yeah, quirinus would die for you, but also he's a god? idk how to describe this but congrats on being super family? turbo family? he's seen the rise and fall of his empire, he knows its glory and sins, but he built it and he will protect the people from it? yeah

#permanent starter call

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meg-moira · 4 years ago

Text

The Witch Who Spoke to the Wind

Sequel to Eindred and the Witch

In which Severin, the golden eyed witch, learns that his greatest enemy and truest love is fated to kill him.

Dealing in prophecies is a dubious work. Anyone who knows anything will tell you as much.

“Think of all of time as a grand tapestry,” his great-grandmother had said, elbow deep in scalding water. Her hands were tomato red, and Severin watched with wide golden eyes as she kneaded and stretched pale curds in the basin. “You might be so privileged to understand a single weave, but unless you go following all surrounding threads, and the threads around those threads, and so on - which, mind you, no human can do - you’ll never understand the picture.”

Severin, who was ten years old and had never seen a grand tapestry, looked at the cheese in the basin and asked if his great-grandmother could make the analogy about that instead.

“No,” she replied. “Time is a tapestry. Cheese is just cheese.”

And that was that.

By fifteen, Severin who was all arms, legs, and untamable black hair, decided he hated prophecies more than anything in the world. He occupied himself instead with long walks atop the white bluffs well beyond his family’s home. Outside, he could look at birds, and talk to the wind, and not think about the terrible prophecy which followed him like a shadow.

His second eldest sister had revealed it - accidentally, of course. Severin lived in a warm and bustling house with his great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, two aunts, and three sisters. All of whom were generously gifted in the art of foretelling (a messy business, each would say if asked), and every one of them had seen Severin’s same bleak thread.

He would die. Willingly stabbed through the heart by his greatest enemy and truest love.

Willingly. That was the worst part, he thought.

Severin, who had no talent in the way of prophecies, but plenty of talent in the realm of wind and sky, marched along the well-worn trail, static sparking around his fingertips as the brackish sea breeze nipped consolingly at his face and hair.

I will protect you if you ask me to, it blustered, and Severin was comforted.

He didn’t care who this foretold stranger was. When this enemy-lover appeared, Severin would ask the wind to pick them up and take them far, far away. Far enough that they could never harm him. The wind whistled in agreement. And so it was settled.

At seventeen, he was still all arms and legs, though his eldest sister had managed to tame his hair with a respectably sharp pair of shears. The wind, who had delighted in playing with his wild, tangled locks, did not thank her for it. Severin did thank her; in fact, he’d asked her to do it. He was of the opinion that his newly shorn hair made him look older - more sophisticated. And he left his family home with a new cloak draping his shoulders and a knotted wooden walking stick in hand, thinking himself very nearly a man. He was far from it, of course. But there was no telling him that.

He set out on a clear, cool morning to find his own way in the world, and was prepared to thoroughly deal with anyone who so much as dared to act ever so slightly in the manner of enemy or lover.

He discovered, soon enough, that this was not a practical attitude to take when venturing into the world. Severin spent his first months away from home making little in the way of friends and plenty in the way of thoroughly baffled enemies.

When you meet his gaze, you’ll know, the wind chided as it whisked in and out of his hood.

“His?” Severin said aloud, lifting a single dark brow. “Do you know something I don’t?”

The wind whistled noncommittally in answer.

The wind did know something, as it turned out. At twenty, Severin stood on the warm, sun-loved planks of a dock. As gulls cried overhead, he pressed his fingers to his lips. The young sailor had touched his lips to Severin’s in a swift, carefree kiss before departing on the sea. And though the feeling was pleasant enough, Severin knew that his enemy-lover was not on the great ship cleaving a path through the cerulean waves.

“When I meet his gaze, I’ll know,” Severin said, golden eyes sweeping the horizon. The seaward breeze blustered in such agreement that the gulls overhead cried out in alarm.

What will you do? The wind asked, delighting in whipping the gulls into a proper frenzy.

“Get rid of him, of course,” Severin replied.

What if you don’t want to?

Severin thought that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “He’s going to stab me through the heart. Why in the world wouldn’t I want to get rid of him?”

People are foolish, the wind answered, shrugging the nearby sails.

“Not me.” Severin leaned on his stick and looked out at the sea. “I won’t let anyone get away with stabbing my heart.”

When he was twenty-two, Severin knelt at the bedside of a withered, wilting woman. She was a stranger, but the town’s herb witch was away, and Severin happened to be passing through. Though his true strength would always remain with the wind and the sky, the youngest of Severin’s two aunts had a special way with plants, and she’d taught him a fair bit about the many healing properties of the region’s hardy, windblown flora.

He boiled water, adding the few herbs he carried to make a rejuvenating tea. He helped the woman drink, his hand supporting her head and fingers tangling in her sweat drenched hair. After, he pressed a cool cloth to her head, and in the half dark room, she murmured, sharing delirious fears that she would accidentally speak cruel dying words and lay a curse upon him.

Kindly stroking her forehead, Severin assured her that he was not afraid of curses. Even uttered by the dying, a true curse was rarer than the superstitious soldier’s and barbarians liked to believe. Besides, she wasn’t going to die. Severin, who’d seen just enough of the world to have a taste of wisdom, was certain he could save her.

She died within the day.

Whether her condition had been beyond help, or Severin lacked the skills to twist the herbs to his bidding, he would never know. The wind rustled reassurances through the sparsely-leaved trees, but Severin was beyond consolation. Clouds gathered on the horizon, and by nightfall, great branches of lightning crackled across the sky.

He spent the next year and a half in the wilds. Beneath the jubilant light of the sun, he collected plants, acquainting himself with the earth. And beneath the soft, watchful light of the moon, he whispered to the wind and dared to wonder at the shape of his enemy-lover’s face. He could never seem to summon the slightest picture in his mind. Though it really didn’t matter, he supposed. Their eyes would meet, and Severin would know. And then he’d use all of the power at his disposal to send his enemy-lover away.

During this time, Severin sometimes saw bands of barbaric warriors crossing the plains. He kept his distance, but he doubted any of them were interested in either recruiting or killing a scrawny young man in a worn woolen cloak. Few he encountered ever suspected he had any great abilities, and Severin certainly didn’t go out of his way to advertise the fact that he could command the wind and sky when he wished. The barbaric companies had their eyes on more obviously lucrative targets, anyway. A handful of city states which spread across the great peninsula were openly at war with the barbaric tribes from the north.

It was when Severin was returning from his self-imposed isolation that he had his first real encounter with war. He held his sturdy walking stick in hand and carried a bursting bag of herbs, poultices, and leather-bound journals over his shoulder. Severin was so surprised by the sudden, brutal clash of metal and the primal cries that erupted nearby that he halted where he stood. His curiosity both outweighed and outlasted his fear, and after a minute or two of tense consideration, he pressed cautiously onward in the direction of the noise.

By the time he arrived, the battle was done.

It had surely been an ugly, bloody affair, if the splayed out bodies of the city soldiers and barbaric warriors were anything to judge it by. Holding a hand over his mouth, Severin gingerly navigated the carnage and valiantly resisted the impulse to be sick right there in the field. He was nearly on the other side of it when movement caught his eye. Squinting, almost afraid to look, he glanced from the corners of his eyes, sure that it was some grotesque remnant of warfare which awaited him.

Instead, it was a man.

Just a man.

The movement Severin had spotted was the rise and fall of his chest.

Only after turning a careful look around the terrible and silent battlefield did Severin approach the fallen man.

The barbarian’s eyes were closed and his pale brows drew together, as if reflecting pain. His face would probably have been handsome in a rough, simple sort of way if it weren’t smeared in dirt and blood. His light hair, braided and pulled away from his face, was bloodied as well, and Severin frowned at the sorry state of him. After a second wary look around, he knelt with a sigh.

The barbarian’s leather vest was cut, and his thick, scarred arms had earned several new slices as well. Severin, who had more than enough herbs and poultices on hand, reluctantly tore his only spare shirt into bandages. Within the hour the stranger was fully bandaged and muttering in fever addled sleep.

“Don’t worry,” Severin murmured, knotting the last makeshift bandage. “I’ve learned enough from the plants and trees to save you from both fever and infection.”

Behind closed lids, the barbarian’s eyes flitted anxiously to and fro and he mumbled something that sounded like no. Nose wrinkling, Severin leaned in. He heard the sleeping barbarian say, his voice low and cracking, “The curses will take me.”

Severin frowned down at him, unimpressed. “No they won’t,” he snapped, and yanked the bandage tighter.

The barbarian silenced then, and Severin stared at him a moment longer, pursing his lips in consternation. It wasn’t that he minded using his supplies to heal a stranger. But a part of him worried that healing a warrior made Severin responsible for whatever slaughter he resumed when he rose.

Severin abhorred warfare. It was such a terrible waste. But he supposed there was no helping what he’d already done. The barbarian was already on his way to recovery, and Severin certainly wasn’t going to murder him in his sleep. He reached out, intending to test the temperature at the man’s temple, but no sooner had Severin’s fingers touched his overheated skin than the world bled around him. In its place: a vision.

Shock echoed through him, because he was not like the women in his family, able to see phantoms in time. He’d always simply played with the air. The vision dancing before his gaze, however, didn’t seem to care.

Like droplets of ink spreading in water, a prism of colors twisted, threading together into nearly tangible shapes. From the chaos, rose a blond child holding a knit sheep. He was ruddy cheeked and pouting up at his mother. Then ink and water swirled and the images collapsed and shifted. Hulking shadows loomed over the child. The mother wailed her grief. The formless ink shivered, morphing from one scene to the next, nearly too quickly to follow, and Severin was swallowed up in it, overrun and overwhelmed by violence, blood, and pain. Beneath his fingers, Severin felt the movement of shifting, slipping thread.

Just as abruptly as it had started, the vision ceased. Severin’s knees ached where they pressed against the dirt and the barbarian’s skin beneath his hand was no longer overheated. How long had he been within the vision’s grasp, he wondered?

As Severin shifted back, the barbarian groaned. Severin watched as the man’s eyelids fluttered - and at once, the air turned heavy, as if the wind had drawn and held an anticipatory breath.

Dread flooded Severin and he rushed to stand. The barbarian had not yet opened his eyes, and Severin knew with a terrible nameless certainty that he must not be here when this man awoke. Severin could still feel those elusive, unknowable threads beneath his fingers, and his hands shook as he rose. Awakened by his urgency, the wind roared, lending him speed as he fled the clearing.

By the time the barbarian cracked open a single, world weary eye, Severin was long gone, heart still safely beating in his chest.

Severin endeavored to forget about the barbarian. He convinced himself that the vision had been the hallucination of an overexerted body, and that the sensation of inexorably moving threads beneath his fingers was nothing more than a flight of fancy. Severin did not think about how the threads had felt - certain and unyielding - beneath his fragile, very mortal hands. If he did, he feared he might ask the wind to whisk him away from the world altogether, and that, surely, was no way to live.

In a deep, secret place, however, Severin suspected the reason he was granted such a vision was because the stranger’s thread was woven perilously close to his own. Because of this, he set upon an easterly road, endeavoring to put a healthy distance between himself and the pale barbarian.

After nearly a month of travel, he arrived in a small village which sat nestled in foothills, tucked beneath the shadows of great mountains which stood like sentinels above. Severin hadn’t intended to stay, but when it was discovered he had some skill with plants and medicine, the villagers eagerly led him to a hut some distance from the village. It was empty, they explained, and had been for some years. A healing woman had occupied it, some years back, before she’d passed on. The villagers had been saving it, hoping the space would be enough to entice a new healer to make their isolated village a home.

Severin had nowhere else to go, and he supposed a distant, mountain village was as good a place as any to avoid a blade to the heart.

Two years passed, and Severin settled into his little hut. He spent his mornings taking long walks around the surrounding lands, collecting herbs and specimens. Returning home, he’d throw open the windows to allow his friend the wind a brief but wild rampage through the hut. With the air freshened, Severin spread plants across his square dining table and sorted them into jars to be sealed, dried, or preserved in vinegar. His neighbors in the village visited frequently, just as often for his company as for his medicines, and Severin delighted in visiting the town on market days and making the streamers dance in the wind for the children. Evenings were spent in his rocking chair, with a book in his lap and his feet pressed near to the low fire in the hearth.

He was happy, and hardly thought of the barbarian he’d found bleeding in the dirt. That is, until fate caught up with him.

One day, when he was foraging for moss on the hillside behind his hut, Severin felt the whisper-soft touch of thread against his palm. He sat upright at once, and turning and craning his neck, he absently rubbed his palms against his robes.

A company marched into the village. From up on Severin’s hill, they appeared a swarm of ants overtaking the miniature thatched roof homes. The slipping, shivering feeling beneath Severin’s palm intensified, and he stood. His heart drummed a frantic beat against his ribs, and Severin felt with a terrible certainty that fate, like a hunting hound on the scent, had sniffed him out at last.

When Severin called out, begging the wind’s help, it rushed to him, howling atop the hill.

I am here. I am here.

Cradled in the gale, he begged the wind to take him and hide him away, so that the tapestry’s relentless threads might cease dragging him toward the one he never wished to meet.

So be it, the wind said. If that is truly what you wish, I will take you and hide you away forever.

In that moment, nearly caught as he was, Severin was willing to do anything to avoid meeting this man who would kill him - until the screams rose from the pastures in the valley beneath his hut. Severin’s heartbeat was in his throat, on his very tongue, as he held up a hand to stay the wind.

“Just a moment,” he murmured, and turned bright, pained eyes toward the village. The terrified screams of his neighbors pierced him as surely as any blade, and with a mournful twist of his fingers, he bade the wind disperse.

By the time he reached in the pastures, the shepherd, the blacksmith, and Helvia’s two sons lay dead. At the sight of his friend’s bodies, grief and rage stirred within Severin, and the wind, always nearby to him, trembled in sympathy. Gaze sweeping the warriors, he marked the five whose weapons were stained red. Severin was not violent by nature, but if he was to die this day, he resolved to remove from the earth at least these five men, who with bloodied blades, uncaringly spoke of feasting upon the village’s few precious sheep.

When the warriors turned and finally noticed Severin, he lifted his chin and prayed his voice did not betray his fear. “These are simple people. They have little in way of money or goods. It wasn’t for nothing that the shepherd, blacksmith, and teenagers died. They need these sheep. And I cannot allow you to take them.”

The men glanced at one another, eyes filling with a cruel sort of mirth. They laughed at him, and Severin steeled himself for what must come next. He was friends with the wind, but to call down the heavens was an entirely more serious matter. And he’d never done it. At least, not like this.

Severin turned his palms up and glared at the heavens, daring them to refuse him now when he needed them most.

For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened.

And then, the skies erupted.

He had never felt pure, visceral power in such a way, and as it whined and crackled, Severin, with splayed fingers, used all of his strength to tear the lightning from its home in the sky. It rained upon the warriors, screaming in wild, untamable fury. Severin watched the men cry out in agony, and he felt horror and satisfaction in equal measure.

When a single figure broke from the group, agile enough to evade the lightning and charge across the field, Severin could only look on in exhausted realization. It was the pale barbarian. The man from the battlefield. The child in the vision.

The barbarian charged like a beast, his thickly braided hair bouncing. His brows were drawn down in focus and his lips poised on the precipice of a snarl. It was with a hopeless sense of finality that Severin met the stranger’s gaze.

He met eyes of icy gray, the color of hazy, snow capped mountains in winter, and Severin knew, he knew with a certainty that was sunken into his bones and twisted in his marrow, that this barbarian was the shadow which had haunted him. And he knew, more than anything, the crude blade in the man’s scarred-knuckle hand was fate’s exclamation point at the end of Severin’s ephemeral existence.

Watching as the barbarian pivoted, drawing back his blade, Severin only wished he understood why the women in his family had persisted in calling this man Severin’s truest love. If this was love, the man had a spectacularly terrible way of showing it.

Time slowed to a crawl, and sunlight flashed, reflecting off the blade. As the jagged edge touched the fabric of Severin’s robe, the wind whispered at his ear. Let me show you a piece of the picture.

The wind around him froze, and so too did the world.

Look up, said the wind, a rustle within his ear.

Severin did.

The complexly woven image was shaped by currents in the air - all but invisible to any whose eyes are untrained to look for them. But Severin had a born understanding of the wind and sky, and when he looked up, he saw bits and pieces of an impossibly complex tapestry.

He saw scarred knuckles gently shaping wood. A small child that sat upon broad shoulders. Rocking chairs placed side by side before a glowing fire. Warm hands enveloping his own. Safety. Home.

It was...everything, and Severin’s heart ached with a strange and complex longing for a future that surely could never be.

It’s not impossible, the wind whispered. But the threads will have to tangle and untangle just perfectly so.

“How?” Severin asked, and wondered if he was a fool to feel so desperate a pull towards this life glimpsed in impressions and half images.

The warrior must weep and repent. And a curse must come to fruition.

“And if these things do not happen?”

Then your soul will fade from the earth.

Severin felt torn in two.

The blade has not yet struck your heart, the wind murmured, kind and conspiratorial. There is time still for me to secret you away. I could pull your thread from the tapestry altogether.

“But there would be no hope for that life,” Severin said with a last wistful glance at the scattered mosaic above.

No, none, the wind agreed.

“Okay,” Severin whispered, “okay.” And it felt terrifyingly like surrender.

The wind stirred, and a breeze like a kiss tousled his dark hair.

The blade struck.

It was an intense pressure and then swift, vibrantly blooming pain. Severin wavered on his feet, and looked up. For the second time, he met the warrior’s gaze. And Severin saw and understood that there was no malice in those wintry eyes. Not even frustration or anger. But, instead, an exhaustion deeper than Severin could conceive.

When Severin toppled backward, it was concerning to realize he could no longer feel the grass beneath his body. The man knelt down, and Severin blinked tiredly up at him.

It seemed as though the man were waiting for something. Severin’s slipping mind struggled to think of what - until he recalled the dying woman and her talk of curses. And hadn’t the barbarian said something about curses when he was fever addled and hurt? What had the wind said? Severin was struggling to remember. As his life trickled away in red rivulets which stained the grass and soil, he thought of the boy in the vision - lost and afraid. And he thought of the man he’d become, kneeling stonily over him.

And Severin knew exactly which words should be his last.

Swallowing, he mustered the strength to whisper, “-my hut…it’s just past…the next hill over. In it, I keep medicines and herbs. For the villagers. And travelers who pass.”

For the barbarian would have to stay if he were ever to show remorse. He couldn’t very well continue going about fighting and murdering his way across the peninsula. Which brought Severin to his final words. It took all of his remaining strength to lift his hand. When he reached out, the barbarian startled, as though he expected more lightning to spring forth from Severin’s fingers. But Severin merely tapped his chest and smiled. “May you live a life of safety and peace.”

It was a fitting curse, he thought, feeling particularly clever. And there, on the field, surrounded by sheep, Severin’s heart stuttered and stopped.

It was an abrupt, slipping sensation, like losing your footing on iced over earth. Raw existence rushed around Severin, and he was battered and blown about, like a banner torn loose in the storm. This continued for a dizzying moment, or perhaps a dizzying eternity - Severin really had no way of knowing which. But it stopped when a familiar presence surged around him, blowing and blustering until the wild chaos of existence was forced to let him be.

The wind could not protect him forever, Severin knew, and so he focused his energies until, like a wind sprite, he swirled about the hillside. Below him, he saw the barbarian, his great head bent. Severin, as incorporeal as a breeze, could not resist blustering over the barbarian’s shoulder and observing himself, limp and pitiful in death. Whipping around, he beheld the barbarian - because surely this sight would bring him at least to the verge of tears.

The barbarian frowned down at Severin’s body and rubbed a scarred hand over the patches of stubble on his chin. And then he rose with a great sigh and set off down the hillside, away from Severin and the village.

Severin, who was nothing more than wind and spirit, watched him and despaired. He could do nothing more than whip and howl through the hills as his murderer left him without a backward glance.

Months passed.

Severin did not follow after the barbarian. What good would it do? In this form, it wasn’t as though Severin could speak to him. And if he was doomed to fade and dissolve from existence, he would much rather do so here in the hills he loved than in some strange land trailing after an even stranger man. The wind kept him company, at least, and Severin spent his days whistling through the black, porous stones at the base of the mountains and blowing bits of dandelions across wild tufts of grass.

One day, long after Severin had begun to feel more spread out and thin than was entirely comfortable, the wind rushed to him, carrying with it the scent of dust and dirt and faraway lands.

The barbarian had returned.

Severin was an icy breeze that whipped around the edges of town, and he watched with cool distrust as the man trudged through the streets. His shoulders were slumped and his blond head was turned down. He looked utterly defeated, and any sympathy Severin might have felt was eclipsed by petty spite. He didn’t hold any of the pettiness against himself, though. He was dead, and therefore felt he’d earned at least a little pettiness.

When the barbarian crossed the field, stopping to stand before the place where Severin had fallen, Severin swirled around him, newly curious. The man didn’t look grief stricken, but his face was difficult to read. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and lines of exhaustion around his mouth. Mostly, Severin thought he just looked tired.

When the man approached Severin’s home after having ignored the invitation for months, Severin had a second moment of pettiness and whipped the wind up on the other side of the door, sealing it closed as the barbarian tried to open it. Only when the man shoved it with his great, muscled shoulder did Severin retreat, allowing the door to swing open.

It was with a strange sort of melancholy that he watched the barbarian’s silver gaze sweep over the room. The man looked first at the damp, unkempt hearth before slowly making his way across the room. He glanced from Severin’s well-loved walking stick to the bookshelf built into the wall. He fumblingly ran the backs of his fingers along the spines of the books, as if he was unlearned in the ways of a gentle touch.

Severin was still very much put out about the whole being dead business, but as he watched the barbarian’s almost reverent inspection, he unthinkingly twisted the air in the room, drawing out the cold and pulling in a bit of sun warmed breeze.

By the second day, the man was sitting in Severin’s chair. Severin stewed, swatting at floating dust by the window as his killer rocked to and fro in Severin’s favorite seat. Later, the barbarian stood, stretching his strong arms overhead and twisted his back experimentally. Brows lifting in pleasant surprise, he gave the chair an appreciative pat.

By the third day, Severin had no more dust to swat about. The barbarian had rolled up his ragged sleeves and set about scrubbing every inch of Severin’s little hut. When the hulking man worked open the stiff windows, the wind rushed in, delighting in whipping about the space once more.

He’s done a better job of cleaning than you ever did, the wind sang, slipping once more outside.

He was dead and that meant the wind had to be nice, and Severin told it as much. It’s reply was a soft rustling of chimes that hung from the house’s eaves, and the sound was almost like laughter.

Days passed, and the man began reading Severin’s books. This was probably the most surprising development yet, in Severin’s opinion. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought the large, scarred warrior capable of reading, just - well, he hadn’t thought the large, scarred warrior capable of reading particularly well. But the man seemed to be doing just fine, and sat in Severin’s rocking chair, putting a far greater strain on the sturdy wood than Severin ever had, as he thumbed carefully through the book’s smooth pages.

When little Mykela took ill, Severin knew it well before anyone else. He’d taken a spin through town and as he rode the wintry wind past where she played in the yard, he’d felt the rattle of air in her lungs. But at this point, Severin was little more than a memory on the breeze, and though his worry was agony, he could do absolutely nothing. He spent the rest of the day roaring about the mountain peaks, sending snow flurries spilling down the far side of the cliffs.

Two days later, Severin was idly observing the barbarian, watching the crease between his brows twitch as he slept, when a great pounding broke out against the door. The barbarian rose at once, and Severin watched him cast a brief glance at the walking stick before turning instead to the candle on a nearby shelf. With warm light cupped in his palm, the barbarian approached the door.

When Dormund, Mykela’s father, entered the hut, carrying a limp mound of blankets, Severin felt a spike of icy terror. As the barbarian poked and prodded the fire, Severin carefully stirred the wind to better feed the flames. Severin would have shouted instructions, had he lungs to shout, but the barbarian already had two jars in hand. He held them up, looking a little lost, before he hurried to the bookshelf and selected a thick book. Muttering under his breath, he flipped hurriedly through pages until he found what he was looking for. And then he was kneeling before the pot of water he’d set over the fire, and Severin watched as he scooped careful measurements of Severin’s dried herbs into the roiling water.

Mykela was saved, and as the barbarian sent the girl and her father off with a bag of herbs, it occurred to Severin that he wished to know the barbarian’s name. He wouldn’t learn it until two days later, when Old Cara arrived at the hut, seeking the barbarian’s help for her arthritic knee. After supplying her with the appropriate poultice, the barbarian helped her to the door, and looking up, she patted his shoulder and asked him his name.

Eindred, was his answer.

Eindred.

Severin wished he had lips to test the shape of the name.

Months passed, and was easier now to watch Eindred move about Severin’s hut. In fact, Severin had even begun to enjoy riding the soft breeze from the windows as it wafted around Eindred’s shoulders, curiously observing whatever small thing he happened to, at any given time, be doing with his hands. One day, Severin was surprised to find Eindred’s hands at work, deliberately whittling the curved back of a rocking chair. When the chair was done, Eindred set it carefully, almost reverently beside the first. At the sight, Severin had a bright, nearly overwhelming flash of recognition, and he thought of the image the wind had shown him - of the rocking chairs before a warm, crackling fire.

Severin was fading, he could feel it. To hope was to court a greater disappointment than Severin could rightly comprehend, and yet - he watched Eindred set out with Severin’s walking stick to join the festival, and saw when Mykela took his hand. The barbarian’s stony expression softened, then melted as the girl tugged him after her.

It was the strangest of sensations, because while Severin didn’t strictly have a heart these days, watching the great Eindred meekly follow little Mykela made something in Severin’s incorporeal being ache with unexpected warmth.

Whatsmore, Eindred had been reading Severin’s journals and he would sometimes stop and stare about the hut, as if trying to picture the ghost of Severin’s life there. Once, Eindred draped a thick blanket over the back of one of the rocking chairs and ran his rough hands over it as he frowned contemplatively into the fire.

Summer had come and gone and Severin feared that parts of his soul had already begun to slip into that other-place. And so, with a tender sort of weariness, he drifted on the sunbeams cutting through the clean window glass, and watched with only mild annoyance as Eindred carefully tore a blank page from one of Severin’s journals.

Lips pressing together in focus, Eindred wrote in with small, precise letters, what appeared to be a list.

Confused, Severin drifted closer.

May your every loved one die screaming in pain.

I hope you die with your eyes stabbed out and your heart in your hands.

You will never know happiness.

Your existence will be suffering.

It was a list of curses, Severin realized. Morbid curses, by the looks of it. The last two, however, caught his attention.

May your greatest enemy rise from the grave and never leave you alone.

And,

May you live a life of safety and peace.

And Severin understood.

When Eindred set out from the hut, looking drawn but resolved, Severin began at once to gather his energy. It had been nearly a year since his death, and he feared that there might not be enough of him left to make a return. The second to last curse would help things along, but Severin knew it would be a mistake to rely on it.

And so, as Eindred entered the village, Severin stretched upward and out, calling wind and storm clouds with reckless, hopeful abandon. For his entire life, Severin had lived, certain in the knowledge that love and happiness were not meant for one such as he. How could they be? When a blade was foretold to make a home in his heart?

But Eindred had changed. And the patchwork pieces of tapestry were there, a life Severin had never dared to dream of, right there - if he could only summon the strength to reach out and grasp it.

Below, Eindred bowed his head before the townsfolk, confessing his part in the tragedy which played out on their soil. Above, Severin swallowed the skies and became the storm.

Severin felt it, distantly below, when the people in the village forgave Eindred. And he felt when Eindred’s bittersweet tears tickled the earth. He felt Eindred return to the hut, and then after pacing restlessly about, return at last to the pastures where it had all begun.

And then came Eindred’s pained voice, calling out from the fields below. “Severin!”

Eindred had never said his name before, and Severin, who was the clouds and the wind and the rain and the sky, rumbled his joy at the sound of it.

“It was my hand which ended your life,” Eindred continued. His deep voice was shaking. “And with your dying breath you gifted what I thought was a nightmare. Did you know that it would turn out to be a dream? I think you did.”

Just wait, Severin wanted to tell him, because he’d seen a future better still. The only question that remained was whether he had strength enough to reach it.

Rugged face upturned, Eindred called to Severin and the sky, which were one and the same. “Though it’s a dream, I’ll never know peace. How can I? When I live in the home of the one I so coldly murdered? I would leave, but the villagers have my heart - as they had yours. In this state, I don’t think I’ll ever truly know true rest or true peace - despite the great power of your curse.”

You will, Severin said, and lightning streaked across the sky. I will.

“Even now,” Eindred said, through wind and rain, “I’m not sure if you are my greatest enemy or ally.”

There it was.

His greatest enemy.

Severin, with every ounce of power he possessed, claimed the title. For he was the greatest enemy the old Eindred, warrior and killer, had faced. With his parting curse, Severin had forced the old Eindred to do the one thing he’d feared most of all: to live and face all he’d done.

Severin felt a rushing, coursing energy thrumming within and without and he knew that he must catch it and hold it, though he wasn’t sure how.

The tapestry threads, the wind whispered. Severin had spread so thin, his old friend was nearly a part of him now.

Severin listened, and felt for that thread which had teased and tickled his palm. And when he was sure he felt it, he wrapped himself around it and pulled. The sky around him screamed as he dragged himself forward toward something - something -

White light was all around him, and then it wasn’t. The air was cool and damp, and the evening sang with the wind’s gleeful gusts and the soft patter of rain on grass. Severin lifted a hand, and looked it over in tentatively blooming relief. Pressing the hand over his heart which beat with a strong, steady rhythm, Severin breathed a relieved, ragged sigh.

Eindred stood in the field, turned away from him. Drawing in a breath, Severin delighted in the sound of his own voice. “May your greatest enemy rise from the grave, Eindred, and never leave you alone.” He smiled as he spoke, and very nearly pressed his fingers to his lips to feel the shape they took when saying Eindred’s name.

