#academic performance but it felt like such a slap in the face to give something my all and still not be good enough

[silverselfshippingchaos]

hey guys! sorry if I won't be here for a bit or if I sound distant at all, it's been a hell of a week LMAAOOO

[uomo-accattivante]

Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:

There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.

The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.

On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.

“It was just a lot,” he said.

Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.

Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)

“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)

The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.

“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.

“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.

The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)

So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.

But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.

Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.

So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.

Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.

Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.

In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)

In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.

It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”

Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.

That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”

Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.

“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”

Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.

“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”

The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.

Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”

But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.

“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.

She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”

“It felt so dangerous,” she said.

I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.

Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”

The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.

“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”

By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.

Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.

“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”

###

[maria-akira]

good girls don't get used: michael langdon x fem! reader — PART 2

—♡—

READ PART 1 HERE

summary: michael langdon, your ex, falls into a bet wherein he needs to (fake) date you. if he falls inlove again, he loses, and doesn't get the prize.

warnings: making out, pre-smut???, michael as a tiktok fuckboy, + me not proofreading this hahah sorry

italicized bold words are direct lyrics from the song :)

please excuse any errors. enjoy!

—♡—

It had been a few hours since Y/N arrived at home. She changed into an oversized shirt and a comfy pair of shorts. To be honest, she has never tutored anyone before, except for her baby brother Aaron. With Aaron it was just 1+1 or 2x3, you know? The basics.

"Mom, someone's coming over tonight!" She called out from upstairs,

"Who will?"

Y/N didn't know what to say. Her parents knew about Michael, and how they broke up. She didn't want her mom to know that it was him who would be coming over. Why hide it? She'll see him anyways.

"Michael! Michael Langdon!" Y/N went downstairs to finally face her mom.

"Wait, your ex?"

"Yeah.."

Her mom laughed, "Oh my, looks like something's gonna happen~" She said in a sing-song tone while she prepared dinner.

Y/N rolled her eyes, "Oh my goood mom! That was 2 years ago, he just asked if I could tutor him. Apparently, he's failing."

"He's what? Failing? Isn't he one of the top students in your batch?"

"Yeah, I honestly don't know what happened to hi—"

Ding Dong!

Oh my god, She felt her heart beating fast.

Y/N walked to the front door and opened it, and there he was. Michael Langdon in his grey sweatpants and black hoodie.

"Hey, Y/N." Michael greeted, giving her a smile.

Y/N looked him up and down,

"Hi." She gave him a sarcastic look and stepped out of the way, gesturing him to come in.

Y/N's mom squealed, "Oh my, Michael! Look how you've grown!" She squeezed him into a hug and it made Michael laugh.

Aaron came down the stairs to see what the fuss was about. When he saw Michael, he rushed towards him and hugged his thigh.

"Michaeeeelll!! You're here!" Aaron giggled

Aaron loved Michael a lot. When Y/N and Michael were still together, he would always play with him.

"Hey, slugger! Now you've grown alot too, huh?" Michael kneeled down to his height and ruffled his hair, "Yup! I'm a big boy now." Aaron said proudly with his chin up.

Slugger. That was the nickname Michael gave him.

"Is Michael staying over?" Aaron pouted and gave her puppy eyes.

Y/N panicked. How was she gonna explain?

"Well, he actually came over to study for school, but he—"

"Of course I'll stay over! Anything for you, slugger." Michael cut her off. Y/N widened her eyes, making a 'what the fuck are you doing?!?!' expression at him.

Y/N faked a cough, "Aaron, go stay with mom okay? Michael and I will be studying now."

Aaron whined and crossed his arms. "But I wanna play with Michaaael!!"

"You'll do that later. After all, he said that he'll be staying over." She looked over to Michael and gave him a sarcastic smile.

—

After a few moments of arguing with Aaron, Y/N and Michael finally went upstairs. "Your room changed alot." Michael said as he looked around her room for the first time in 2 years. Once Y/N shut the door, she stormed over to Michael.

"Langdon what the fuck was that down there?!?! I only allowed you to come over, not stay over! Where will you even sleep?!"

"In a bed, duh."

Y/N slapped his forehead, causing Michael to wince at the pain.

"Are you that stupid?! Sleep on the fucking floor!" She hid her face in her hands out of frustration, then lifting her head again. "You know what? Fuck it. I don't care anymore."

—

"So if you move negative four here, what will you get?" Y/N asked, pointing her pencil on the equation. It's now 8PM, Michael and her were studying the last subject for the day, which was Math.

Michael analyzed the problem, then wrote down the answer. "Fifty.. three?" He slid the paper to her direction. While Y/N was checking his solution, he received a message from Duncan.

Dunc 🖕🏻: how's tutoring going?

Michael: its fine ig, lmao im staying over 😴

Dunc 🖕🏻: yooo what?? where you gonna sleep?

Michael: beside her? idk im still gonna play video games with her brother so i guess i'll sleep beside her 😶

Michael: brb shes done checking my solution

"Michael," She called for his attention, He let out a hum in response. "Your solution is correct.. But to avoid confusion, change this into an arrow instead of an equal sign, because it isn't the final answer yet." Y/N pointed out his mistake and circled it with a mechanical pencil.

Michael smiled. despite this 'trying to get her trust back' thing, he thought that Y/N was adorable like this. Focused with academics. He admired her alot.

Y/N looked over at Michael, "Langdon, are you even listening?" She snapped her fingers in attempt to catch Michael's attention.

Michael went back to reality, "Yeah. I get it now, thanks Y/N." Michael got his paper back and saw all the check marks. While Michael was distracted with his paper, Y/N stood up and streched. "They're all correct?" He looked up at her and asked in fake disbelief. Y/N rolled her eyes, "Duh, what are all the check marks for, dimwit?" She furrowed her eye brows and made her way to the door.

She glanced over at the clock beside her mirror, it was already 8:15 PM. "Hey, we have to go down for dinner now." She looked over to him and opened the door. Michael stood up and made his way to the door, stopping by the mirror, "Damn, I'm hot." Michael said as he praised his reflection in the mirror. When Y/N heard this, she furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him.

"Yeah sure, maybe in a different planet." She insulted, playfully hitting his arm.

"Oh c'mon Y/N, you miss me." Michael leaned on the wall with the support of his arm. Y/N shut the door.

"What makes you say that, Langdon?" She crossed her arms and leaned against the door.

"I've seen the way you look at me, baby. Admit it, you miss me, you wanna kiss me, you wanna be mine all over again."

"Don't hit me with your 'say you miss me, say you wanna kiss me.' shit, Langdon. I'm not that stupid," Y/N pulled on the neckline of Michael's hoodie, signalling him to come closer. Now, their faces were a few centimeters apart.

"Let's face the facts here, Langdon. Actually? you want me." She pulled him even closer, her lips ghosting over his. Michael moved closer in attempt to kiss her, yet to no avail. Y/N smirked and pushed him away. "You know, you're better than that." She gave him a little tap on the cheek and left the room, slamming the door in his face.

Michael was speechless. Y/N did change, a lot.

—

"So what brings you here, Michael?" Y/N's father asked, eating a slice of steak that was on his plate. "I'm currently failing some of my classes and I asked Y/N if she could help me. Luckily, she agreed." Michael looked over to Y/N and gave her a smile. She kicks him under the table, causing him to flinch.

"Will you be staying over, Michael? It's getting late." Y/N's mother asked this time, "If that would be okay with you, Mrs. Y/L/N." Michael replied, looking over to Y/N again.

Well, let's say that everyone looked at Y/N after Michael said that.

The silence made Y/N glance at them, "Why are you all looking at me..?" She said in a confused tone, her mom shot her a 'is it okay if he sleeps in your room' look. Y/N sighed, "Fine, he'll sleep in my room." Now, everyone went back to what they were doing.

After dinner, Y/N's mom called up Michael's parents to inform them that he would be staying for the night.

Y/N was washing the dishes tonight, and of course Michael volunteered to help her.

"Why did you even volunteer? You hate washing dishes, Langdon." She said as she cleaned a dirty plate with the soap filled sponge.

"Oh c'mon, Y/N. Can't I change?" He replied, rinsing one of the dishes that Y/N cleaned.

Y/N scoffed, "You? Change?"

Michael elbowed her side, "Hey, I did change!"

"Whatever." She went back to what she was doing cleaned the rest of the dishes, ignoring Michael's statement.

After a few more dishes, her hair started to slip away from the loose ponytail she made earlier. Her hands were slippery and full of soap, if she were to wash her hands and fix her hair, then go back to washing the dishes, her hands would be wet again. Plus, the drying towel was on Michael's side. So she asked for his help.

"Michael," Her voice was soft. Softer than usual. "Yea?" Michael replied, still rinsing the dishes.

"Can you please tie my hair up? It's slipping away."

"Hold on." Michael shook the water off his hands and dried it using the towel beside him, while Y/N turned her back over to his direction. Michael removed the hair tie and bit on it. He started gathering her hair from the top, combing his fingers through her soft, silky hair. He was very gentle. After he gathered her hair, he removed the hair tie from his teeth and tied her hair, careful not to tug too hard.

Y/N turned around to face him, "Hm, maybe you did change," Michael was curious when she paused. "Because you used to be so aggressive when you tied my hair." She joked and finished off the dishes that were left.

—

It's now 11 pm. Michael is in Aaron's room playing video games, and Y/N is alone in her room, doing some extra school work that was due for next week.

Like any other Friday night, girls like Y/N's age would be out partying like there was no tomorrow. After that one time she was really drunk and a guy touched her inappropriately, she never went out partying again.

Once Y/N finished her school work, she decided to take a shower. She wanted to take advantage of Michael's absence and stay in the shower longer than usual. Like a typical teenage girl, she would blast music in the shower, dancing and singing like she had a whole audience to perform for.

Y/N wrapped a towel around her body and left the bathroom to get her clothes from the dresser. Little did she know, Michael was back from her brother's room.

"I see you still have that body, huh?" Michael smirked and looked her up and down. Y/N turned around to see Michael on her bed. Her instincts told her to scream and throw an object at him, so she did.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

"Chill, it's not like you haven't sent me your nudes before." Michael dodged whatever she threw at him and laughed.

"Yea, and I regret sending those to your ugly ass. If I could turn back time, I would've sent them to your hot bestfriend, Duncan was it?" She turned around again to get her clothes from the dresser. Michael walked over to her and grabbed her neck from behind,

"What did you fucking say?" He growled in her ear. She smirked and bat her eyelashes innocently at him.

"I said, I would've sent them to Duncan. You should set me up with him, hm?" Y/N knew what she was doing, "Aww, is little Mikey getting jealous?" She mocked in fake sympathy. She removed his hand from her neck, turned around to face him and gave him a pout. 

Michael was furious. What has gotten into him? He doesn't even love her. He just fell into a stupid bet just to fuck some girl's pussy after he fucks with her ex's feelings. But why does he feel like this? Like he needs to have Y/N only for himself?

Before Y/N went back to the bathroom to get dressed, she just had to get on Michael’s nerves again, as if she wasn’t already. At this point, she could literally see fire in his eyes. He was really mad. But why?

"Look at you, Mikey. You can't respond when you react." She giggled and gave him a quick nose boop as the cherry on top for her little act. But she wasn't getting away so fast. When she turned her back on him, Michael aggresively wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her, securing an arm around her waist.

"Where do you think you're going, you little shit? You aren't getting away easily after that stunt." The grip on Y/N's throat slowly tightened. "W-Wh... Why are you so mah-d.. Huh?" She managed to choke out.

Michael left soft kisses against her neck, while slowly loosening the grip on her throat. "See, Mikey? You're the one who misses me." Y/N whimpered, using her free hand to pull on Michael's hair in hopes of prying him off, but he was stubborn. Y/N whispered in his ear, "Whatever it is you're trying to do, Langdon, I'll never give in." She pushed her elbow into his ribs, causing Michael to groan. Finally, Y/N goes back to her bathroom to get dressed.

Once she leaves, Michael punches the nearest wall in frustration. He hated rejection. The girls that he usually fucked with never turned him down, they always wanted more. Why wouldn't it work on Y/N?

Michael sat on the long side of her bed, still thinking about what happened earlier. He couldn't believe that she could play with him like that. It made him look like he was the desperate one, which he is.

He took out his phone to text Duncan about what happened.

Michael: yo dunc, something happened

Dunc 🖕🏻: what happened? slr i'm at a party

Michael: bro she's a tough little shit. i did the usual thing that i would do to another girl, she didn't give in at all. instead, she's playing with me.

Dunc 🖕🏻: lmao man step up your game, she isn't your usual girl

Michael: dumbass you think i'm not?

Dunc 🖕🏻: duh??? if you were actually stepping up your game then you would've fucked her there and then 🙄

Michael: whatever.