Eindred turned. “So you are my greatest enemy then?” He sounded wary.

“I don’t think it’s so simple as that. Do you?”

Eindred’s expression shifted and he shook his head. When he next spoke, it was soft and fumbling, as if he still hadn’t fully adjusted to a world which was kind. “I made a chair,” he blurted out. “A few actually,” he added, rubbing a hand over the back of his head.

Severin wanted to say, I know. I saw. But that would require more explanation than he cared to give at the moment, so instead, he replied, “Do I get the new rocking chair or my old one?”

“Any,” Eindred stammered, “Either. Both?” He looked at Severin, and the earnest weight of his gaze held the promise of all the chairs Severin could want and anything else Eindred could possibly make with his scarred hands.

The fondness that bubbled up within Severin was so abrupt and filled him so thoroughly that he wanted to laugh with it. “Lucky for you, I only need one chair. You can keep the old one if you like it. I trust your craftsmanship.”

Severin turned then, because it was cold and every part of him felt so entirely bright and buoyant that he thought he might die if he didn’t move. However, when he realized Eindred was not following, he stopped. “Well? Are you coming?”

Eindred looked up, as if he’d been startled. “Where?” he called.

Standing there, sodden in the field, Eindred looked after Severin, as if he was afraid to hope - as Severin once had been afraid to do. And it occurred to Severin that Eindred would need to hear it said aloud.

“Home, of course. Where else?”

“Home,” Eindred repeated, as if confirming it to himself.

And when Severin turned again towards home, Eindred followed.

By the time they reached the hut, both were shivering from the cold, and as they crossed the threshold into the warm space, Severin swayed on his feet. He’d almost forgotten the immense power he’d used, and now the harsh ringing in his ears was a stark reminder. Warm, rough hands steadied him and when Severin tilted his head up, he saw that Eindred wore an expression of poorly concealed terror.

“I’m not going to die all over again,” Severin assured him. “I just used a lot of magic.” As he said it, he swayed once more, this time falling forward.

Eindred caught Severin again, one arm wrapped around his back and his other hand braced against his chest. Beneath where Eindred’s palm pressed, Severin’s heart thrummed. And Severin watched, curious, as Eindred’s expression twisted. He no longer claimed the title of warrior, Severin knew, but it was nonetheless with a warrior’s gravity that Eindred met Severin’s gaze.

“These hands will never again harm you. I swear it.”

“I know,” Severin replied, and pressed a hand over the back of Eindred’s rough knuckles. “Help me to a chair?”

Eindred did, and helped to remove Severin’s thick outer robe before Severin sank gratefully in front of the fire. Eindred left him a moment, and Severin closed his eyes.

He intended to just rest them for a second - maybe two, but when Severin next opened his eyes, the room was darker and he was draped and bundled in blankets, softer and thicker than any he recalled owning. The fire was still crackling, and the warm light made soothing shadows dance across the hut’s wooden floor. The other chair was occupied, Severin realized, and he watched as the hearth’s orange light played across Eindred’s sleeping features. Compared to Severin’s mountain of blankets, he had just one draped over his lap, though he didn’t seem cold. Nonetheless, Severin shifted a bit, and peeled a soft fleece blanket off his own pile to toss it onto him. The blanket fell short, and with a quick whispered word, the wind slipped under the door and flipped the offending blanket up onto Eindred’s chest.

“That’s better,” Severin said.

The wind played a little with the fire before tousling Severin’s hair and departing with a sibilant, save your strength foolish human. You’re still recovering, and slipped out the way it had come.

When Severin turned back to Eindred, he saw the large man was sitting up and his eyes were now open. Blinking, Eindred rubbed a hand over his face and then, stiffening in sudden shock, he whipped to look at Severin. Heaving a great sigh, he rocked back in the chair. “Still breathing,” he said.

“I don’t plan on stopping.”

Something almost like a smile twitched at Eindred’s lips and Severin was enchanted by it.

“You were dead and now you’re alive. Forgive me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“You’re the one who believes in silly curses.”

Eindred’s brows rose. “Silly? Says the one who was brought back from the dead by one.”

Severin waved a dismissive hand. “The curse might have set the stage, but I was director, crew, and cast.”

And there was another smile, like a glimpse of sun between clouds. Severin was beginning to fear there might be no practical limit to the lengths he’d be willing to go to see another smile.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Eindred replied. “I get the feeling you know a great deal more about the world and magics than I.”

“Well Eindred,” Severin said, scooting his chair a little closer to both Eindred and the fire. “What do you know of grand tapestries?”

Eindred, looking more than a little lost, shook his head. “Nothing. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one.”

“Well,” Severin said, and grinned. “What do you know of cheese?”

EDIT: A novel based on Eindred and the Witch and The Witch Who Spoke to the Wind is in progress! I will post news about it on my Tumblr and my Patreon as news becomes available :)

#my writing #original writing #my story #Eindred and the Witch #original story #fantasy #fantasy story #love story #eindred the warrior #severin the witch #writing #writeblr #short story #long short story #7000+ words #fantasy short story #amwriting #story

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noteguk · 4 years ago

Text

bad attitude | jjk | m

[ ! ] this is part of the bad influence collection. You can read it as a stand-alone though!

— summary; in which Jungkook finally learns how to behave. Kind of.

— contents and warnings; pwp, smut, badboy!jk x goodgirl!reader, enemies with benefits/enemies to lovers, brattysub!kook x dom!reader, actually more of a switch!kook/switch!reader, the oc is kind of a demon with teasing because payback is a bitch, bondage, edging, dirty talk, begging, oral (m receiving), female masturbation, cockwarming, unprotected sex (don’t be dumb), creampie, stuffing, Taehyung makes a cameo, terrible use of the two wolves meme I’m so sorry

— words; 7,2k

— author’s note; yes I started this with a meme and no I’m not okay. This is kind of chaotic tbh but I wanted to write something a bit more unhinged and lighthearted after all that drama from the third part of the series. This happens some time after bad reputation.

Also! Take a look at the text messages that brought them to this moment ;)

Probably one of the dumbest things that Jungkook had ever heard came from his roommate and childhood friend, Taehyung, after a few hours scrolling through Facebook with a blunt hanging from the corner of his lips. Taehyung was in the deep web equivalent of social media: entrepreneur pages, where young, overly-dressed men with obviously rented convertibles promised to teach gullible people how to become millionaires by working at home (if you only pay for their courses). Nevertheless, what started as an ironic scroll through shallow motivational quotes quickly escalated into a semi-believable, mostly high rant about the importance of controlling your inner demons, which Jungkook sadly had to endure, since he was the only person around and, therefore, his roommate's sole target.

Taehyung was high out of his mind, but it seemed as if he would be the last to get that memo: in his twisted conception, he was spilling the hottest of truths (and not the incoherent ramble that it really was). Fighting through Jungkook’s complaints and eye rolls, he simply went on and on about how the page “Alpha Billionaire 101” wasn’t really that off beat when they said that you do, in fact, have two wolves inside you — and the one you feed is the one that wins. Jungkook was basically disassociating by the point that Taehyung started drawing some graphs, looking fixedly at the two wolves on the screen of his computer (one written “success and drive” and the other one representing “failure and procrastination”) and wishing that the gods above would strike him down once and for all.

And why is that important? Well, because eventually Taehyung fell asleep and moved on with his life, only casually mentioning the other stuff he saw on that page, but his words stuck around, glued to the back of Jungkook’s head. Not because they held any sort of meaning, but because the wolf metaphor was just too stupid to forget. And that eventually caught up to Jungkook in the strangest, most unexpected of ways: with you and bondage being involved.

Now, Jungkook had two wolves inside of him: one was extremely laid back and barely cared about most things that happened, as long as he was having a good time. The second wolf was a bitter, prideful, egocentric, mean little thing that simply wouldn’t fold no matter how much the world wanted it to. And it was that second wolf that took him to that position: because Jungkook told you that he was positive, certain, a hundred percent sure that he’d never be like you and beg for something during sex.

Which made both of your wolves absolutely pissed.

“What the fuck…” he mumbled, looking up at your agile hands moving like wasps around his wrists. The room was dark, barely illuminated by the moonlight that came from the window, but that wasn’t really the reason why his pupils were so blown-out. “Where did you learn to tie knots like this?”

You smiled, giving a last pull on the ropes to make sure they would stay still. Jungkook had been elated when you finally told him that you’d be willing to try it out bondage. One thing he didn’t expect, though, was that he would be the one getting tied up. “I was in the Girl Scouts,” you told him, sitting back against his thighs.

Jungkook scoffed, tugging at the ropes. They weren’t too tight, yet they burned his skin a bit — not an unwelcome feeling, but his mind wasn’t too focused on it. He had to live up to his own words. “Of course you were in the fucking Girl Scouts.” He rolled his eyes. “So, how long is this gonna take?”

His gaze followed as your hands unclasped your bra. Jungkook, who had already been stripped down to his boxers, could barely disguise the twitching of his eyebrows when your breasts finally came into view. The bra collapsed somewhere on the floor. “Depends on how long it takes for you to say it,” you reminded him.

Jungkook shifted around, gaze following the rise and fall of your chest. His hands struggled against the ropes, aching to touch your breasts, and you could notice the frustration blossoming at the back of his throat when he spoke up. “I’m not gonna say it.”

With a pout, you leaned back in, placing your hands on his broad chest for leverage. “Then it’s probably going to take a long time.” You blinked up at him, and there was a devilish glint in your eyes that he didn’t remember seeing before. He was doomed. “Comfortable?”

“Not at all,” he complained.

The smile you gifted him made his knees weak for a second. “Perfect.” Your hands traveled to the back of his neck, fingers playing with his hair and eyes zeroing in on his mouth. “Now, be good and kiss me like you mean it, okay?”

Be good?

Jungkook didn’t get any time to digest your words before your mouth was pressing against his, enveloping him in your warmth — and suddenly he didn’t want to think about anything else. How could he? When you had your hands caressing his neck, with a soft sigh against his lips, there was nothing else in the world that could rob his attention.

In the end, past his brooding, unshakable persona, Jungkook was still a weak man when it came to you, he really was. It had become a natural, well-rehearsed reaction of his to explore your mouth with his tongue at every chance that he got; your lips slapping together as he groaned against you. The skin of his wrists was tingling, pressing hard against the ropes that held his hands back from exploring your body; from pulling you closer like he wanted to. Instead, he was at your mercy, following your own pace as you leaned your head to the side, fingers tugging on his hair as you sighed happily into the kiss.

It was exactly the way he liked: sensual, slow, messy; made his head spin when you rolled your clothed center on his erection before sucking on his tongue. Jungkook was sure that you were doing all that on purpose, riling him up as much as possible before finally touching him where he needed so much, and that was definitely going to be a problem.

In the back of his head, Jungkook was currently trying to decide if he hated Taehyung or not: the fact that his roommate had compulsively chosen to attend a party three hours away was the reason that you were there, kissing him like he was the air that you breathed, but also the reason why Jungkook had gotten tied up in the first place. If he had had a bit more time between texting you that he would never beg in sex (a very dumb, very unthought action), and the moment that you actually tried to make it happen, perhaps he would be able to convince you to step down from it. Perhaps he would realize that his prideful side was also really, really fucking stupid when it came to predicting his own limits.

Truth was: Jungkook was pretty much panicking when you moaned against his lips, because his cock was unbearably hard inside his underwear and he just knew that he would fold after some time. Especially when you were acting like that, like a demon trying to seduce him into selling his soul; a siren about to drag him to the abyssal depths of the ocean. He could barely follow what was happening.

Because of his dominating tendencies, Jungkook had never seen you showing your typical neurotic, controlling self during your sexual adventures — which was something he endlessly teased you for, but never thought it would actually have any sort of backlash. It seemed that both of you liked the usual dynamic (of Jungkook taking over) well enough and, yet, as he watched that sadistic expression monopolizing your features, he realized that maybe it was for the best. Maybe you had been training your whole life to perfect the masterful art of having things happening the way you wanted it, and maybe giving you the lead was one of the worst decisions he had made in some time.

As you pulled away, Jungkook chased after your mouth, managing to place another small kiss on your lips before the ropes held him back. “More,” he groaned.

The curve of your mouth was a wicked little thing, almost making him lose his composure for a second. “No, no more,” you were firm in your words. “Be patient.”

He huffed. “You only got an attitude because my hands are tied up.”

“I always have an attitude,” you were fast to correct, getting out of his lap. The lack of your warmth was instantly felt, made his chest heave in frustration as you sat down next to him. There was an embarrassingly large wet spot on his underwear that he was hoping you wouldn’t notice. “But, yeah, maybe I’m a little braver because of it.” Before he could muster up a response, one of your hands traveled between his thighs, faintly tracing its way up his skin. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Jungkook clenched his jaw — it was embarrassing how sensitive he was, goosebumps spreading through his legs. “Don’t tease."

“Or what?” A squeeze of his bulge was everything you need to make him shut up, his hips buckling up to meet your palm. Jungkook was hard and leaking, pulsating as you gave him a few, half-assed pumps through his underwear. A few seconds were more than enough to let him have his fun, it seemed, because you were soon removing your hand from his erection. “Now, stay still unless you want me to tie your feet too.”

He hissed at the lack of contact, but refused to complain about it out loud. You smiled at his reaction: Jungkook was so stubborn when it came to things like that, would never show you his weak, needy side so easily. But you were patient and, from what you had been told, you had all night to get your way.

Call it revenge, call it whatever: there was nothing that you wanted more than to see Jungkook bite back his own words and beg for you. It was an ego thing, perhaps, the mission to leave him just as overwhelmed and desperate as he had made you so many times in the past. Maybe you were a bit mean about it. But it was well deserved.

You took your time pulling one of his legs towards you, watching as his cock throbbed when you placed your body between his thighs. Jungkook could only think about how soft your mouth felt as you kissed up his thigh before, at last, you were nuzzling your face against his erection, placing kisses on his clothed member as your thumb pressed down on his sensitive tip. His breath grew irregular at the feeling, his tongue poking out to wet his lips as you looked up at him with that demonic smirk of yours, those big doe eyes that wiped his thoughts clean. Jungkook was absolutely fucked.

Luckily, he didn’t have to urge you further because, soon enough, you were pulling his underwear down, making it join your bra on his bedroom floor. Jungkook could’ve cried when you rolled your thumb over his crown, spreading his precum all over him, a delighted hum dripping past your throat. “You’re leaking,” you commented, eyes following the glistening of his reddened tip. He could only muster a raggedy, short sigh before you were talking again. “I can clean you up, don’t worry.”

Jungkook moaned out when you wrapped your lips around his cock, not hesitating much before you sank down on him. His head fell back when you started sucking, your cheeks hollowing out and tongue pressed flat against him. “God, your mouth feels so fucking perfect.” His hips thrusted up, but you had enough of a reflex to pull away before he managed to hit the back of your throat. “Take it deeper, baby, do it for me.”

But you did the opposite, removing him from your mouth. You glanced up at him with a disinterested look plastered all over your face, lips glossy with a beautiful mixture of your saliva and his wetness. Jungkook made a mental note to never forget that sight. “I don’t know if you understand what’s going on here, Jungkook.” You wrapped one hand around his cock, pumping it twice. It felt good, but nothing compared to your mouth. “But it’s really not your place to tell me what to do right now. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah?” He chuckled, eyebrows raised in a silent dare. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Poor decisions: Jungkook’s week was filled with poor decisions. Blame that unshakable arrogant side of his, blame his terribly constructed defense mechanisms; blame whatever it was that didn’t allow him to think clearly when you were so beautifully placed between his legs, but it seemed that he really thought it would be a good call to provoke you when you were already 1) deadset on making him embarrass himself 2) probably the best Girl Scout to ever tie a knot in history.

Jungkook was completely helpless: he knew that, you knew that. So the reason why he mocked you in such a position would forever be another mystery that science could never answer.

And the payback arrived soon enough. Jungkook only earned a few seconds of relaxation, staring at your impassive face, before your mouth was sinking back down around his member.

If Jungkook thought that you were teasing him before, now you were sucking him like you wanted him to cum in two seconds — hands pumping his length, playing with his balls, tip hitting your throat, tongue dragging against his slit: the four horsemen of your apocalyptic blowjob technique that got him seeing stars in no time. “Fuck, that’s my girl,” he moaned. He was sure his wrists would be all red in the following morning from the way he was mindlessly moving his arms around, his mind just so hyper-focused on the need to touch you, to pull your hair when you were wrapping around his cock so well. “Feels so fucking perfect.”

Then, as he was just about to tip over, you pulled away.

“No, what the fuck,” Jungkook’s eyes snapped open, still unfocused and glazed-over. His body flinched at the interruption of his pleasure, and his cock throbbing against his pelvis, angry for attention. “Fuck, why did you stop?”

“That’s what I’m going to do about it.” You smiled, and Jungkook noticed that he was really playing a very dangerous game. In a span of two seconds, he asked himself if he was that mean to you, realized that he probably was, and came to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t change anything about it. “Are you going to behave now, Jungkook?”

He groaned, fighting against the frustrated waves that overtook his body. His orgasm, before so close, had now been washed away, leaving him with a pulsating feeling inside his guts. “You’re pissing me off.”

“Likewise.” You tilted your head to the side, placing one hand on his thigh. “Now, stay still and do what I tell you to do. That’s the last time I’m asking.”

He frowned. “Or what?”

You blinked, pausing for a second. “Isn’t it obvious? Or I’m leaving you like this.”

Jungkook’s brain finally seemed to comprehend the fact that, sometimes, it’s better to keep your mouth shut. So, instead of saying something, he simply watched as you removed your underwear before sitting between his legs, your thighs over his.

Because you absolutely hated him, you had opened your legs wide, pussy on full display, as you used one hand to lean back against the mattress. His eyes almost jumped out of their sockets when you used two fingers to spread your folds apart. “Look,” you said, your breathy voice making something inside his chest switch. “I’m so wet.”

And wet you were. Jungkook exhaled, nostrils flaring. His mouth salivated at the thought of licking you clean, fingers growing white around the ropes. He never hated an object so hard in his life. “I can… I can see that.”

You giggled at the grogginess of his tone, dove into the satisfaction that came from his focused eyes on your soaked folds. A gentle suspire left you as your digits slipped up, covering your clit with your arousal before pressing down on it. You were acting up a bit, whining loudly at the feeling because you knew that it drove him crazy to hear you make sounds for him. “Jungkook…” you trailed off. You had to bite back a laugh when his stare snapped up at you, looking so overwhelmingly horny and pissed off at the same time — the duality of men. “Want to have you inside me.”

He exhaled heavily. “Do it,” he said and you allowed him to think that it was his order (and not your decision) that made you move.

Jungkook’s pupils were blown out in sheer desire, wanting to absorb every light that bounced off your soft skin when you lined yourself with his cock, covering his tip with your warm wetness, allowing it to rub between your folds. By the time that you sat down on him, he was dangerously close to cracking.

“Oh fuck.” His hips thrusted up, wanting to feel more of your tight walls around him. It was heaven and hell, just the way he loved it, but his delight wouldn’t last long. “Fuck, baby, that feels so good.”

“It does,” you agreed, but there was a teasing inflection in your tone that he did not miss. Soon, your fingers were back where they were before, circling your clit. “And I happen to know how to make it even better. For myself, at least.”

It took him a few moments to understand what was going on, but, once it clicked inside his head, he could’ve cried from frustration. “What are you doing?”

“Getting myself off.” You smiled — oh you were such a fucking demon, he thought, a trickster spirit that wouldn’t rest until he was begging you to let him cum. Worst part? He might as well do it. “You don’t mind, do you? I know you love to keep your cock inside me like this.”

They say that revenge is sweet and, as you saw the flash of desperation that crossed Jungkook’s face, you couldn’t agree more. “Aren’t… aren’t you going to move?” He tried.

You could tell that he was holding back from just thrusting up inside you, which was equally satisfying and arousing: maybe, just maybe, he was starting to learn one thing or two about following your orders. “Hmmm… not at all.” You smirked, a tiny gasp leaving your lips as you circled your sensitive spot just the right way. Jungkook followed the movement of your lips as if they were writing the secrets of the universe. “Not if you keep that attitude up.”

He frowned, the corners of his mouth twitching in frustration. From your peripheral vision, you could see his wrists vaguely struggling against your knots — humbly speaking, you were a great Girl Scout, the typical overachiever, and you were positive that they would hold up.

“You’re going to regret this later,” Jungkook warned, but his words didn’t even have the chance to affect you. One clenching of your walls around him was all that it took for his head to roll back, a deep grunt dripping from his mouth at the sensation. It was just enough to keep him dangling over the edge, but not even close to making him cum. “Your pussy is so fucking tight, baby. Feels so fucking good.”

“I’m almost there, that’s why.” Your other hand slithered up your waist, cupping one of your breasts. Being a bit more theatrical than necessary (because you wanted to provoke him as much as you could), you gasped out his name as you rolled one nipple between your fingers, arching your back at the sensation. You swore you saw Jungkook’s eye twitch. “Gonna cum just like this. And you’re gonna be good and watch me.”

Again with that be good bullshit, again not giving him enough time to process it before you were timidly rolling your hips. “Baby,” he gasped. “This isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t,” you agreed, slightly breathless, your hand moving to play with your other breast. Jungkook followed the action like every part of you was magnetic, calling for his attention. “You do that to me all the time, though.”

He frowned. “But I let you fucking touch me.”

“How nice of you,” you sarcastically remarked. Another small roll of your hips made you gasp, fingers working faster around your clit. Teasing Jungkook got you shamefully turned on, it seemed, because you were just about to tip over the edge. “Fuck, feels so good.”

“It would feel so much better if you just— God, you’re so fucking wet,” his mind was barely functioning at that point, the heavenly feeling of your walls clenching around him was making him go insane. “Just ride my cock, baby.”

“No,” that simple word was like an arrow, shooting all his hopes down. Jungkook closed his eyes and threw his head back, trying to fight against the claustrophobic nature of his position. There was no way he could hold himself back, he thought, he would beg you as many times as he needed it that was what it took for him to finally cum. “I’m close, Kook.”

That whimpery, needy tone of yours would be the death of him one of those days. “I can fucking feel it,” he cursed. Jungkook just wanted to thrust inside your dripping pussy, make you cream his cock like you were made for it, but he knew that you would just stop everything again if he did so, and he seriously didn’t think he could take that. “S-Shit, baby, you don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

But you had a good idea of how you were affecting him. Through parted lids, you watched as his face contorted in pleasure when you squeezed particularly tightly around him; a muffled sob perishing on his throat when you vaguely raised your hips. Jungkook was filling you up so perfectly, like he always did, and it was that amazing stretch of his cock inside you, combined with the clear hunger that covered his features, that pulled your climax towards you.

The orgasm that washed over you was abrupt, overbearing, just blinding enough so you didn’t notice the weak little moans that Jungkook let out at the throbbing of your walls around his aching length. You tried to prolong it for as long as possible, rubbing yourself, crying out his name for theatrical reasons, but eventually sensitivity got the best of you and you stopped.

What you found when you did, however, was a glorious sight. Jungkook was a perfect picture of lust and desperation, his chest rising and falling rapidly and eyes locked on where your two bodies joined. There was a thin coat of sweat all over his skin, the small sound of the ropes pulling on the headboard. When he noticed you were staring, he found your gaze. “I- I stood still,” he said.

“I know, you did so good.” You placed one hand on his cheek, leveling your face with his so you could kiss him. Jungkook melted under your touch, a deep sigh leaving his mouth as you pulled away, his cock still deep inside you. “I’m proud of you.”

As if something had magically changed, Jungkook tried to fight against his immobilized hands, only to find out that he was still unable to free himself. “Wanna touch you so bad, baby. You look so fucking hot sitting on my cock like this.” Jungkook was spoiled, you realized, because it didn’t take him two seconds of good behavior to revert back to what he wanted to happen. It was a terrible habit, you realized, one that you probably helped enable. “Fuck, just let me cum, baby. Take these off and I’ll fuck you just the way you like it.”

And maybe if you weren’t so high up in your power rush, you would’ve at least considered his offer. However, having Jungkook turned into a pliant mess beneath you was worth more than anything else at that moment. “I’ll think about it if you say the magic word.”

He frowned, his charm melting away. Jungkook was so adamant on having it his way that it bordered on a joke. “Not gonna do it.”

You kissed him once again before speaking up. “Then we don’t have a deal.” You shook your head, moving away from him. Jungkook searched after your mouth, but your stupid Girl Scouts knots didn’t allow him to go much further. He collapsed back against the headboard with a frustrated groan. “You’re a terrible sub.”

“Maybe because I’m not a fucking sub— Shit.” All his thoughts were wiped clean when you slowly raised your hips, only leaving his engorged tip inside, before, finally, sitting back down. The drag of your velvety walls against his sensitive cock was driving Jungkook up the wall, his tied-up wrists mindlessly knocking against each other. “Fuck. I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” You pouted, repeating the movement. You watched as his jaw clenched, a sharp exhale leaving his nostrils as Jungkook both fought against and searched for his pleasure. “Sure you don’t wanna say it?”

A deliciously slow roll of your hips got him gasping out. “I’m not gonna — fuck — not gonna say it.”

You leaned your head to the side, stopping your movements. Jungkook’s abdomen was caving in with every small brush of your pussy around him, the illumination from the streets making the drops of sweat on his skin look like small diamonds. It was an erotic sight, from the falling of his dark hair over his hooded eyes, to the beautiful inked drawings on his arms. Unfortunately, you had other things to do other than to admire him endlessly.

With a sigh, you got up from his lap. “Too bad.”

“Baby,” Jungkook whined — actually whined — when he felt his cock slip out of your perfect heat, collapsing against his abdomen. The sensation got him flinching, made him bite his lip for a second in an attempt to compose himself. “Baby, don’t leave me like this, come on.”

You frowned, faking annoyance. “How can I not leave you like this, Jungkook?” Your palms slithered around his shoulders, pulling your body closer to his. “You’re being horrible right now.”

“S-Sorry.” His breath caught in his throat when your mouth met the skin of his neck, tongue prodding out to lick a small trail up his skin. Your heat was unbearable, suffocating him and drowning out his thoughts to the point that he had really apologized for his poor demeanor. If your predictions were correct, it wouldn’t take long before he folded the way you wanted him to. “Just, come on, you can’t just— I’m just so hard right now.”

You giggled, fingertips moving down on his chest until you found what you were looking for. “Aw. Poor thing,” you teased, feeling as he grew stiff when you started to play with his nipples. A few weeks back, you had made the wonderful and unexpected discovery that Jungkook was really sensitive there, but you never really had a chance to explore that side of him before he flipped you over and had you his way. But the universe always searched for balance, and that moment was the karmic payback you were looking for. “What’s the problem, Kook?”

“Wanna cum.” He winced away from your faint caresses, but he really didn’t have anywhere else to go. A smirk curled up on your lips as you watched Jungkook fight against the knots, a frail, airy moan leaving his chest as you rolled his nipples between your fingers. He sounded so perfect: so needy and desperate that you could feel another gush of arousal accumulating between your folds. “Just wanna cum so bad, baby.”

“I’m not gonna be mean and hold it off,” you told him, moving back so you could place a kiss against his pouty, swollen lips. Jungkook looked so beautifully messy, so on edge, that you almost cried out at the sight of it. “You just have to say it,” you told him, lowering your hips until you were straddling his cock.

With a roll of your pussy against him, his cock brushed between your wet folds, tearing a broken sob from his throat. “Fuck,” Jungkook cursed. He was never in a position like that: edged for so long that he couldn’t even control the grunts that left his throat. “You’re so fucking evil.”

“You love it.” Another grind of your pussy had him throwing his head back, a loud moan ripping itself from his heaving chest. Jungkook was sensitive, responsive to the tiniest of your touches and, most of all: he was desperate, seconds away from cracking. “You know, if you say it, I’ll let you cum.”

His cock throbbed against you when you finally stopped your movements, raising your hips so your center moved away from his. Jungkook complained at the lack of sensation, practically on the limit of throwing a tantrum, and his pelvis mindlessly buckling up in search of your warmth. Instead, he found nothing, and his member simply collapsed back against his abdomen, aching for its release.

“This— This is torture,” he groaned. You giggled at his distress, taking one hand to brush away the sweaty hair from his forehead. Jungkook leaned into your touch. “Please, baby, just fuck me.”

Your ears perked up at that, a pool of arousal starting to grow between your legs. That sounded even better than you had predicted. “Sorry, what was that?” You teased.

Jungkook closed his eyes, clenching his jaw. “Don’t make me say it again.”

Slowly, you lowered your hips again, pressing your pussy against his cock. Jungkook reacted instantly, taking in a sharp inhale. “Didn’t hear you,” you said.

“God, baby, just fuck me, please,” he finally broke down, his dazed-out gaze seemed to have some trouble focusing on your face. Desperation was plastered all over him, staring at you like a beautiful, shimmering trophy. “Please, just let me cum. Please.”

You hummed, leaning away so you could sit on his thighs, facing his erection. You were a woman of your word: you said you wouldn’t hold it back, and you wouldn’t. “Since you asked so nicely…” you trailed off, one hand wrapping around his base, pumping him a few times. Jungkook throbbed in your hands, his abdomen sinking as your thumb grazed his sensitive crown. “Where do you wanna cum?”

It looked like you had truly broken the poor boy down because, for the first time in his life, Jungkook didn’t have any idea on how to answer that question. “I- I don’t know,” he struggled to speak when your hand was still caressing his member: just enough for him to feel something, but too slow and light for him to actually cum. “Anywhere. Just wanna cum.”

You pouted, letting his cock go. It bounced on his pelvis, tore a painful cry from his throat as he felt his pleasure wash away once again. “I need an answer, Kook.”

And he said the first thing that came into his mind. “Your pussy, baby, please.”

A smile tugged on your lips — it seemed as if that word wasn’t so hard to say anymore. “Of course, you’ve been so good.” You moved around until you were sinking down on him, feeling that fantastic stretch all over again, and earning a shaky moan from his part. You only spoke up again after you were sure he couldn’t go any deeper. “Kook?” You called. His pleading eyes shot up at you. “Wanna fuck me?”

He breathed out, just a tremulous gush of air that he could barely get ahold of. “Y-Yes, yes, please.”

You hummed, wiggling your ass around just so you could watch his face contort in despair, crumbling under the delicious drag of your plump walls around his cock. Jungkook almost looked cute, you dared to think, even if you were sure he would fold you in half the second that he got those ropes off. It was like teasing a tiger in a zoo: people only felt brave enough to do it because there was a thick glass between them. “You better do it, then,” you told him.

After everything you had put him through, Jungkook seemed almost hesitant to do so. “C-Can I move?” He asked, just to be sure. Last thing he needed was to do something wrong and have you walking out on him. His cock was so hard, leaking inside you, and he didn’t believe that he could handle being left like that.

“Of course,” you told him, the tenderness of your voice so different from what you sounded like all night. Jungkook was still on the palm of your hand, but your victory when it came to making him beg had already been achieved. So you could relax and let him do the heavy lifting for once. Being active was exhausting sometimes. “Come on, Kook,” you egged him on, leaning forward so you could find support on his chest. You knew what was coming. “Fuck me.”

That seemed to be the last spark he needed to ignite his fire because, soon enough, he was placing both feet on the mattress and thrusting upwards, your body collapsing forward under the force of his movements. Jungkook barely gave you any time to breathe: he fucked you fast and deep, helped by the gravity of your weight above him; shallow breaths and noisy whines leaving his mouth in a beautiful cacophony of sounds. It wasn’t long before he was making you bounce on his cock, pretty moans melting upon your lips as you fought to keep your balance over him.

“B-Baby,” Jungkook stammered, an airy, high-pitched moan sounding from his parted mouth. His brain was utterly bewildered by the movement of your body above his own, the bouncing of your breasts and the wild fluttering of your eyelashes. And those moans, those gorgeous, ethereal little sounds that you reserved just for him. “S-So perfect. All mine.”

“All yours,” you said promptly, struggling to meet his gaze. No matter how much you tried, you could not follow the speed of his thrusts, so you simply kept your body in place as he used it as he pleased. “Is this what you wanted?”

He nodded, mouth falling open. His lips were pouty and swollen, slightly red from the way he had bitten them before. “Wanna cum,” he breathed out, “inside you.”

No pretty please, you realized. Perhaps it wasn’t your best call to ask him to fuck you, because it dawned on you that you had just handed Jungkook his esteemed control back on a silver platter. That started simply as a doubt in the corners of your mind, however, you were sure that you had lost that battle once his needy whimpers started to wash away, instead replaced by the guttural, rough groans that he usually presented to you.

Not that you truly cared about it: you had already proven your point.

His head leaned to the side, pressing against his elevated arm. Jungkook was hypnotized by the way that your bodies met, the way you held yourself up so he could fuck himself inside you. You were always so good for him. “Your pussy feels so fucking amazing, baby,” Jungkook moaned out, hips snapping up against yours. A hiss dripped from his mouth when he felt you clench around him, signaling that you were close once again. “Look so pretty. Made for my cock.”

“Y-Yes,” you stammered, head falling back. You could feel that familiar tingling at the bottom of your stomach, your orgasm ready to snap once more. Jungkook always fucked you so well, even when his hands were tied up, always left your brain scrambling after the most basic of words. “I’m c-close.”

Jungkook tried once more to pull at his restraints, but it simply wouldn’t bulge. The contrast between the red ropes and the dark ink decorating his skin was beautiful, the veins of his hands getting thicker as tugged again and again. Jungkook was beyond the realms of reason by that point, struggling like a caged animal because there was nothing else in the world that he wanted more than to touch; to suck your breasts and to fuck you the way he wanted to. “Gonna cum too, baby,” his voice was almost a roar, deep and frustrated. It shot straight up to your core, made you tip over the edge and come down spasming around his cock, your high washing over you. “That’s it, cream my cock,” he praised. In the background of your overwhelmed state, you could feel as his member throbbed inside you, ready to release. “Take everything for me, alright? Wanna fill you up.”

You barely had any time to nod before he was spilling himself inside you, a long, throaty moan dripping like sin from his lips. Jungkook tried to keep his movements up for a bit longer, delighting himself in the way you winced at the feeling, but even he had grown too tired to continue it. So, at last, he collapsed back against the mattress, sweaty hair falling over his eyes.

“Get up,” he commanded, breathless. “Let me see it.”

With shaky movements, you did as he requested, planting one hand on his thigh so you could raise your body. His cock slipped out at the motion, already softening, but his gaze was stuck on the gradual dripping of his cum between your pussy lips. As much as you were used to that specific request, it always made your legs weak when you looked at him during that part — no matter what happened before, Jungkook always had that maniac expression plastered all over his face, like the mere image of his cum slipping out of you was enough to send him into a frenzy all over again. And, most times, it was.

“Good girl,” his dark stare slowly navigated towards your eyes. His arms were surprisingly still, no longer battling against the ropes, and there was something ominous about that. “Push it back in.”

Because you didn’t want to anger him any further, you agreed. It was almost impressive how quickly Jungkook was able to take back his control: even with him being immobilized, you were still folding and following his wishes like it was your second nature. “Like this?” You asked, using two of your fingers to stuff his cum back inside.

“Yeah, just like that.” He breathed out, the final seconds of his exhale morphing into a low growl. “Now, ___,” he called, eyes still glued to your pussy. “Untie me.”

You almost wanted to go against that, given the way he was about to break you in half, but that wasn’t probably the brightest of ideas. A bit nervous, you moved off his lap and sat down next to him, hands flying to undo the knots. “Hang on,” you requested. From the corners of his vision, you could see Jungkook staring you down, his piercing eyes focused on your face, silently watching you through the curtain of his black hair. At last, you managed to undo the ropes, the thick material falling beside you as Jungkook lowered his arms and started to massage his wrists. “How are your hands? I hope it wasn’t—“

“Lay down.” He interrupted, dry. Your mouth fell shut — none of your usual sarcastic remarks finding their way past the lump in your throat.

The softness of the pillow was a welcomed sensation, but your body could not relax, not when Jungkook was still looking at the pink marks on his inked skin, thinking about what he was going to do to you. You waited for what seemed like hours until he finally moved around, arms on either side of your head and chest pressed flush against yours. Jungkook’s heat was asphyxiating, his nose bumping against yours as he placed a small, tender kiss on your lips. He was being too calm, you noticed that instantly; still waters with sharks swimming underneath.

“Silly girl,” he mumbled against your mouth, fingers pressing on either side of your jaw. Jungkook pulled your mouth open, thumb caressing your lower lip as he stared down at you like an arrogant monarch. You felt terribly small, shrinking under his presence. “It’s not my hands that you should be worrying about.” He smirked, and his thumb paused its tender motions on your lip. He sighed. “Now that you had your fun, I’m gonna have mine.”

Jungkook was right: his wrists were red the next day. He naively thought that no one would be able to see it through his tattoos, but Taehyung, even in his hungover stupor, had his detective eye ready and noticed the marks right away. There was absolutely no way all his crime documentaries made him such an expert, Jungkook thought, but couldn’t really be sure of it.

“You know… things like this only make me more curious,” Taehyung said after Jungkook had refused to tell him who had come over the previous night. He was munching on his sandwich like his life depended on it, brows furrowed into a perfect picture of concentration. There was jelly all over his mouth, pulling up the corners of his lips and making Taehyung look like a terrible, discount copy of the joker. “Like, a chick tied you up? Come on, I have to meet someone like that. It’s a matter of, like, survival, some alpha wolf bullshit—“

“Fuck off,” Jungkook cut him short, burying his face on his hands. He was too tired to deal with any of that. “I never want to hear about you or your wolves ever again.”

check out the rest of the bad influence collection!

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sunrisefairy · 4 years ago

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Annoying

Paring: Remus Lupin x fem!reader Warning: NSFW! MDNI 18+ unprotected sex, swearing, mentions of oral sex. If I’ve forgotten anything let me know! Summary: Remus finds the reader so annoyingly distracting. A/N: for the anon that wanted a mix of enemies to lovers and Remus losing control near the full moon. I hope I did it justice. Requests are open!

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Remus Lupin isn’t one to hate people, sure there is only a select few people that he actually likes spending time with and considers his good friends but that doesn’t mean that he dislikes everyone else, he just doesn’t have time for a lot of people, especially annoying people. And some people are just more annoying than others and most times those people don’t even realise they’re acting as such. Except for the girl who is basically in every one of his classes, you. Remus is certain you know how infuriating you are, especially when you shoot your hand up to beat Remus to answering a question or how a smile will stretch across your pretty lips when you finds out you scored higher than Remus on a test or how you always seems to giggle a little louder when you knows Remus is nearby. Remus finds it irritating how you seems to know exactly how to get on his nerves, you know precisely how to make his cheeks heat up in anger and make his blood boil and his cock hard, okay maybe you don’t realise you’re doing the last one but still. But the thing that annoys Remus the most is you don’t seem to care.

Being friends with James Potter and Sirius Black, Remus has learnt to obtain the patience of a saint. He finds no trouble in zoning out their constant chatter and ignoring their mindless bickering. However, as it gets closer to a full moon, Remus’ tolerance wears thin and the marauders quickly learnt to simmer down and be wary of Remus around a full moon, unless either one of them wanted a smack to the back of the head. As it gets closer to his transformations Remus’ senses are heightened tenfold, it’s as if he can hear every sound, smell every scent and everything he tastes is 10 times more intense.

His joints were aching more than usual last night so that combined with Peters constant snoring ensured minimal sleep which resulted in Remus being extra irritable today which would have been manageable if he didn’t have a class first thing with you. Beautiful, cute, annoying you.

Remus thought if he could just spend the lesson concentrating hard enough on the professors dull voice that you sitting in the same room as him wouldn’t be an issue, it wasn’t like he sat next to you anyway, James or Sirius always occupied the desk next to him eager to ‘share’ his notes. Expect this day was different, because Remus got little sleep last night he slept through his alarm and somehow even slept through the booming voices of the Marauders when they were getting ready this morning. Remus started off the day jumping out of bed and rushing to get ready, having no time for breakfast (which added to his already foul mood) and practically falling through the classroom door only to find his usual seat was pre-occupied by some girl Sirius was trying to woo and James was sitting next to Pete.

“Ah, Mr. Lupin. How fantastic to see you have finally decided to join us. Please find a seat so I can continue on with my lesson,” the Professor states before continuing his lifeless lesson.

Remus quickly scans the room for a free chair to rush to, he spots one in the far corner of the room but falters in his step when he notices who is seated next to the free space, you. Remus groans when he realises this was the only free chair and very obviously drags his feet before plopping down beside you, he can only hope you decided to not be annoyingly distracting today.

“How scandalous that Mr. prefect is late to class,” you whisper, chuckling when you see Remus roll his eyes, a usual reaction of his.

Remus comes to the conclusion that the best point of action is to just pretend you don’t exist, which goes according to plan until 3 quarters of the way through the lesson. The thing is, Remus hasn’t sat in such close proximity to you this close to a full moon before and he’s struggling to keep his focus on the jumble of words in front of him and not on the way you’re obnoxiously twirling your hair between your fingers. Whatever perfume you sprayed on yourself is suffocating Remus’ nostrils and he can’t get enough. Within no time Remus thoughts are straying away from his textbook to more filthy thoughts surrounding you. The main image that is burning a hole in his brain is the thought of burying his face in your neck and inhaling your scent and sinking his teeth into your perfect skin, he has to bite his lip to stop himself from groaning.

Remus manages to write 2 more messy sentences down before glancing in your direction and noticing the way your lip is pulled between your teeth and he can’t help but fantasise about biting your annoyingly pretty lips himself.

“Stop doing that,” Remus grits through his teeth as he speaks.

You meet his gaze confused, “stop doing what?”

“That!” Remus whisper yells, pointing at your lips as you once again pull your bottom lip in between your lip. “It’s distracting.”

You mumble an apology and go back to writing your notes. You’re so engrossed in reading the selected chapter you don’t even notice you’re bouncing your leg up and down rapidly until a rough hand stills your movements. You’re expecting Remus to remove his large hand once your movements stop, however to your surprise he keeps his hand resting firmly against your bare knee. Mouth agape and staring down at where Remus is touching you, the way his thumb is stroking at your skin seems innocent enough, so why is your stomach in knots?

Remus leans dangerously close to your ear, which thankfully goes unnoticed by the rest of the class given the fact the two of you are seated at the back of the room. “You are being very distracting right now bunny, it’s making me angry.”

A visible shudder runs through your body, feeling Remus’ hot breath fanning the side of your face makes your mouth dry. Remus’ low teasing voice makes you whimper immediately a heat rushes up your cheeks because even though your whimper was quiet Remus is so very close to you right now, you know he heard.

“Come with me,” Remus squeezes your knee and moves to rise from his seat.

You halt his movements by grabbing onto his bicep, “we can’t just leave, we’re in the middle of class.” Your eyes dart to the front of the room to see if your professor has witnessed Remus’ half standing and planning his escape.

“What’s life without a bit of risk bunny, now c’mon.” his tone demanding and firm. Without even a second glance Remus walks out of class, making you wonder if he’s done this before. The odds are high, given that he’s one fourth of the infamous marauders clan.

You look away from the door Remus just so carelessly walked out of and to the front of the class at your professor, he’s sitting at his desk reading over papers and very obviously trying to stay awake. The chances of him catching you are slim but that isn’t what you’re nervous about. You’re nervous about what will happen if you do make it out of the classroom unnoticed, you’re nervous about what Remus will do to you. The endless possibilities are both thrilling and exciting. There’s no way you could stay seated not when there’s a wetness pooling in your panties just from Remus’ hand on your knee.

Carefully you slip out from your seat and rush to the door, breathing a sigh of relief when you successfully make it out into the corridor. Looking around you notice the corridor is empty and there’s no sign of Remus, you begin walking down the hallway in search of the boy.

“Remus?” you’re met with nothing but silence. Just as you’re about to turn and head back to class you feel a strong arm grip yours and tug your harshly into a tiny room.

“Ooft,” your body slamming into someone’s hard chest; if only there was a light source in this closet? yes it’s definitely a closet, if only it wasn’t so dark in here you would be able to figure out who decided it a good idea to scare the shit out of you by pulling you in here with them.

“Took your fucking time,” the other person grunts, Remus you thought, you knew that voice.

“Remus, what the hell? Care to explain why your dragged me out of class and into this dark broom closet?” Although there is no light in the tiny closet you can vaguely see Remus’ outline towering over you, you gulp realising how close the both of you are standing to each other. Remus’ hot breath fans your face and you’re very aware that if you were to angle your head further upwards and stand on your tiptoes you could connects your lips. The thought itself has you shuddering.

“Couldn’t wait.” Remus replies, stepping closer, invading your personal space even more, not that you minded.

“Couldn’t wait for what?”

“Merlin you’re dumber than I thought if you don’t know.”

You scoff defensively, “I am not dumb, do I have to remind you I bet you on the last Charms essay? and on the transfigurations one so-”

The words die in your throat, Remus cutting you off by connecting your lips in a needy and desperate kiss. Immediately you wrap your arms around his neck and tug him closer by the hair. Remus rests his hands on your waist pulling your hips flush against his, you whimper feeling his hard cock pressing against your stomach.

Remus breaks away from your mouth and starts sucking and licking down your jaw and neck while his hands move to grope at your breasts over the top of your school shirt. “We don’t have much time before class ends.” Remus mumbles into your skin, his mouth is salivating when he breathes in deep, his nostrils filling with the sweet scent of you, it’s so intoxicating and immediately images of you are accompanying his mind, some more sinful than others. Remus wastes no time in sinking his teeth into the fleshy part of your shoulder, his cock twitching at the sound you make.

“Then you better hurry up and fuck me Remus,” you smirk, loving the way Remus groans and narrows his eyes at you. His pupils have seemingly expanded and darkened, his eyes are scanning over every inch of your face leaving you feeling vulnerable.

Your pussy has been throbbing since Remus firmly rested his hand on your leg back in the classroom and you know your panties are soaked by now with the way Remus is rutting his hips against yours but it’s not enough. It won’t be enough, not until you know what it’s like to have Remus’ skin against yours and his cock inside you but even then, you think you will always be wanting more of him.

Your hands are fumbling at Remus’ pants trying to get them unbuckled as quickly as possible, Remus understands the rush and helps you, skilfully undoing his pants and pushing them along with his boxers down his legs with only one hand, the other creeps under your shirt and rests delicately on the small of your back. Just the feeling of Remus’ skin on your back makes you melt further into him, your desire to have him fuck you hard and fast is becoming unbearable. Remus’ cock is sitting hard and angrily between your bodies, desperate for any sort of attention and Remus wishes you had more time because he would love to push you down to your knees and finally force you to shut up by pushing his cock into your sweet mouth and make you gag and choke around his length until you’re crying. But time isn’t on his side right now so instead Remus wraps his strong arms around your arse, silently signally you to jump which you do with no hesitation and lock your legs around his waist.

Remus reaches his hand down to flip your skirt up, he be damned if he couldn’t see the cunt he’s spent way to much time thinking about. Remus pull your panties to the side groaning when his fingers graze your wet dripping core, another thing he wishes he could do is to taste you. He just knows you taste sugary and sweet just like the sounds you’re making as he teases your entrance. He wants to bury his face deep in your cunt inhaling your scent while he licks and sucks until you’re screaming his name, maybe another time.

“You gotta be quiet for me kay bunny? Think you can do that?” Remus’ voice is thick with lust and a condescending tone is laced throughout it.

“You think that highly of yourself?” you retort trying to rile Remus up like you normally do, it seems to be working judging by the way Remus pinches the flesh of your arse.

Without breaking eye contact Remus lines up his cock and drags your hips down until he’s deep inside you, his balls pressed flush against your skin.

Remus isn’t sure if it’s because it’s close to the full moon but he hasn’t even started moving yet and the way the soft velvet walls of your cunt is gripping and hugging at his cock feels so intense and heavenly, he thinks he might cum right there.

Along with a lack of patience around this time of the month Remus also struggles to control himself and his urges. It takes every ounce of self-discipline in him to hold you against the rough wall of the broom closet and slowly rock his hips into yours, feeling the need to control the situation. Remus is very conscious of not gripping your hips too hard and not slamming his hips up into yours too roughly, he doesn’t want to let go mentally and hurt you.

You can tell Remus is holding back, the authoritative tone used in the classroom is vastly different to his actions right now. He’s supposed to be fucking you hard and fast and making you scream, not this.

Although the pleasure from Remus’ rocking into your cunt is great you know he can do better, can fuck you better. “Remus,” you whine, pulling his face away from your neck, forcing him to look you in the eyes. There’s clearly an internal struggle behind his eyes. “Remus, I need you to fuck me properly. I can take it, you won’t break me, promise.”

Remus does pick up the speed slightly, but you can clearly tell there’s still some hesitance on his behalf and you asking nicely didn’t seem break that. You’re desperate for Remus to let go. A smirk breaks out onto your face, an idea forming. Based on your previous interactions you know exactly how to get under Remus’ skin, what to say and do that would have him clenching his jaw in annoyance, after all it was a hobby of yours, annoying Remus Lupin. “Guess we don’t have to worry about me being quiet if you fuck like this. Pity, was kinda hoping you’d have me screaming.”

Something deep and primal in him snaps, blame it on the full moon or how you’re silently challenging him, he doesn’t care, all he cares about right now is proving you wrong, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had you trembling and shaking.

His grip on your hips tighten, nails threatening to break skin as Remus pushes your further into the wall behind you so hard for a second you think you might go tumbling right through it. You’re grateful for the material of your school top slightly soften the rough texture of the wall behind you. With no warning Remus starts slamming his hips harder and faster into yours, clearly set on making you squirm against him. Each thrust is harder than the last and his cock is poking your g-spot repeatedly. The sounds you were making were positively indecent and only fuelled Remus on. Neither of you cared that anyone walking by the broom closet could possibly hear the sound of skin slapping together or yours and Remus’ moans. None of that mattered, not when the two of you felt this good.

The vigour of Remus’ pace was unmatched and all you could do was hold on tight to Remus’ shoulders and take every powerful thrust. You were hypnotised with the feeling of Remus’ cock inside of you, you couldn’t help but wonder what other parts of his body like his fingers or tongue, would feel like when fucking you.

“Fuck Remus, so good. I-I” you weren’t even sure what you were trying to say, all your thoughts were jumbled and bouncing around in your brain, all you knew is you never wanted Remus to stop.

“You feel amazing,” Remus’ body was on fire, every inch of him alight and burning, his annoyance of how his day started was far from his mind. All he could think of was you and how you were clenching around him. He chokes out a strained sob when he hears you chanting his name in time with each rough snap of his hips, you sound both angelic and sinful at the same time, Remus’ wishes he had one of those muggle voice recording devices so he could record your whines and listen to them when he’s alone in his dorm room.

Using his free hand Remus reaches down to rub tight circles on your clit edging you closer and closer to your release. Your orgasm is fast approaching much like a freight train heading straight for you, sirens blaring but you can’t move, the pleasure is too intense and too powerful to do anything except take it.

Remus’ face is pressed back against your neck and he quickly decides it’s his favourite place to be, if someone offered him 1,000 Galleons to never bury his face in your neck, he wouldn’t take it. Remus can hear the squelching sounds of your soppy cunt as it helplessly takes his fat cock. He’s leaving sloppy kisses and hickeys wherever he can get his mouth. It’s right when Remus’ digs his teeth into your neck and bites down hard do you fall apart, your pussy clenching and spasming around him, right in this moment you’re thankful for Remus holding you up against the wall, your legs are shaking and tensing and you know if you were standing the intensity of the orgasm would have brought you to your knees. Remus’ name is the only word you seem capable of saying as the coil inside your stomach snaps and rapidly unravels as you come undone.

“Remus, Remus, Remus!”

You connect your lips with Remus’ in a lame attempt to shut yourself up, the kiss is rushed and your teeth clash together but you don’t give a fuck. Remus’ name is still spilling from your lips and into Remus’ mouth as your body begins to come down from the high.

The boy holding you up hasn’t faltered in his movements at all, determined to fuck you through your orgasm. There’s beads of sweat dripping from Remus’ forehead, his mind is whirling and thoughts of you are spiralling around his brain, he thinks he might pass out and he’s certain he does for a second when you whisper and bite his earlobe.

“Want you to cum inside me Remus, fill me up,” half a thrust later and Remus’ hips stutter and he’s spilling into your cunt groaning your name as he does so. His vision blurs around the edges before he closes his eyes and he lets out a moan so deep, primal and loud. Remus continues to rock his hips milking his own orgasm until the last drop is squeezed from his soften cock. He stills his movements but doesn’t dare pull out just yet, relishing in the warmth of your pussy and the way your hand is brushing the sweaty hair off his forehead. You rest your forehead against Remus’ sweaty one, pecking his lips, once, twice then three times.

“That was…” you drift off unable to find the right words to describe what just happened.

“Intense?” Remus offers breathlessly.

You nod, “in the best way.”

It wasn’t until you hear the sounds of students outside signalling the end of class do either of you move, Remus helping you clean yourself up. And it wasn’t until the two of you were certain the coast was clear did you exit the closet with the promise of doing that again very soon.

#Remus Lupin #remus lupin x reader #Remus Lupin smut #Remus Lupin x you #Remus Lupin imagines #remus lupin imagine #elles recs #smutty recs #smut

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aliatori · 3 years ago

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Masterpost | The Forsaken and the Forsworn

“When Gabriel reacts, he expects to reach down, draw the knife from his belt, and finally slit Hugo’s lying throat. That’s what he thinks he’s going to do. It’s what he’s been swearing he’d do every day for nearly five years.”

The Forsaken and the Forsworn started back in April 2021 as an exchange assignment for the pairing of Pirate Captain/Naval Officer Stranded With Him on an Uninhabited Island. Thanks in no small part to my recipient-turned-dear-friend @liodain (who also made the header art in this post!), it has become a mini-fandom in and of itself and continues to bring inordinate amounts of both joy and creative inspiration.

If you think you’d like…

messy queer, trans pirate-priests who are soulbonded to an eldritch deity as part of their cult

strangers to shipmates to lovers to enemies to ??? with multiple counts of attempted murder

explorations of the razor edge between love and hate

dark magic and tentacles and secrets galore

explosive scorpio + aries dynamics

trauma and faith and the steep cost of both

morally grey-to-black characters allowed to lean into their flaws

worldbuilding full of mysterious deities and locales

Look no further! I’ve done my best to collect the available writing, art, and other media set in/about the F&F universe. Under the cut to save your dash!

[Last update: April 18, 2024]

WRITING

GABRIEL BERTHELOT/HUGO MELANÇON:

The Forsaken and the Forsworn (18k | E rated) - Five years after Commodore Hugo Melançon leaves the fold of pirate-priests he once lived amongst and sailed for, he finds himself stranded on an unknown island—along with Furysworn Gabriel Berthelot, the first mate and lover he left behind.

The Faithless and the Forlorn (18k | E rated) by @liodain - A canon divergence exploration of F&F’s ending, complete with 150% more delightful antagonism and messy feelings.

The Fate and the Furor (137k | E rated) - The direct sequel to The Forsaken and the Forsworn. Gabriel and Hugo must work together one last time to achieve their own ends… if they can.

Forged in Blood and Lightning (4k | M rated) - The story of how Hugo became captain of the Screaming Squall and Furysworn in the one fell swoop.

everything black (1.5k words | M rated) - Gab and Hugo attend a revel where several kinds of tension finally boil over.

Revel and Reprieve (4k | E rated) - Hoping to enjoy a rare moment of downtime back at the fold, Hugo’s first mate has other ideas.

A Dangerous Habit (12k words | E rated) - Delayed from setting sail, Gab and Hugo do what they do best: get into trouble. This time, it involves shotgunning and creative applications of lightning magic.

Goes Down So Easy, Comes Back So Hard (2.3k words | M rated) - Gab reaches out to and for Hugo, in more ways than one.

rise and fall (2k words | T rated) - The fold doesn’t celebrate namedays in the way of the mainland, but Hugo still gets given a gift all the same.

A Heartbeat Ripe with Thunder (9k | M rated) - Born and raised to succeed the Matriarch of Watcher’s Cove, Gab rails against the weight of expectations.

Opening Gambits (3k words | T rated) - Half a year after Gabriel and Hugo’s contentious reunion in the Unchartables, a new storm brews on the horizon.

Kinktober 2021 randoms: breathplay/leather | tentacles | body worship | bloodplay

Kinktober 2022 by @liodain (various kinks, labeled for each work)

Kinktober 2022 randoms: spanking

Genuflection (7k | E rated) by @liodain and @aliatori - Gab and Hugo hit their breaking points post-separation.

The Silence on Sacred Shores (6k words | E rated) by @liodain - Hugo may not be lying to Gab, but he sure isn’t telling the truth.

caught up in his design (3k words | E rated) - The compulsion between Hugo and Gab takes a messy turn.

drip down the bluff (3k words | E rated | CNTW) by @liodain - Hugo and Gabriel partake in a filthy ablution.

Leap of Faith (3k words | M rated) - Old habits guide the way to new horizons as Gabriel and Hugo prepare to leave the Enclave.

OTHER PAIRINGS AND GEN:

Objects of Power (4k words | E rated | Ciel Galanis/Jihane N’Ait) - Jihane’s a busy woman, but she still finds ways to take her ease.

Trust and Defying (2k words | M rated | Hugo Melançon/Vidakai) - Vidakai rewards Hugo for a precious secret.

Thread the Needle (10.5k words | E rated | Gabriel Berthelot/Jihane N’Ait) - Gabriel always thought the whole point of politicking was mess—that is, until Jihane introduces him to a different set of standards.

Light as a Feather, Dark as Brine (2.5k | T rated | Hugo Melançon) - After reaching his ten-and-sixth Rising, a young Hugo makes an important decision.

ART

You liar, you coward, you snake by @liodain - Gab and Hugo stare each other down during their contentious reunion; the piece that started it all.

Relish and Refrain by @liodain - A surefire way of summoning Gabriel Berthelot is to hope for some peaceful solitude. In this instance, Hugo doesn’t mind that much.

Altars to Ashes by @liodain - Religious shotgunning? Religious shotgunning.

Come Down to the Black Sea by @liodain - Immensely romantic underwater kissing I’m still screaming about. ’#keep your bellicose first mate calm by periodically submerging him in salt water’

l'amoureux à l'envers by @liodain - a tarot take on the Lovers but make it Hubriel, and also a solid attempt on my life with how soul-destroyingly wonderful it is

War Hymns by @liodain - Get drawn in by the stunning cover art, stay for the absolute bangers of mini-playlists (also linked below)

Just a Shipwreck in Your Ocean by @liodain - Celebrating F&F’s one year anniversary by lovely, shippy artwork moments before deep betrayal!