Once he heard her bathroom door open, he immediately hid his phone back in his pocket. He looked over his shoulder to see Y/N already dressed in her pajamas. Michael didn't know what to do. His angelic side says to 'go and say sorry', yet his devilish side says to 'try harder and fuck with her feelings even more.' Of course, it was obvious what is choice was.

Y/N plopped herself on the bed and grabbed her blanket that was near Michael. She then placed the blanket over her and locked eyes with him.

Michael crawled beside her and placed the blanket over him as well. They are a few inches apart. Y/N turned the TV on, clicking on Netflix. Though she tried her best to ignore Michael, she can't help but think about what happened earlier. She liked it. No, she loved it. She loved the fact that she was able to get on Michael's nerves, and how he reacted to it. It was hella attractive to her, and the smell of Michael's perfume wasn't helping her either.

Now, Y/N was watching some cartoon show that she loved. "Are you kidding? You still watch cartoons?" Michael complained, gesturing at the TV. "Yea? What about it? I bet you only watch porn." She shot back and pulled the blanket towards her, leaving Michael without it.

Michael laughed, "I just can't believe a girl like you would watch cartoons. I find it cute." He pulled the blanket towards him, sticking his tongue out to tease her.

A few minutes passed by and Michael was on his phone, scrolling on TikTok. The same sound that kept repeating for almost a minute caught Y/N's attention. Was he watching the same video?

Y/N paused the TV and looked over to Michael's direction, averting her gaze to his phone. She took a good look at the video. a shirtless boy with a gold chain, with LED lights in their room.

"You've been watching that video over and over again, Langdon. Do you like him or something?"

"Yea, I like myself."

Like myself? Oh my god, no.

"What do you mean..?" That can't be him in the video.

"That's me."

Y/N's mouth dropped, "Wha— huh? How? I mean, yeah.. but?"

Michael let out a laugh that he had been holding in, "But what? Look, I'll show you." He handed her his phone, which allowed Y/N to have a closer look of the video.

"So you're telling me you blew up on tiktok by thrusting a phone on your pelvis??" Y/N stared at the amount of likes, a fucking million.

"Uh, yeah? That's how TikTok works? Look at the comments." Michael tapped the comments icon and Y/N scrolled through it.

'yo im down bad 😫'

'can we keep him a secret pls'

'chill i have a bf..'

'break my back 🤪'

Y/N bursted out in laughter, "Oh my god, if only they knew." she gave his phone back and Michael looked at her with a puzzled look.

"Knew what?" He asked, "You couldn't even 'break my back' two years ago, Michael!" She said in between giggles. "That was two years ago, Y/N! Two fucking years. I was a virgin!" Michael defended himself, then immediately realizing what he said.

Y/N wasn't aware that she was Michael's first.

"Wait Y/N, the last part isn't tru—"

She smirked and grabbed her phone from wherever she left it. She opened Twitter and decided to tweet about what Michael said, just for fun.

just wanted to let yall know that @m_langdon admitted that 2 years ago he lost his virginity to me 🤩

"What are you typing and why are you smiling?" Michael asked with a hint of fear in his voice. He feared that Y/N would do something that would tear his reputation down.

Y/N gave him a mischievous grin, "Oh nothing, just tweeted about what you said."

Michael's face fell, and Y/N hit the tweet button.

"Did you twee—"

"Yeah, go check your Twitter. I tagged you too."

Michael shot her a slight glare and went to his Twitter.

Y/N's tweet already had 5 retweets, 14 likes, and 8 replies.

"You did not." Michael said, shocked at how she would do something like this. "Ooh sorry babe, I just did." She faked a pout and formed a letter 'L' with her hand.

Michael felt embarrassment fill him, he wanted to scream at her so bad. He never thought that she would go this far. She was never like this.

He took a deep breath, "Why did you tweet that?"

"And you have the audacity to ask why?"

"Delete that tweet, Y/N." His voice was demanding and dark.

"Or what?"

Michael slowly started to kneel on the bed and hover over her. "You don't want to know."

Y/N smirked and fixed her posture, "Infact, I'd like to know. Care to tell me?” 

Michael clearly wasn’t having any of her shit, he was more than angry. He wanted to release all of his frustrations, and he was gonna do that. 

He trapped her by placing a leg on each side of her left thigh. Surprisingly, Y/N did not shrink against the headboard of the bed. She remained in her place. Their faces are centimeters apart now, 

“Now what, Langdon? Just gonna stare at me? Pathetic shit.” She cupped his face and stroked his cheek mockingly, then dragging her thumb against his bottom lip. 

“Shut the fuck up.” Michael swatted her hand away and crashed his lips again hers. The kiss was so intense, Michael hasn’t kissed any girl like this, it was a foreign feeling for him, and especially for Y/N. Michael’s free hand started roaming throughout her body, tickling her soft flesh. Meanwhile, Y/N was tugging on Michael’s hoodie, “Take this off.” She pulled away from the kiss and gasped for air. Michael took off his hoodie and revealed his naked chest infront of her.

Y/N felt weak. She wanted to fight this feeling so bad, which was lust. But it was too late.

"Fuck me, Michael.." Y/N whimpered, ashamed of her current state. Michael ran his thumb over her bottom lip, "What was that? I didn't catch it." He pouted, teasing her. Y/N couldn't believe herself. She promised herself that she would never fall for any of Michael's antics, yet here she is— completely submitting to him.

Y/N cleared her throat, "Fuck me please.." Michael cocked his head to the side, amused. He was enjoying this. He loved it so much. He finally had Y/N where he wanted her to be, wrapped around his little finger.

Michael's lips ghosted against her cheek, his breath warming up her skin. "Gladly."

And it begins now.

—♡—

this took me like 3 weeks im sorry 😔 nonethelEEEESSSSS i enjoyed writing this despite some breakdowns here and there <3

tags (ily all sm <3): @kitwalker02 @angelicmichael @deademobitch @iheartfrogs101 @tatestripedsweater @mrs-march-ahs @no-mercy-bby @hawtghostgirl @vixemi @antichristwifey @bitchchatter @fallwiththesun @booksandfandomsarelife1 @roseelizabeth666 (im sorry if i missed anyone!!)

—♡—

[pet-genius]

The Death Eaters as a Cult - Part 1

This is a very lightly edited old Reddit post, that I'll publish in parts because the whole thing is like 7000 words. Analyzing Voldemort, the DE and their dynamics, Dumbledore and Harry in comparison, and individual Death Eaters. Hope you like it!

Some say Voldemort is a cartoon villain, or wizard Hitler. I think he is very realistic, and that the focus on his political aspirations ignores interesting aspects of him. I cannot prove that JKR had cults in mind when she wrote Voldemort and his followers, but this is how I read them. It’s nearly impossible to define a cult, so, for the purpose hereof, I’m going with “a group dedicated to the worship of a person��. Many cult leaders in real life present themselves merely as “god’s voice” or “the messiah”, but Voldemort specifically didn’t bother to hide behind a power higher than himself.

Tom Riddle comes from humble beginnings, like many cult leaders - he’s raised in an orphanage. He already has delusions of grandeur, only in this case they’re not delusions, because he really is magic, which makes it all the more dangerous. Look how he reacted to discovering he was a wizard, and how Harry did.

Immediately following the revelation that Lily and James did not die in a car crash, and that Harry is famous, and that he survived an attempt at his life by the worst wizard in history:

Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He’d spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn’t they been turned into warty toads every time they’d tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he’d once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?

“Hagrid,” he said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I don’t think I can be a wizard.”

Heart-breaking. Harry doesn’t believe he can be special, he blames himself for the way he’s treated.

This is Tom Riddle:

“I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic.”

There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying. “Magic?” he repeated in a whisper.

“That’s right,” said Dumbledore.

“It’s... it’s magic, what I can do?”

“What is it that you can do?”

“All sorts,” breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer.

“I knew I was different,” he whispered to his own quivering fingers. “I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something.”

His megalomania and violent nature are already apparent, as is his preternatural control of his magic. It also hints at rudimentary legilimency.

Dumbledore spells out that young Tom Riddle equated magic with immortality and liked to collect trophies, and that Tom Riddle liked being special, as he resents the name Tom for being too common; he already lives behind a mask and only shows his true face in shock. This, and not Dumbledore’s magical prowess, is what always scared Tom. Voldemort knew Dumbledore knew what he was. That was the only tactical advantage Dumbledore had.

It’s also one of JKR’s strokes of brilliance: Dumbledore saw Tom for what Tom was, and others never did until it was too late, not because he was that clever, but because he knew from experience. Dumbledore had allowed himself to fall for a charismatic but heartless man before, and it took Ariana dying to slap him awake. Dumbledore knows good people can be led astray: It happened to him. It has nothing to do with intelligence or “goodness”. Gellert was able to give Albus exactly what Albus lacked, stuck at home taking care of Ariana: the promise of freedom and a bright future, and the companionship of an equal. Albus fell for it, despite warning signs that should have been obvious.

Later, we know Tom is chosen by a wand of yew and phoenix feather. Both yew and phoenix are associated with immortality; yew trees are very long-lived. Compare this to Harry’s wand, holly and phoenix feather: both these characters will experience death and rebirth, except Tom Riddle’s wand tree is yew, and Harry’s is holly.

From Wikipedia: “The Christian church commonly found it expedient to take over existing pre-Christian sacred sites for churches. It has also been suggested that yews were planted at religious sites as their long life was suggestive of eternity, or because, being toxic when ingested, they were seen as trees of death.” Also from Wikipedia: “Christians have identified a wealth of symbolism in the holly tree’s form. The sharpness of the leaves help to recall the crown of thorns worn by Jesus; the red berries serve as a reminder of the drops of blood that were shed for salvation; and the shape of the leaves, which resemble flames, can serve to reveal God's burning love for His people.”

The two orphans’ wildly different views of death are also apparent in their wand trees. Voldemort will murder to attain his goals; Harry will sacrifice himself. That the phoenix feather came from Fawkes is also meaningful - Dumbledore taught both magic in some capacity, but he never could defeat Voldemort, because they’re too alike. One of Harry’s advantages in this battle is the integrity of his soul, which cannot be compromised.

Next, Tom Riddle is sorted into Slytherin. For a child who is already prone to megalomania, the house values bring out the worst in him, and under Slughorn, he grows into a manipulative, cunning, ruthless young man. I’m not blaming Horace for Tom being a psychopath, but some of the particular ways his psychopathy manifested in seem to have been directly due to Slughorn’s influence. Slughorn is a blood-supremacist, who was convinced Tom must come from fine stock. Slughorn tests drinks for poison using house elves; Tom Riddle tests the effectiveness of his Horcrux’s protection on Kreacher. Slughorn emphasizes the importance of connections and outright praises Tom for knowing more than he needs to, and encourages an attitude of “it’s only wrong if you get caught.” But Slughorn, prejudiced and cunning as he is, is not violent - he is academically curious about Horcruxes, but he finds them repugnant. Tom’s heart is not so faint - at the point of asking Slughorn about Horcruxes, the diary is already a horcrux, and Tom has already murdered his father. This is how Dumbledore describes Tom’s original gang, who were the proto-Death Eaters:

As he moved up the school, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated, Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts. Rigidly controlled by Riddle, they were never detected in open wrongdoing, although their seven years at Hogwarts were marked by a number of nasty incidents to which they were never satisfactorily linked, the most serious of which was, of course, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, which resulted in the death of a girl. As you know, Hagrid was wrongly accused of that crime.

Dumbledore explains what motivated people to join Tom: some were afraid, some ambitious, some cruel. He controlled his so-called friends, and already started framing others for his own crimes (Hagrid’s framing was followed by Morfin’s and Hokey the house elf’s).

This is followed by Tom’s attempt to become a teacher (Dumbledore spells out his motivations: He is attached to the school, he wants to study its magic, and he already wants to build himself an army). He is denied, oddly chooses to work for Borgin and Burkes, a choice fueled by the desire to trace down more items to make into Horcruxes. Through the memory of the meeting with Heptzibah Smith, we see that Tom was definitely charming when he needed to be, and knew how to make people feel good. He did not use magic to trick her into showing him her precious locket and cup: he used muggle manipulation - flattery, making an old and forlorn lady feel valuable, perhaps even flirting with her (she’s certainly flirting with him). He was pleasant enough that Ms. Smith eagerly looked forward to his visits - but as she showed him her treasures, he was caught off guard by hearing about his mother and how she sold the locket, and she saw him for what he was, although she quickly fell into denial. Sadly, she was murdered two days later.