The soul-destroying Sparrow/Lucien or Lucrow forehead kiss by @roadsoftrial

roi d'épée by @liodain - A tarot interpretation of Hugo as the King of Swords

l'empereur by @liodain - A tarot interpretation of Gab as the Emperor

A myriad of wonderful pieces by @liodain, in reverse chronological order: Gab and Hugo were meant to kiss in the rain | Gab and Hugo indulging in some shotgunning | Post-Fate Hugo and all his scars | Hugo and Vidakai share a secret | Just Little Guy versions of Gab and Hugo through the years | Post-Fate horrible baby bastard boy Gab | A delightful collection of sketches throughout the F&F timeline | Gab and Hugo share a moment in Fate & Furor | Hugo Thirst Hours, With A Knife! | Dream AND nightmare tbh | A quiet moment of rest in the night | I could fix him… except I don’t want to | Gab gets the sword at his throat he asks for | Stormy kissing in the rain | Alt version of Gab’s playlist cover art featuring Aries levels of intensity | Hugo letting his hair down for this birthday | Gab belongs in the sea, it’s true (cw blood) | Hugo’s back post-fold (cw scars) post fold | Blasphemous kinky focus touching | Gorgeous and terrifying Gab from F&F | Our fave having a murderous good time (cw blood) | The header picture from this post! | Big Pirate Couple Energy (cw blood) | Late night rendezvous | peak!Furysworn Hugo | Hugo having his ‘Oh no, he’s hot’ moment re: Gab | Gab and Hugo in an inn room pre-erotic destruction | The Infamous Shaving Picture I Have Framed In My Heart | Matching Portraits

PLAYLISTS

the forsaken and the forsworn - my obsessively curated, narrative driven playlist for these two messy bastards who I adore

until the storm passes | hubriel by @liodain - i.e. responsible for more than half of my On Repeat for the past five months

watcher in the deep | gabriel & xeheia by @liodain - A mini-playlist ‘for the unholy prince of pirates embracing his eldritch storm goddess and protecting what’s his’

swallower of secrets | hugo & vidakai by @liodain - A mini-playlist ‘ for the machinating commodore navigating a pact with an enigmatic deity and preparing to wreck everyone’s shit’

drink the brine | xeheia’s fold by @liodain - if you want some ultimate Xeheia’s fold ambiance, check this one out

cloudburst | gabriel berthelot - Gab’s character-specific playlist

keraunograph | hugo melançon - Hugo’s character-specific playlist

#the forsaken and the forsworn #ch: gabriel berthelot #ch: hugo melançon #hubriel #lucrow #welcome to my favourite maritime fantasy horror sandbox #with one of my favourite people #where everyone is queer and trans and gets to be a mess

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duskholland · 4 years ago

Text

Zip It || Peter Parker

prompt ↠ “oh, you want to kiss me so fucking bad, don’t you?” / “... what if I do?”

summary ↠ you didn’t think it could get any worse than the shared bed at the hotel, but then you find out you have to pretend to be peter’s girlfriend for the duration of the mission. it really feels like the universe is laughing in your face. ↠ enemies to lovers, fake dating, college au. word count ↠ 6.3k. warnings ↠ alcohol + a college party, brief use of needles, all the teasing and cursing that comes with an enemies to lovers, and some suggestive tension! this is sfw! a/n ↠ I love this prompt. I’ve wanted to write something based off it for ages, and what better scenario to explore it than in an enemies to lovers fake dating situation lmao? :’) it’s been a while since I wrote anything long with pete so I’m a lil rusty, but this was still a lot fun! I hope you like it

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“Are you falling asleep right now? Seriously?” Your voice is scathing, your face pinched into a scowl as you stare across the hotel room. “Peter, we have to go in an hour.”

There’s the sound of the duvet rustling as Peter Parker very slowly looks up to glare at you. He’s sprawled beneath the covers of the large double bed, the sheets pulled up to his chin. The heat he carries in his eyes as he hears your accusation is considerably softened by the oversized burgundy hoodie he’s being swallowed by, and the fact his hair is wild and unkempt.

“No,” he says, voice cracking from its high pitch. He clears his throat immediately, cheeks flushing a little darker as he grimaces and looks away. “I’m just...chilling, Y/N.”

“Sure,” you reply. You shift around in the uncomfortable armchair in the corner of the room, feeling pain shoot up your back from the hunched position you’ve been in for far too long. “Liar.”

Peter sits up a little straighter, pulling a face. It’s quick to shatter as he yawns suddenly, and loudly, the sound so brash and unexpected that it makes you jump. Amusement mixes with his annoyance as he looks at you, brown eyes glinting almost amber beneath the light from the bedside lamp.

“I’m not lying. I’m just enjoying this really comfy bed,” he says. His pink lips quirk into a smirk, and he looks so fucking smug as he buries himself back beneath the covers. “It’s so warm. I think the, uh, the sheets are satin. Feels like a cloud, or something. And the pillows…” Peter releases a strangled sound, hitting the back of his head off one of the feathery pillows for dramatic effect. “So nice… Um, unrelated, Y/N, but… how’s that chair? Looks pretty uncomfortable.”

You scowl. “Shut up,” you snap. “You’re completely insufferable. I can’t believe I have to be here with you right now.” You drop your voice, speaking in mutters as you add, more to yourself, “why couldn’t it be Cap? Or Natasha? Why’d it have to be you?”

Peter releases a mirthless chuckle. You glance back, watching as he combs a hand through his fluffy brown curls, messy and wild from so long lounging around. He looks a little bit like an angry teddy bear, wrapped up in such a large hoodie, tucked up in bed. You’re quick to push down that thought. There is nothing cute or inoffensive about Peter Parker.

“Do you think I’m any happier than you about this?” he responds, voice dull. “This is the worst mission I’ve ever been assigned to, and that’s saying a lot. Do you remember that one we did, with the, uh, the… The chemicals? In the lab? Or the time that we had to go and deal with all those freaky alien snakes?” he breaks off, shivering, then recomposes himself enough to shoot you a sour look. “This is worse than all of those times.”

The ache in your back from the chair grows too much to bear, so you stand up slowly, trying to hide your expression of pain.

“Well, hopefully, we’ll get this over with soon,” you reply, voice a mutter. You cast him a distrustful look. “I might kill you if I have to spend much longer with you.”

Peter just smirks, rolling onto his side as he snuggles back into bed. “Feeling’s mutual, baby,” he calls out, looking back at his phone.

You sigh, rolling your eyes as you stalk over to your suitcase and pull out your outfit for tonight, followed by a bag of makeup and hair products. You don’t bother to say anything more as you stride into the bathroom, slamming the door behind you for effect. The moment it’s shut, you throw everything down on the counter and grab at the cool porcelain of the basin, staring yourself in the mirror as you try to calm down.

Peter makes you so frustrated. Since high school and the cramped hallways of Midtown, he’s been an irritant to you. Back then, he was always hanging around, crowding your space, infiltrating your friend group. You understood it, at first. He was a new addition to the Avengers, a team you’ve been a part of since you were 14. Maybe it was to be expected that he clung to you like he did back then, and stuck to your side like glue. Maybe you’d liked it at first.

But then he’d grown up. Peter had become cockier, bolder. The biggest transformation was when you both went to college and somehow ended up on the same course, sharing 90% of the same classes. You got to watch as he was scouted by the college lacrosse team, and thus his ego inflated. To most people, you know he appears charming. He’s polite, considerate, compassionate, and those qualities have awarded him both the attention of your entire college population and the acclaim of the citizens of New York. They herald him, repeatedly, as their saviour, and whilst you’re not jealous of the attention he gets, it irritates you.

Peter does stupid things, all the time, and everyone just lets him get away with it. Like when he accidentally webbed you down during a mission or tossed a bomb your way assuming you could magically diffuse it within the five seconds left on the timer. He steals your food from the fridge in the Avengers’ compound every single time, despite the notes and the padlocks you’ve resorted to using. It’s as if Peter is intent on ruining your life, and when he’s not doing it by fucking up a mission, he’s always just...there. Hanging around, with a sly smirk on his lips or a witty remark laying at the tip of his tongue, trying to get a rise out of you.

You can’t stand being around him.

To add insult to injury, you’ve both been roped into working this mission together. It’s an odd pairing—usually, you’d have at least one other member of the team to act as a buffer between you both. This time, though, with the objective being the infiltration of a college party, apparently you and Peter are the only people who look the right age. You think it’s just some elaborate ploy to get you to work better together, but your complaints had fallen on deaf ears.

You sigh as you look at your reflection in the mirror.

As you do your makeup and fix your hair, you try to let go of some of the frustration you feel. You’re jumpy and shaking, feeling like an uncontrollable livewire. You always feel oddly unsettled whenever you’re around Peter, and it’s only been growing worse recently.

A weight rolls from your shoulders when you finish painting your face and fixing your hair. All that’s left is your dress, and you pick it up with a smile on your face. It’s short, one of your own, and a pretty shade of red—the perfect number for a college party. You slip into it, wriggling as the silky material slides up to press against your soft skin. It’s going well, but then...

You can’t reach the zip.

“Fuck,” you mutter, scrunching up your nose as you reach back and paw helplessly at the undone zipper. You’d forgotten when you’d packed it that the high rise of the zip on this particular dress always gives you trouble. “Peter!”

“What?” he yells back.

You grimace and try a final time to grab the zipper yourself.

“Can you come here?”

“Is that how you ask for something politely?”

You inhale a shuddering breath, clenching your fists as you glance up at the ceiling. Through tight, irritated lips, you call back, “Peter Parker, oh generous and kind saviour of New York City, could you please come here and help me?”

You hear the sheets of the bed rustle very slowly, followed by the heavy set sounds of footsteps stomping over the carpet. You wonder if he’s being purposefully annoying, or if he’s just like this. A moment later, Peter opens the bathroom door, sticking his head around the doorframe with a scowl on his face. He opens his mouth to speak, only for the words to catch as his eyes bulge and take in your figure. You stand a little straighter, arching an eyebrow as you watch him swallow, deeply, taking in the tight fit of the dress and the way it clings confidently to your form.

“Uh- oh, uh, what?” he mutters, cheeks burning red.

“Can you get my zip? Please?” you ask, biting back a smile as you see how flustered he’s become. It gives you a rush of confidence that you can’t quite explain to have him looking at you like that. “It’s uh, just too high for me to reach.” You turn so you have your back to him, glancing into the long bathroom mirror to watch him tentatively step forward.

“Yeah,” he responds, voice gentle. He shuffles nearer, still shrouded in that soft hoodie.

You bend down slightly and make sure he’s got open access to the back as you stand still. A small pulse of electricity crackles down your spine when Peter perches one of his warm hands on your bare shoulder, fingertips brushing up against the thin strap as the other curves down to your back.

“You, uh… You look nice,” Peter murmurs. He’s gentle as his fingers tug the zip, and you have to look away from the mirror, something in your chest tightening as you observe how delicate he is with you. It’s a stark contrast to how haphazardly he treats you out on the field when you’re both protected by your suits.

“Thanks,” you whisper.

It’s tense. You can feel his breath coming out across the back of your neck, and you’re entirely aware of the hand resting on your shoulder. As the sound of the zip slowly being pulled up fills the small space of the bathroom, you find yourself holding your breath.

“There,” Peter mutters. He steps back, immediately pulling away all contact with your body, and your skin feels cold without him. You glance in the mirror, seeing that he’s fixed it perfectly, and give him a short nod.

“Thanks,” you say again, lacking any better words. Your brain feels fuzzy.

Peter’s phone buzzes and you watch as he digs through his front pocket to find it. “Oh!” he exclaims. His nimble fingers pad over the front screen. “They’ve sent through our fake identities.”

“Ooh,” you say, suddenly feeling excited. This is your favourite part of going undercover—the fake names, the fabricated social media accounts, and the backstory you get to spin. Whoever HQ designs for you becomes your character for the night, and it’s thrilling. Makes you feel a little bit like a movie star. “Let me see.”

Peter’s brows furrow and you watch his jaw drop as his eyes widen. He glances at you, nervousness mixing with his frustration.

“You’re not going to like this,” he says.

“Why? What are you talking about? What have they done? Why—”

He passes you the phone with a roll of his eyes, and you snatch it from his hand.

“Oh, yeah, no problem, Y/N, you don’t need to say thanks,” Peter says sarcastically.

Entranced by the phone, you sit on the marble bathroom counter, continuing to scroll through the fake social media profiles as Peter faffs around in front of the mirror. You’re numbly aware of him pulling off his hoodie, then inspecting his teeth and uncapping his tub of hair gel.

The profiles seem fine. You can’t see anything wrong with them. You’ll be Fi Hardy, Peter as Ben Beckerman. You scroll down your own orchestrated instagram feed, seeing photos of you, pictures of typical college things, then…

“Wait.” You feel your breath catch. “What the fuck.”

“Yeah.” You can hear the smirk in Peter’s voice. “I know.”

The tech team back at HQ is incredibly talented. One of their freakiest and most irritating skills is their ability to photoshop photos that look so real it’s disconcerting. Their latest feat seems to be a series of photos of you and Peter together, except, it’s not really you kissing his cheek, and it’s definitely not him with his arms wrapped around you and his face nuzzled into your neck.

“They...want us to be a couple?” you mutter, voice tight.

“Mmm. Gets worse than that, though. Look at the caption on the newest one.”

You scroll back up, eyes catching on the small, almost insignificant detail of the photo. It’s you both, again, standing together at a party that never took place. Your left-hand rests on Peter’s shoulder, and though some of the details are blurry, the presence of a ring is not.

@fi_hardy: feel like the happiest girl in the world. can’t wait to have you as my husband <3

Beneath the post is hundreds of likes, and a stream of comments from fake accounts congratulating the two of you on your engagement.

It makes sense, you suppose. You’ve read the file. You know that the man you’re trying to bug tonight has a history of pursuing taken women, and you suspect that your engagement ring might give you access to him that you might otherwise not get. On a basic level, you understand it, and if it was anyone else assigned as your fiancé, you’d be fine with it. But it’s not. It’s him.

You throw Peter’s phone on the counter angrily.

“Hey!” he yells, quickly snatching it up and cradling it close. “Careful!”

You slip down from the counter, your fingernails digging into the soft flesh of your palms as you pace the short space. Peter jumps out of your way, eyeing you with amusement in his eyes.

“Are you seriously laughing right now?” you quip, needing to direct your irritation at someone.

Peter shrugs. “Maybe. You’re being really dramatic.”

“Oh, well I’m sorry that I don’t particularly like the idea of walking around a party pretending to be engaged to you.” Your eyes widen as you start to think about what this actually entails. “Clearly, these people are gross and affectionate. Have you even thought about what that might mean?”

Peter loses a little bit of his confidence, his cheeks paling slightly. “Well, uh, we don’t have to play into it that much—”

“Yes, we do,” you challenge. “They’ve clearly set it up like this for a reason. If we don’t follow it exactly, then we’ll fuck up the mission.” You meet his gaze, nostrils flaring. “I’m not going to fuck up this mission, Peter, and you better not either.”

“Woah,” he mutters, throwing his hands in the air. His fingers glint beneath the harsh bathroom lighting, still partly sticky from the hair gel. “I’m not planning on messing up the mission.” He tilts his head to the side, chuckling. “I’m gonna be the most convincing fake fiancé you’ve ever had.”

You pause, crossing your arms. “Oh, really?” You raise a brow. “You know, that means you’re going to have to, like… Hold my hand.”

Peter nods, gelled hair staying in place. He copies your movements, biceps bulging against the thin white t-shirt as he folds his arms over his chest.

“Yeah,” he says. He steps a little closer, smirking, and you breathe in the scent of his cologne. “Might even have to kiss you, too.”

Something inside your chest rebels against your irritation, and you find yourself puzzling as an odd combination of emotions strikes you.

“You will,” you say, narrowing your eyes. You look away, trying to shake off the odd feelings in your stomach. “I, uh… I’m going to go and find the rest of my jewellery.” You walk towards the bathroom door, glancing back just in time to catch Peter’s eyes admiring your form. His cheeks flush again, and you raise a brow. “Hurry up,” you mutter. “We need to go.”

*:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧ *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧ *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

An hour later, you’re there, thrown thick into the fray of a Chicago house party. From the outside, you’d been sceptical—the house looked to be a normal building, smack bang in the centre of a residential street. Inside, though, it wears all the marks of a college party: tacky red cups, a terrible DJ, and a persistent level of noise that makes your ears ache. As a student yourself, you usually love parties, but you will admit it’s a little disconcerting to be at one where you know no one. Undercover and knowing no one but Peter, you find yourself in the back corner of the room with him, his arm thrown easily around your shoulders as the two of you scout the room.

Peter’s presence at your side is merely for protection, and both of you know it. With neither of you in your suits and your skills leaning more towards the pick-pocketing side than his, the plan is simple. You’ll both work together to identify your target, then you’ll discreetly take his phone and pass it off to Peter who will make a copy of all the files. Hopefully you’ll be able to return it to Harry Osborn, the son of the elusive CEO of Oscorp, before he notices that his phone, which contains precious information about illegal scientific experiments, has been taken.

It should be simple.

“Where the fuck is he?” you murmur, squinting your eyes as you survey the crowd. It’s Harry’s party, yet the host hadn’t been on the door, nor does he appear to be in the living room.

“Don’t know,” Peter responds.

You glance up at him, biting back a snarling comment as you get distracted by the sight of his face. It’s quite… It’s quite cute.

Peter’s pulled a blue plaid shirt over the top of his white t-shirt. The cuffs obscure the web shooters he’d refused to leave behind, and the material clings tightly to his torso. He’s buffed up considerably since joining the lacrosse team, and though you despise the way he’s now able to press more than you in the gym, you will admit he looks good with his chest full and muscular.

“Um, Fi?” Peter’s looking at you, eyebrows arched. His thin lips twitch into almost a smile, and he tugs you a little bit closer. You squeak as you fall into him, having to reach up and grab at his shoulders to steady yourself. The glint of the golden band, sitting on your ring finger, draws your attention. “Are you okay, baby? Looking a little bit… Distracted.”

He doesn’t know you were checking him out. There’s no way. He doesn’t.

...Does he?

You smile sweetly, trying to look at him like you’re in love. “Sorry, babe,” you respond. There are people all around you, chatting and swaying to the music, so you have to maintain the rouse. “Got a lot on my mind.”

Peter coos, reaching up to pat your cheek softly. You have to press down the urge to bite his finger.

“‘Course you do,” he soothes. His eyes flitter around your face, then back to the rest of the room as he surveys the crowd. Peter’s expression suddenly clears, and he pats your cheek softly. “He’s here,” he murmurs, voice low. “Eleven o’clock.”

You turn in his arms, sinking back into Peter’s form as he adjusts to hold you in a loose hug. His chin presses into your shoulder, slick hair brushing up against the bottom of your face. His warm grip on your waist makes you gulp.

Harry Osborn has entered the room. The blond is surrounded by a group of his friends and wearing a long, green and purple checkered jacket. Even from across the room, he emanates the stench of old money and thick charm.

“Alright,” you say. You pull away from Peter, having to fight for a few moments to break free from his firm grip. You turn back to look at him, blinking a few times as you take in his unreadable expression. “I’m going in. Stay close.”

Peter gives you a curt nod. “Gotcha,” he says. He drops his voice, eyes darkening. “Be safe,” he adds, voice a little quieter.

You swallow, nodding in return. “You too.”

Before he can say another word, you take off, melting into the crowd with ease. You’ve got a vague game plan building in your mind, but you won’t know the best way to get close to Harry until you get a better read on his character. You know a few things from his file, such as his naturally outgoing personality and a supposed affinity for taken girls, but beyond that, he’s a mystery.

You find a cup of cheap beer and stand fairly near Harry and the rest of his friends. There’s a few of them, standing in a circle, laughing loudly and talking in obscenities. You sway with the rest of the partiers, making direct and focused eyes towards him until he glances up and spots you. His eyes caress your figure, then he wiggles his eyebrows at you, and you slap on your best I’m interested face.

Harry excuses himself from his friends, walking over to you, intrigued.

“Hey,” he calls out, falling to a stop in front of you. His wavy blond curls complement the icy depths of his blue eyes. “Do I know you?” His tone is light but curious.

You nod immediately, slapping on a bright smile. “Yeah,” you reply. “We were in the same chem class last semester? I’m Fi.” Your words are instilled with so much brash confidence that Harry accepts them. He leans into you as you step closer and place your free hand up on his shoulder, fingertips feeling the soft material of his jacket. “I always had a bit of a crush on you, if I’m being honest.”

Harry chuckles, looking you up and down with hunger in his eyes. You match his movements, doing it under the guise of checking him out, but really, you’re trying to locate the position of his phone. A frown finds your lips as you begin to suspect it might be in one of his inner pockets. Your brain starts to spin, running through a variety of different actions you could pull that might give you closer access to him.

“You’re cute,” he decides. Harry smirks, then he plucks the red solo cup from your hand and raises it to his own lips. After draining it, he haphazardly throws it behind him, and your eyes follow it as it soars through the air and bounces off someone’s head. A snort slips past your lips as the figure jolts up, and you recognise the bed of brown curls as Peter. “D’you want to dance with me?”

You nod immediately, forcing a smile as you bring your eyes away from Peter, and back to Harry.

“I would love that,” you respond. Harry grins, then reaches forward to take your hand, only to halt as his beady eyes fall on your ring. Your breath hitches as you hope and pray the intel on his romantic tendencies is correct.

“Are you getting hitched?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing.

You shrug, trying to pass it off as a mere inconvenience. You distract him with fingers in his hair, stroking through the ends of his strands.

“Does it bother you?” you coo, stepping up to whisper in his ear. “He isn’t around at the moment, and I really want to dance with you, Harry.”

The blond’s eyes darken, and he shakes his head. “No problem with me, sweetheart,” he bounces back. He tugs you further into the room, and from the corner of your eye, you see Peter following.

You dance together for a while and slowly, you inch closer to Harry. What starts out as a casual exploration of his form with your hands quickly turns into a full-body pat-down, but he doesn’t seem to notice it. As you slide your fingers beneath the heavy material of his jacket, his lips tickle your neck, kissing your skin harshly. You hide a scowl as your fingers shift lower, lower, and finally, you feel it—his phone.

Harry coaxes you away from his shoulder, and you feel disappointment dampen your excitement as he glances at you, slightly flushed.

“D’you want to go upstairs?” he asks, voice sultry.

You pout softly. “Can we just dance? For a little bit longer?” You know if he gives you one more shot at it, you’ll be able to snatch his phone.

Harry nods, bringing a hand up to cup your cheek. His palm is cool and calloused, and it feels alien on your face.

“Of course,” he responds, voice soft. His eyes slip down to your lips, and you know what he wants. You think that it’d be a small price to pay for completing the mission. “You’re so pretty.”

He starts to lean in, his touch on your face encouraging you to do the same. Your eyes flutter shut, but before you’re able to seal the deal, something very large crashes into you.

You yelp, being pushed back from Harry. Your eyes spring back open, and nothing short of volatile irritation burns across you as you see that it’s Peter.

“Woah, man, what the fuck?” Harry snaps. “Look where you’re going.”

Peter snarls at him and reaches down to grab your hand. Your eyes widen, and you squeeze his fingers hard.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should watch where you’re putting your hands before you try and make a move on my girl.”

You jolt up, staring at him, horrified. Before Harry can get in another word, Peter’s jerking you across the room, pulling you in the direction of the patio.

“What the fuck?!” you exclaim, voice high. “What did you do that for? Eh? I was so close to getting the fucking phone, Peter!” you drop your voice as you speak his real name. You try to shake yourself out of his grip, only for him to squeeze you tighter.

Peter doesn’t say anything—not until you’re outside, standing away from the rest of the party, shielded in the trees. He drops your hand and starts to pace in front of you, eyes wild, face scowling.

“You weren’t,” he says, pointing at your left hand. “We’re supposed to be engaged. You were going to blow our cover.”

You throw your hands in the air. “Excuse me? That’s bullshit. Both of us know that this,” you pause to throw your hand up and point at your ring, “is part of it. He likes taken girls, idiot. He found it hot. What the fuck is your problem?”

Peter stops pacing, and he stands in front of you, breathing heavily through flared nostrils. His eyes trail across you, and he jumps forward a few steps.

“He was...sleazy,” he says, scrunching up the tip of his nose. “We’ll just take him out another way. Like, we- we can just wait until he’s alone, and jump him. You’ve still got those, uh, those unconscious injection things, right? We’ll just jab him, steal the phone, use the memory wiping ones, and it’ll be fine.” He’s sputtering and stammering over his words, and you press both hands into your waist as you stare at him, incredulously.

“I understand now,” you say, speaking quickly. “You’re jealous.”

Peter’s expression shifts into one of horror. He opens his mouth to speak, but you jump in first.

“No, I’m talking,” you interrupt. You step closer, finding yourself drawn to the fierce anger churning in his eyes. “You want to be the one who gets all the credit for the mission. You can’t stand the thought of me doing the hard work, can you? You’d rather sabotage the whole thing than let me do my job.”

Peter shakes his head roughly, a few strands of his hair bursting free from the confines of the gel.

“No,” he stresses. “That’s not it at all, Y/N. How self-centred do you think I am?”

You laugh coldly. You’re so close now, you can almost feel his warm breath coming out over your face.

“Incredibly self-centred, Parker,” you respond, not even bothering to use his code name. You’re too far away from anyone else for them to hear you, anyway. “You’re selfish, and volatile, and you do whatever the fuck you want to do. You’re no better than a child.”

He blinks a few times, pursing his pink lips. “Well, fuck you,” he replies, voice dancing with irritation. “You think I’m a child? You’re the one who never fails to throw insults at me, or make fun of all the things I like to do. You’re always, always, hanging around me, watching me like I’m about to trip up. You’re the one who’s self-centred and doesn’t let anyone help you. You’re stubbornly independent, infuriatingly curious, and you- you- you make me so mad.”

Peter’s glowing, his cheeks bright pink, and his eyes a rich shade of brown that takes your breath away. You don’t know how to respond, so you fall back to the thought that’s been bouncing through your head since he’d tugged up your zipper.

“Oh, you want to kiss me so bad.”

“...What if I do?”

There’s a tense silence as you meet his eyes. Your chest is heaving, Peter’s too, but in sync, you seem to surge together. His hands go to your waist, and you wrap yours around his neck, and he kisses you, suddenly. You moan from surprise, but you push back into it, twirling your fingers into his hair as you kiss him fiercely. His lips are soft and slightly chapped, but they make you feel warm inside, and you realise in a quick moment that you love the feeling of them moving over yours. When he breaks off to gasp for breath, you’re quick to smother him again, craving the sensation, rejoicing in how nice it feels to be held in his strong arms.

You kiss him, and suddenly you understand why it annoys you so much every time you see him playing lacrosse and being cheered on by the crowds in the stands. It becomes clear why you couldn’t stand the sight of him with MJ. The way your skin crawls and your heart seizes in your chest every time Peter looks at you become explainable.

You kiss him, and it all makes sense.

When your lungs burn for air, you fall back. As you inhale the fresh air instead of his lips, your mind starts to clear.

“Peter?” You whisper.

Peter’s holding your waist, forehead pressed against yours as his ragged breath comes out across your face. When you open your eyes, you see the way his eyes are similarly wide with shock.

“I, uh…”

Suddenly, there’s a loud crash from inside the house. Peter jumps back, eyebrows furrowing as if he’s listening to something.

“Gotta go,” he mutters. “Spidey sense. Stay here.”

You try to reach out to grab him, but he slips away.

“B-Ben!” you call after him, but it’s already too late. Peter’s vanished, and your eyes have little more to grasp but the sight of him running over the patio and vaulting into the room.

You decide to follow him, head spinning.

When you reach the house, you see that one of the tables has been pushed over. You suspect that was the source of the loud noise, but a glance around the room gives you no sight of Peter, nor Harry. Your eyes flutter around the sea of people, and where you draw up blank, you decide you’ll need to comb the house.

Using your intuition, you quickly run up the stairs, dress flapping around the bottom of your thighs. It’s quieter upstairs, but you have to push through a few entangled couples. Worry hangs heavy in your heart. There’s a selection of rooms up here, but the one at the end has its door flung wide open. You squint your eyes and stare into it, gaze widening. It’s the master, and it leads out to a large balcony. On the balcony are Peter and Harry, engaged in what seems to be hand-to-hand combat.

You groan as you run into the room, but the sight of Harry’s jacket strewn across the floor makes you pause. You bend down, rummaging through his pockets and grinning as you feel his phone. After pulling it out, you dig into your slim black bag and pull out the transmission beacon. Whilst keeping half an eye on the fight out on the balcony, you use the other to slot Harry’s phone into the device. As the machine absorbs the intel from Harry’s phone, you stand up and hurry out, digging through your bag as you go to join the fight.

It’s a lot worse now that you’re out here. You’d thought Peter was in control, but now you’re closer, you can see that Harry is holding a sharp, thin knife. Usually, in his suit, Peter would be able to hold his own easily. Yet, it seems that Harry is exceptionally good at close combat, and you find them sparring on an equal level, one of Peter’s sleeves slashed and red blood staining the material.

“Who the fuck are you?” Harry sneers, breathless as he dodges a kick from Peter.

“None of your business,” your partner snaps back. Peter sees you, his face clearing with relief, but it knocks his concentration. You gasp as Harry manages to punch him in the side of the face and Peter goes spiralling back, grunting as the force behind it pushes him onto the cement floor.

“Well, if you won’t identify yourself, I’m sure the coroners will,” Harry snarls. He bends down to kneel on Peter, pinning him down with his wrists and legs.

Panic courses through your veins, but you’re finally able to shake it as you realise the fight has tilted very seriously out of Peter’s favour. You grab one of the syringes from your bag and vault across the large balcony, jumping onto Harry’s back. The man grunts, trying to turn around and take you on, too, but you jam the fast-acting needle into his arm, and he immediately slackens. You fall to the side, crashing onto the patio beside Peter as both of you watch Harry pass out. You wince as the blond falls back, slumping onto the balcony with his eyes closed.

“Shit,” Peter murmurs. He sits up, rubbing at his arm. “Thanks.”

You bring your gaze back to him, uncertain and nervous.

“Uh, you’re welcome,” you say. You swallow deeply. Peter’s eyes are dark but kind, glinting like stars beneath the night sky. “You’re my partner, so, uh… I had to protect you.”

“You saved me. He was this close to gutting me.” Peter holds up his fingers, showing you a tiny space as he smiles shyly.

You shrug bashfully, enjoying the way he’s looking at you.

“I couldn’t let you die,” you whisper.

Peter crawls over to you, and you melt like a candle against his lips as he reaches up to cup your face and kiss you, gently. It’s warmer this time and lacks the frenzied anger that’d tainted the last one. You sigh into it, and relax back, letting him press you down against the cool ground as he chases your lips. Peter shifts over you, planking above you, and the hand messily sprawled over your cheek holds you in place, allowing him to kiss you again and again.

“Wait,” you murmur, pulling back, brows furrowing. The sight of him above you, messy hair falling out around his face makes you smile. “What about your arm?”

Peter makes a noncommittal noise. “Super healing,” he mutters. “Worth it.”

You swallow, ghosting your lips over his again.

“But… But don’t you hate me?” you find yourself asking.

“Nah.” Peter’s smiling, his expression warm. “I think, uh… it was more frustration. I think I… I think I feel the opposite of hate. If you… If you know what I mean.”

Your lips twitch into a wide smile. “I know what you mean,” you reply. Teasingly, you press a very light kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You drive me mad, but… in a good way.”

Peter chuckles, the sound vibrating through the air. “You’re so cute,” he mumbles between kisses. You play with his hair, aching in every single way to feel more of him. The attraction you feel towards him is consuming and fulfilling, and you wonder why it took you so long to get to the root of your feelings. “I, uh… I couldn’t stand the sight of you two together. That’s why I interrupted you guys. Sorry for, uh, blowing the mission.”

You giggle. Finally, Peter shifts away, standing up with a grunt and offering you a hand up.

“It’s fine,” you say. You curl into his side, his hand resting comfortably on your waist as the two of you look down at Harry. He’s snoring loudly. “It was a memory tranq. He won’t remember any of this tomorrow.” There’s a beeping sound coming from inside his room, and you nudge Peter’s side. “That’ll be the data transfer complete, too.”

Peter hums. He looks back to you, handsome eyes flickering over your face.

“So… Mission complete?” he asks, squeezing your waist.

You nod, smiling. “Mission complete.” You step closer and kiss his cheek, your grin widening as he blushes. “You want to, uh… Get out of here?”

Peter quirks an eyebrow, understanding fluttering out across his face. There are a hundred different things you know you’ll need to talk about and work through, but you don’t feel scared about that. You have a feeling that communicating with Peter is about to get a whole lot easier.

“What, to our very exciting hotel room with that really comfy bed?”

You giggle. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Mhmm.” Peter grabs your hand and squeezes it, then returns your kiss with a brief scattering of light pecks, stretching from cheek to cheek. “Can’t think of anything better, baby.”

You bite your lip, your cheeks aching from the stretch of your smile.

“Me neither.”

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

woooh yay :’) we lov college peter

lmk what you think !!!

m-list and taglist are linked in my bio <3

#the image :') this is the outfit we're going with minus the wet hair :') he looks so cute :') help :')#peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker oneshot #peter parker x reader oneshot #peter parker imagine #help girl ive forgotten how to tag #hope you all enjoy :')#college!peterfic

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wonjaekook · 4 years ago

Text

One Minus One Plus One

Pairing: college student!Mark x college student!reader

Description: In all of the years you’ve known Jungwoo, you should have figured out to not take his words at face value because, though you haven’t even met, Mark Lee seems to hate your guts.

Word Count: 9.9k

Genre: kind-of-enemies to lovers! fluff? angst? humor? I honestly don’t know how to categorize this

Warnings: vaguely suggestive ending, some minor swearing

A/N: This is my (late) holiday gift for a friend and to you all, I suppose. It’s an enemies-to-lovers but not really, as they’re not really enemies and it’s more passive-aggressive!Mark and very confused!Y/N. To the intended - I love and appreciate you so much; thank you for always supporting me and listening to me ramble about even the most ridiculous ideas <3 If you ever need anything, I hope you know that you can always shoot me a text or DM! Please enjoy c:

Mark Lee is always sweet. It’s the kind of sweetness that’s warm and fulfilling, leaving a pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, like a steaming up of hot chocolate rather than a strikingly sweet popsicle. His nature isn’t something he particularly prides himself on, as it’s partially unintentional, driven by awkwardness and politeness at times, or by the compulsion to simply make people happy. Jungwoo has told him that he’s allowed to be a little more selfish once in a while, he’s allowed to say no and take breaks sometimes. Except, he’s ever the people pleaser, ever the hard worker, ever the yes-man. Mark Lee is always sweet.

Except when he isn’t.

You’re fairly certain that Mark Lee has hated you since before you even met him. When you decide to transfer to the same university that your high school best friend Jungwoo attends, he talks your ear off about all of his great friends and all of the places he is going to take you and all of the fun you’ll have. He’s always been the descriptive type, telling you far too much about his good pals Mark, Donghyuck, Johnny, Taeil, Jaehyun, Kun, Lucas… and countless others, whose names you sometimes have a hard time keeping track of. Jungwoo has a lot of friends, something which has remained true since high school. Whenever you catch up with him, he speaks particularly fondly about Mark, who is one of his roommates and someone he considers to be one of his closest friends.

“You’ll love him,” he says, “but not too much, I hope. That would be super weird, you and Mark.” He wrinkles his nose at that and doesn’t make any more abnormal comments. You don’t think much of it.

In short, you let Jungwoo decide your opinion on Mark Lee before you ever met him. With everything else about moving to a completely different university occupying the majority of your thoughts, it’s easy enough to accept that Mark will be awkward and painfully sweet and that you will become fast friends. That’s your first mistake.

Before you even finish moving in, Jungwoo drags you over to his place to meet some of his friends, who he insists will become your own. It’s just past noon and he claims that everyone will be awake and ready to greet you once you get there. He’s half right, in the sense that only half of the apartment is awake. The early-risers, who Jungwoo didn’t even have to shake before he came over to get you, are at the table in their common area, sipping on various caffeinated beverages. These consist of Mark and Jaehyun. Donghyuck is presumably still curled up in his bed, asleep after a late night of playing games, and Johnny, who had stayed overnight and doesn’t actually live with them, is passed out on their couch, an arm slung over his face to block the light. Your friend has shown you enough pictures for you to recognize them.

Jungwoo practically deflates as soon as he walks in to see only two members of the current household conscious. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” he grumbles before striding over to Johnny and yanking off the blanket covering his long torso.

The elder groans, clearly having only been dozing and not deeply asleep, and moves his arm so he can glare at Jungwoo. “Your disrespect for my sleep schedule is why we can’t have nice things.”

“You don’t have a sleep schedule,” Jungwoo says back, glaring at his friend with the blanket in his hand. “Plus, Y/N’s here.”

Johnny lazily looks over and sees you in the entranceway, to which his response is to roll slightly so that he’s propped up against the back of the couch with one leg crossed over the other rather than just lying down. “Sup. Name’s Johnny.”

“Ew, don’t use your flirting voice!” Jungwoo whines at his friend, kicking him in the shin. In all honesty, you’re both amused and slightly flattered that Johnny is attempting to flirt with you when he’s just woken up. The messy hair is kind of a look. “Y/N’s a friend.”

“Yeah, we’ll be good friends, alright,” Johnny says, looking directly at you and wiggling his eyebrows in the most ridiculous way. That gets a giggle out of you while Jungwoo gawks, kicking Johnny again for good measure, slightly harder this time.

Jungwoo looks like he’s about to start arguing again when Jaehyun kindly interrupts, shifting the conversation. He gives you a small smile, perfectly polite and handsome, his hair straight and soft over his forehead. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Jaehyun.”

You lower your head to acknowledge him. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You look towards the other boy at the table, who you now realize hasn’t glanced up at you once. Jaehyun had been at least half watching the mock fight between Jungwoo and Johnny, but Mark had just been staring at his cup from behind circular glasses, not even drinking it. His own hair is slightly damp, curling at the ends, making him appear somewhat young. “You’re Mark, right?”

Finally, he looks at you, but looks away quickly. “Yeah.”

That’s… that’s not right.

You try again, smiling as brightly as you can, even though he won’t glance in your direction again. His side profile is full of both soft shapes and hard angles, afternoon sunlight coming in through the window falls as highlights on his cheeks and nose and chin. He appears exactly as your friend had described him to you, but his attitude proves him to be a walking contradiction. You shift on your feet, grasping for the right words to say. “Jungwoo has told me a lot about you.”

“Uh… yeah. He’s told me about you, too.”

You almost outright frown at that. Isn’t he supposed to be super nice and friendly? Instead, it sounds like Jungwoo has been spreading all sorts of nasty stories about you. Hypothetical stories that, apparently, only Mark has been listening to. Neither Jaehyun nor Johnny are acting strangely towards you at all.

All three of the other boys do seem to notice the change in behavior for Mark, though. There are a few moments of tense silence before Johnny elbows Jungwoo. The latter speaks up. “Hey, Mark, can you go resurrect Donghyuck? I think he might be dead.”

The switch is instant and very startling to you. His face loses all of its tension as he looks at Jungwoo, nodding. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, I’m the one who’s dead.” He pushes himself up out of his chair and exits the common area.

After he’s gone, you look at Jungwoo. He stares back. You make a motion with your head towards the front door, where you retreat to and he follows. You stand somewhat stiffly, hands linked behind your back. “Did you say something to him? About me?”

Jungwoo puts his hands up defensively. “Nothing bad, I swear!” He looks back towards the common area. “He must just be having a bad day or something…”

That doesn’t explain the sudden warmth when someone else spoke to him, though. You frown. “Okay… I guess I’ll just have to try harder to get him to like me.”

Your friend seems to perk up at that. “That’s the spirit!” He proceeds to grab you by the shoulders and steer you back to the common area.

You have an amiable enough time chatting with the boys who had remained there. Eventually, Donghyuck emerges from his room, looking even more ruffled than Johnny had, and Mark shuffles out with him. Once again, he doesn’t even spare you a glance. Every so often, as you’re talking to the others or just listening to their strange, all-over-the-place conversations, your eyes flicker over to him. He contributes to the chatter, but it’s like he’s purposefully avoiding you, even though you’re literally in the room with him. It kind of hurts.

Still, you try not to let it bother you too much. An hour passes, which you realize with a start, and you remember that you’re not even nearly done unpacking. As you’re rising from your seat on the edge of the couch, Jungwoo throws a comment out to you. “You’re welcome to bust in here any time!”

He’s met with a chorus of agreement from the others, except one.

The next day, Jungwoo makes a point to introduce you to the rest of his circle. Not long after, you’re added to a group chat with a whole phonebook of unfamiliar numbers. Most of them, minus several who your friend had told you in the past do a poor job of checking their messages, send their names pretty quickly. Jungwoo tells you who the others are. With a pang of disappointment, you realize one of the missing numbers was Mark.

On your first day of classes, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that you share an economics lecture with Donghyuck, who acts both very tired and also full of energy, chatting your ear off before and after class, but looking as if he’s about to pass out when the professor gives her introduction and starts to go over course material. That day, you also learn that you have an ethics class with Jungwoo’s friend Doyoung, stoic and serious and exactly the opposite of Donghyuck, but still smiling at your lame jokes and carefully making sure you get the homework down.

The second day starts out much more slowly. You settle down for your third class, a curriculum development course, and it takes you about a solid minute to realize that Mark Lee is sitting in the room with you. He had come in while you were busily typing out a text to a friend from your previous university. The classroom is not particularly large and you had taken a seat near the middle, so there aren’t many places for him to hide. When he walks in, he takes a seat by the wall closest to the windows. You consider greeting him, walking to his desk to try and talk to see if he had a change of attitude from the last time you saw him, but then your professor enters the scene. As he passes by the far side of the room, Mark looks up from his own phone and smiles, mouth instantly opening to greet him. You stay in your seat and try to look busy as you listen to them chat amiably. Mark laughs in disbelief at something your professor says about his vacation.

At the end of the lecture, you pack up your things quickly and make the effort to take a few small, light steps to catch up to Mark, who’s already leaving. “Hi, Mark! I didn’t realize we had a class together.”

He gives you a sort of half-shrug, keeping his head pointed straight ahead. Almost imperceptibly, his pace increases. “I guess we do.”

He opens a door to a stairwell, not making any particular effort to hold the door for you. Reflexively, you grab the door and slip through after him. You try again as the two of you head down. “Are you going to be home tonight? Jungwoo invited me to have dinner with you guys.”

“No,” he says, voice edged with irritation. He reaches into his pocket, fishing out his phone and a pair of earbuds. “I’ll be out.”

“Oh.” You slow down slightly. “Well, we should hang out sometime. My next class is this way, so… see you.” By the time you’re done talking, he’s slipped both earbuds into his ears and is pushing the doors at the bottom of the stairs open. You hold back a heavy sigh and shrug your backpack higher onto your shoulders.

As he told you, he’s not in his apartment that evening. Though Jungwoo had invited you to help cook dinner, he shirks his responsibilities, slipping away to play games with Donghyuck and leaving you and Jaehyun to cook, with relatively unhelpful commentary from Johnny, who was once again on the couch when you arrived. At some point, their friend Yuta slips in, steals some noodles, and leaves.

After the cooking is done, you and Jaehyun celebrate with a firm high-five, and Jungwoo and Donghyuck un-disappear, coming out of the younger boy’s dark bedroom. The lot of you are halfway through eating when Donghyuck perks up. “Wait, where’s Mark? He said he would do calc homework with me.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and hold back from saying that he told you he wouldn’t be home.

Thankfully, most of Jungwoo’s friends are nice to you and it’s easy enough for you to make friends of your own. You ease yourself into a routine of classes, homework, and hanging out with your new social circles. Mark doesn’t hide that he tries to avoid you about half of the time. At the same time, you try to split yourself between friend groups, as to not force him either to be around you or to not hang out with his own friends. There are the occasional large scale events that both of you are invited to, but there are enough people that you usually aren’t forced to interact. After a month of classes, you stop trying to start conversations, but you still greet him. He greets you back with the indifference of an overworked, tired stranger. During your class, he firmly ignores you. He does more than ignore you - he speaks to virtually every other person in your class except you. All of your friends carefully avoid the topic of his blatant dislike for you, though you know they all think it’s odd.

Finally, one of those large events comes to pass via the boy known as Zhong Chenle. He doesn’t go to your school, but is still somehow acquainted with all of Jungwoo’s friends, so he became acquainted with you as well. He’s eccentric and sarcastic and sometimes you see him playing basketball with Mark and Jaehyun in the school recreation center. So, when he rents out the local ice skating rink and invites you, you’re excited to go. It’s not often that you get onto the ice - it’s always a thrill after you re-learn how to skate, and you enjoy the feeling of the smooth gliding and wide, curving turns on the blades. You imagine that you’re painting with your feet.

Things go down smoothly, like you envisioned. After just twenty minutes, you’ve confidently found your ice legs and you’re racing around the rink with Donghyuck, playfully tipping each other off-balance with carefully or sometimes not-so-carefully timed pushes. A few minutes later, a new player enters the arena. Maybe if this new person weren’t Mark Lee, you wouldn’t have noticed their entrance, but your eyes are instinctively drawn to him.

The boy in question is clinging to one Lee Jeno, another friend of Jungwoo and Donghyuck and all the rest of them, as they both try to find their balance. Jeno seems to be having somewhat of an easier time with the skates on his feet, making slow pushes so that he glides short distances with Mark holding onto him. Mark is adorably flushed, in a way you haven’t seen before, his cheeks aflame with cold and embarrassment. His body is swallowed by an overly large hoodie, completing the cozy and cute look.

Your racing buddy has also slowed down to watch with you, staring at the scene. He suddenly nudges you with an elbow. “You should help him.”

“Jeno? I think he’s gotten the hang of it. Plus, I don’t know him that well.” It’s now a game of who can dodge implications rather than who can dodge physical pushes.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, skating lazily alongside you. “You know I’m talking about Mark. This would be a great opportunity to get on his good side.”

“Why don’t you help him? He’s your boyfriend, after all.” If you weren’t focusing on turning your skates and keeping your balance because you’ve reached the short end of the rink, you would cross your arms and huff at him more dramatically.

He clicks his tongue sharply, something you know by now that he does when he’s irritated. “Mark isn’t my boyfriend. Doyoung and Taeyong are boyfriends. Mark and I are soulmates. And he’s still painfully single.”

“So are you!” As you protest, you realize that Mark and Jeno are getting closer. Donghyuck fires something back indignantly, but you’re just thinking about what he said before. The offer to help lies in front of you as a real possibility, but how would you feel if someone you hated came up and asked if you wanted help skating? If you really hated them that much, you would just think they were being condescending. The last thing you want to do is give Mark a reason to think you’re acting that way towards him. So, as you skate closer, you pick up your pace and speed on by, not even glancing at the two boys with their arms interlinked. Luckily for you, Jungwoo is just ahead, so you hook arms with him and jerk him forward with your momentum, making him yell out in surprise.

As you’re gliding along, laughing at your friend’s reaction and attempts to push you, Mark stares at you from behind with a small frown on his face.

“Mark?” Jeno’s voice snaps him out of it and he looks towards the younger boy. “Do you need me to slow down?”

“No,” he says rather grimly, “let’s go faster.”

You don’t speak to each other at all for the entire night.

The next month and a half passes unremarkably. Then, suddenly, midterms are rolling up and you find yourself swamped with work, especially in the class you share with Mark and your new friend Yuqi. At the current moment, you’re at your place with your head buried in your arms, groaning dramatically. “I can’t do this.”

Yuqi nods, looking somewhat dead inside. “Professor Lim hates us.”

“I don’t know what chapters we even covered half of the material in. Did he just make it up?” You lift your hand to paw through the textbook in front of you lazily, so much of it seeming foreign. “It doesn’t help that the Instructional Systems Design Model is such a big part of the project.”

“Maybe that’s in Chapter 1?”

You flip through her suggestion before slamming your book shut. “Nope.”

“I know!” You perk up at your friend’s revelation, looking at her from across the table. “We can just ask Mark! He’s good at this class, he probably knows.”

You stiffen at her suggestion. There was only one time you dared to ask him for help, in which he just brushed you off and said he was busy. Since then, you’ve resigned yourself to only asking Yuqi for help, no matter how clueless she is in this class sometimes. A brief moment of panic sends your heart racing as she whips out her cellphone. “Don’t mention me.”

She turns to look at you, finger poised to press call over her phone. “What?”

You put your head back down, muffling your words. “Don’t say my name when you talk to him.” She gives you a weird look, but shrugs, pressing the call button. “Wait! And put it on speaker so I can hear the answer. Please.”

Wordlessly, she rolls her eyes, but pulls the phone away from her face, setting it on the table in front of her. The call connects after two rings and you hear Mark’s voice with the staticky phone call filter over it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mark! It’s Yuqi.”

“Oh, hi, what’s up?” He seems to brighten up, showing a pleasantness that you rarely hear from him these days.

“I just had a question about our curriculum development class. Do you know what chapter goes over the Instructional Systems Design Model? I can’t find it.”

“Oh, sure. Hold on, let me grab my notes.” From the other end, you can hear the distorted shuffling of clothes and paper for a moment. “It’s Chapter 4, I think. We didn’t really go over that chapter in class, but Prof. Lim told me when I went to his office hours.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much, Mark! You’re a literal life saver,” Yuqi gushes, about to practically kiss the phone in joy.

You press your hands together in front of you in a silent thank you. Mark laughs lightly into the phone. “No problem! If you ever need anything, let me know. I’m always happy to help.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! Bye, Mark!” After receiving a goodbye from him, Yuqi presses the hang up button. She claps her hands twice in excitement. “That makes things so much easier!”

You’re stuck thinking about what Mark said before hanging up. It’s exactly in line with how Jungwoo used to talk about him - polite, helpful, friendly. An ugly part of you has to wonder what you did wrong once again. What part of you is undeserving of his kindness? An even uglier part feels the green flash of envy. “How do you have Mark’s number?”

“We had a class together like a year ago and he’s a pretty cool guy. Also useful to have around.” The image of them studying together, chatting like close friends, heads bent closely over shared notes, makes the parasite of jealousy dig deeper in your belly. The logical side of your brain knows you shouldn’t be feeling like this, but the two sides of Mark Lee make you want to throw an uncharacteristic fit. She tosses her phone to the side before flipping open her textbook to Chapter 4. “Why?”

“Were you guys ever… like…” You bite the inside of your cheek, not wanting to say it out loud.

“Me? Mark? No, we just worked on a project together. I have no idea what gave you that idea.” She wrinkles her nose at you.

“You just talk to each other so casually,” you huff, trying to expel the negativity from your system, “I don’t know.”

“He’s like that with everyone,” she says easily, leaning back in her chair. “Except you, I guess.”

“Except me. I guess.” You parrot, not feeling any better about the situation. When you proceed to ask her if you did anything weird on your first day of class that would have put him off, she denies it, telling you that you were completely normal. Resigned to forget the mystery for the night, you open up your textbook.

Midterms pass with relative success. At least, with more success than you had at your old university. You’re excited for a break, a reprieve from the pain of studying. Johnny arranges a potluck and movie night at his place, assigning everyone a dish and putting you on dessert.

In your class with Doyoung, who is often assigned as the chef of the group, you pressure him for everyone’s favorites. “Something fruity? Chocolatey?”

“We’re split there. There’s not much you can do that would appease everyone, honestly. Some of them are the pickiest guys I’ve ever met.” He continues to scribble notes as you grill him for info, not even looking up.

“What if I did something different? Like matcha cookies?” You tap your chin in thought and Doyoung lifts a hand to point at you after the suggestion leaves your mouth.

“Yes, do that one. Basically everyone likes green tea.”

“Basically everyone?”

“Not Mark.” Doyoung shakes his head disapprovingly. “He’s not arriving until after we eat, though, so I’m sure it’s fine.”

You’re not sure what to say to that. That night, you work hard making your matcha cookies, setting aside a bit of time for a side project. When you arrive at Johnny’s apartment with two dishes, one quite a bit smaller than the others and labeled with Mark’s name, safely hidden in the pantry until everyone has stepped out of the kitchen area and you can put it somewhere you hope he’ll see it. You can only hope that he at least appreciates your effort. When he arrives a bit later into the night, non-gifting you his usual non-existent glance, you can’t help but impatiently squirm a bit. Before you leave, you make a pass by the kitchen and, disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the container is in the same place as you left it, your note still affixed to the top.

The mystery continues, however, when you approach Johnny a few days later to ask about retrieving your containers.

“There was more than one? I only have that big rectangular one that you brought the matcha cookies in. They were really good, by the way - I can only wish the cookies I make turned out like that…” He scratches his head and you feel like the gesture perfectly represents how you’re feeling as well. If he doesn't have the box… who does?

A small part of you holds onto the hope that the intended person retrieved them after you weren’t looking.

The class you share with Mark is not nearly the most interesting one you have, nor is it one that is particularly memorable most of the time. There’s something so terribly tedious about it that makes you suffer a disproportionate amount whenever you do a chapter of the reading, though you think that you’re usually quite good about your work. Still, though you’re not exactly the most studious of your classmates, you can’t stand resounding silences in the classroom. So, when your professor asks a question and no one volunteers, you try to at least say something somewhat intelligent. Today is one of those days. Except, as you speak, you realize with dawning dread that your words aren’t making any sense of all, are barely related to the question, and are progressively spiraling into completely different subject matter. Still, you find it hard to stop, eventually coming to a stuttering stop with your answer. Even Professor Lim can’t hold back something of a put-off expression. You sink lower into your seat and, as your professor says something along the lines of your comments being “not quite relevant,” your cheeks burn.

You spare a glance to the side, looking for some sort of pity or reassurance from Yuqi, but you end up looking past her at Mark. You half expect him to smirking at your failure, like a villain in a high school drama, but, instead, his eyes meet yours. He offers you the barest twitch of an encouraging smile before looking away, his face neutral again. You’re almost unsure about how to interpret the look - it’s the closest thing to a positive emotion he’s ever shown you. Confused, you fix your eyes on your open notebook and keep them there, scratching random notes and doodles into the margins for the remainder of the lecture.

When you think about Mark Lee, you feel like you’re going insane. It would honestly be pretty easy for you to make one of those crazy conspiracy theorist maps with the red strings and thumbtacks attempting to connect a bunch of pictures with all the strange, fragmented experiences you’ve had with the boy. At one position, you could put all the information you supposedly knew about him before even meeting him, all of the things Jungwoo told you, all the smiling pictures from before you arrived. Somewhere else, you could put all of the times Mark has brushed you off or outright refused to acknowledge your existence. In a third location, you could put all the things you’ve actively seen or heard him do that align with the person you thought he was. Finally, you could put the most recent developments of him subtly starting to not ignore you together. The whole diagram would be circled with giant question marks all over it and one question written in capital letters: WHY?

You’re trying to do your damn curriculum development homework and all you can think about is Mark Lee and the first smile he ever gave you. And, from the way your heart is beating, pushing heat into your face and ears, making you wistful and longing to see his smile again, you think you know the direction your feelings have headed.

The next few times you head over to Jungwoo’s place, it’s hit or miss as to whether Mark appears to be actively avoiding you. Finally, one day, you’re pressed shoulder to shoulder with Jungwoo, your eyes fixed on the small screen of your phone as you show him a funny video you found. You don’t notice Mark until he opens his bedroom door loudly enough that you look up and you meet his cold gaze. He’s in casual clothes, a hoodie and jeans, with earbuds hanging from his ears, his hair slightly tousled from the wind outside. The eye contact lasts for only a moment before his door acts as a barrier to your vision. You blink hard.

“Just when I thought we were getting somewhere…” You sulk, speaking lowly as to not be overheard by him.

“You and Mark?” Jungwoo asks, not even looking up. The video ends and your friend puts down your phone, folds his hands in front of him, and turns to look at you. “Did you ever figure it out?”

“Did I? How could I figure it out when he won’t even talk to me? Did you?” You lean away from him, crossing your arms. “Should we even be having this conversation over here? He’s just in his room.”

Jungwoo shrugs. “He has his headphones in, he can’t hear anything. To answer your question,” he pauses, leaning in closer to whisper like he’s telling you a secret, “I have no idea.”

“You must have some ideas at least?”

“I have many ideas, many theories, and quite a few formulas. Most of which don’t particularly apply to this situation.” You grumble something under your breath about engineering majors as he continues. “For Mark? He might be letting all the negativity he’s ever felt out on you, honestly. Maybe because you’re the same major?”

You sit up slightly straighter. “We’re the same major?”

“Yeah?” Jungwoo replies, giving you a look. “He’s trying to be music education instead of history education, though.”

“I never knew the specifics,” you mumble, letting your posture fall back into a slouch. In reality, it’s more than just not knowing the specifics - there’s very little you’ve managed to learn about Mark that you haven’t actively had to pry out of your shared friends. You know about some of the foods he likes, some of his hobbies, and a bit of general information. It’s awfully hard to get to know someone when they refuse to acknowledge you.

That notion makes your developing crush feel even stupider.

You attempt to turn the subject back to where it began. “Why me, though? Why not literally anyone else?”

“You’re a pretty cool person and you’re good at a lot of things. Mark’s developing an inferiority complex?” Jungwoo taps his chin as though he’s pretending to be some great thinker.

“I’m not going to lower myself to help some man’s ego,” you huff, your nails digging into your palms as you make tight fists. “Plus, there’s nothing I’m particularly good at that he’s not also good at, if not better.”

“It’s not really about ego, I think…” Jungwoo says, trailing off. “I dunno. He’s not like that with anyone but you.”

“No one but me, huh.” Honestly, you’re kind of getting sick of that expression. This isn’t the kind of exceptional you want to be to him. Not at all. You’re honestly not sure when it stopped being a simple need to be on pleasant terms with Jungwoo’s friends and started to get romantic. Your lips press into a thin line for a moment before you exhale sharply from your nose. “Everything is a big ‘I don’t know’ and I hate it. If it’s not an ‘I don’t know,’ it’s still stuck in the ‘why?’ stage.” You lay your head down and you have to resist the urge to scream into your arms. “I’m going to lose my mind.”

“You really make no sense at all.”

“It really makes no sense that I-” You bite your tongue to stop yourself to stop yourself from admitting out loud to the feelings you’ve just recently realized. Jungwoo just gives you a sly, knowing smile that you don’t like the look of one bit.

Before you know it, finals are around the corner and, with it, one of the last organized events you’ll have with your friends until testing is over. This time, it’s a group dinner where people can come and go as they please, and a few of you have taken it upon yourselves to do all the cooking. Namely, you, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Kun, and, surprisingly, Donghyuck. Suffice to say, the kitchen is not enough space for all of you. Still, you manage to pull it off, completing a hearty Korean-style dinner that slowly disappears from their dishes as all of the others eat. By the end, you’re worn out from the sweltering heat of the stove, the occasional bickering with the other chefs (‘Donghyuck, stop eating all the radish!’), and chatting with nearly every single one of your friends. Names and faces scroll through your head and you’re honestly not sure who you’ve seen and not seen by the end of it. Except for one person.

Mark Lee is, once again, nowhere to be found.

You make sure to smack away hands going for seconds in order to wrap up a moderately sized portion of food for him anyways. When all of the food, save for what you’ve set aside for Mark, is gone, Taeyong offers himself and some of the others up to clean, which you and the rest of the cooking boys eagerly accept. Most of them have headed out by now, but the few remaining begrudgingly agree to the job at Taeyong’s call.

You lean against the wall idly, watching the work being done and listening to the rhythmic sound of the water running and the sponge scraping against metal. Finally, Jungwoo happens upon the wrapped plate you had prepared for your missing guest.

“Who’s this for?” He asks to the room, almost salivating at the sight of the food. Damn, that boy can eat.

“It’s for Mark. You can give it to him when he gets back.” Your words are half informative, half threatening. Jungwoo takes the hint and carefully replaces the foil covering the food.

It takes another minute for him to look back over at you, seeing you looking bleary-eyed, close to swaying onto the floor from fatigue. He steps over, patting you on the head. “Y/N, you can go rest on the couch if you want. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I might just do that,” you respond, not clarifying which part of his sentence you’re talking about. At his behest, you shuffle over to the couch. It only takes a moment for your eyes to flutter closed. The music of washing dishes lulls you quickly to sleep.

You’re not sure how long has passed by the time you stir to the sound of the front door closing. You recognize that water is no longer running and that there are only two voices left in the kitchen area. Lying there for a moment, unsure of if you should make your presence known yet, you determine that the voices belong to Jungwoo and Mark.

“Oh, Y/N made sure to grab this for you,” you hear Jungwoo say, followed by the faint crinkling of the foil covering the plate.

“She did?” Mark’s voice is surprisingly soft, warm, everything you’re not used to from him.