Why rely on Horcruxes to gain immortality? Tom must have known about Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Horcruxes require someone else to perform the resurrection ritual. Either making the Stone is so hard that it would deter Tom (unlikely), or he already expected to rely on followers who would find him and revive him - he certainly seems to have expected his followers to have searched for him earlier. Maybe Horcruxes were appealing because they require murder. In any case, this is followed by the memory of Tom asking Dumbledore for the DADA job again, a decade later. Tom has spent a decade gathering followers, and he has already changed his name to Lord Voldemort. This is reminiscent of real life cult leader David Koresh, and the leaders of the Children of God, Aum Shinrikyo, etc. The meeting between Voldemort and Albus is interesting, because it’s clear that Dumbledore had tried to teach Tom about the power of love:

“The old argument,” he said softly. “But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.”

“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places,” suggested Dumbledore.

This did not help. Tom never learned - how could he? At 16, he was already a murderer - who could love him now for who he was? He could never be truly loved, and he could never truly love another, and he underestimated the power of love for his entire life, leading to his downfall - twice (were that it was so simple in real life).

Voldemort is trying to obfuscate the nature of the relationship, like all cults - they never admit this is what they are.

“I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,” said Dumbledore. “I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.”

“You are mistaken,” said Voldemort.

But LV can’t lie to Dumbledore, who changes the subject. He denies him the DADA job again, and the curse is placed on the job. LV’s ascent is due to begin in a few years. Hagrid tells the story:

Anyway, this — this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin’ fer followers. Got ’em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ’cause he was gettin’ himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn’t know who ter trust, didn’t dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches...

Voldemort isn’t just interested in immortality. He wants complete control. He wants everyone fearing him - even fearing his name. He has people isolated and distrustful, fearing for their lives.

But we know his reign of terror was dreadful - what I’m interested in is the way he treated his own followers. We know little about how he treated them in the first war, but we do have what Sirius had to say about Regulus’s fate:

From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don’t just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It’s a lifetime of service or death.

We know the real story of Regulus’s disappearance, and it’s different. Kreacher tells us that Regulus died in the Horcrux cave - but more telling is that Regulus forbade Kreacher from telling his parents what had happened to him. Why did he feel the need to do that? This suggests that Regulus knew LV destroyed traitors’ families, which is a tactic used in cults and other abusive dynamics. We know LV would leverage Draco’s welfare against Lucius for his failure in the Department of Mysteries, too. We know also that instead of going to Dumbledore, or to his own brother, Regulus chose death – unless he was really dumb, and I don’t think he was, he must have been manipulated into believing that was his only option, or his world made no sense after his faith had shattered. So many people never readjust to life outside the cult.

Voldemort “dies” about two years after that, having successfully recruited about 400 followers (“the death eaters outnumbered us the Order 20:1” - Lupin). We can’t say if all these people were genuine Death Eaters or people who had been Imperiused or otherwise coerced, or allies like Narcissa, but that coercion is used to recruit shows that Voldemort did not take his own followers’ ambitions and wishes into account. People who use outright coercion don't suddenly draw the line at manipulation.

[harrysweasleys]

caught in the act // f.w

summary:  how do you feel about writing a request for professor!fred and professor!reader bantering like cRaZy at hogwarts a few years after graduation and things just ~happen~ between them both? like maybe they try to one up each other all the time or they just dislike one another OR they're secretly dating but try to hide it from the students but the students know anyway? i don't even care what it is, i just desperately need professor fred k love u BYE

warnings: flirty and steamy, mentions of food 

word count: 3.7k

a/n: OK so this idea was stemmed from a very long chat between me, @ickle-ronniekins and @wand3ringr0s3 and it has finally been brought to life! this was so much fun to write and i really hope you all enjoy :) [i do not give consent for my work to be reposted on any platform.]

———————————————————————

The familiar echo of the Hogwarts bell never failed to make you jump out of your skin. Especially when you were currently eyeing a class full of students in eerie silence, broken only by the occasional drop of a quill. Their practice exam required lack of noise to the point where you swore you could hear the movements of your ribs as you inhaled and exhaled. 

The ringing sound echoed throughout the class for a short moment, the students in front of you all placing their quills down and forming a line towards your desk, their parchment in hand and some of their faces rather sullen. It was only a practice exam, but the real deal was coming up in a few weeks and revisions were taking up a majority of their free time. You couldn’t tell if their expressions were from the work they just did or from the lack of sleep.

You remembered your exam days at Hogwarts. Long, dreary nights in the common room by the fire until the sun came up, your eyes burning out of your scalp from reading scribbles and notes all night long. Those really were the days, weren’t they?

“I don’t think I did so well, Professor,” one of your students, a fourth year Hufflepuff, said with a defeated tone to his voice, “I couldn’t remember the proper spell.”

You had found it rather odd that for a Charms class, the students had to do a written practice exam. It wasn’t your decision — but you surely questioned it. 

“It’s alright, Edwards,” you grinned back, “It’s not the final thing. This will only prepare you for the one you take in two weeks. Remember, that one is a performance exam. If you’ve got your wand movements down, you’ll be all set.”

The boy nodded, no trace of a smile on his face as he turned away and trudged out of the class, his overly heavy backpack hanging off of his shoulder. 

A frown formed on your lips as the next student walked towards your desk, a confident smile on her face as she handed you her exam paper, “Have a good day, Professor!”

You were about to wish her a good day in return, but a figure by the door caught your attention instead. 

Fred Weasley — or, rather, known to his students as Professor Weasley — stood with his hands in his pockets, his button up shirt tucked tightly into his slacks. His hair was short, standing up and looking soft as ever. 

He shot you a quick wink, causing you to shake your head with a small laugh before you returned to collecting exams. You couldn’t give away that you were, indeed, dating a fellow professor. You were sure, due to the countless times you’ve popped in and out of each other’s classes, that some of them were suspicious. But you could hardly think about that too much without getting paranoid.

Your students filed out of the classroom one by one, each of them excited to finally be on lunch break. You could hear a few of them mutter a quick ‘good afternoon, Professor Weasley’��as they passed by him in the doorway, none of them striking any sort of conversation, much to your pleasure.

“And what can I help you with?” you grinned, standing up from your chair and placing a clip around the stack of papers, sitting them down in the corner of your desk so you could remember to take them with you and look at them in your office later in the evening. You much preferred to do your grading and marking at night — you felt much more ‘in the zone,’ so to speak.

He walked over to you, hands still in his pockets, “What? Can’t pay my girl a visit during breaks?”

You scoffed, taking out a large stack of paper from your desk drawer and preparing for the class of sixth years you had after your break. Fred was inching closer to you with each passing second, taking strides with his long legs as if time was running out and he was trying to get to you as soon as possible without running. You stifled a laugh at his movements.

“Considering no one knows I’m your girl, I’d say no,” you replied, giving him a small smirk, “We don’t want to get caught like last time do we?”

You mentally cringed, thinking back to when fellow professor Neville Longbottom caught you and Fred at the Hogwarts staff Christmas party, your bodies nearly flushed to each other and his head dipping down to whisper in your ear. That might not be a giveaway, but considering the nature of Fred’s words and the way your eyes grew wide as you gave him a slap across the chest, it was a bit of a statement. Neville had asked you that night if anything was going on between you two, to which you replied ‘it’s late, I need to leave.’ 

“Well, it would be a shame for the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to be dating the Charms teacher,” he said, a fake grimace on his face, “You’re only the most brilliant person in this entire school. I would be so ashamed if people knew. The highest held Professor, me, dating you, the lowly Charms teacher — a tragedy, really.”

“Oh, excuse me,” you placed a hand over your chest, stepping closer to him and leaning against the edge of your desk, “A shame, you say? I’ll have you know people much prefer my class to yours, anyways. Actually, just this morning, a group of Hufflepuffs told me they liked me best.”

The corner of his lip curved up into a smirk, leaning closer and wrapping his arms around your waist, his hips leaning against yours. You felt his hands slide lower down your back, giving your bottom a quick squeeze. 

“Hands off, Freddie,” you poked him in the chest, “This relationship has now become a competition.”

He pursed his lips, “Well, can the academic competition start tomorrow after we perform the, to kindly put it, physical competition in my room tonight.”

You slid away from him, shaking your head, “You are unbelievable.” 

“Well, believe it, love,” even though you weren’t facing him, you could hear the smirk in his voice, “This is all yours.”

“Uh, Professor Y/L/N?”

You spun on the spot, colour draining completely from your face. You heard Fred let out an awkward cough, facing the doorway where someone now stood. One of the students from your previous class was standing awkwardly, books in her arms and a confused look on her face. 

“Oh, hello, Miss Myers,” you sighed, running a hand down your face, “Professor Weasley, do you mind giving us a moment?” Your cheeks felt like they were on fire, and the temperature in the room was now a million degrees warmer than it previously was.

Fred grumbled a quick ‘of course,’ and made his way out of the room, turning to give you a wide-eyed expression before closing the door behind him. You let out a deep sigh, falling back into your chair, tossing your hair over your shoulder and looking over at your student.

“Did I interrupt something?” she asked, clearly fighting a grin.

You waved your hand, “No! No,” you tried your best to act nonchalant, letting your student take a seat in front of you, “So, what can I help you with?”

She began expressing her worries for the upcoming exam, all the while you tried giving her the best tips and advice on how to study her charms carefully and safely. You couldn’t count the number of times students had tried their spells outside of the class and had something go horribly wrong. No one wanted to deal with that again.

Though, you kept wondering what she meant by ‘interrupting something.’

You knew that she didn’t mean it in an accusatory manner — you weren’t all cozied up to Fred when she walked in. She couldn’t have seen anything, could she? Even if she did, who would she tell? Headmistress McGonagall was well aware of your relationship with Fred. But she was the only one who knew. You didn’t want to even think about the rumours that would spread if word broke out about your — to put it scandalously — affair.

You honestly weren’t sure what was holding you back from just announcing it. If McGonagall approved, what’s the worst that could happen? 

“Thanks for the help, Professor,” Miss Myers’ voice cut your internal rambling short, causing you to shake your head.

“No problem, my door is always open,” you grinned, motioning your hand in the direction of the door. She gave you a bright grin and picked up her backpack, turning to give you a little wave before making her way out of the classroom, once again, the door shutting closed behind her.

A loud groan left your lips before you dropped your head, letting your forehead smack loudly against the hardwood surface.

———————————————————————

The next two weeks felt like a whirlwind. Not only was the end of term approaching as rapidly as ever, but because your fifth years were rushing towards you every hour of the day to prepare for their OWLs, you were feeling rather happy that you only had a few days left before you were out of here. A lot of them seemed to get the hang of their Charms abilities, but many of them still seemed to be a little off. You couldn’t blame them — fifth year was rough — but you really wanted them all to be successful and to pass. Many of your students wanted to go on and be Aurors. A passing Charms mark was kind of a necessity.

“So you’re alright with overlooking the exam?” the Headmistress asked, her pointy hat standing tall on her head as her emerald robes flowed loosely behind her, the two of you walking towards the Great Hall, “You won’t be alone, but I just wanted to double check.”

You grinned, “Of course, it would be my pleasure.”

The walk to the Hall wasn’t long, but you were feeling suddenly anxious. You had poured your heart and soul into the teaching that you had done this year — you only hoped it paid off enough. You didn’t want to disappoint or let your students down. This was the most important exam yet. 

The Charms exam was tomorrow at noon, so you weren’t sure why your wand was in a knot just yet, but the anxious bubbles in your stomach hadn’t calmed down over the last few days, to be totally honest.

You walked into the silent Hall, no students present yet, and came to a halt as you spotted the redheaded man standing all the way on the other side.

“Oh, so you’re my ever so lovely companion this afternoon?” he grinned, standing up off of his chair and placing the stack of papers down on the table in front of him, his sweater clinging rightfully to his body and causing you to scan your eyes up and down his figure. He had a pen sticking out from behind his ear and you could see the pleased expression cross his face, even from the other side of the room.

“I suspect you two will behave,” McGonagall said from next to you, her eyes twinkling with some sort of amusement as she gazed between the two of you, eyebrows raised.

“When do I not behave, Minerva?” Fred asked cockily, shoving his hands into his pockets — which suddenly seemed to be a signature move for him. You weren’t really sure where it came from, but you weren’t complaining. It gave him some sort of authoritarian vibe, which was one of the many reasons you felt as if today might be a tough day.

Leaving you and Fred alone, McGonagall left the hall with a quick shake of her head, her little heels clacking loudly. You rolled your eyes, walking over to stand next to him. Even as you walked up the few stairs to the platform, Fred’s height towered over you and caused you to crane your neck up to look him in the eyes.

“Well, well, well,” he grinned, his hands finding their way to your lower back, sliding down so that they rested in the bum pockets of your jeans.

“Fred!” you squeaked, giving him a light slap across the bicep before pulling away, “We’ve almost been caught twice. Third time is definitely not the charm, here.”

He let out a low chuckle, his chest vibrating and his eyes crinkling in the corners. You loved the sight of him in a good mood, your heart doing a little flip in your chest as he ran a hand through his hair. 

You couldn’t help yourself, leaning up onto your tip toes and pressing a light kiss to his lips, pulling away ever-so-quickly, reaching up and pulling the pen out from behind his ear in the process, putting it down on the little desk next to the chair he was previously seated in.

“Ha! Gotcha,” you grinned, using your index finger to tap his nose lightly. 

“Oh, okay,” he nodded, hands immediately finding their way around your waist, “That’s not fair, love.”

His lips quickly found their way down to yours, warm and inviting as always. No matter how many times you kissed him, you never got tired of it. You still got the same amount of tingles and butterflies as you did the first time he kissed you. And that’s not something you ever imagined would change. 

“Fred,” you mumbled against his lips, a low groan leaving his throat as you tried your best to wiggle out of his grasp. You could hear the voices of students down the corridor— they were bound to enter the Great Hall any second now. This was not the position you wanted them to see you two in. 

“Fine, fine,” he mumbled, pulling away and rolling his eyes. His lips were red and his cheeks were slightly flushed, but he looked as dashing as ever. It was hard for him not to look like this, actually. Something in Fred Weasley’s blood just made him irresistible. You often felt like cursing him out, honestly. 

Seconds later, the large door opened and the room was no longer silent. Fred shot you a quick wink, sending your heart into a fluttering frenzy, before you turned to face the oncoming group. 

“Good morning!” you announced with a somehow steady voice, “Everyone find your seat so we can begin!” 

It took a few minutes, but eventually the group each found their assigned desks and sat down, taking out their quills and parchment. 

“You have two hours,” Fred clapped his hands together, echoing loudly throughout the room, “And the two of us will be here if you have any questions. The lovely Professor Y/L/N has volunteered to keep me company, probably because she finds me irresistible—” you rolled your eyes, “—but we’ll both answer any questions you have.” 

You looked to the ground, hair falling into your face as you bit your tongue, holding back any snarky remarks towards your idiotic boyfriend. He really wasn’t helping the whole ‘lowkey’ aspect to your relationship.

“Does anyone have any questions before we start?” he asked, lifting his left arm to check the watch on his wrist. You finally peered back up, gazing over at the large clock that was sitting behind you. You immediately regretted not bringing a cup of tea or a snack, but the two hours were bound to fly by. This wasn’t your first time overlooking an exam period, and each time you’ve done this before, it’s never felt like it was dragging on.

“Good luck everyone!” you called out with a smile, clapping your hands together. They all began scribbling away as you finished your sentence, the scratching sound being the only noise you could hear as any previous chatter had now completely ceased. 

You walked slowly over to Fred, your hands crossed over your chest as you raised an eyebrow, “Really smooth, you know? Nearly gave us away, you did.”

He shrugged, giving you a lopsided grin, “Oh, come on. Pretty sure half this lot know we’re together anyways. They may be younger, but they’re not completely dim-witted.”

Scoffing and turning your back to the group to face him better, you tried your best to give Fred a serious glare, “None of them are dim-witted, Fred. I’m just saying it would be nice to avoid the drama that comes with public teacher relationships.”

You took a step back as he took one towards you, trying your best to maintain some sort of professional distance. The students might be busy with their work, but that didn’t mean they were blind to the two Professors standing watch at the front of the room. 

“I gotta admit, love,” he nodded his head, lowering his voice and leaning in, “the sneaking around has been rather fun.”

His voice sent shivers down your body, goosebumps rising on your skin. You forgot how to breathe for a second, quickly trying your best to regain your composure so the students didn’t see you looking like a fish out of water. 

You let out a low cough, clearing your throat and nodding, “It has, hasn’t it?”

The grin on his face was practically contagious, causing the corners of your own lips to turn up before lifting a hand to toss your hair out of your face. You gazed up at him, running your tongue over your bottom lip before pulling it between your teeth, shooting him a wink in the process.

You could see the way his eyes were drawn to your every move, looking at your lips as if in some sort of trance. It caused a little sense of pride to blossom in your chest, to be honest. Fred was often the one who had you locked in a permanent dreamy state. It wasn’t everyday that you had the upper hand.

“Not bloody fair,” he tossed his head back, “Y’know how badly that makes me want to kiss you.”

You smirked, giving him a quick shrug of your shoulders and turning away, swaying your hips as you walked over to the chair that was a few feet away, sitting down comfortably and giving him another wink. You could tell his gaze was on your hips as you walked away — the darker tone in his eyes now locked on you.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

———————————————————————

“You’re a real piece of work, y’know?” he groaned in your ear, leaning over you as you organized the pile of recently collected exams, making sure that Fred’s proximity wasn’t a distraction. You weren’t being overly successful at that last part, though. You could smell his cologne and the warmth of his skin as he stood mere inches away, knowing damn well that he was causing you to stutter in your work.

You had been teasing Fred the entire exam period, sending him winks and lingering looks, even being bold enough to run your hand through his hair at one point, making sure to rake your nails lightly down the nape of his neck, enough to cause his body to erupt in goosebumps. He gave you a stern look after that, letting you know that he was now completely and utterly under your charm. 

“Am I? Well, this is a competition, if you remember correctly. I think I won.” you spun around, leaning against the desk, a teasing look on your face. 

“Oh, you definitely won,” his hands slid around your waist, delicately but firmly. He had a way with body language that was unmatched, you had to admit. 

Taking a step closer to you and pulling your body closer to his, he dipped his head and began to pepper your jaw with light kisses.

“Fred,” you giggled, weakly attempting to push him away, “Not right now.”

He groaned against your neck, his lips continuing to press kisses along your skin. It was rendering your mind nearly completely blank, but you tried your best to stay focused, to make sure that you guys wouldn’t get caught and ruin the secrecy aspect to your hidden romance. Plus, you really didn’t want McGonagall to catch you in such a scandalous position. 

“Honestly, do you have no self control?” you asked, successfully pushing him away. You missed the warmth of his body pressed against yours, but you had a feeling you’d be getting a lot of that tonight so you weren’t too upset about it. He’d more than make up for it in a few hours.

“Not around you, love,” he grinned, running a hand through his hair. You wished you were the one doing it instead, but once again, you had a feeling you’d be doing that quite a bit tonight, so you figured you’d wait until you could do it with no worries of anyone cutting in. He loved the feeling of your hands running through his hair, delicately giving little tugs every now and then. 

You let out a laugh, shaking your head as you picked up the pile of finished exams, “You’re too much.” 

Fred followed closely after you as you made your way towards the exit of the Hall, his hands empty but he kept them to himself this time, “But you love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

———————————————————————

After having been empty this afternoon, the Great Hall was now bustling with life. The four house tables were filled with students and food, echoes of distant and nearby conversations reverberating around the crowded room. It wasn’t a sight one could get used to. Yes, you had spent seven years of your youth here, and a few years as a Professor now, but the atmosphere of this room would never quite sink in.

Professor Neville Longbottom, who was currently seated next to you, was rambling on about a mishap that happened in his class that day — something about a first year Gryffindor knocking over eight potted plants — and you nodded along and laughed as he made jokes. 

“Can you believe it?” he asked, eyes wide as he munched on a potato, “He thought Mandrakes and Mimbulus Mimbletonia were the same thing!”

You let out an amused snort, “Kind of hard to think that,” you took a sip of your goblet of wine, “But I guess some people don’t have the magical knack for plants that you do.” You nudged him in the side with a smile.

He grinned at the compliment, the tips of his ears turning a deep shade of red. Neville was two years below you while in school, but his knowledge of plants and nature was way beyond you.

The conversation fell to a lull and Neville became invested in chatting with the person to his other side. You didn’t pay much attention to who it was, as your eyes were now trained to the other end of the table, where the usual seat of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was occupied by your boyfriend. 

His eyes were already looking in your direction, causing a heat to surge through your body. A lazy smile was on his lips, and he clearly wasn’t paying attention to the elderly Professor Slughorn seated to his right. 

“I love you,” you could read his lips, his eyes bright as they stayed locked on yours. His smile was genuine and loving, quite opposite to the teasing one he usually gave you, and it left your stomach feeling rather fluttery.

You bit your lower lip, fighting a grin, before moving your lips in return, “I love you more.”

———————————————————————

taglist 

@grierpilots @hxfflxpxffs @mikumana @msmimimerton @pit-and-the-pen @diary-of-an-onliner @theweirdsideofstuff @thoseofgreatambition @theweasleysredhair @haphazardhufflepuff @starlightweasley @mytreec @thisismysketchbook @valwritesx​ @vogueweasley​ @hufflrpuffforfred​ @phuvioqhile​ @marvelettesassemble​ @almostweepingbanana​ @ickle-ronniekins​ @iprobablyshipit91​ @wand3ringr0s3​ @susceptible-but-siriusexual​

[roanniom]

Phillip and Miss Perfect

Phillip Altman x Reader

Word Count: 2,866

Part 1/?

Summary: Back in high school you were a perfectionist and he was a charming douche. You’ve spent years suppressing the feelings he awakened in you senior year because you’re better than that, right? You’ll sure find out now that you’re back home for the holidays right in time to run back into him.

Warnings: NSFW. Language. Masturbation (F/M kinda). Gratuitous Altman charm.  

Phillip Altman had long been the bane of your existence. Phillip and his cheeky grin and his gaggle of older siblings whose mere existence somehow afforded him an untouchable cool status amongst the weaker minded of your peers. A status you’d always felt was completely unearned as he swaggered through the halls of your high school, winking at pretty girls and tossing innuendo-laden comments to his fawning admirers.  

Yes Phillip Altman, you’d decided long ago, was the bane of your existence.

Handsome and arrogant and too smart for his own good, not that he ever applied himself, for crying out loud. It was senior year that solidified your loathing for the boy. Mr. Weathers had paired the two of you together for the group-project winter final. Only a sadist would assign a group project for a final, so you should have seen it coming. Always the instigator, the old man had been thoroughly entertained by the way you and Phillip would constantly bicker in class. Though “bickering” probably wasn’t the right word considering that the interactions were less a volleying of insults and more a pattern of Phillip smoothly complimenting you and you spewing vitriol back in response.

“My place or yours?”

Your head had snapped up hard when you heard the baritone voice laced with amusement too close for comfort a few moments after Mr. Weather’s class had ended.

“Altman. What have we said about my personal bubble?” You made sure your voice dripped with venom. Phillip straightened from where he had leaned to whisper in your ear as you placed books into your locker.

“Your personal bubble is your own and I am not allowed inside it,” he rambled off, as though reciting a vow from memory. After a breath he wiggled his eyebrows and added, “unless expressly invited.”

“In your sticky dreams,” you shot back.

“Every night, Miss Perfect,” Phillip said, giving a roguish half-smile that you wanted to slap off his face. Instead you slammed your locker door and stalked off.

“So, your place it is then?” Phillip called to your retreating back. You ignored him. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted after you, making sure that everyone in the hallway could hear his humor-tinged voice.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow, Juliet!”

“We’re presenting on Hamlet, moron,” you said, shooting him a look over your shoulder as you continued to walk away. “That quote you just bastardized is Romeo and Juliet.”

Phillip had just laughed and walked in the opposite direction. Leaving you to fume on your way to the bus while wondering seriously to yourself if murder would be enough to make colleges take back the early acceptances you’d already received.

~*~

And so you two had spent one blustery weekend in early December holed away in your bedroom. You trying desperately to keep Phillip’s tiny attention span from wandering to your panty drawer long enough for a presentation on the themes of Hamlet to miraculously get written. Phillip trying desperately to get into said panty drawer and avoid the slaps you repeatedly sent his way. To the surprise of absolutely no one, you both failed tremendously on all accounts. Your mom certainly didn’t help matters by bustling in with Christmas cookies and cooing comments to Phillip about how cute he was. True to form, he thanked her through a mouthful of gingerbread before throwing an infuriating wink your way. That was it. You knew you and your perfect grades were doomed.

And yet on the day of the presentation, something crazy (a miracle, if you’re sappy) did occur. Phillip pulled – out of his ass, presumably – a 180 and gave a performance to rival anything old Willy-Shakes could have staged. Not only did he express a genuine and insightful knowledge of the themes of the play, but he was also a generous presenter, setting you up for and supporting you in points that even made you, the top of the class, look better. As Mr. Weathers complimented the two of you on your efforts at the end of the presentation, you couldn’t help but stare at Phillip, struck for the first time by the way his hair curled a little at the ends and the way his eyes sparkled under the attention of the class. You didn’t like admitting it to yourself, but your stomach was in knots. Phillip parading around like he’s god’s gift to high school girls? Gross. Phillip confidently presenting literary analysis and showing a glimmer of genuine intelligence? Fucking hot.

After class you’d felt a little intimidated at the prospect of talking to him. You weren’t sure why. It was Phillip Fucking Altman, class clown and grade-A pain in your ass. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as you slid your books back into your bag. His frame stood out amongst the small circle of his friends, his dumb, tall body making it so that you could always see him from far away.  