The voices drift closer towards you, accompanying the slip of socks against the wood floor. “Don’t act surprised. Also, she’s on the couch sleeping right now. I’ll probably wake her up in a minute so she can go home.”

“Oh.” You’re listening as hard as you can, trying to determine whatever Mark is feeling just by his tone. “Is she okay?”

Your heart beats faster and you want to squirm, ask questions, anything. You remain still.

“Just tired.” A beat of silence. “Why are you looking at her like that?”

“Dude, I just…” Mark has some sort of lightness to his voice that you’ve never heard. “Nothing.”

“Do you think I can’t tell? Come on, I’ve known you long enough.” Jungwoo would normally be teasing saying something like that, but right now you just hear a kind of weariness that you’re entirely familiar with.

“Not as long you’ve known her.” The sentence comes out bitter, the first negativity you’ve heard from Mark all night, and Jungwoo sighs in response.

“Do what you need to do and then I’ll wake her up.”

They walk farther away. The telltale sound of the microwave opening and shutting after the foil crinkles again, followed by the beeping of the buttons and the hum of the machine, tells you that someone is heating up the food. Under the microwave ambiance, you hear what you think is plastic against plastic. The machine is stopped before it can beep shrilly. The smell of warm, reheated food fills the air briefly. There’s shuffling as Mark presumably walks.

“Night.” Jungwoo echoes Mark’s sentiment and you hear more shuffling towards you. A touch on your shoulder. You keep your eyes closed, trying to control your breathing for a moment longer. Your friend shakes you slightly. “Y/N, wake up.”

You try your best to play up your awakening act, like you hadn’t been listening to the entirety of the last conversation. Rubbing your eyes and blinking, you look up at Jungwoo. “What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. Everyone went home to sleep and study.” You get up slowly, rolling your shoulders once you’ve sat up. “I can walk you back, if you want.”

“That’s okay, it’s not a long walk.” You get to your feet, padding to the kitchen area. There, on the table, is the plastic container you’d brought Mark’s cookies in weeks ago. “Oh, that’s my container. Did Johnny find it?”

Jungwoo reaches up to ruffle his hair, looking between you and the container. “Mark did, actually.” “Huh.” Shrugging, you pick it up and make your way to the door. “Tell him thanks for me.”

“You could tell him yourself?” Jungwoo offers, looking vaguely hopeful.

You smile, but cringe at the same time. “Yeah… you know.”

He shakes his head, seeming disappointed once more. “Fine. Text me when you get back?”

“Will do.”

As you walk home, your container clutched in your arms, you think about how more pieces are being unveiled, but nothing is really making that much more sense at all.

Finals pass as they always do. You study with Yuqi for your curriculum development class. The situation from midterms repeats itself almost exactly at one point, with her calling Mark for help and you staying quiet as he talks, and the test is no harder than any of the others you had previously in the semester. You force yourself to keep your eyes on your exam and to not glance over at Mark except when you’re walking out of the classroom at the end. All you can see of him is the back of his head, his hair slightly disheveled. Idly, you wonder if you’ll get over your baseless crush if you aren’t able to look at him and mull over the problem during class anymore. You think that’s the last you’ll see of him before you run into him at an event next semester.

On the last day of finals, your group chat receives two messages from Jungwoo.

JW: END OF THE SEMESTER PARTY TOMORROW NIGHT TO CELEBRATE FINALS BEING DONE BEFORE EVERYONE LEAVES. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.

JW: I don’t care if you planned a “date” with your “girlfriend,” I expect to see all of you there :))

A minute later, your phone buzzes again with an individual message from the same boy.

JW: Y/N, my lovely best friend, you’re part of the planning committee and you’re going to help me set up. Be there an hour early xoxo

You know there’s no use fighting it so, the next day, you show up to his place as expected. Jungwoo, Lucas, Yuta, and Johnny are all milling about, trying to seem busy but, honestly, there doesn’t look like there’s much to do. Some of the furniture has been moved to the side, there’s a giant mysterious tub that is partly filled with a reddish liquid that Lucas and Yuta are leaning over, and Johnny is affixing colorful lights to a wall. As soon as your shoes are off, Jungwoo is steering you to the common area.

“Y/N, you’re late!”

“I’m like ten minutes early-” You start.

“No, no, no excuses. I have an important job for you!” It takes you a moment to realize that he’s not leading you to the kitchen, but towards someone’s bedroom. “You like crafts, right?”

“I mean, I guess? I-”

“Great!” He pushes open the bedroom door, Mark’s bedroom door, and pushes you not-so-gently inside. Mark is sitting at his desk, bent over something with a look of surprise on his face. He looks cozy, dressed in a simple red t-shirt and gray sweats with circle glasses perched on his nose. “I want to hang about one hundred paper cranes around the apartment to add a little flare to the party. You can’t leave until you’re done, Mark has the paper, bye!”

He shuts the door behind him.

You and Mark stare at each other in bewilderment as you process whatever just happened. You’re in Mark’s bedroom for the first time. You’re also being actively forced to interact with him one on one for the first time. None of your friends had ever forced you to try and work out your issues until now and you’re certain that Jungwoo’s implication was that you’re not allowed to leave until you’ve talked it through. Some part of you knew he would eventually snap and force you to interact, but you always ignored that possibility. Until now.

“Um,” you start, twisting your fingers together in front of you, “he said you have the paper?”

“Yeah…” he looks back at his desk, grabbing some of the myriad of square sheets and holding them out to you. “Here.”

“Thanks.” You carefully make sure to prevent your fingers from brushing against his as you take them from him. Stepping back, you settle cross-legged on an empty spot on his floor. After you sit, you take a moment to look around. His walls have the occasional band poster plastered on them, there’s a hoodie on the floor across the room, and some of his drawers are partly open, illustrating a pretty typical college boy’s room. A couple of books are pushed to the side on his desk as he works on folding the cranes. Remembering that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you get to work, making careful creases. Your first crane comes to life on yellow paper slightly lopsided. Good enough, you figure.

You’re in the middle of your second crane when Mark’s chair screeches quietly against the floor and he stands up, gathering his paper. To your great surprise, he sits down a few away from you and mirrors your pose. When you meet eyes with him briefly, you look away as fast as you can, returning to your crane before you can even try and read what he’s feeling. The next three cranes pass quickly with your eyes locked firmly on your work. When you dare to look up again, you find that Mark is intently watching your hands. He startles when you see him. Realizing he’s been caught, he speaks of softly. “Do you… know how to do it?”

Even when he’s the one talking quietly, looking embarrassed, you feel so small. You look down at his own paper pile, which has a few crumpled sheets surrounding it. “I can show you.” He nods and you cautiously scoot closer so that you’re side by side. As gently as you can, you explain each fold and he copies your movements. Soon, you have a relatively even green crane and he has a somewhat lopsided pink crane, very similar to your first.

“Thanks,” he says, staring at his creation, “all of the tutorials I googled weren’t making any sense, but I think I got it now.”

“No problem.” You nod, moving back to your spot across from him. Not wanting the experience to end quite yet, you think about what Jungwoo said last weekend. “Thanks for returning my container.”

He instantly knows what you’re talking about. “Thanks for-”

Before he can say any more, he stops and his expression hardens. He proceeds to look back down at his hands, making slow, purposeful folds in the paper in front of him. You frown, but do the same. A few cranes later, you can’t stop it anymore. After months, months, of him treating you like this, you can’t go one more crane without finding the truth. You throw a half-completed crane to the floor and, though the noise isn’t loud, he looks up. “Mark, what did I do?”

He seems entirely too surprised by the question, which sparks a kind of anger that you didn’t even realize you were holding in. “What?”

“What did I do! What made you act like this to me? Did I do something? Do you just hate my face? What did I do wrong?” You squeeze your knees brutally, trying to resist doing something like tearing up the few pieces of origami you had completed.

“Nothing.” His simple, one word answer only serves to make you more upset. Though he appears initially dismissive, he sees that you’re about to start shouting and quickly continues. “You really didn’t do anything!”

“Then, why? Mark, you’re making me lose my mind!” Now, you feel like you’re on the verge of crying out of frustration. So far, you’ve managed to not cry at all about this stupid boy who has largely chosen to ignore your existence, but you can feel the telltale warming of your cheeks and the pout in your lips.

“It’s not something you did! Not really.” He takes a shaky breath, appearing almost as upset as you, though there are no tears in his eyes. “It’s about Jungwoo. Please, don’t cry.”

The initial confusion helps you swallow your building tears. “If you’re upset at him, why do you have to take it out on me? I really wanted to be friends with you, Mark. I really did.”

“I wanted to be different.” Now, he’s quiet, refusing to look at you for the months of shame he’s feeling rise to the surface.

“From Jungwoo?” You’re not quite following still. You just know that, even though he’s subtly broken your heart and led you in circles over and over for the past few months, you want to know why he’s hurting and you want to stop it. Even if he hasn’t been full of kindness to you, he has been to everyone else. And you know almost for a fact that this isn’t something he’s told anyone else.

“From you.”

Pushing aside papers, crumpled partial cranes, complete cranes, you move closer to him. You’re not sure if you’re overstepping your boundaries and you still kind of feel like one wrong move will make you cry, but the yelling has left your system and your instincts say proximity will help you understand. “Will you explain it to me?”

“There was a you-shaped hole in Jungwoo’s heart ever since he had to go to college and stop spending so much time with you.” Mark’s resignation is quiet, soft-spoken, like the boy you’d heard so much about but only now had gotten to truly meet. “Whenever he came back from breaks, he would talk about you so much and about how similar you and I are and it just made me feel… it made me feel… like… I don’t know. Like I’m just replacing you while you’re not here.”

“Mark…” You’re not sure quite what to say that he hasn’t logically figured out for himself already. Maybe it would help to say the obvious anyways? “You’re not a replacement. You’re you and I’m me and he has different places for both of us.”

He lets out a puff of air. “I know that. It’s just the type of feeling that you can’t really get to go away, even when you try really hard to believe the opposite.”

“I get the feeling.” And you do. It’s like the nagging feeling that you’ve had that you did something unforgivable to upset Mark even though you were almost certain you didn’t.

“I was mean to you because at least that would make me different enough to not be replaced, I guess. It worked because you never stooped to my level to be mean back.” Though he hasn’t quite apologized, he sounds genuinely sorry.

“It worked because you couldn’t have been replaced in the first place,” you say back. You look over and he has a small smile on his face.

“That too. Also-” He stops himself, seeming conflicted. “No, it’s a bad time. A really bad time.”

That piques your curiosity. “Huh?” He’s not smiling anymore, instead looking awkwardly to his side, away from you, and drumming his fingers on the bed. “Mark, you might as well say it. Whatever it is.”

“Okay, after a few months, I realized that you weren’t going to replace me and things were fine. But, you know that thing that kids do?” You’re confused and he’s growing red, practically steaming at the ears in embarrassment, which you can see even in the dim light of the room. “So, I kept being mean because then you kept looking at me even though whenever I thought about what I said to you later, I always felt really bad-” “Mark, you’re rambling. What are you talking about?” You ungracefully interrupt him, touching his arm to get his full attention. He seems to grow even redder at your touch and suddenly exclaims his next words.

“You’re really cute!”

Slowly, his words make more sense. You try to piece them together out loud to make sure you’re understanding him correctly. “So… the thing kids do… where they’re mean to the person they like?”

He moves his head up and down in a tiny nod. Now, your face is heating up, too. Even more than it was when you were on the verge of crying. After a moment, he groans and presses his face into his hands. “Damn, I’m such an idiot. I know this is, like, what middle schoolers do, but since the beginning of the semester I’ve just been so confused, except you’ve probably been way, way more confused than me, and I didn’t even think about it, but all of our friends are probably confused, too, and-” As he jabbers, when your thoughts and feelings had been processing slowly previously, you now feel like your whole reality is crumbling. You spent the last while beating down your feelings when he’s become a pile of mush in front of you about the same problem? At this rate, he’s never going to stop rambling either. Not that you particularly want him to. It’s the most he’s directly said to you ever. And it’s adorable. What else would be adorable? You wonder, teasing him a bit before you tell him the truth. For how long he kept you hanging, you deserve to create at least some tension of your own, you figure. Just for a moment.

“- you’re probably thinking about how dumb this is and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me-”

You sit up straight and cross your arms over your chest. “Mark.”

He stops talking and looks at you, more panic seeming to rise in his face at the serious expression you wear. “Oh shit, I never let you talk. Y/N-”

“Mark.” He finally stops, staring at you. “I don’t forgive you.” The panic turns into sheer terror. He clearly hadn’t expected you to put it so forwardly. However, before he can say anything truly depressing, you continue. “I don’t forgive you because you haven’t actually apologized yet.”

His eyes are like tiny suns, round and bright and holding all the feeling in the universe. “I- I thought…” He looks to the side, thinking about everything he had said, and realizes that you’re right. “You’re right. Y/N…” He presses his hands together in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s probably the most succinct and straightforward he’s ever been with you, but you don’t have much time to think about that before he’s leaning forward in a full bow, pressing his forehead to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Mark, stop!” As soon as you realize what he’s doing, you shuffle forward, putting both hands on his shoulders so you can attempt to yank him back upright. “I was joking, please stop!” He remains upraised, once again looking confused. Slowly, you move backwards about two feet to put some breathing room between you. “You don’t need to do that. I like you, too.”

One slow heartbeat passes. Then a second. You’re not sure how long the thick silence hangs between you, but the tension is so heavy that you don’t even hear any outside noise from the other boys who are supposedly getting ready for a party.

“You… what… wait, no, really?” Mark’s baffled face as he stutters back to you paired with the anxiety of the entire situation makes a laugh bubble out of your chest. He seems to be entirely at a loss. He continues to just stare at you wide-eyed, like he’s witnessing some incredible event instead of just ogling you in the dim light of his bedroom.

“Don’t look at me like that…” You can’t help but reflect some of his flustered behavior, eye contact becoming almost painful. He’s never met your eyes with such enormous positivity and cuteness before and it makes you want to run laps around the building or something. “Mark, I’m serious!”

“How could you like me back? When I was so mean to you? For months?” He begins to twist in place, trying to lean over and look at your head from multiple directions. “Did you fall down the stairs on the way over here and hit your head or something?”

“Mark!” You uncross your legs and shuffle closer on your knees, reaching out to still his movement by grasping his shoulders once again. “Please stop.” When you touch him, he freezes, still moon-eyed. After he stops moving, your hands slide down so that you can hold his. His hands are warm and stiff, just like the rest of his body.

He finally breaks eye contact, looking at where your hands are connected. “I just really don’t get it. There’s no way you like me.”

“You almost sound like you’re upset about it.” You tilt your head, smiling at him softly.

“I am!” He’s insistant, his hands holding onto yours firmly now. Though his grip is tighter, he visibly deflates, his shoulders sinking. “It’s so unfair to you. I was such an ass.”

“But you’re not. One ass-like behavior does not an ass make.” You almost confuse yourself saying it, but you continue. “It’s not about the times you were weird to me. It’s about the times you were nice to everyone else. Like when you helped Yuqi with our class. Or when you helped Donghyuck with his calc even though you aren’t even taking it with him. It sounds kind of dumb, but because of that, I knew you weren’t a bad person. Even if you were trying to be one to me sometimes.” Your thumbs run over his idly, making soothing strokes over his skin as you speak. “Still, you weren’t really all that mean to me, per se. More cold, if anything. Then, when you stopped doing so much of that, it got really confusing. I do have a question, though.”

“I’ll try to answer it, I guess.”

“Did Jungwoo really say we were that similar?”

He blinks. “Maybe once or twice? It just really stuck out to me, for some reason.”

“You’re cute.” He blushes furiously at that. Carefully, you untangle one of your hands from his and bring it up to his cheek, cupping his blazing face. “Do you want to try this? The being together thing?”

“I want to, but-” He presses his lips together, making his cheeks puff out slightly as he thinks. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve a chance with you.”

Silence sits between you for a moment. Your hand moves back down so you’re holding both of his again. “I know what you can do to make it up to me.”

His eager eyes on your face prompts you to continue. Slowly, a grin threatens to split your face in half.

“I guess you’ll have to kiss me at least once for every time you were mean to me. Maybe more than once.” Your brilliant smile changes form in the air between you and reappears as the stars in his eyes.

“Practice round? Just to make sure I get it right.” The subtle flirtatiousness of the idea that leaves his mouth absolutely appeals to you and you agree. You move as close as you possibly can, your knees pressed together, your breath on his lips and his on yours, his soft bangs grazing your forehead. The touch of his lips against yours is awkward at first, but transforms into something sweeter with a little time. Once you both pull away, it seems you have the same idea when you both go back in for a few quick pecks afterwards. Finally, when you’re content for the moment, he leans forward quickly to press a kiss to your cheek.

You figure that a return to the work of folding cranes will help calm down your rapid heart rate, but every time you steal a glance at Mark, the butterflies return. You know for a fact that he keeps looking at you, too. By the time the noise level outside of the room increases and music is being blasted through the apartment, you’re nowhere near being done with all one hundred cranes, but both of you are sure your mutual friend doesn’t actually care about that. Together, you emerge from his room. You don’t answer any prodding questions from your friends for most of the time you’re mingling, though you’re pretty sure that a good number of them see him sneaking kisses at least once or twice.

Some of them definitely see when you sneak off to his room again before the clock has even turned to midnight. At the same time, you could be damned if you really care.

#neowritingsnet #nct fluff #nct angst #mark lee fluff #mark lee angst #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 angst #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 imagines #nct fanfic #nct scenario #wonjaekook #i tried a slightly new sizing for the header :) hopefully it looks better now #there are definitely things I could have done better so let me know what you think!#<<<333

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jungblue · 5 years ago

Text

aphrodite in war | 01

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: comedy, fluff, angst, eventual smut / greek life, fake dating, roommates, lovers to enemies and back to lovers au

word count: 11,022

description: Everyone knew about the war that had been brewing on the edge of campus for the past two years. Sorority versus Fraternity; a showdown for the ages. However, when the escalating antics between them yields the consequence of possible suspensions for both chapters, the presidents of each house must come together to try and figure out how to end this battle... Which is kind of hard, considering they were the ones responsible for it in the first place.

note: here is an audio post of a beautiful song with lyrics inspired by AiW, which was written by one of my lovely readers!

→ part 02

Hostility bleeds deep. The rivers of resentment collide violently as they carve a divide so saturated in disdain between the parties involved that you don’t even need to be told that there is something more to the story. It doesn’t need to be said out loud, but is just instinctively felt.

You didn’t need to be told that the ominous house at the end of street was sketchy and should be avoided at all cost; you just knew it. You didn’t need to be told that there was bad blood between the guy and girl whose jaws suddenly stiffened as their lips transformed into a firm, straight line when they caught sight of each other at a party; you just knew it — And you most certainly didn’t need to be told that there was an absolute war brewing at the end of Greek Drive between the Tri Delts and Lambdas; you just fucking knew it.

In the beginning, their rivalry was small. It was simple antics such as egging each other’s houses or fucking around with the letters that they so proudly displayed on their lawns. But then it turned a bit more intense. Egging the houses turned into spray-painting them and fucking with the letters on their lawns turned into completely trashing each other’s lawns. It was because of this that the once harmless pranks turned infamous. Everything that happened between their houses had constantly been circulated around campus for the past two years, or at the very least among their Greek counterparts… Which was probably how the two newly inducted presidents of Delta Delta Delta and Lambda Phi Epsilon, on the very first week of their final year in college, found themselves sitting in the office of a much higher power than their own titles — The president of their university; a single word spilling past his lips that had their stomachs twisting.

“Suspension!?” They both yelled in disbelief.

It was a word no organization wanted to hear. It branded your chapters with a shame that would be painted across the local news stations and even across the country. The lines would blur, only to lump them in with those terrible hazing stories that constantly flooded the media.

“P-president Kwon,” Jungkook finally stuttered out after a moment of coming to terms with the seriousness of the situation they were being faced with. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I promise the very... minor pranks that go on between our houses are probably much less problematic than what you’re thinking.”

“Mr. Jeon, do you think that we would threaten something of such dramatic action without several instances of confirmed proof?” President Kwon asked in a clipped tone as he leaned forward in his chair.

You could see the way that Jungkook blanched next to you, clearly not expecting this harsh treatment from President Kwon. Lambda Phi Epsilon happened to be President Kwon’s former fraternity, so it was well known that there was a good relationship there. However, in this moment you could make out nothing except for a glaring, red warning shining off the president’s ice-cold eyes.

“I — no, sir,” Jungkook whispered, dropping his head slightly to hide the sudden flush of red that was rushing to his face.

“It is more embarrassing than I can possibly describe to the two of you, receiving dozens upon dozens of phone calls and emails over the incidents involving your organizations. Garbage littering every inch of your front yards, obscene images drawn onto your houses, several instances of animal control having to be called due to rodents being set free in the house as a… as a prank? All of this is happening while visits from prospective students and their parents are being conducted. Donors who help this school are wandering the campus and seeing it. Tell me, did the incidents I just mentioned not actually transpire, Mr. Jeon? Ms. Y/L/N?”

The air was so stiff that you barely managed a shaky inhale in order to respond to the juvenile antics being laid out before you. “No, th-they did transpire, sir. And I don’t know what to say besides that I’m so, so sorry that we’ve embarrassed the university this way.” You bit at the inside of your cheek, President Kwon’s relentless glare of disappointment cutting you through and through.

“Yes, so completely sorry,” Jungkook added.

Nothing was said for a few moments after that. It seemed President Kwon wanted to make the two of you squirm for everything that you had done, and it was definitely working. Every movement made you feel self-conscious, the judgement permeating the office air felt as if it were sticking to your skin.

“I know that what we’ve done is completely unacceptable, President Kwon,” You began, not being able to take the silence anymore. “But I promise if you give us just one more chance, we’ll clean up our acts. No more pranks, just cordial neighbors. As the new presidents of our chapters this year, we’ll make sure the members understand that this behavior isn’t something that will be tolerated anymore.”

Jungkook was nodding his head next to you in agreeance. But once again the room was plunged into silence. It was honestly torture, sitting there under such scrutiny as someone held something so dear to you in the palm of their hand. It would break your heart if the suspension actually went through… Considering it was yours and Jungkook’s fault that tensions had gotten to where they were in the first place. The bad blood between the two of you had seeped into the minds of your members as well, which was ultimately how it got so ugly. But it had gotten especially bad this year now that you were the respective presidents of each of your houses and had allowed things to escalate further. Harsh feelings between two people couldn’t do much damage, but when it was dozens versus dozens, well that was when things got messy.

Eventually though you found yourself being pulled back to reality. President Kwon cleared his throat, the sound making your heart stutter in your chest as you prepared yourself for the worst.

“You’re exactly right. It won’t be tolerated any longer.” He paused for a moment, probably for the added effect of letting anxiety seize its way around your lungs. “Probation for the next three months. One more incident and it’s over. Do you understand?”

At that there was a simultaneous sigh of relief from you and Jungkook as the looming consequence faded… At least for now.

“Thank you so much, President Kwon.” Jungkook stood from his chair, reaching across the table to shake his hand. “I promise we won’t mess this up.”

You lifted yourself up from your chair as well, following his lead. “Yes, we promise.”

“I hope that’s true,” Is all President Kwon responded with as he led the two of you towards the door of his office. “Take care.”

With rather mumbled and rushed goodbyes you exited his office, the two of you shuffling quickly down the hallway until you were sure you were out of earshot. Both of you stopped as you turned the corner, insults already resting on the tips of your tongues.

“This is all your fucking fault!” You yelled in a hushed whisper.

“My fault!?” He whispered back, equally as intense. “You’re the one who started this shit, Y/N. No one would even be fighting if you hadn’t opened your mouth to your friends.”

“I was just venting to them! I had no idea that they would go and actually do something about it. And it was a harmless prank. They planted fucking flowers in front of your house for god’s sake, and your loser friends retaliated by digging holes in our yard. You guys are the ones who escalated it, and now it’s this out of control thing that’s going to get our chapters suspended!” Your chest was rising and falling, anger boiling inside of your blood. You had never even partaken in any of the antics that had gone on between the two houses nor had you baited any of your members into participating.

Jungkook rolled his eyes, tongue pressing at the inside of his cheek. “You know what? It’s whatever. We’ve been arguing about this for two years now, so I’m not expecting you to be reasonable any time soon.”

Your fists clenched at your sides, the painful reminder of how long this had been going on searing a deep cut across your chest. But it was like Jungkook had said, this had been going on for a long time and there was no point in arguing about who was right, because it wasn’t as if it actually mattered. So instead, you just didn’t respond. You stared at him for a moment, sneer fading into this sad downward turn of your lips. And surprisingly you watched the way his expression softened as well. His brows were furrowing a little less, his jaw not as hard and brooding.

You gave him a tiny nod before you turned away and headed towards the exit. It was a few seconds before you heard his footsteps start to follow you. Every time his sneakers would squeak against the linoleum floor behind you, it felt like this tiny pressure was beginning to build at the base of your throat. You weren’t sure why you still got these feelings of… longing, even after all of this passed time. It was pathetic. Jungkook apparently didn’t long for anything from back then, so why did you?

Eventually you were able to breathe a little clearer once you pushed your way through the exit and away from the tight and tense space of faculty meetings and suspension threats. The fresh air filled your rattled lungs — too bad it was murky and humid beneath the gray storm clouds that were currently drowning the campus in a depressing drizzle.

“Goddammit,” You muttered beneath your breath.

You didn’t drive here since this building had been so close to your last class of the day. The Tri Delt house was about a ten minute walk from here, so it looked like you needed to get going before the light sprinkle of rain turned into a thunderstorm. You were about to step out from underneath the overhead of the roof and down the steps when you felt a light tug of someone pulling at the back of the belt loop on your jeans.

“Do you need a ride?” Jungkook asked before you had even turned around to fully face him. His expression was neutral. It didn’t seem annoyed or concerned, but he had always been good at hiding his emotions like that.

Of course you didn’t want to walk home in the rain, but sitting in a confined space with Jungkook after you’d both just gotten done yelling at one another didn’t seem like the greatest time either. But in the end, you decided that a few minutes wouldn’t kill you. “Yeah, I guess,” You whispered, motioning for him to go ahead so you could follow. His car was parked in one of the first spots at the bottom of the steps. You were both silent as you opened the doors and climbed inside.

It was weird. You hadn’t been in Jungkook’s car in years. You watched him pull out of the parking space, one hand on the wheel, the other leaning against the center console. It felt all too familiar. You blew a heady sigh past your lips, hands wringing in your lap. It didn’t seem to matter how much time passed, the tension between you and him never seemed to lessen. It was a constant, palpable stiffness in the air.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get them to stop fighting?” Jungkook finally asked once they turned onto Greek Drive, giving some mild relief to the strain that the two of you were so highly aware of.

“If suspension doesn’t do it, then I honestly don’t know what would.”

He nodded, seeming to agree. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll cut it out.”

“Yeah, they can’t be that dumb—” However, your words seemed to disintegrate along your tongue as the car approached the Lambda and Tri Delt houses that stood side by side.

“Jesus Christ,” Jungkook muttered, pulling into the driveway which currently had a Lambda named Jimin running down it towards his truck that was completely covered in saran-wrap and a laughing Tri Delt named Joy who was holding said saran-wrap.

“Get back here and take this shit off my truck right now!” You heard Jimin yell.

“Nope, I’m good.” She smiled, shrugging and taunting him as she jogged away.

“This… This might be harder than we thought,” You said.

Jungkook rested his head against the steering wheel, eyes closed. “Yeah, way fucking harder.”

---------

It was several mass group texts later, demanding that every Lambda and Tri Delt come to their houses immediately, that all forty-two members of the combined organizations who actually lived in-house finally arrived… Yeah, there was no way that this could go terribly wrong or anything… Right?

You and Jungkook stood in front of the members as they gathered on the grassy area that separated your two houses. As expected there were dozens of mumbled conversations transpiring, all speculating on what the hell was going on here. You looked to Jungkook, giving him a nod to tell him that they should start.

He cleared his throat, clapping his hands together, resulting in large boom that got everyone’s attention. “All right, listen up. We have something important we need to discuss.”

“Jungkook, why the hell are the Tri Delts here?” A Lambda named Yuta yelled out.

“Because we can be, asshole.” It was Jennie.

“Who’re you calling an asshole?” Taehyung asked, even though he had nothing to do with it.

“Your dickhead friend,” Sana responded, again even though it had nothing to do with her.

And then Chanyeol chimed in, followed by Momo, which then got escalated by Johnny and continued by Dahyun. After that you lost track of who was arguing because it just became a giant clusterfuck of people yelling and this was the perfect example of how this entire war started — people getting involved in the business of others that didn’t even concern them.

You started rubbing at your temples, fingernails digging into your palms. This was enough. “Shut the fuck up!” You yelled, a loud echo that reverberated through the air and hushed everyone into silence. “This is why you’re all here.” You motioned towards them.

“What do you mean?” Someone asked from the back. “What’s going on?”

“Me and Y/N had a meeting with President Kwon today,” Jungkook paused, releasing a deep sigh before continuing. “He said that if we all keep publicly fighting the way we have been… that our chapters will get suspended.”

There was a small pause, as if it didn’t immediately click with everyone what had been said — and then the panic set in.

“What?!”

“No fucking way!”

“He can’t be serious!”

“That’s bullshit!”

“This is just another prank, right?!”

Having forty-two people publicly shouting expletives, wasn’t the best start to this image reset that President Kwon wanted, but there was no way either of the chapters would have been okay with the other house coming into their own, so this little outdoor set-up was the best option they had.

You and Jungkook sort of just stood there for a moment, letting the members get their gut-reactions out. Then he turned to you, motioning towards the mob of angry Greek lifers. “You were always better at yelling than me. You wanna quiet them down?” He smirked, a jab that had you clenching your teeth.