You gripped your bag close to your body and walked briskly toward the door, deciding against any further interaction with the boy whose eyes had suddenly made your cheeks grow hot for the first time in all the years you’d known his stupid ass. As you walked by, however, he broke away from his friends and chased after you, calling your name. You didn’t stop until you reached the destination of your locker down the hall.

“Hey, so it seems like we killed it in there.” Phillip leaned against the next locker, slightly breathless from having jogged to catch up with you. It was after sixth period on the last day of the semester, and the last few stragglers filtered through the hall on their way to the sweet freedom of winter break.

“Yeah, I guess we did alright, didn’t we?” you said noncommittally, refusing to look up from organizing the inside of your locker.

“Alright? Pretty sure Weathers jizzed his pants when you brought up biblical allegory,” Phillip let out a bark of a laugh.

“Only you could make academic achievement sound vulgar, Altman,” you said, trying but failing to hide the smile that broke across your face.

“It’s not as hard as it seems. All of those stuffy writers were pervs. You know Mary Shelley fucked Lord Byron on her mother’s grave? And that horny bitch wrote Frankenstein!” His smile lit up the corner of your vision and you looked up, blushing at how cute his stupid crooked teeth looked all of a sudden.

“She fucked Percy Shelley on her mother’s grave, not Lord Byron, you idiot,” you replied, rolling your eyes. Phillip’s eyebrows had shot up and his smile had grown wider.

“Well, well Miss Perfect. Never took you for a girl who reads the naughty books, too.”

“Shove it, Altman.” You punched out at his arm, but he successfully dodged, finally demonstrating fast reflexes for once after years of similar assaults from you.

“Well either way, we did it! We made Lit our bitch – up top!” He offered up a hand which you high fived reluctantly. Before you could pull your hand away, his large one wrapped around yours and he yanked you forward. Your body crashed into his and before you could flail, he wrapped his arms around you in a tight hug.

You were too shocked by the action to move, too surprised by the feeling of his strong arms twisting around your back and his hard body against your breasts. You’d always known Phillip was hot, it was one of the things you hated him for. But feeling the evidence of that hotness against you? You felt the knot in your stomach from earlier drop a little lower.

Phillip ducked his head down to the crook of your neck, his warm breath blowing on your ear. You became hyper aware of the silence in the empty hallway, marveling at the fact that there was no one there to witness the sudden intimacy of this weird moment. Was there a memo you’d missed about a Christmas Fair that everyone had rushed off to? Damn. You took a breath to speak but Phillip cut you off, the vibrations from his rumbling voice sending shivers down your spine.

“Yeah, yeah I know. Sorry about your personal bubble.”

You bit your lip, not trusting yourself to speak during this odd experience that balanced precariously in a space between uncomfortable and enticing.

“It’s just that…” Phillip began, but trailed off. Your heart beat in your throat, and somewhere lower, as he began swaying your bodies a little in place. This couldn’t be real, though nightmare or dream you couldn’t decide how you’d classify it. You felt his ribcage expand against you as he went to speak again, barely aware that your own breath was held captive in your chest in anticipation.

“I, too…jizzed in my pants when you brought up biblical allegory.”

It took a few seconds for his words to register in your mind before you reacted. Your hand connected with his face so hard you scared yourself with the volume of the sound. Both of you stood frozen and staring at each other for a moment after that. Him with his hand on his cheek where it had flown to shield his stinging skin and you with your hand suspended in air where it had reverberated back after impacting with his face.

Then Phillip began to laugh.

It was a full sound that echoed off the walls. Your face screwed up in response, immediately feeling shame heat your ears and cheeks. But then you noticed that his smile held no derision, no malice. He was genuinely entertained by the fact that, after all these times slapping him, you’d finally hit the mark dead on.

Your hand flew to cover your lips, dozens of emotions dancing on your features as you began to register the humor of the moment as well. However, you also felt foolish. Not a second before he’d let loose the comment that broke all your physical self-control your mind had been toying with the idea of losing physical self-control in a very different way. The hot, knotted feeling in your lower belly had not gone away with this turn of events, it had merely intensified. Your palm tingled where it had made contact with Phillip’s cheek.

The rush of emotions, so many and so dissonant, overwhelmed you. So you did the only thing you could. You slammed your locker door, ducked your head down, and ran for the door, leaving a very confused Phillip still chuckling to himself in your wake.

~*~

That night, laying in bed, you had chastised yourself for feeling what seemed to be every feeling but your usual hatred toward Phillip. This wouldn’t do. You were the top of the class. You hadn’t gotten this far for this long by having twisty turny feelings for stupid beautiful boys with crooked teeth and lots of charm.

Somewhere in your self-admonishment, however, your thoughts turned back to the feeling of his hard body against yours. His arms, large and muscled, containing you with such ease and solidity. The planes of his large chest as they pressed into your soft curves. Without even thinking much about it, your hands moved under your sheets, squeezing those curves.

The knotted feeling from before returned, but this time it was less of a knot and more of an ache. You knew the feeling. Had willed it away while watching movies where hot actors sucked too convincingly on the necks of their leading ladies. Had clumsily tried to remedy it with fumbling rubs and twisting legs on nights when the tension got to be too much.

But that night as you’d thought about Phillip Altman’s arms around you, your pointer finger moved to your clit, rubbing small circles around the sensitive nub. As you thought of Phillip Altman’s lips as he rambled confidently in front of a crowd, and Phillip Altman’s big nose scrunching as he winked at you across a classroom, and Phillip’s dimples as he laughed at one of your personalized insults, and Phillip Altman’s dick as it could be seen outlined in his athletic shorts during gym….

The ache inside grew and you felt your pussy clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled by something you hadn’t known you wanted. Haphazardly you thrust a finger inside your folds, the hand not preoccupied with circling your clit reaching up to grab one of your breasts.

You tried to imagine Phillip’s large hands replacing yours. Tried to imagine how he’d fill you, how he’d squeeze you. You could almost hear the way he’d put that already dirty mouth of his to good use.

“You want to cum, Miss Perfect? Hmm?” You imagined him saying. The vibrations from his deep voice rang through your mind, left over from when it had caused you to shiver earlier. “Want me in your personal bubble now?”

You whimpered in the darkness of your room, speeding up the friction on your clit and thrusting two more fingers in your slick heat. You imagined his lips at your neck, at your clavicle, at your sternum, sucking at the skin and tickling you with the stubbling facial hair he’d only been sporting since last summer.

“You’ve always been such a good girl,” the Phillip in your mind practically purred. You felt yourself reaching a precipice you’d never quite attained before. The muscles of your legs quaked and your squeezed your nipples, needing more of something.

“Why don’t you be a good girl for me and cum?”

Your whole body convulsed against the mattress and your muscles seized, your fingers trapped inside your pussy as it contracted over and over. You felt absolutely euphoric for a moment, almost nothing passing through your mind but the image of Phillip, smiling at you with that same, familiar, cheeky smile.

But as you came down from your high, your sweat ran cold with a realization. It had been your first orgasm. Phillip had caused your first orgasm. A mixture of shame and anger flooded your system as you curled into yourself. It wasn’t enough Phillip Altman was the golden boy of the school, it wasn’t enough that he could – and did – have any girl he wanted, he had to have your orgasm, too?

You felt silly but you also felt indignant. You had prided yourself on not being affected, on being above him. After all, why go after the boy who had it all and who only teased you because it felt like an accomplishment to make the smart girl squirm under his gaze?

No. You hated Phillip Altman and you wouldn’t let him have this. You silently thanked whatever militant non-secular whacko had pushed the Christmas agenda on the school system so hard that you had two weeks off now to help distance you from any interactions with the boy who plagued your mind.

You had drifted to sleep that night, unaware that several streets over, in a room very much like your own, Phillip Altman was tugging at his hard cock, groaning over thoughts of the girl who challenged him, the girl who yelled at him, the girl who slapped him. The one girl he was so sure he’d never get with, but who he wanted most.

~*~

Now, twelve years later, you wander down the baking aisle of the local grocery store, praying to all that is holy that you won’t bump into someone from your high school. After graduation you had peaced the fuck out, leaving for college on the opposite coast. You’d spent years convincing your parents that you were too busy with undergrad and then grad school and then publishing deadlines to ever make the crazy trip back to your hometown, instead baiting them into visiting you for warmer holidays that smelled of the beach and your new life. Two consecutive shitty breakups on your part and one knee replacement surgery on your mother’s part combined to turn this into the year that your parents insisted you finally made the pilgrimage home.

Which is how you find yourself on a winter night browsing the alternative flour selection, having been sent to look for the perfect gluten-free option that will make your mom’s gastrointestinal system “not blow up like a friggen balloon.” It was funny how not even a medical diagnosis could deter that woman from her festive baking habits. You’re deep in thought over the differences between coconut and almond when a deep voice rumbles out from your deepest memories, reverberating right into aisle four.

“You know I read your latest book.”

You look up and almost drop your two flours to the ground. Instead you fumble, gripping them tightly to your chest and causing vaporized coconut and almond to puff into the air in front of you.

As the powder settles out of your line of sight you see him. Phillip Altman. Twelve years older, with more facial hair and a couple laugh lines, but it’s him alright.

“Hey there, Miss Perfect.”

His nose crinkles as he winks at you. You intake breath sharply.

And choke on some flour.

It tastes like coconut. And you know then that you should have just trusted your gut and gone with almond.

You also know that you’re in trouble.

~*~

Tagging some very kind people who have been very welcoming: @mariesackler​ @direnightshade​ @safarigirlsp​ @sacklerscumrag​

[winsmoke]

𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤

You and Yuta have both hit a wall in your respective lives. Loneliness seeks comfort.

⊹ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 2.3k ⊹ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 english student female y/n x Yuta ⊹ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 college au, idol au, strangers to lovers au, angst, smut ⊹ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 drinking, kissing, swearing, unprotected doggy position, unprotected reverse cowgirl position, unprotected missionary position ⊹ 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 disclaimer | masterlist

   “Another unfamiliar place with more unfamiliar people,” Yuta murmured to himself while stuffing his slender fingers into the pockets of his straight jacket.

　He had an inexplicable urge to leave his hotel room to wander around the city. Even though he risked a lot of trouble with his managers for a simple stroll, the walk still wasn’t making him feel any better. He had been to New York City several times but it still felt...empty. 

   The more he traveled around the world with NCT 127, the more he realized how small and insignificant he was - an incredibly stupid mentality to have as an idol. Yuta felt like he was always chasing his next high and lately not much was making the cut.

　Performing, practicing, and simple downtime with his members had initially been so fulfilling. That was when he felt like he had something to work towards. It didn’t feel like he was working at all anymore. He didn’t know if he should be more concerned that it was easy faking stability or that none of his friends could recognize his unease. 

   Perhaps that’s why you caught his eye so easily.

　While Yuta restricted his insecurities within his body, your vulnerability stretched across your trembling figure. You were speed-walking to Barnes & Noble, desperate for a gentle relief to get you through the night.

　It was your last year at New York University’s aggressively cutthroat creative writing program. The thrilling environment of competitive writing had engaged you for three years but now you just felt burnt out. You did it all… gotten published, received distinguished awards, and had met your favorite authors but now you’re not so sure of yourself. And with your confidence went your writing stamina. So you decided, after re-writing the ending of your final non-fiction story three times, to run away to the bookstore and read stories from your childhood.

   It wasn’t in Yuta’s nature to talk to strangers so he curiously traced your steps. He was pleasantly surprised when you led him to a bookstore and even more surprised when you eagerly reached for children’s books. After flipping to the first page of The Rainbow Fish, you looked up at the first person you saw, pointed at the paper, and exclaimed excitedly: “Pictures!”

   Having read countless academic papers and various literature throughout the semester without a single picture, seeing such colorful and nostalgic images were putting you in a child-like frenzy.

　Yuta felt his lips twitch uncontrollably. You wore your emotions so shamelessly and he found it to be both terrifying yet charming. You started laughing at yourself, realizing how ridiculous you must look.

   “Sorry, I must seem like I’m on acid or shrooms… I swear I’m intelligent,” you mumbled while hungrily paging through the children’s book. Yuta blinked in confusion. He was good at English but he wasn’t sure what “acid” or “shrooms” was. 

   “I read that when I was a boy,” Yuta said awkwardly, nodding to the book you held. Your ears perked up at his articulation and you looked more closely at the guy standing next to you. 

   “In what language?” you asked, trying to place his accent. 

   “Japanese.” 

   You sat down on the carpeted floor and patted the space next to you. 

   “Issho ni yomimashou.” Let’s read together.

   “Nihongo o shitte imasu ka?” You know Japanese?

   “Just basic stuff,” you said shrugging. “Can I practice with you? Like I’ll try to translate the sentences from this story and you’ll tell what I said wrong?” 

   “Ano… okay?” Umm... 

   Over the next thirty minutes, Yuta was amazed by how comfortable he had become with you. He hadn’t heard Japanese in months; a strange ache lodged itself in his chest when you spoke it so smoothly. He remembered how anxious he had been when he was learning Korean, but whenever you made a mistake your bit your lip not from embarrassment but frustration. You were so foreign yet familiar. 

   “Wanna come over to my dorm? The store is gonna close soon and I want to keep practicing with you,” you asked with your most captivating smile. You were always forward with people, especially those you like and he had certainly caught your eye.

   “I don’t know your name yet and you’re already inviting me home?” Yuta hid the bubbling feeling in his chest with a satisfied smirk.

   “I’m y/n.” 

   “Yuta.”

   “Okay now that we’re no longer strangers, Yuta, would you like to come over?”

   “Yeah,” Yuta breathed. He didn’t care about the repercussions, it had been so long since he actually wanted to do something. And right now he wanted more time with you. 

   While the two of you walked to your dorm, you pointed out your favorite spots and places when you had done some fuck-shit, slipping in and out of English and Japanese. Yuta watched you in amusement, slightly amazed by your brazen tongue and reckless past. He couldn’t quite understand you… you had acted so carelessly before and yet, you always ended your stories by explaining what you had learned. He wasn’t sure if he would call you balanced or chaotic.

   Upon unlocking the door to your dorm, your eyes shot to your opened laptop and you remembered the paper you needed to complete. This was your last story before the semester ended, and it had to be spectacular. But the ending was kicking your ass. Your shoulders immediately sagged and you staggered over to your fridge.  

   “What’s up?” Yuta asked, noticing your deflating figure.

　You grabbed the giant vodka bottle and some cherry soda, your usual liquor and chaser combo. Collapsing onto your bed, you gulped down several mouthfuls of both substances and offered some to Yuta. He mimicked your actions without hesitation.

   “I just…am tired of my life,” you said softly.

　Yuta watched as your face crumbled into distress. He set the bottles carefully on the floor and approached your bed steadily.

　You couldn’t read his expression. No one really could.

   “I’m sorry,” he confessed in a low tone, “I’m not good at consoling people. Or talking in general.” 

   You searched his face. Quite possibly the most handsome and emotionless being you had ever laid your eyes on. You noticed before that his face only portrayed happiness or nothing. If he wasn’t smiling, he wasn’t anything. You, on the other hand, oozed an array of emotions.

   You crawled to the edge of the bed where Yuta stood. You sat directly in front him with him looking down at you, your noses almost brushing.

   “You don’t need to speak,” you whispered. 

   Yuta’s hands glided to the curve of your hip and held you firmly in place. As soon as you spread your legs to bring his body closer, Yuta’s lips found yours. He tasted like the cherry soda, the smell enveloping your senses.

   Yuta pushed your hips back further onto the bed so he could position himself properly in between your thighs. While you continued to explore his mouth, his hands began to roughly grope your thighs through your tights. The thin material felt unusual but alluring against his hands and eventually his nails started to fray the nylon. 

   “Just take them off already,” you snapped, breaking away from the kiss when you realized what Yuta was doing and that this was your last pair of black tights. 

   “You look good in them,” Yuta hummed against your neck, licking and kissing below your ear until you were twitching with need. 

   As soon as he began lifting the edge of his sweater, you slithered out of your clothes while Yuta did the same. You positioned your legs for missionary position but Yuta nudged your hip to indicate his desire for you to flip over. 

   “Fine,” you grumbled.

　You already knew your thighs would give out in a few minutes but you let your body be maneuvered to his liking. He pulled your hips up so you were on your hands and knees and pushed his cock in your pussy.

   “Ummph,” you moaned in satisfaction.

　Yuta pushed your wobbling knees further apart to compensate for his girth, causing you to fall onto your forearms. 

   You pushed your hips back in time with Yuta’s swift thrusts. Yuta closed his eyes and tensed his muscles, completely surrendering himself to pleasure. The syrupy sounds of his dick slipping in and out of you echoed in your small room. 

   Although your stamina was quickly depleting, Yuta’s unyielding grip on your hips forced you to continue your movements. Impatient with your decelerating speed, he eventually just held your ass in place to maximize his pace, his balls slapping against your ass with every stroke.

   “You gonna make me do all the work?” Yuta breathed in your ear, pulling your torso up so he could grip your boobs properly. You shivered slightly, impossibly more aroused by the feeling of Yuta’s hardened chest against your back.

   “If you don’t plan on cumming while I’m in control don’t ask for me to take over,” you warned, getting your shit together to not stutter. 

   “Can you make me come?” Yuta challenged, purposefully fingering your clit while continuing to hit you from the back. You rolled your eyes.

   “Please. I could make you cum in three minutes tops. You won’t be getting any pretty little moans out of me.” 

   Yuta groaned and shoved you away. Propping himself on your pillows, he gestured towards his erect dick, still moist from your juices. 

   “Sit. Impress me,” Yuta instructed. 

   Eye contact was not the move for tonight. His look infiltrated you further than his dick could, you felt psychologically naked under it. 

   So you sat facing away from him, with your legs folded on either side of his legs. You nimbly gyrated down on his cock, clapping your cheeks together whenever your thighs needed respite. Yuta reached out to grope your quivering ass but you would stop completely to slap his hands away. 

   “Fuck,” Yuta moaned, unconsciously rolling his hips up to try to cram himself impossibly deeper. You were not gonna lie, this boy’s dick was stretching you and you had been aching from the beginning but that didn’t matter. You both needed a release and sore thighs weren’t going to stop you.

   “Let me be on top,” Yuta growled after you slapped his hands away again.

   “Dignity dented? It’s only been a minute,” you huffed out, just barely closing your mouth in time before a moan could escape.

   “Kinda hard to pull out if you’re on top of me,” Yuta said in a pleading tone. You could tell he was close. 

   “I’m on birth control,” you panted.

　Your abdomen was completely tightened, the coil in your stomach beginning to unravel. You blinked rapidly to bat the sweat from your eyes, you were starting to get dizzy from the intense fucking.

   “I want to look at you when I come,” Yuta begged.

　He surprised himself with his honesty. This whole time, you two had been avoiding each other’s eyes but now that the climax was drawing near, and your encounter was coming to a close, he wanted to see your face. You slowed down your hips, contemplating whether you should just let him cum down your throat or turn around. 

   Screw it. You thought and maneuvered your body so you were straddling him properly. You looked down at him, slightly transfixed by his impressive body. It was the first time you two looked at each other naked. 

   Your hair had fallen out of the ponytail long ago, it circled your flushed face in a way that made you look more captivating to Yuta. He held back the urge to cup your cheeks. 

   You lowered your body onto his and moved your hips sensuously around Yuta’s dick. You didn’t feel like fucking anymore, you just wanted tender sex to try to elongate this as much as possible. You didn’t want to admit this was a one-night stand and soon he would be gone. 

   Yuta seemed to understand your thoughts and caressed your body as if you were worth something to him. Even though you both had slowed dramatically, your bodies were ready for relief.

   “What if I want to hear your pretty moans,” Yuta whispered, effortlessly flipping you below him. His brown eyes were a pool you were drowning in. You weakly smiled and gave in to his request, allowing your low moans to spill from your lips, but not before you closed your eyes. In return, he whined into your collarbone, licking everything he touched. 

   His simple grinding had been enough for you both to reach your limits. Before coming, Yuta couldn’t resist one last kiss, this one much rawer than the first. But instead of relief he just felt lonely all over again. Now that it was over, now what? 

   “I guess you have to go now,” you said, heartache written all over your face. How was it possible that you got so attached to this guy you had just met an hour ago? 

   Yuta fished his phone out of his jeans pocket and groaned looking at all the missed calls and texts. They were flying out early in the morning for their next tour stop and the managers and members were flipping their shit trying to contact him. But when he looked back at you with an expression that mirrored his feelings, he knew he couldn’t leave without being honest for once.

   “I haven’t been this happy in a long time,” Yuta revealed hesitantly. “I-I want – no – need to see you again.” 

    You licked your lips, deliberating his words. He seemed genuine. You traced his flushed lips with your pointer finger, trying to memorize the sensation. 

   “I’m an open book,” you smiled widely. “Read me whenever you want.”

[haikyuu-appreciation-club]

Pancakes for Dinner

{Down in the Dumps}

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chapter one | chapter two

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series masterlist

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Bokuto let out a frustrated sigh as his head hit his home room desk, hair slouching as he pouted into the cold surface. Once again he had found himself staring face to face with a less than satisfactory grade scribbled at the top of his assignment.

Bokuto had never really been the best when it came to academic knowledge. School never held his interest long enough for him to retain the information he was there to learn and assignments were too time consuming and frustrating to gain any of his attention.

That’s not to say he didn’t try his best. He knew his education was important and he was aware of what he needed to do to succeed. His only issue is, it felt impossible for him to do so. Which is why each and every bad mark dragged him further and further into the irritation he had with his own mind. It had already been a month into the new school year and his grades were looking the exact same as they did every previous year of highschool. He wished nothing more then to be able to get a good grade on an assignment this semester, but with how things were going now, those chances were slim.

The tune of the ‘end of the day’ bell brought Bokuto out of his thoughts as the sound of rusting papers and tapping of shoes filled his ears.

As he lifted his head and let his eyes readjust to the lighting change, his gaze fell apon a yellow slip of paper placed at the top of his desk. He reached for it, brows furrowing in curiosity as his eyes scanned the material,

Bokuto Kotaro:

Please make your way to the principal’s office after class for a meeting about your recent academic performance. Thank you for your cooperation.

- Principal M.

This had sounded all too familiar to him. Bokuto couldn’t keep track of the amount of times he had been called by some form of authority to receive a degrading lecture about everything he had been doing wrong. As someone who thrived off reassurance and praise, he always left those talks a little broken-hearted, wondering why he couldn’t get things right when it came to school.

His thoughts raced as scenerios of how the dreaded conversation could go flowed in and out of his mind. It wasn’t until he recognized the peculiar silence of the room that he peered up to the clock and noticed the time. Quickly shoving his belongings into his bag, he raced off towards to faculty office.

•·················•·················•

“Ah? Mr. Bokuto, correct?”

Bokuto nodded, fiddling with his fingers as his eyes trailed about the trinkets scattered around the room.

The principal payed no mind to bokuto’s wandering eyes as he sat down and pulled out two file folders, sliding one to Bokuto as he opened up the one that remained in his grasp. Bokuto unwound his finges and reached for the contents passed to him, mimicking the principals actions as he opened it himself.

Inside held a few sheets of paper, all a mess of lines and columns, letters and numbers that jumped out at him straight away. As he looked closer, he recognized the chaos on the pages to be letter grades and percentages as well as personal information and notes from teachers these past few year,

“Now, it has been brought to my attention that your grades recently have been far from where your teachers and i would like to see them at. I’ve called you in not to scold you, but to make you aware of what could happen if these marks don’t improve.”

Bokuto shifted uncomfortably at those words. He’d heard this lecture plenty of time throughout the years but for some reason, this conversation felt different. The atmosphere in the air noticeably shifted from past interactions about this topic.

The principal let out a loud sigh, bringing Bokuto’s attention straight back to him. He gave the boy a small smile before leaning back in his seat and folding his arms,

“Listen, i’m just going to be straightforward with you son. If you don’t get these grades under control by the end of the semester, not only will this affect your future academic path but also your volleyball career. Meaning if i don’t see passing grades by this winter, you’re going to be kicked off the volleyball team and your chances of going professional will go with it.”

Bokuto’s eyes widened as he processed what he had just been told. Volleyball was his passion, something he loved with all his heart. Could it really be taken away just like that?

He felt his eyes begin to water at the thought of losing the sport and the team he loved,

“I-I can get my grades up, i promise! I just don’t really know how...”

His principal stared at him with wide eyes, not expecting a quivering lip to be his first reaction to the breaking news,

“Not to worry, not to worry! There’s someone named y/n l/n in class 3-3 that has offered to tutor you. I have set up a meeting for the two of you to meet tomorrow morning. For now, just head to practice and give this note to your coach.”

Bokuto visibly relaxed with hearing those words, allowing the sullen look on his face to disperse. He took the note from the principals hand, quickly standing up and bowing before exiting the suffocating atmosphere of the dusty room.

•·················•·················•

As soon as bokuto burst through the gym door, all eyes were on him.

The boys were all sitting on the floor stretching so he didn’t miss much but everyone was still confused as to why their captain had gone missing. Komi was the first to call out to the boy,

“Bokuto, where’ve you been? You almost missed warmups.”

Bokuto walked over to his teammates and slumped down in the empty area of their makeshift circle,

“The principal called me down about my grades.”