“Great way to start off this so called peace treaty, but sure, I’ll gladly calm them down and get straight to the point. I wouldn’t want to let them drown in their own heads without knowing what’s going on because someone won’t just be upfront.” You stared him straight in the eyes, making sure he got your double meaning since he wanted to play dirty and bring up the past. He simply clenched his jaw and averted his gaze back to the crowd of hysterics laid out before them.

“Quiet down and we’ll explain.” You yelled as loud as you could, hoping it would reach everyone so that the chatter would die down quickly. Luckily it seemed they were all on the verge of a mental breakdown and needed answers, so the volume was almost instantly brought down to a hush. All eyes were now on you. “To make things simple, President Kwon thinks that our little prank war or whatever the hell you want to call it, has brought too much negative attention to the school. Visiting students and their parents, donors, and apparently a lot of other people have noticed all of the antics that we pull on each other, and they don’t like it.” You paused, gauging the reactions, but everyone was just frozen in place, waiting for more details. “He put both of our houses on three months of probation and said that if we don’t clean up our acts and stop with all of this petty bullshit that he would suspend our chapters. So, really it’s that easy. We just have to let this feud die down...” You paused, not wanting to say what you were going to say next, but you thought that it would be the best way to diffuse the situation. “And I know that it was the venting of my personal feelings that started this entire thing, so I wanted to say… I’m sorry for causing it.” You didn’t look towards Jungkook, but you could feel his stare burning into the side of your face. You didn’t want to see his expression. Didn’t want to see the smugness or whatever the hell he was feeling towards this forced public apology. You were about to continue, but before you could, a high-pitched voice cut in.

“No, why are you apologizing?” Sana said, stepping past the front lines of the two groups. “It is not your fault.” She shot a glare towards Jungkook who simply rolled his eyes and kept his stare straight ahead.

Then it was Jennie pushing to the front to join in on your defense. “She’s right, Y/N. It’s not your fault. We’re the ones who planted the flowers as a joke. Even though it was a harmless joke,” She turned towards the Lambda boys, venom coating her words, “that made their trashy house look a little bit nicer. Yet, they had to escalate it into something else.”

Oh, this was not good.

Jimin broke through the front line for the Lambdas, a scowl etched across his face. “It’s not the issue of what you did. It’s the fact that back then you blindly fucked with the house that all of the guys lived in, not only Jungkook, just because of Y/N being upset over their relationship — which, he did nothing wrong since you wanna start glaring at people for no fucking reason Sana.”

It was this violent concoction of anger and sadness colliding inside of your stomach that had you simultaneously fighting back the urge to bite off Jimin’s head or crying pathetically in front of everyone.

Multiple people were stepping to the front of their groups now, various arguments splintering off as people began defending the heads of their respective houses. Y/N this, Jungkook that. You stared at the second story of the Tri Delt house, focusing in on the bedroom window all the way to the right (your bedroom), so that your hearing would blur out. You didn’t want to listen to these arguments any more, but you also didn’t have the energy to both somehow defend yourself while also admitting that Jungkook’s feelings from back then were also valid. So you stood there, eyes glazing over at the sight of the room where this entire feud spawned from. Though, maybe that wasn’t exactly correct. According to Jungkook it had started in no particular place and at no particular time that he could actually pinpoint. That was just the place where it had all finally been verbalized.

You weren’t sure how long you zoned out for, just reminiscing on the conversation from that night, but it was Jungkook’s voice thundering through the air that halted everyone’s arguments once again, along with your torturous thoughts.

“All of you just fucking stop!” He yelled. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is or how it started. If we keep doing this we’re gonna get our chapters suspended. Do you guys want that?” There was an awkward moment of silence where everyone was just sort of looking around at one another before the members finally grumbled a unanimous ‘no.’ “Okay, so then you guys are just gonna have to get over this bullshit, just like how me and Y/N are,” Jungkook paused, one brow arched as he turned to face you. “Right?”

You felt your face heat up as you clamped your teeth down onto the inside of your cheek. “…Right.”

“Good.” Jungkook smiled, seeming very happy with himself for getting that out of you — smug asshole. He turned back to face all of the members, clapping his hands together before saying something that caused the entire group to erupt into hysterics. “Now, apologize to each other.”

“Fuck that!” Someone screeched from the back. “Baek let the air out of my tires last year. I was late for my final.”

“Because you put a pair of panties in my car and my girlfriend thought I was cheating on her!”

“You probably were!”

Everyone was screaming and calling out various incidents, saying there was no way in hell they were ever going to apologize.

“Fine! Fucking fine!” Jungkook cut in immediately before it could devolve again. “How about if me and Y/N just apologize to each other and it’ll count for the rest of you? And then this war is dead. Sound fair?”

No one said anything concrete in response, just unintelligible grumbles rippling through the crowd. Jungkook apparently took this as an okay, because he was suddenly turning toward you. “Alright, you go first.”

You scoffed. “I’m not apologizing first. It wasn’t even my idea. Besides I already apologized to everyone earlier.”

“It wasn’t an apology to me though.”

“I don’t think I owe you an apology.” You shrugged. “I apologized for my friends fucking with your house. What else do I need to apologize for?”

He just looked at you, with those eyes that were unreadable. Though you could see a slight shift, as though there truly was something that he wanted you to apologize for from back then, but he could tell that you weren’t going to back down, so he went for something that cut deep as punishment.

He huffed in annoyance. “Fine, if you wanna be like that. I’m sorry that I broke up with you, Y/N.”

Your entire body flared with anger that had a pool of sweat instantly swelling at your hairline. You stepped closer to him, only a foot of space between you, but he didn’t back down and you weren’t going to either. “And I’m sorry I wasted three years of my life with a lying, cheating piece of shit!”

His eyes went wide. The word that never failed to strike a nerve whenever this argument was brought back under the light. His response was quiet but firm, everyone, all forty-two members watching in silence. “I never cheated on you, but if you want to think that just so I can be the bad guy in your head, fine.”

His final word felt like a sharp cut across your chest, but you stood firm, not backing down. You didn’t break eye contact with him as you voiced your final sentiment to the two groups of warring Greeks. “I don’t care whose side you guys fall on when it comes to this overblown drama between me and Jungkook. The fighting, the pranks, all of it, it’s over.”

“Agreed.” Jungkook bit out before turning and walking towards the Lambda house, a silent command for his Brothers to do the same.

You didn’t stand there for a single second longer and began walking toward your own house, your fellow Sisters following. Your best friends, Sana and Jennie, instantly threw their arms around your shoulders. “Vodka?” The universal distraction from all things awful in life.

You shook your head. “Tequila.” The universal eraser to all things awful in life. “Lots of tequila.”

——-

“He’s lucky that we’re in a truce now or I would’ve thought up something diabolical for his arrogant ass,” Jennie said as she dusted some blush on her cheeks.

“I know right, ugh!” Sana made a disgusted sound as she handed you the necklace she was letting you borrow for the night. “Telling you to apologize first. Like fuck you. You haven’t even done anything.”

You simply sighed, jumping to get your jeans past your thighs. “It’s fine guys. As long as no more issues pop up we can just ignore them and act like none of this ever happened.”

“I know, I know, but it just pisses me off that they always bring your name into the argument. Like you didn’t tell us to go and mess with them. We did it ourselves, and sure, looking back on it now we shouldn’t have done it — even though they were some nice fucking flowers — but regardless, they pushed it to another level.” Sana let out a final huff as she hopefully released the last of her ranting for the night.

“The point of the tequila,” You said as you filled three shot glasses, several wedges of lime waiting beside them, “Is to forget the problems. Not continue thinking about them.”

Sana snapped her fingers and pointed at you with a smile as she picked up her shot. “You know what, you’re right. Fuck the Lambdas. They no longer exist. In my head we live next to a vacant patch of grass.”

“Exactly.” Jennie picked up her glass, leaving the final one for you. “Cheers to no longer having to deal with the house that must not be named.”

The three of you let out a little cheer before clinking your glasses together and forcing your bodies through the post-shot shivers that followed.

After the front yard meeting fiasco you knew immediately you would be going out. However, it had still been quite early, so you, Sana, and Jennie decided to indulge in several glasses of wine to bide the time before it was late enough to feel like an appropriate time to be downing shots. Tequila at six in the afternoon, even on a Friday, just didn’t feel right, so alcohol juice it had been. Though, the warm feeling that was already radiating through your legs as you walked over to the mirror to do one last once over of your outfit indicated that the so called alcohol juice had done its job as the pre-game to the actual hard liquor pre-game a little too well.

“Okay, I’m only opting for one more round while we’re here or else we will be having a repeat of St. Patrick’s Day.” Too many green beers that day. Too many.

“Senior year wisdom.” Jennie placed her hand over her heart. “Our freshman year brains would never.”

“Our freshman year brains didn’t have an aversion to six different types of alcohol yet.” You laughed as you motioned to take the next round of shots. “And I would like to still be able to look at a bottle of tequila without going into a full-body sweat after tonight, so we’re pacing ourselves.”

“Oh, Fireball. The days when I could still drink you were so simple.” Sana grabbed her face and grimaced as if Fireball was a long lost god, while you audibly gagged from the name of the cinnamon flavored whiskey alone.

“Sana, stop. You know Y/N can’t even look at a churro anymore without looking like she’s gonna yak everywhere like a dog.”

I faked a sniffle. “God, I miss being able to eat churros.” Cinnamon was now inedible to you thanks to your now forever connection between the delectable spice and the previously mentioned unspeakable liquor. A break up that rivaled that of yours and Jungkook’s.

“Uber’s gonna be here in three minutes,” Jennie said as she returned to your bedside table to grab her shot glass once again.

The three of you raised your glasses together with a clink. “Let’s fuck it up.”

——----

The bar right next to your college, simply referred to as “Pub,” was a weird place to be on the first Friday of the new semester. It was a mix of underage freshman trying to slyly sip at their alcohol while attempting to hide the X’s marked on their hands, and of age students that felt a little too old to be at Pub, but who could argue with free drinks for girls until midnight? Definitely not you, Sana, or Jennie.

The three of you found your temporary home at the tables on the deck right outside of the entrance, the fresh air much preferable to the stuffy atmosphere of the dance floor that you would soon find yourself on given the right song choice to send you flying through the door.

You watched as Sana shimmied through the crowd of people to return to your table, three tiny plastic cups in hand. “You get a vodka Sprite, you get a vodka Sprite, and I get a vodka Sprite!” She yelled as she set the cups down on the table.

You laughed. “People may call that basic, but we still get drunk and don’t have to drink Jack and fucking Coke.”

“The Devil’s combo.” Jennie sipped her drink. “You see a guy drinking that: run. He thinks he’s so fucking cool.”

Sana raised her plastic cup. “Cheers to the truth.”

“Cheers,” You all agreed collectively.

“But speaking of guys who don’t drink Jack and Coke, I ran into Namjoon when I went to the bathroom a minute ago.” A blush crept across Jennie’s cheeks.

“Are you finally gonna see if he’s interested? He’s not your TA anymore, so it’s not sketchy.”

Jennie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s weird. He seems so uninterested that it’s intimidating. Like I’ve imagined thirty-seven different scenarios for our first date and he’s only like ‘Hi, Jennie. Bye, Jennie.”

You and Sana couldn’t help but laugh, however, the amusement was cut short by a decently sized group of familiar males.

“Fuck me,” You said under your breath, which was enough for Jennie to turn around and see the pack of Lambda boys climbing the wooden steps onto the deck of the bar, Jungkook leading the way.

“You try to forget your problems and they just walk in on two legs.” Sana groaned. “It’s rude really.”

The group got caught in the line to get into the bar, which unfortunately left them idling uncomfortably close to your table, and of course something had to be said.

Jimin glanced down at them sitting, a fake grin plastered to his mouth. “If it isn’t our cordial neighbors.”

Jennie snapped her head up to look at him, mirroring his forced smile. “Cordial can also mean that we’re pretending you don’t exist. In fact, we no longer acknowledge that we even have neighbors.”

“That’s fantastic, actually. It means I can forget that awful blowjob you gave me freshman year even happened.”

Jennie’s jaw clenched for all of a millisecond before responding. “Awful? Say that to my untouched vagina after you came in sixty seconds. Though again, we’re pretending you don’t exist, so I guess I can forget the most underwhelming sexual experience of my life. Thanks, Jimin.” She turned back to you and Sana, not sparing a second glance as if she’d simply given someone directions to the nearest Denny’s.

But Jimin wasn’t through. “That’s not what happened—”

You could see in your friend’s face she was already squaring up another jab, and as much as you found it entertaining you knew it was setting a bad example.

“Jennie,” You said at the same time that Jungkook sighed “Jimin.”

You both looked at each other, a silent message of gratefulness passing between the two of you at trying to actually make this work.

“Guys, neither of us want to get our chapters suspended. If ignoring each other is the best route, do that, or maybe even be friends. Whatever results in no fuckery between our houses, okay?” You reminded them of what was at stake here and everyone nodded, letting any planned animosity fall away as the line to get into the bar began to move.

You tilted your head, watching as Jungkook’s back disappeared into the building, his eyes crinkling as he smiled brightly at some girl who noticed him the second he made it past the threshold.

Again, that stupid feeling of longing for something that was clearly dead and gone. But you didn’t want to get too down, so before you could spiral too far you turned back towards your friends. “So did he really last sixty seconds?”

“No,” Jennie smiled, “But I definitely still have the texts of him telling me the next day it was the best suck of his life. He’s the one that lied first, so I get to bend the truth too.”

“Freshman year is so weird to think about. Everyone was actually friendly. Jennie and Jimin might be dating right now if it wasn’t for our little war.” Sana laughed as she batted the napkin away that Jennie tossed at her.

“Absolutely not. I want someone like Namjoon, who’s smart and respectful. Not Jimin, who… who…” She trailed off simply finishing her thought with a wordless grimace.

Jennie said that, but you knew it wasn’t exactly true. You remembered very well when Jennie and Jimin were involved and she actually seemed to enjoy the Lambda’s presence quite a bit. But then things went to shit the summer after your freshman year was over, and well, this was the reality now. Snide comments at every passing instead of mutual invites to beach days.

You were beginning to let a little slideshow of memories from that first year cloud your head when a song that already had you lifting out of your chair clamored inside the bar. “We dance till dawn!” You pulled your friends by their arms through the entrance, waving your wristbands at the bouncer before pushing your way to the middle of the dance floor.

“Drinks!” Jennie beamed, remembering that they had finished the others outside. “I’ll be back!” She yelled over the music, pointing towards the bar.

You and Sana gave her a thumbs up as you began to dance together, singing the lyrics so loud your throats would certainly punish you by night’s end. But you didn’t care. Today had been absolutely disastrous, ripping up old wounds that you wished would just stay permanently beneath their flimsy bandaid, so you were thankful for this music that was blaring so loud that thoughts weren’t even an option, the alcohol that was so potent you could barely remember Jungkook’s smug face from the house meeting today, and your friends that allowed you to be this happy on days this bad.

A few songs passed and you and Sana were still dancing and getting so hyped up by every new spin that it took you a second to remember that Jennie definitely should’ve been back by now. You looked around, only to find a sight that made you let out a slight scream that was completely concealed by the music. You tapped Sana and began pointing towards the bar. She turned and immediately mirrored your excitement.

Namjoon was leaning into Jennie at the bar, whispering something into her ear and you could see her smiling, redness once again blooming on her face. In your drunkenness you pulled out your phone and snapped severa blurry pictures, which were sure to be a great topic of discussion in the group chat tomorrow. You watched Jennie nod her head, smiling and pointing to the three drinks in her hand, and then she started back towards where you were.

“Bitch, the drinks could’ve waited!” You tried to say over the music. “Go back and talk to him.”

Jennie actually looked giddy as she handed over the drinks to you and Sana. “I am. He’s leaving soon though, but he asked if I wanted to grab something to eat with him at the diner down the street.”

Sana jumped up and down in excitement. “So he basically asked you to marry him? Got it.”

“Oh yeah, he’s totally gonna propose to me over my omelette.” She joked, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Are you guys okay if I go?”

“Of course, but I will be checking your location in fifteen minutes and if you are not at that diner I will hunt Namjoon’s ass down in two seconds,” You warned. “—Except if you decide you wanna skip the diner and go straight to fucking that’s cool too, just let us know.”

Jennie threw out another giddy expression at the thought. “I’ll text you guys. Love you!” She said, kissing her hand and throwing it out to you as she weaved back towards where Namjoon was waiting for her at the bar.

“Fuck Disney,” You shouted to Sana. “Dreams come true at Pub too.”

She bent over, laughing as she tried to sip her drink. “Ugh, if only we could be that lucky. I’ve never had a TA even close to that hot.”

“Same, but maybe we’ll find something else tonight.” You motioned toward the back where you could see some of the soccer players hanging out. You eyed Jung Hoseok. The two of you had hooked up a few times last year, and getting laid would be a perfect ending to this bad to actually decent day.

“Oh, I see.” Sana wiggled her brows, giving a knowing look. “Let’s go bump into them.” She grabbed your hand and began leading you through the crowd until you reached the area that the soccer players were idly standing around and sipping their drinks. You started a conversation about something random right behind Hoseok, and it was only a minute or so before he turned around and noticed the two of you.

“Oh, look who it is.” He smiled, hugging you. “Been a while.”

“I know your summer must’ve been so dull without me,” You flirted, sipping at your drink.

“No question.” He leaned back against the wall, pulling you by the waist so you weren’t halfway on the dance floor and constantly being bumped into. Sana noticed the gesture and took that as her cue to let things simmer between you and Hoseok.

“Y/N, I see Nayeon and Joy over there.” She pointed towards the other corner of the bar, where you saw the two Tri Delts mingling. “I’m gonna go over there, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

She leaned into your ear, whispering, “If you wanna go home with him just text me. I’ll catch a ride with them on the way back to the house.”

“I’m ninety-five percent sure I will, but I’ll text you to make sure,” You whispered back.

She squeezed your shoulder before pulling back. “Take care of her Jung. I’ve heard you’re very good at that.” Sana smiled like a tiny devil before running through the crowd, leaving you slightly slack-jawed.

You bit your lip, a small warmth creeping into our face. “Please, ignore that,” You bit through an awkward laugh.

“Why’re you embarrassed?” He smiled, shrugging before leaning next to your ear. “I mean I have taken care of you every single time we’ve been together, right?”

His breath was hot against the side of your face, leaving you tingling. You lifted your hand, cupping his jaw as you pulled him back to look him in the face. “You can’t say things like that to me when we’re in a bar and you can’t do anything about it.”

He smiled, eyes drifting to your mouth. “I mean we could always leave. It’s almost closing time anyways.”

You smiled. “One more drink, after I finish this one.”

“Perfect.” He leaned in, gave you a small peck on the lips before ruffling your hair a little and turning to say something to his friend. Presumably it was something about him getting laid tonight, which was exactly the same conversation you were about to have with your friend.

You: the hookup is secure

Sana: quick work. i’m proud

Sana: joy and nayeon said that lisa is sick in the bathroom and they’re about to take her back to the house, so i was just going to catch a ride with them if you’re going with hoseok. sound good?

You: oh really? i hope she’s okay. make sure she gets water at home. and yes i’ll be fine. we were gonna have one last drink and then go. i’ll text you when i make it to his place

Sana: sounds good. love you!

You slipped your phone back into your pocket after returning the sentiment.

“Everything good?” Hoseok asked.

“Yeah, one of our friends is sick so Sana was just letting me know she was gonna go home with her.”

“Damn,” Hoseok tsked, jokingly. “Does that mean I’m stuck with you for the night?”

“It would seem so.” You smiled, and then he pulled you beneath his arm and adjusted the backwards cap on his head.

“You know, I’m all for just fucking or whatever, but you’re really never gonna say yes to a date, are you?”

You paused before answering, remembering that time last year that he’d asked about actually taking you out to dinner. You had thought about it, but in the end you just decided you had no desire to even slightly pivot in the direction of being any more than friends with benefits with someone. Though, if anyone were able to sway you away from that mindset after Jungkook, it would be Hoseok, but just not yet.

“If I let you take me to Steak n’ Shake after this, will that suffice?” You giggled at the way he rolled his eyes while still smiling.

“I have leftovers in my fridge better than the food from there, so I’ll let you have that.” He paused, a slight glimmer filling his eyes. “Maybe I’ll light a candle, make it romantic, sort of like a date.”

Your skin prickled slightly at the mention of the candle, a call back to one of their more… unconventional hook ups from last year.

“Is candle wax being melted onto my naked body and drunkenness really a good mix?” You asked, even though it had been one of the best feelings you had ever experienced.

“Not that drunk, but it could always wait until the morning.”

You tapped your finger to your lips as if you were pondering it. “Let me get my last drink and I’ll let you know my answer.”

“I have a tab open.” He motioned towards the bar. “Just get it on mine.”

“Thanks,” You said, even though you planned to pay for it yourself. Random guys you didn’t mind hustling a few free drinks from, but not guys you were actually sort of friends with.

You walked up to the bartender. “Vodka Sprite,” You said over the thumping music. He nodded and then stepped to the left and made your drink. He handed it to you as you slipped him your credit card, motioning to close the tab out.

You were already halfway done with sipping on the drink when the bartender returned a slight look of awkwardness on his face. “Uh, it declined.”

Your brows furrowed. Your financial aid refund for school had definitely been deposited into your bank account. You knew this because you had jumped for joy when it hit and you were finally able to return to the sanctuary that is no-ads Hulu. There was enough to cover your dues for staying in the Tri Delt house this semester, so there should certainly have been enough to cover a four dollar drink. You were pondering what to do, maybe just put it on Hoseok’s tab like he said you could. It was probably just your actual bank having issues and it would sort itself out in the morning anyways. You were just about to say to put it on his tab when someone slid their muscled bicep right in front of your face with a credit card in hand.

You knew that it was pathetic that you knew exactly who that bicep belonged to before he even turned to look at your face, black strands of hair hanging over his forehead.

“I got it,” Jungkook said to the bartender.

“Why’d you do that?” You asked.

“Because I was right behind you and heard him, and I know how embarrassed you get about things like that.” He shrugged, grabbing the paper and pen that the bartender slid back towards him.

He was right. You had terrible secondhand embarrassment, let alone actual first hand embarrassment. “Well… thanks. I don’t know why it did that. I got my refund already.”

“Just check your bank account. If the money’s in there then the bank system is probably just fucked up right now.”

“Yeah…” You slid your phone out of your pocket and immediately went to your banking app and pressed your fingerprint down onto the login. You waited a few seconds, and when your balance appeared on the screen, you felt your heart drop. “What in the actual fuck?” You said, staring at your bank account with a whopping dollar and twenty cent in it.

“What’s wrong?” Jungkook asked, brows furrowed as he rounded to your side to look at your screen to see the low number that was not at all what it was yesterday. “I thought you said you got your refund?”

You were shaking your head. “I… I did. I don’t know what the hell happened. Oh my god, I’m gonna freak the fuck out. I have to pay my housing cost for Tri-Delt with that money. Like what the fuck is going on—”

You felt Jungkook’s on your back, rubbing light circles. “Just breathe.” You stiffened at the touch, but didn’t try to pull away. “It’s probably just a financial aid fuck up. Call them tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

You knew that he was probably right, but a creeping feeling was telling you otherwise. This was your fourth year in college dealing with the same exact scholarships every single semester and this had never happened before.

“Fuck.” You brought your hands up to push at either of your temples. “That really just fucked up my whole mood. I’m not even horny anymore—” You cringed, realizing what you just said. “Please, just ignore me I’m drunk.” You shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut, not wanting to see the expression he’d made at your admission.

“What’re you doing now? Where’s Sana and Jennie?” He asked, ignoring your flub and finally lowering his hand from your back.

“They’re not here. Jennie left earlier and I told Sana I was gonna go home with… Hoseok, but now I just wanna go lay in bed by myself so I can spiral into every negative possibility of why my bank account looks like that.”

“It’s gonna be fine.” This time he placed his hand on the back of your neck, cupping it slightly. It was a motion that had always for some reason calmed you down when things got overwhelming. It seemed he remembered. But even though you appreciated the comfort, the feeling of his hand there made something in your stomach flutter — that stupid feeling of longing seriously needed it’s wings shredded. You gripped his forearm, pulling it away from you, and you saw something shift in his eyes as you did so.

“I guess I’m gonna go tell Hoseok that I’m just gonna go home—” But then you suddenly remembered something. “Fuck! I can’t Uber because I don’t have any money on my card.” You pinched the bridge of your nose. “This day was so bad and then actually pretty good, only to turn out fucking awful.”

There was a couple of seconds of silence between the two of you, but you kept your eyes closed, trying to clear the fog in your head from all the alcohol to figure out what you were going to do. However, Jungkook finally let out a sigh before speaking. “Come on.”

“What?” You asked.

“All of these people are trying to get out of here at once and they’re ordering Uber’s at the same time.” He flashed his phone screen, showing that it was not only almost closing time, but that the next driver wouldn’t be available for thirty-two minutes with everyone having already ordered their rides. “It’s a twenty minute walk back to your house. I’ll just walk you there.”

Even though Jungkook was currently the president of the Lambdas, he actually decided not to live in the frat house this year and instead opted for a cheaper apartment that was still near campus. You and Jungkook both relied on scholarships to pay for most of your schooling, and fraternity and sorority dues on their own were not cheap, and living on Greek Drive only made that burden a million times worse.

But the point was that Jungkook had no need to go to campus because he lived in a completely different direction now.

“You don’t even live there anymore. How’re you gonna get home?” You asked.

“I’ll just sleep on the couch and get Tae or Jimin to drive me to my place in the morning.” He shrugged.

You weren’t exactly keen on the idea of having to walk all the way back to campus with Jungkook, considering just a five minute car ride earlier in the day had been sufficiently awkward all on its own. But you also were unfortunately no longer in the mood for sex, leaving Hoseok’s house out of the picture, and your bank account was for some reason drained, which resulted in you only having one option really.

“Alright,” You finally said. “Just let me tell Hoseok and then we can go.”

He nodded as you walked back towards the group of soccer players, tapping Hoseok on the shoulder. It seemed your dismay was painted plainly on your face because he immediately asked what was wrong.

“I actually can’t hang out tonight. I just found out my bank account is fucked up and I can’t really think about anything else right now, so I was just gonna head home, but I wanted to let you know. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re fine,” He said, shaking his head. “Do you have a way home then?”

You glanced towards Jungkook, releasing a heavy sigh. “Uhm, yeah, Jungkook was gonna walk me.”

Hoseok’s eyes darted toward where you pointing, narrowing slightly. Most people knew about the feud between the Lambdas and the Tri Delts, which meant most people also knew the details about why there was a feud in the first place.

“Are you sure you’re good with that?” Hoseok asked.

Not really, but a twenty minute walk wasn’t going to kill you. “We’re fine, promise. Actually we’ve been… cordial lately.” You tried to say it like it was actually the truth, but you thought maybe if you spoke it into existence then it would actually come to fruition.

Hoseok tilted his head, giving you a look that said he didn’t really believe you, but regardless he pulled you in for a hug. “Okay, let me know when you get home.”

“I will,” You assured him before waving goodbye and making your way back towards Jungkook.

“Ready,” He huffed, a slight annoyance seeming to coat his words as he pushed himself off of the wall and started towards the entrance.

“Are you really gonna have an attitude?” You asked as you did a little jog to catch up with him. “I would’ve found another way if I knew you were gonna act like an ass.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m just tired.” He placed his hand on one of your shoulders, moving you in front of him so the two of you could move through the mass of people more quickly until you were walking through the entrance and down the wooden ramp that connected to the outside deck.

“Then why’d you offer? I could’ve called someone to pick me up.”

“Because,” He paused, motioning towards the crosswalk that already had dozens of drunk college kids filing through it. “I couldn’t just leave you there, and I thought just taking you home would be quicker than you calling people to try and find a ride.”

Ouch. He was just trying to be nice and you were calling him an ass. Heat flushed beneath your skin from embarrassment. “I’m sorry…” You finally said as you made it to the sidewalk and began the straight shot down the main road towards Greek Drive. “Thank you for making sure I got home alright.” You added, avoiding any eye contact and opting to walk a little bit in front of him.

After about five entire minutes of silence you thought to yourself, yeah, this was going pretty much as expected. But you were thankful that at least there wasn’t any hostility. You didn’t want any more arguments like the ones from today. You had seethed at each other after the two of you left President Kwon’s office. Had thrown insults at one another at the meeting between your houses. Like sure, maybe the silence hurt more than it should’ve. The idea that the guy you started dating and fell in love with when you were a junior in high school not even being able to fake a conversation with you for twenty minutes was mildly heartbreaking to say the least. But again, the silence was better than the anger that had fueled most of your interactions since breaking up the summer after starting college.

You had become somewhat content with the lack of speaking. You were still a few steps ahead of Jungkook as he walked behind you, but he suddenly picked up speed and joined you, shoulder skating against yours before he was curving his hand around your waist and nudging you to go to the side of the sidewalk that wasn’t closest to the main road that was currently buzzing with post-bar traffic.

“Wouldn’t want you falling face first into a Camero that someone’s Daddy bought them, Drunkie,” He said, offering a playful smile as he dropped his arm back down to his side.

You were caught so off guard by the positive expression from Jungkook that it took you a second for your head to actually realize what he had even said. You pushed his shoulder. “I’m not even drunk anymore.”

“Well, considering I can literally smell the tequila on you, I’d rather not take any chances of you falling into oncoming traffic.”

“You’re being nice.” You narrowed your eyes at him. “Too nice.”

“What?” He chuckled. “I’m just making an effort to try and fix things between us so that the members don’t see us constantly fighting and think it’s okay to do the same.”

Ah, that’s what it was. He didn’t care if you guys actually patched this up, just that it looked like you did.

“Well, we could always pretend to like each other, since the appearance is all that actually matters apparently.” You forced a smile and began walking a little bit faster. Ten more minutes. Ten more minutes of being alone with him and his stupid presence that overwhelmed you with thoughts that you wished would just disappear.

“That’s not what I meant,” He said almost immediately, not letting that unbearable plunge into silence return. “I would love it if we could be nice to each other and actually mean it… I just…” He trailed off, seeming to hesitate in whatever he was trying to say.