The team watched him pull his legs into a butterfly position as his gaze fell onto his sneakers.

Most of them didn’t know why Bokuto seemed so upset about the situation. It was a known fact amongst everyone in that building that he wasn’t the most academically advanced and usually a few jabs to his bad grades didn’t affect him much. Onaga tilted his head before he spoke,

“Well, what did he say about them?”

Bokuto looked at the team with sad eyes, hair falling as his lip began to quiver once more. Everyone began to feel panick rise in them, gazes simultaneously falling onto Akaashi in a pleading manner. Akaashi glared at the rest of the group before clearing his throat, causing bokuto to peer up at him,

“Bokuto-san, what’s the matter?”

Bokuto’s eyes widened as he quickly manuvered across the stretching circle, stopping at his best friend and furiously shaking his shoulders,

“Akaashi, they’re gonna kick me off the team if i keep getting bad grades!”

Akaashi sighed as he removed Bokuto’s hands from his body,

“Did you ask if there was anything to do to bring your grades up?”

Bokuto avoided his friend’s gaze and he thought of the conversation prior to his arrival,

“Well this girl from Konoha’s class offered to tutor me, but still, i’m doomed!”

Konoha, formerly uninterested in Bokuto’s current outburst, stopped what he was doing and focused his attention on the duo,

“A girl from my class? What’s her name?”

A confused expression flashed across Bokuto’s face and he racked his brain for information once more,

“Uhm, y/n i think?”

Konoha’s eyebrows raised in consideration as he hummed, sporting a small grin,

“Oh her? You’ll be fine then.”

Sarukui spoke up at Konoha’s sudden input,

“You know her Konoha?”

Konoha’s attention was now fixed on the whole group, who eyed him in newfound curiosity,

“Well not really, i just know she’s top of my class. I mean we’ve talked a few times and she seems really nice, pretty too, so i’m assuming her and Bokuto would get along.”

Komi spoke up once more as he slapped Bokuto on the back,

“See Bokuto? You’re in good hands! No need to worry, now let’s warm up so you can hit some awesome spikes today!”

Bokuto’s smile returned to his face as he nodded eagerly and continued stretching. The rest of a team relaxed as well, knowing that they had saved their ace from a mood swing once again.

Even so, Bokuto still seemed a little off this practice. The former pitiful look in his eyes had been replaced by a curious one. His movements had no intentions behind them today, muscles moving from memory. There had only been once thing he was completely focused on, anticipation causing just one question to continue coursing through his mind;

Who is y/n l/n?

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[ncityislove]

The Jury is Out Ch. 3

➳Pairing: Renjun x Reader x Jeno (ft a few other Dreamies)

➳Genre: Angsty fluff but mostly angst lol basically enemies to lovers

➳Word Count:4.6k

Hiiii guys! It’s been over a year since I started this series and this has taught me so many things. Mainly, how much I can not be trusted to start and finish a series lol. The last two chapters will be out soon. I really mean it this time.

Previous Chapter  Next Chapter

There's an awful pounding in your head from the looming headache you didn't see going away anytime soon. Your over-bearing thoughts being added into the mix is plain unbearable as you wait for your first class to start and your sour mood only worsens when you recall the unfolding of yesterday's events. The strong sense of shame was overwhelming like a dark cloud hanging over your head. How did you get here? Your biggest mistake was letting your guard down to the likes of Renjun. That's where it all went wrong. You try telling yourself you don't need him as a friend. You have Jeno. But you can't silence the desire in your heart to have something more than a partnership. You'd gotten a taste of what's it like to be under the warm rays of his kindness after being on the receiving end of the endless blizzard of the cold reign he had over you and the entire school. That wasn't something you could just forget.

When Renjun arrives, he takes his place right next to you, unpacking his items as if it were the most normal thing in the world. You don't know why he isn't sitting in his usual seat when you didn't have a lab today. You frown but silently remove your bag from the chair next you, nonetheless.

He sits down eagerly, glancing at you a moment longer than socially acceptable. "I like your hair."

Your hands immediately grip the strands.  After the party, you decided to forgoes the ponytail and headband combo that you'd been sporting for so long. "Oh, um, thanks."

Was that a compliment just now?

"Where were you yesterday, by the way?"

"I was sick, so I missed first period," he states, not even missing a beat.

Unbelievable. He's lying straight to your face. You frown distastefully.

"That's not what Chenle had to say."

"Hm? Chenle? He's always pulling pranks—I wouldn't buy anything that comes out of his mouth," he laughs.

You glare at him for a moment. "You didn't get my texts messages?"

He smiles sheepishly. "Oh...sorry about that. I was...um...busy?"

You turn the other way to discretely roll  your eyes. "Are you okay at least?"

"Yeah, never better!"

You shake your head, not wanting to seem like you actually cared despite the fact that deep down you knew you did. It's crazy that all it took was one little afternoon alone together and suddenly Renjun matters to you. All those years of being at each other's throats out the window. Just like that. It was different now. You were more mindful of each other's feelings and it's even gotten to the point where you're receiving compliments. It was a change that you still hadn't adjusted to but maybe it wasn't as lousy as you made it seem. The horrible excuses and lies weren't something you were fond of but it's not like you were friends so you kept that to yourself. You just wished he'd tell you the truth or even hearing that he didn't want to talk about it would've been fine. You didn't see why he had to lie...

You had to remind yourself that you shouldn't be so concerned with Renjun. It was weirding you out that you were thinking about him so much lately. As much as you hated to admit it, you might've maybe felt something for him in that teeny split second after you made up on the field. You never really noticed how funny he was bc you were always the butt of the joke but it turns out he was pretty hilarious. And his voice was so sweet and calming you could probably listen to it forever. But whatever it was—that moment your heart skipped a beat— was gone. It was crazy to even think—there was no way you'd ever say that out loud. Clearly, Renjun would never reciprocate.

If only Haven could see you now.

Renjun turns his body toward you, giving you his full attention. "Are we meeting at the track after school?"

"I have volleyball practice but we can meet after, if you want."

"Yeah, cool," he says, looking pleased.

"Are you sure you're okay though?"

The question had been on your mind since yesterday. Maybe something happened with his dad and he didn't want to say anything. According to Jeno, he didn't talk about that stuff much but you still wanted to make sure he was okay.

"Huh?" he looks at you strange. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Are you sure? I mean, you can tell me if you're not." You regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth.

He snickers, his face glowing with a big smile. "Are you worried about me?"

You scowl to hide your panic. What was happening  to you? "As if," you scoff.

"Aww, you care about me! Who knew the coldest person in the world had a heart?" he pinches your cheek.

You violently slap his hand away and he jerks back.

"Don't!" you point a finger in his face. "touch me. Never again. Got it?"

"Alright," Renjun chuckles lightly. "My bad. Whatever you say."

When class starts, the teacher pulls up her usual PowerPoint and you begin messily jotting down the first slide. She seems to be in a rush as she breezes over every slide, making it difficult to write down everything in time.

Renjun nudges your arm. You look to see him offering you a piece of gum. You reject it, mouthing a  'no thanks' with a polite smile and scramble to write down the rest of the slide. He purses his lips, taking a piece for himself, leisurely writing his notes.

A few minutes later, he nudges your arm again. "You got any led?"

Your nostrils flare as you let out a sigh, pulling out your pencil pouch for him to find the kind of led he needs. You pick your pencil back up to continue your notes.

"Thanks," he whispers. "Hey, did you get that last slide?"

"Oh my god, no, Renjun!" you whisper-shout at him. "How could I have gotten the last slide when you keep distracting me??"

He starts to giggle and it you get even more heated that he found pleasure in this. You're just to about to curse him out in every language known to man when Mrs. Brookes stops her lesson.

"What's going on back there?" she peers down her bi-focals to stare you down. "__, would you like to tell me what the main parts of the brain are?"

"Umm," you hesitate, your eyes scanning over the board. It must I've been on the last slide--which you didn't get the chance to copy thanks to Renjun.

Mrs. Brooks looks at you impatiently and the class turns to look at you as well when you take too long to answer.

"Cerebellum, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cerebrum, and the thalamus," Renjun answers, ultimately saving your ass.

"Very good! Thank you, Renjun. Now, as I was saying..." Mrs. Brookes turns back to the whiteboard and continues rambling on about the brain.

"I thought you didn't get the last slide?" you whisper.

"Just because I didn't write it down doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention."

You stare at the side of his face in disbelief and you can tell by the way his cheeks were lifted he was smiling.

Renjun sits with you again in third period. You scoot your stuff over, once again saying nothing. This was getting a little too odd. If you weren't friends why did he keep sitting next to you? You weren't friends, were you? You decide not to ask. Sadie seemed like the right person to confide this type of stuff into.     Your desks were too close together which made Renjun's knee touch yours. You wouldn't have noticed any other time but this time in particular it was hard to not to.

"You should sit with me at lunch from now on."

Definitely getting mixed signals here.

"Why?"

"We're partners. It only makes sense, you know?"

"But we've been partners for years," you interject.

He opens his mouth then closes it. "Well, yeah that's true...but you still should. I won't force you to but I'll be really upset if you don't."

"Upset?" you repeat with a tilt of your head. In what universe would he get upset over anything you did that didn't have to do with you scoring higher than him on an assignment? You didn't understand why he was acting so weird today.

"Yeah and if I get upset, I won't be able to focus on the booth." his tone is sad and it tugs at your heart for some reason.

"Well...if that's the case, I'll do it. For the sake of the booth."

He smiles triumphantly. "Right. For the booth."

The kid who usually sits next to you walks over and stands there awkwardly before he finds an empty seat somewhere else. You try not to laugh at how uncomfortable Renjun looks.     Class goes by smoothly this time, Renjun only bugging you every once in a while to compare answers on your worksheet. When the bell rings, you and Renjun walk to lunch together. He's talking to you about the Pythagorean theorem but you keep getting distracted by the odd looks people keep giving you in the hall.     You weren't used to getting this much attention. You're existence was pretty much irrelevant unless something happened with your rivalry and it was usually only gossip worthy if he had done something incredibly embarrassing to you. Renjun, being the top of the class and being friends with almost all the members in the the school sports teams on the other hand, was very popular. You couldn't begin to imagine the confusion you two were causing just by walking to into the cafeteria together. He was always the center of attention and much like Sadie, he was born likeable. It was easy for him to make friends and juggle the delicate balance of having a social life and performing well academically. You were a nobody compared to him and up until now you were fine with that. It was easier to focus on your studies without the distractions from others and what drama friendships with others would bring but you had to admit having someone to walk to lunch with was strangely nice.     Jisung is the first person to see you coming, a look of recognition crossing his face. Chenle was next; he smiles sending you a friendly wave. You say hello, sitting your tray down next to Jeno and Renjun sits on the other side of you.

"Hey, beautiful, what're you doing here?" Jeno asks.

You flush at the pet name. "I think as Renjun's partner, we should take advantage of the free time we have to work together."

"Oh god, you two are so much alike," Haechan groans.

"I think it's cute," Chenle beams.

Jaemin fake gags and everyone bursts into laughter except for you who didn't find it all that funny.

The laughter dies down.

"Will you be spending all of your free time with Renjun?" Jeno asks.

"Of course not," you wrinkle your nose at the silly question.

"In that case, would you like to go out on a date? How's tonight?"

You drop your carton of milk on the table that thankfully you hadn't opened it yet. You must've misheard him. You know the words he said to you and yet, you couldn't believe they were meant for you. Your stammer for words. Any words. But they don't come and the whole table is staring at you in anticipation.

"I...can't. I have practice after school and then I have to work on the booth. I'm sorry."

The boys "ooh" in unison like a bunch of fifth graders.

"It's not like that!" you scramble to fix your words. "We can go another day?"

Jeno's eyes disappear as he gives you the most heartwarming smile. You can't help but smile back at him.

Chenle clears his throat. "What do you think about that, Renjun?"

Renjun's picking at the edge of his foam tray when he shrugs. "I couldn't care less."

Chenle gives him a glare as if he's trying to convey some message to him but Renjun doesn't meet his eyes so he elbows the crap out of him.

"Argh!" he rubs his arm. "Fine. I admit I don't approve."

The table gets quiet. You and Jeno share the same expression of surprise.

Jeno juts out his chin. "Why not? And don't say she's too good for me."

"Renjun clenches his fists. "It'll distract __ from school and I don't think that's what she wants."

Jeno snorts. "It's just one date. I think she'll be fine. And when we do become a couple—which we will, I'll make sure of that—I won't distract from her school work."

"Yeah, but I don't think—"

"Plus, you used to have a girlfriend—what's the difference?"

The atmosphere tenses at the mention of Haven and Jeno looks sorrowful as the boys send him ferocious looks.

"Shit...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"

"When does practice end?" Renjun changes the subject.