“Just spit it out.”

There was one more second of a brief pause before he spoke quietly. “I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen, because I know you still blame me for everything.”

You tensed up, still keeping your pace of being slightly ahead of him. You inhaled a deep breath through your mouth before turning to look over your shoulder at him, his eyes already waiting to meet yours.

“I don’t blame you.” You smiled, but with a sad furrowing of your brows. “I… resent you.”

Jungkook’s mouth fell open, his eyes widening in surprise. “I mean, that’s… that’s even worse than blaming me.”

You shook your head. “No, it’s not.”

His expression turned more puzzled. “How is you resenting me better than you blaming me?”

“Because, blame implies that I think it’s your fault… Resentment just means I’m angry and upset, regardless of whether I think you were right or wrong for what happened.” You felt the bridge of your nose begin to tingle with that telltale sign of tears, so you quickly looked forward and urged them to stay hidden until you were at least in the comfort of your own room. “I’m just resentful of the things I now think and feel about myself, but that isn’t your fault. It’s my issue to deal with.” You shrugged.

“What things do you think and feel about yourself?” He asked, and you could tell that he had hurried his pace and was a little closer behind you now.

You closed your eyes, shaking your head. You didn’t want to talk about this. The two of you hadn’t had an in depth conversation like this since you’d first broken up. But things were different now compared to that first conversation. Back then it was raw and fresh, the pain too intense to notice what was growing underneath. Now it was a scar, and you were left with all of the emotions, feelings, and implications of how and why things ended.

“I… I don’t really wanna talk about it honestly.” You said that, but you also wanted Jungkook to understand that you were perfectly aware of how you had acted the past few years. You may have said and acted in ways that seemed bitchy and ridiculous, but it was because of these disgusting emotions that were now plaguing your mind constantly, and maybe it was time he knew. “I kind of wish we had broken up over this giant fight that was about something unfixable. Something where we both clearly did things wrong and we were both through with each other because there was no way either of us were going to change our minds. I think I could’ve dealt with that so much better than what you actually broke up with me for. Which was just the fact that you thought I was...” You trailed off, the word that bombarded your thoughts mercilessly landing on your tongue. “Boring.”

You heard the way his shoes scratched against the concrete at his screeching halt, and he clearly thought that that was going to stop you as well, but you kept going, not actually wanting to hear any response from him. You said your piece and now maybe he would understand. But of course you knew that he wasn’t just going to let it end like that, which was made apparent when you felt him suddenly gripping your arm, trying to get you to slow down for a second.

“I never said or even thought that about you, Y/N, ever.” He tried to pull you to look at him, but you twisted your body and threw a hand over your face to cover your eyes that were already glistening.

“No, stop,” You said firmly, and he ceased with trying to get you to look at him. “I told myself after that night in my room I was never going to let you see me cry over you ever again, and if I look at you right now, I will. I just know I will, so please just stop.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, leaving just the sound of grasshoppers and the random gust of cars passing by. You thought maybe he would just let it go and you could continue the last few minutes of the walk without speaking, but you had verbalized your thoughts and Jungkook was without a doubt going to respond.

“I know how it’s easy to think that,” He started, his voice a whisper with his hand still wrapped around your arm, as if he was afraid you would bolt down the street without letting him finish if he let you go. “But that’s not why I ended things. You were the first girl I ever actually dated, and when we got here I just started thinking about—”

“—All of your new exciting options.” You cut in, anger flaring before you could stop it.

“Y/N…” He trailed off, squeezing your arm. “That’s not what it was—”

“—No,” You said before he could try and dance his way through some explanation of how he just wanted to go crazy in college without actually saying it out loud. “You don’t have to explain it again. I’d rather you didn’t actually. I remember in excruciating detail the way you explained it that night. I understand, I get it… So, p-please,” Your voice cracked, finally being too overwhelmed by this entire situation. “Let’s just keep walking and not talk about it anymore. Please.”

It turned so quiet I could even hear how hard Jungkook was breathing. It sounded heavy but unnatural, like he was trying to forcibly steady his heartbeat. And after a few seconds you felt him finally drop his hand from your arm and you didn’t wait for him to say a single word before you started down the sidewalk again.

The Tri Delt house was five minutes away, leading to five minutes of complete and utter silence between two people that was so palpable it blocked out the scratching of your shoes as you walked and the rustle of tiny animals running through the trees next to you. It engulfed you in this tunnel of noiselessness.

Eventually you saw the bend at the end of the street where yours and Jungkook’s houses sat next to one another. It was only a little bit away, yet it felt so far. Twenty minutes. All it had taken was twenty minutes of the two of you not partaking in your back and forth hostility from the last few years for you to break down again. It felt pathetic. It was completely pathetic.

You were finally approaching the point where the Tri Delt and Lambda house split into opposite directions. All you had to do was keep walking straight while Jungkook veered to the left and—

You felt the light tug at the belt loop of your jeans, stopping you in place, just like from earlier today after the suspension meeting. You were about to tell him to let you go, when he beat you to the punch.

“You’re not boring, Y/N. You never have been.” He was so close you could feel his breath hitting the back of your head. “It was one of the millions of reasons that I loved you. I just wanted you to know that.”

And then he was gone. The pressure of someone tugging you in place disappearing, leaving you to catch your balance as you finally stood alone. You forced yourself to stare straight ahead as you walked towards your front door, not daring to look at him as he walked to the Lambda house. You shoved your keys inside the lock, forcing it open and then taking the stairs by two’s until you were collapsing in your bed, fingers crushing your pillow as you finally let yourself cry.

——--

A phone was ringing inside of your dreams. It was ringing and ringing and ringing until you realized the sound was coming from some otherworldly place — oh yeah, that would be the current hell that is your life.

You blinked a couple of times, blindly reaching for the source of the noise that was lost somewhere in your bed. You finally felt your hand slide across the leather of your phone case. You brought it up to read the name and you felt your stomach curl.

‘Jungkook the Jackass’ was calling. And if it weren’t for the fact that he was calling you at seven in the morning you probably would’ve just sent him straight to voice mail in order to avoid any further conversations about what transpired last night. But alas, it was seven in the morning and just seemed to be too early of a time for him to be calling about something mundane.

You regretfully lifted the phone to your ear. “Yes?” You grumbled, voice scratchy.

“We have a problem.” No mention of last night. It was just a clear cut declaration that did not sound good.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, sitting up from bed.

“Come outside your house. Now.”

Your eyes widened and you instantly jumped from bed. He sounded urgent enough that you decided your flimsy nighttime apparel was going to have to do. You hurried down the stairs and opened the front door, revealing Jungkook in the front yard staring at something.

“What is it?” You asked, arms crossing over your chest as you tried to hide your bralessness.

Jungkook pressed his lips together as he pointed towards the front of the Tri Delt house. “My idiot Lambda Brothers.”

You followed the direction of his finger, your mouth dropping at the sight before you.

Dozens and dozens and dozens of boxers covering every inch of the first story of the house. You turned towards Jungkook, so angry and anxiety-riddled that someone from administration had already seen this, that you could hardly speak.

“I’m going to murder them,” You finally managed to spit through clenched teeth.

“No,” He started, turning to you, mirroring your own frustration. “I’m going to murder them.”

→ part 02

#bts #jeon jungkook #bts fanfic #bts fanction #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #kpop fanfic #bts angst #jungkook angst

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pleasantanathema · 4 years ago

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Graves into Gardens | Reiner Braun x Reader | Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Revelations

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ Only)

Warnings: Modern AU, spoilers up to season four, slight manga spoilers (only by including characters met later), captivity, mentions of death, violence enemies to lovers, angst, and eventual smut (ohohoho we’re so hot on it now, just wait until the end of this one)

Word Count: 5k

A/N: Thank you so, so much to everyone who has left comments, screamed in reblog tags, and just encouraged me to create this story. I have never felt so much love for a fic in the time I’ve been writing.

This chapter reveals a lot, and it’s a little longer than the rest, but it’s for good reason- the end of this is one of my favorite things I’ve written.

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Reiner’s apartment truly wasn’t much. You thought he’d been joking, perhaps was even being humble, but the small studio apartment was quite dismal. The walls were stark white, a few faded posters peeling off the wall from neglect, a couple of medals and trophies lining a small bookshelf that was bursting with paperbacks and notebooks. A simple bed with a royal blue comforter and overstuffed pillows, the most compact L-shaped couch in front of a tv, and a corner dominated by a desk with two monitors and stacks of documents, manila envelopes, and crates of papers crammed below.

A kitchenet that looked hardly used was tucked away in another corner, the entryway to a small bathroom right near it.

There was truly nothing worth looking twice at, save a handful of framed photos scattered around.

You’d taken it all in rather hurriedly, still out of breath from practically running through snowy alleyways, the developing snowstorm covering the land like fresh linen. There was a window near his bed, which you gravitated toward after kicking off your damp boots by the door. Not much a view, either. Just more desolate, brick buildings and a sorry looking street below.

He told you once that he didn’t grow up with much, and it unfortunately seemed like despite joining the ranks of the military, he was still left with close to nothing.

“What are we here for?”

He was busy toiling with the thermostat, thick fingers mashing against the heat button to try to warm the small box of an apartment.

“You won’t like it,” he grumbled, golden eyes glancing over to you with a tinge of regret painting his brow.

“Then why bring me?”

“Because you need to see it.”

You tucked your hands under your arms, the chill of the winter’s day finally settling into your bones.

You watched keenly as he shrugged off his snow laden jacket, hanging it by the door before promptly locking it. He seemed as out of breath as you were, nose red from the cold, hands shaking as he fumbled with his phone. You bit the inside of your cheek with impatience, a small flame of ire licking its way into your chest.

Bringing you out here could get you killed. He knew that, right? Of course he did, but he did it anyways. Surely this matter of seemingly great importance could’ve been fetched by one of his comrades. You hadn’t quite considered the danger leaving the headquarters could bring upon you until you were dashing through the streets, the heavy paw of Reiner’s hand squeezing around your wrist. At one point in time, he’d shoved you back down another corridor, shielding you with the size of his body as particular caravan of cars turned down the roadway. He seemed to fear any pair of government eyes spying you.

He always was so careless.

He was busy texting someone, still standing idle, lip worried between his teeth.

Must be the girl you ran into that’s giving him a headache. He probably thought he could slip out and back again without a soul noticing, without anyone giving him grievance, but that bright eyed little cousin of his had ruined that. She’d been so excited to see him; he probably hadn’t been to see his family quite a while, seeing that he was on guard duty after his last mission.

How many days had it been since you’d been here? You’d honestly lost track of time, your world feeling like it had been caught in a slow turn of molasses. A few seconds could feel like hours, days felt like minutes, every heartbeat felt like it could be your last. You tried to add it all up in your head, eyes closing as you replayed all the events that led to you standing in Reiner Braun’s home in Marley.

A week and a half, you surmised. But it could be a little more, a little less. You think you would have kept your eyes on the sun a little more acutely, seeing that you’d missed it rise and fall for at least two days when you were bound in that cell.

“Are you alright?”

For a moment, you thought you had spoken the words. You were thinking them, but he asked you instead.

“That’s a loaded question,” you looked back down to the street, catching the sight of a line of what appeared to be school children marching in tandem down the sidewalk, snow in their hair and happiness on their faces, “but for the moment, I’m okay.”

Reiner pulled his lips to the side, considering your words. Maybe it hadn’t dawned on him that you couldn’t have been in any state of ease since you’d been promptly abducted and plopped down in this new world to navigate.

“Are you alright?” You encored, observing how his worried thumbs were still fast against the screen.

“Have I ever been?”

You made at face at that reply, corners of your mouth turning down while your shoulders shrugged. Fair enough.

Though, for the first time, a bit of pity crept into your mind. Reiner didn’t really ask for this life, did he? He was doing whatever he could to get by, fallen rather inelegantly into the position of being sent to Paradis, and was now being handed you to watch over, presumably without his full consent. You were both pawns in this world, kings and rooks dominating the board and playing you both for fools.

Being a Scout hadn’t been your intention, either. You’d once had other dreams: college, a career, a family, but you’d been grandfathered into the role by your government working parents, and cemented into it when they’d died. You had nothing else to do, so you served. You served your country, your friends, but you also served yourself, using the role to keep your life afloat, even if it sometimes meant spilling the lifeblood of others, even if it meant sacrificing aspirations and settling. Though, you would admit that some rather beautiful things managed to bloom from the barren soil. Regrettably, those had all been left behind, washed away by tides you couldn’t control.

“I’m sorry,” Reiner grunted, sinking into the cushions of the couch, “she—she already opened her mouth. I’ve gotten Annie to settle things at HQ, but I imagine Chief is still furious.”

“Is it such a bad thing to take me out here? I mean, you could easily stop me if I tried to run away.”

“Could I?”

You debated his question. While you were quite nimble, you’d be like a rat in a maze trying to find a way out of this god forsaken place.

“If I let you,” you reasoned, a tinge of humor behind your words.

He smiled, all warm and soft, full lips parting. The realization that you hadn’t seen him smile in years pummeled into your chest like a heavy hand stealing from your lungs. It made the sorrow that much more palpable.

“For the record, Zeke is more upset I didn’t ask permission. He’s hellbent on his authority.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

You also pinpointed something else of note, a picture glinting on his nightstand catching your attention.

It resembled the same one you’d seen on Zeke’s desk, only now you could make out the faces. Reiner didn’t pay you any mind as you reached for the framed memory, plucking it from its home, dust from the back of it staining your fingers.

A red booth housed five familiar faces, all grinning over half-drank pints of beer. Their arms were interlocked around each other’s shoulders, all the men young and handsome, Reiner and Bertholdt even more youthful than when they’d first walked through the doors of the Scout Office. Then there was Zeke seated next to Porco, the latter in that green jacket you’d seen him in earlier. But your eyes were set on a face you’d never thought you’d see again, a face that possessed the very recesses of your mind, only appearing late at night when you’d see it in corners, catch it lingering behind your eyelids. He was attractive, appeared personable, messy dark hair and distinct brow that matched the boy next to him.

“Reiner…” you whispered, still unmoving from your spot between the bed and the window pane, “who is this?”

He peered over his shoulder, any hint of a smile now vanished like etchings being erased from a page.

“You don’t recognize him?”

Him, a photo full of faces, and he knew who you were asking about. He’d probably stared too long at the ghost himself. You wondered if he ever placed the frame down at night to sleep better; you would have, if you’d killed someone you cared about.

“You know I do.”

Reiner held his hand out, long arm stretched across the back of the couch. You finally talked your feet into moving, shuffling across the hardwood as you placed the offending item into his upturned palm.

Then, you sat next to him, your knees bumping together as you tried to analyze the emotions stirring within. You couldn’t quite place any of them—Regret? Fear? Curiosity? Sadness? But they were quelled when Reiner placed his hand on your twitching thigh, pressing that anxiousness away for a moment.

“Marcel Galliard, Porco’s older brother.”

Your lips parted, both of your attentions centered on the souvenir held between you.

“It was his birthday, and we hadn’t had the chance to celebrate mine and Zeke’s yet either, so we all went out for drinks. I unfortunately don’t remember much from that night, but I remember being…happy, content.”

“Why’d you do it?” you asked it a little quickly, “why would you…save me, not him?”

“I told you, some things I don’t have a choice about.”

“But you—you could’ve said he killed me and got away, right? You did have a choice.”

You saw how his jaw clenched, muscles in his cheek flexing.

“I don’t know.” Agony lined his voice, the words soft, hushed.

That situation was something you both thought about far too often than you’d like to admit, a late-night mulling that never led to conversation.

“I’m sorry.” You took the photo away, placed it face down on the coffee table.

“Don’t be. We can’t change the past,” he said solemnly.

You could, however, lament it. Which is something you did perhaps too often.

━━━─── • ───━━━

Reiner wasn’t ready for what was to come. He knew he never would be, which is why he threw precaution to the wind and decided to lay his cards on the table now.

He had to pick a side. Even if these wars didn’t truly concern him, even if the fate of countries ultimately didn’t matter to his conscious, you did—you mattered, he mattered, and he had to start thinking about things on a smaller scale.

He wanted to go back to Paradis. He practically yearned to go back in time, to return to a place where being Eldian didn’t matter, where his status didn’t matter, where he could remake himself into something new. If it hadn’t been for his binds connecting him to Marley, he could’ve actually seen hope instead of sorrow on the horizon. He could never seem to cut the vines, could never actually get away from the people controlling his life.

But now, now he saw an out, and it was with you. When this cataclysm first happened, all he wanted was for you to be dead, for you to go away and leave him and his miseries alone to rot and wither. Being with you, however, reminded him of a life he could have. He just had to make it happen, he had to start molding his own clay, had to keep bearing the weight of the world like the weary Atlas until he could find a way to make it turn in his favor.

He was tired of wishing for death.

Which is why he had to bring you here and why he would handle the consequences that were waiting in the distance.

You might not be very helpful to Marley, but he could be of use to Paradis.

“I believe you,” he hadn’t noticed he was still touching you, fingers gripping onto your leg like a lifeline, “about Zeke. I believe you because I—we, Pieck, Annie, Bertie—we know he’s up to something beyond what he tells us and the generals. He is working with someone in Paradis. We don’t know who, but we do think we know what for.”

“Oh my god…oh my god. Why didn’t you—”

“You think I can just fucking say that when anyone could be outside my door listening?”

“I thought you said I wouldn’t like what you have to show me.”

He noticed how your shoulders relaxed, like you’d been holding in tension for far too long.

“That’s not…I have something else for you.”

He didn’t move just yet, not quite ready to actually set this all in motion.

This all hinged on you. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew you quite well; of course, that was the you of four years ago. The you he had next to him now was older, scarred, burdened, but he still felt that same magnetic pull to you that he could never explain. He was just a moon consigned to orbit you, to be connected to you even when neither of you desired the attachment.

He knew you were going to be upset, livid; his skin was already prickled at the thought of how you would possibly punch him if when you read what he had to give.

At least you always looked pretty when you were angry.

He could still remember how Jean had cowered undeath his desk when you’d stomped into the office after discovering he’d used the branch’s own money to play in a high-stakes poker game while undercover. He’d been fishing for information on the elites, found himself tipsy, and then found himself on the receiving end of your fury. The only thing that stopped your yelling was Erwin, who, for personal reasons, didn’t want any fuss made over government money being gambled away.

Erwin. He’d never cared for how close you were to him.

Reiner finally stood, expecting you to sit and wait, but you were following him like a shadow, small hand wrapped around his forearm as he moved to his computer. When he sat down, that hand moved up to his shoulder, your fingers squeezing into his muscle with encouragement. It didn’t really put him at ease.

He turned the desktop on, the monitor flashing to life. He typed in his password quickly, then went searching for that folder he’d kept hidden away so he’d never bother to look at it again.

“Hand me one of those,” he nodded his head in the direction of a small container of flash drives on the other side of his desk. You plucked one out of its resting spot and went ahead and placed it into the port on the computer. He knew you wouldn’t question why had so many on hand—you both knew how it all worked, you both kept important documents that had to be shuffled around digitally.

Familiar names lined the inside of the folder, ones he’d once tried to forget. He heard you suck in a quick breath and took a moment to look up at you. Your brow was set, tongue obviously caught between your teeth to keep yourself from saying anything.

This was his job. He was in charge of keeping tabs on The Scouts, he was the one who fed Marley all the information they could. Well, almost all of it.

“These are files I never gave over. They’re yours now. I never gave Marley everything they wanted I…I thought I was protecting you. There’s also a few files on Zeke that Pieck created in here, too.”

You both watched as he copied the folder over to the flash drive, one by one the names and dates slowly dropping into a new safe place for them.

He touched your waist, signaling you to step back. He rolled his chair out, ducking under the desk for a split moment to gather a box of the printed documents he had actually handed over; the action was a mistake.

You were leaned over him in an instant, hand clutching and moving the mouse so quickly it scraped against the desk. He attempted to reach up and stop you, but he paused—there were still bruises on your wrist, on your fingers, faded watercolors of surviving pain. He’d gripped your hand, your wrists, all day, why hadn’t you stopped him?

He already knew which file you opened; he didn’t need to look. But he did anyways, moving the crate to the side and sitting back in his chair, arms crossed across his chest. His poor heart felt like it was going to burst.

Marco Bott’s face filled part of the screen, all sweet and freckled like he remembered. Those kind eyes were looking straight at him, judging him. Reiner was just waiting, he knew what was said in there, he wrote it all, still recalled how puffy his eyes were when he did it, how much he regretted it.

There was a pregnant pause, one so heavy he felt like he was being crushed.

This all hinged on you. He needed you to help him, needed you to help you.

“I fucking knew it.”

He was already flinching, shrinking. He watched the screen scroll, the black letters and white spaces all a blur.

“Threat eliminated by gunfire, killed by organized crime members after…” you hesitated, eyes dancing as you reread the words, “after his gear was removed to ensure death.”

He was on his feet before you could hit him, backing away from your clenched fists, chair rolling to be forgotten in the corner.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

Each word came with a step toward him. He was running out of space, nearly tripping over the edge of the couch as you encroached upon him.

“What did you do?” Your voice was getting louder, pain written across your face like he’d just stabbed you. “You told me there was no fucking truth about Marco!”

“There isn’t! Marco’s dead, there’s no changing—”

“There’s no changing the past,” you mocked his words, venom dripping from your tongue.

━━━─── • ───━━━

Your blood was boiling, wrath itching between your fingers.

You were going to kill him. You were going to wind your fists around his neck and watch the life drain slowly from his eyes like he fucking deserved.

You couldn’t believe you’d let you guard down, that you’d started to trust him. You always knew something had gone awry the night Marco died. He’d been slaughtered, ransacked with bullet holes across his body. It was like he had been dropped into the line of fire, dangled out like a piece of meat to be eaten alive.

And he didn’t have his gear, that’s what stumped everyone looking into the mess of it all. It was like he had walked in unprepared, like a boy on a suicide mission walking straight to his death. Thirty-six bullets and even more empty, splattered holes littered had riddled his corpse. Jean had fallen to his knees. Connie didn’t speak for a week. Sasha didn’t eat for days.

Because of Reiner’s decision, that man suffered, you all mourned, and you felt like you most of all had let him down. Marco had been your protégé, you’d taught him everything he knew, and that was the first mission he was allowed to go on after his training. You’d been tailing a rather violent gang, found their hideout, and were infiltrating for arrests and to see what was inside. Marco had been paired with Reiner and Bertholdt to lead the first wave of infiltration, while you and the rest waited for the signal to rush the back doors to the run-down ranch not far out of the city of Trost. They’d been up ahead by the barn that was sandwiched between stables.

But your signal turned to sounds of gunfire. You could still hear it echoing in your ears as you approached Reiner. The sounds of metal clicking, of repeated blasts from automatic weapons ringing across the hillsides like single note windchimes in a raging storm.

“Tell me why.”

Your fingers were digging into his shirt before you could stop yourself, the threads of the worn Henley threatening to rip from your nails sinking into it. You could actually feel his heart beat against his chest, a frightened bird trying to flee his ribcage.

When he didn’t speak right away, your anger flared, made you shove him back against the wall with all your might. It made your arms hurt, like you’d just slammed your hands against brick, a sharp pain that made you hiss.

“He overheard us—”

“Overheard what?”

You could tell he was getting a little infuriated as well, nostrils flaring as he looked down his nose at you. It must look funny, you pressing him against the wall of his own apartment. Reiner was nearly twice your size—he was bigger than most people, and he towered over you like a looming threat.

“Let me fucking finish,” he took a deep breath, eyes nearly glazing over, “He overheard Bertie and I talking about how we should relay the details of that gang, of organized crime in general, to Marley. We—we hadn’t had time to talk alone since we’d been prepping that shit for days. We didn’t know Marco followed us around to that side of the rooftop.”

“That’s it? He heard you whispering little secrets and you killed him for it?”

One of the buttons near the neckline of his shirt popped as your knuckles dug deeper into the fabric.

“He literally heard us say that we needed to find a time to call General Magath of Marley. If he lived and told someone that—,” his breath caught for a moment when one of your nails started to pierce his skin, “it would have compromised our entire mission. We’d been there for three years, and he could’ve ruined it all.”

You were at your breaking point. You could feel that terrible heat that comes with sadness creeping up your neck, snaking around to your cheeks. If you weren’t careful, you were going to cry. All this time, all this time spent wondering why, and this was why he had to die?

Killing wasn’t unusual in your life. It was part of the job, something you’d unfortunately had to do on a few occasions. You knew those strangers who ate your bullets or your knife had families, that they were people too, but most of them were monsters, thieves, rapists, threats to the corrupted balance of the governmental structure. But Marco…he was like family, and finding his limp, almost unrecognizable body had sent even the most hardened veterans into despair. Levi took off from work the next day; the only time he had ever missed a day on the job.

“Tell me how!” You truly didn’t mean to scream it, but the emotions raging in your stomach, your chest, it all ached too much.

“Be quiet, I have neighbors—”

“I don’t give a fuck about your god damn neighbors, Reiner!”

He finally moved then, his once idle hand now jerking up to your face to fiercely hold your cheeks beneath his fingers. You tried to smack his hand away, your own fingers digging and tugging at his wrist.

“Letme-go!” Your words were jumbled, your open mouth allowing his fingers to press your cheeks in between your teeth.

“You have to be fucking quiet,” he hissed, a whole new light shining in his eyes, a familiar rage you had seen when you’d fought against him the day Paradis was invaded. The reality of how large he was sunk in again; he looked like a vengeful god peering down at you, all hot-blooded and incensed.

You thought for a moment he wouldn’t hurt you, but then you remembered he already had. He had the inclination to be just as cruel as you could be.

His fingers stayed firm against your cheeks, holding you like he was daring you to speak again.

“Tellmehow,” you managed to spit out, wincing when he took the leverage he had on your face and used it to shove you back. You stumbled, banging into the side of the couch as you rubbed at the sore flesh of your mouth.

But he was unmoving, back straight against the wall, a statue built on the foundation of wrath and agony, waiting to crack and fall onto you if you made the wrong move.

“We knew their guards were patrolling. Bertholdt covered his mouth while I stripped him of his equipment, of his guns, and I pushed him off the roof and into their sight.”

He said it so calmly that it made you sick. But that was a reality he had to live with every day, wasn’t it? He had to replay in his mind over and over again that he had done such a vile thing, he had to justify it else it would eat him alive.

Your tears were hot, but contained, your lashes blinking them aside as you just stared at him. You opened your mouth to scream at him, you were so ready to spew hatred and let it burn him, but he was quicker than you.

With one step, he was on you, your hair wrapped in his fast as he wrenched your head to the side, smarting your scalp to silence you.

“Marco’s dead, and I’m sorry for it. You fucking screaming will do nothing but have the assholes who live below me calling the authorities and you’ll find yourself in a much worse prison than before.”

You didn’t like how he was right. Still, you glared up at him, brows pinched together in pain.

It felt like you’d merged into him, those rapid hearts within your chests suddenly beating as one with the same suffering, the same torment. You both had to live with the poor reality of your lives; you were killers, you were monsters too.

You were too close to him, could smell the heat of his skin, could feel his breath against your sore cheeks. Your hands were flat against his chest, trapped between you, his arm an anchor as it tugged at the roots of your hair, keeping your face turned towards his.

You couldn’t help but look at him, there was nowhere else to focus, only on him. It was like you could see the pages of a book open across his face, wretchedness and anguish painted in broad strokes in the fair wrinkles around his eyes, in the curve of his brow. It was beauty and pain bleeding together, the amber color of his eyes swirling as he searched your own face like he was looking for something. What would he find hidden behind your own grief?

“I hate you,” you whispered, breath long gone.

“I know.”

“And I’ll never forgive you.”

It was like he was moving closer, the time you were losing now completely stopped, frozen between your bodies.

“Don’t want forgiveness,” he caught your whisper and gave it back, “just judgement.”

His lips met yours with a bruising fervor.

The hand in your hair flexed, pulled you closer, made you gasp as your hands slid up his chest. Your fingers found his rumbling throat, and in the back of your mind, you recalled how just moments ago you were waiting to snatch the life from his neck. You felt his pulse beating beneath your thumb, a war drum beating hot and fast in his veins. Your mouth was moving against his, eyes closed, suddenly greedy and hungry; for what, you didn’t know. All you did know was that this felt so wrong, like you’d taken a misstep and landed right into the lion’s lap, but that it also felt like absolution, like he was devouring your sins and taking them for his own.

Your mouth slanted for him, a hum resounding from both your throats as you fell into this new, strange rhythm. You’d thought about it before, kissing him like this, feeling those plush lips against yours, angry and hot and needy. You cherished the taste of him, like a dark, rich wine filling up your mouth, spilling over and enveloping your senses. Your tongue tempted him to open his lips, to let you in. There was no hesitation.

His other hand found your hip, fingers mean and pulling you impossibly closer. Your palms drifted up from his neck, found his face, thumbs smoothing over cheekbones. You could feel the soft hairs of his cheeks, his chin, sweeping against your skin. It all felt too good, like you were getting lost, delirium taking over. Nothing else mattered anymore, just the gratification of tasting his emotions, of taking his groans into your mouth and echoing them back. You pressed harder into him, kept your tongue tangled with his, noses brushing as you found new beats to your rhythm.

It was wicked, sinful, something your heart was pleading for and your mind screaming out against. But you couldn’t stop. You didn’t stop. It was as if you kissed for as long as you’d known each other. Every year passed by, every regret, every sharp turn of your tongues against one another, all the hurt and longing, placed into one moment of your bodies finding one another.

When the heat began to die, you were both still stroking the flames, deep, languid kisses turned into smaller presses of your lips against one another. It was intoxicating and you felt so drunk, so, so drunk off of him.

There was a stillness between you, like the gentle sigh and breaths of the world as it awoke to the morning sun when you finally stopped. A lulling peacefulness lingered in the wake of what you’d done.

His hands were still on your body, in your hair, looser now. Yours were still on his face when your eyes fluttered open.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, lips plump, wet.

“I know.”

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