You're still confused as to what's going on. "Who? Me?"

"Yes, you, dummy," he grins.

You ignore the fact that he just called you a dummy. "It ends at four but I can leave early."

"Mind if I come and watch?" Jeno asks.

"Sure!" you get excited at the thought of Jeno watching you play.

"No fair! I wanna come too!" Jisung exclaims.

Jaemin reaches out to pat him on the shoulder. "Absolutely not. You're not going anywhere near those girls, you pervert."

You crack up at the two, unaware of the concerned look Chenle's giving Renjun as he silently scribbles dark circles in his notebook.

-

You arrive to the school gym, hauling the equipment the coach had you fetch. The girls are all huddled in a circle, gossiping most likely. You set up the net and clear the court of the smelly matts that were left behind from a previous class. You could ask for help but you were sure no one wanted to.

You break up their little party after you get another text of instructions from the coach.

"Ladies, coach says she's not coming until the end of practice so we're starting without her. Let's start stretching, okay?"

The girls spread out and begin to warm up and you join them. Everyone's following instructions except for Haven, who's still standing in the same spot.

"Haven," you say in a warning tone.

"Why can't we just hang out until coach gets here? She doesn't have to know."

Her smile is innocent but you know there's nothing innocent about the girl.

Everyone agrees, the room filling with murmurs.

You already sense anger rising in your body. It seems like every time Haven opened her mouth, it was always to go against you. Maybe her and Renjun were the perfect couple after all.

"Guys, c'mon. If we slack off, we'll throw the next game and lose our winning streak."

"No way, skipping one day of practice won't cost us some measly game. You're being a little dramatic, don't 'ya think?"

"Some measly game?" you repeat.

"You don't even care about winning. Haven, you don't care about this team at all—why should any of us listen to you? I am captain of this team, in case you've forgotten."

"Oh god here we go again," she sighs. "That's just a title. That doesn't make you the boss of me."

"Oh, yes it does. I can get your ass kicked off the team with one word. Coach trusts me, all I have to do is say it. Should I have a chat with her when gets here?"

Haven gets as red as a tomato, her lips poking out in an ugly pout. You almost laugh at how childish she is. It was a mystery how people adore her so much when she's got such an ugly attitude.

"Since you all agree with Haven, let's do ten laps. C'mon."

Everyone gives Haven dirty looks as they get up and start their laps.

"Let's go girls, I'd like to get this over with so we can start practice." you clap your hands to speed them up. "And Haven? You get an extra ten laps."

Haven flips you off before she runs off but you don't really care. At least, she was listening to you for once. You hear a door slam upstairs and Jeno struts in, taking a seat at the back of the bleachers. He's smiling as he waves to you, giving you a thumbs up. You can't help but match his smile as you wave back.

When everyone's finished their laps and done their stretches, you split them into two teams. You're opposing Haven's team and boy, do they suck. They're losing embarrassingly bad and you're not even the one who's hitting the ball. One of your best players, Sana, was dragging the other team through the mud. Mina and Momo always made sure the ball got passed to her and when she swung her fists, the ball connected with the ground every time. Haven hated lots of things but you knew most of all, she hated to lose. This was the only reason you haven't kicked her off yet. She wasn't the best player—not even close—but she did like to win. You don't know what made her join the team in the first place but she did and she always tried to win when it really came down to it.

You switch positions on both sides, you serving the ball this time. You throw the ball up high, spreading your fingers apart as you raise your hand and slam your palm against it so hard, there's a loud thud that echoes through the gym. The other team throws themselves to save the ball but their efforts are in vain. The ball is too fast for them. Applause comes from the top right corner of the room and everyone turns to look at Jeno. You pretend you don't notice him, calling the ball back but your flushed face exposes you anyway.

Jeno whoops and cheers every time you scored a point, and let's be real, with the skills you have, that means it happens a lot. You never had someone who wasn't your parents or your coach cheer you on like this and it was something you found you really enjoy. You could get used to this. For a moment you let yourself imagine him attending your future games. Your stomach fills with butterflies and you could almost hear him calling your name when you dive to save the ball.

"Why's Jeno here?" Haven whispers to to one of her friends. "Since when was __ close to Jeno?"

You smirk, waving Jeno over after letting everyone take a short break. The two of you laugh and talk for a bit, ignoring the cold stare Haven's giving you in the distance. She was in a bitchy mood today and you weren't going to let that ruin your time with Jeno. Her witchy attitude has peaked since the first time Renjun invited you to his table. Maybe she was jealous. She probably was still hurting from the break up you assumed but that had nothing to do with you.

-

Jeno walks you to the track field where you find Renjun, who's already gotten a head start. His jacket is thrown over his bookbag and you take notice for the first time how toned his arms are with his sleeves rolled up. He looks up when hears your footsteps, the smile on his face slowly fading when he notices Jeno next to you.

"Oh great. What are you doing here?"

You laugh at his displeased expression. "He's just leaving, calm down."

"Actually," he interjects. "since I'm here, why don't I stay and help out?" Jeno proposes.

"Oh!" you let out an excited squeal you didn't know you were capable of. "That's great idea! Yes!"

"Absolutely not!" Renjun rolls his eyes. "Go home, Jeno. You'll just get in the way."

Jeno juts his bottom lip out and you have to keep yourself from swooning at how adorable he looks.

"Renjunie!" he whines. "I promise not to get in the way. Let me help?"

You give him pleading eyes behind Jeno's back. Renjun looks at you and grunts, muttering something inaudible as he starting hammering away at a slab of wood a little too hard.

"Yes!" Jeno takes off his jacket and gets to work.

"This is a one-time thing," Renjun declares, his back turned to the both of you.

"Right, right, got it," Jeno quickly agrees. "Let me help you with that," he runs over to carry the bucket of paint you were holding.

You watch him lug the heavy object to the table. "Oh, thanks, but I had it."

Renjun rolls his eyes again.

You find him repeatedly trying to get Jeno to go home as you work. Each and every time Jeno would laugh it off, calling him grumpy. You could tell his mood was off but you didn't want to bother him by asking why. He never told you those kinds of things anyway so why go through the trouble of asking? He never laughs when Jeno makes one of his famous jokes and he doesn't look at you when you speak to him. You wish he wouldn't be such a fun killer but he was almost always like this—even at parties, you've come to find out.

When you start to lose daylight, you decide to call it quits for the day.

"I think we can wrap up for now," you beam. "We're nearly finished thanks to Jeno."

Renjun's bag is already slung over his shoulder by the time you finish your sentence. "See ya."

"Yeah...I'll see you," you trail off as he sprints down the field.

"What's his problem?" Jeno asks aloud.

You shrug just as your phone starts to jingle that annoying ringtone you set it to over a year ago. You dig it out of your back pocket and read the caller ID. It's Sadie.

"Hello?'

"Hey! Listen, I'm so, so, sorry, I totally spaced about picking you up after school. I'm out with Jodie right now."

You can't help the displeased noise that comes from you at the sound of Jodie's name. "That's cool, I guess. I can just walk like I usually do."

"Are you sure? We can come and get you in about twenty minutes."

"We?  Yeah, no thanks. I promise, I'll be fine."

"I promised mom and dad I'd pick you--hold on. Jodie, I'm on the phone...what?"

There's whispering then a short silence on the other line and you give Jeno an awkward smile.

"Um, okay, be safe walking. Sorry again! Bye!"

Click.

"So, you're walking home today."

"Yep. My sister conveniently forgot about my existence, so yeah, I'm walking."

Jeno's eyes light up. "Do you live close by? I can walk you home."

Your chest fills with warmth at the gesture. Lee Jeno. You had Lee Jeno offering to take you home. Renjun's bad attitude had left a nasty taste in your mouth but hanging out with Jeno sweetened your day just like that.

Renjun had a way of hurting you in ways no one else could. You didn't know why what he thought of you was so important to you, or why everything he had to say held such a huge weight. He wasn't exactly someone you were very fond of so who cares what he had to say? But Jeno. Jeno always had kind and encouraging words. He was the safe band-aid you needed after being cut by Renjun's blunt words. His razor sharp tongue and eyes for daggers always stung but Jeno protected you. He defended you.

So you say yes to his offer and you make the bold move of linking your elbows which Jeno reacts with a subtle pink tint in his cheeks. Your pace is slow to lengthen the journey, allowing you a chance to get to know each other a bit more.

As time progresses, you realize you had liked Jeno more than you initially thought you did. School had always kept you from exploring your feelings for him. Now, it was clear as ever how you felt about him. You'd turn into a bashful mess at every single flirty comment he'd make, which would only fuel him to flirt harder. He made good company and you wished you hadn't have waited so long to speak to Jeno. You couldn't remember the last time you were this engaged in a conversation with someone--disregarding the one time with Renjun because he's a jerk.

If this is what it's like to have a friend, you had been missing out all these years. He made you feel warm inside like those cheesy rom-coms Sadie loved so much.

His arm was tucked snugly into yours, your steps matching in pace as you neared the street you lived on. You could smell the pleasant fragrance Jeno wore from the close proximity and it brought you back to the night you were drunkenly dancing together. You still couldn't believe you drank alcohol but then again, who lives by a code of conduct in high school? Who was going to punish you for acting your age for once? On second thought your parents would probably ground you for life but that's not the point. The point is you're starting to learn what fun is. If you can't be the best then what's stopping you from enjoying life while you're still young? Looking at Jeno in the stark red haze the sky is dawning on him made you want to do just that. He made you want to live a normal life.

You playfully bump each other, cracking jokes until you reach the driveway of your residence with hesitance. You weren't ready to depart just yet.

"Well," you remove your arm from his. "This is me."

"Aww," he sigh a little. "Well it was nice walking with you."

"Yeah, you too. I'd invite you inside but no one's home and my parents would crucify me if I let you in."

You hadn't realized it but in the few seconds you had looked away, Jeno had gotten closer. Really close. You feel a rapid heat spread all over and you struggle to keep a normal expression.

Jeno smiles before grabbing your elbow to yank you even nearer, his eyes studying yours as he speaks his next words to you carefully.

"Do you wanna kiss me?"

Your mouth goes dry and all you could do is nod, numbly.

He cracks another smile and you were instantly mesmerized by the way his lips curls over his teeth and the thought of how his lips would feel on yours. Your heart stills for a moment. You shut your eyes with baited breath as his lips gets closer to yours.

Slowly, very slowly he kisses you. It was an odd but welcoming feeling, kissing a boy. But you liked it. And you liked Jeno.

Jeno removes himself from you after a few amazing seconds. You're still incredibly close to him and you can tell he's tempted to kiss you again but he holds himself back.

"Text me?"

You nod, maybe a little too eagerly but you didn't care. The hot temperature of his lips left a lingering impression on you and you had a feeling you won't ever be able to rid yourself of the memory.

He holds up a hand before he jogs off down the pale path of the sidewalk, unintentionally leaving you with a mass of confused and excited thought and a small voice in the back of your brain that wouldn't shut up about Renjun and his recent odd behavior.

[tornrose24]

Day-O (a CU Beetlejuice AU one shot)

While I don’t want to do a full on CU Beetlejuice fic, this scene is impossible to pass up, especially considering how the musical added to the original story to begin with. (So this combines both the musical and the movie’s version of this scene... and you might need to listen to the musical version of this scene if you can’t find a bootleg/luck out in seeing it on stage).

The Beetlejuice AU was originally proposed by @jackie-sugarskull  and Esme belongs to @princeasimdiya12 .

(Contains some cursing. Note to those with a trigger warning: the suicide joke from the original film was included here).

A group of people gathered around in the school’s cafeteria to decide the building’s fate. It had been arranged so that they had a table right in the center of the room, yet the food and drinks were both well above cafeteria food standards. On one end was former student turned politician Erica along with Esme, the school’s current Principal. On the other was former student turned top scientist  Melvin, along with his colleague Professor Poopypants. In between were potential investors and the school district superintendent Mr. Pointe who never seemed to take a stand on the current issues.

“So we hope that your support and donations would not only keep the school open, but encourage support for extra curricular activities as well as better supplies, new recess equipment, text books, and learning conditions.” Erica concluded as Edith took goblets of cocktail shrimp of the cart to give to everyone else as they ate deviled eggs and drank wine.

“Except nowadays, science and mathematics is demanding more bodies for the expanding career options in that area.” Melvin countered. “Trying to keep Jerome Horowitz alive as it is would be like heading towards suicide at this rate.”

“And you know what they say,” Poopypants cracked. “Those who commit suicide become civil servants in the after life.” This earned a round of chuckles from everyone except Erica, Esme, or Edith. The latter in particular winced at this. “Then again, who knows how many children will end up as civil servants as adults?”

“Oh that reminds me,” Melvin glanced to Edith and smirked at her. She had recently changed from her dark clothes and into a flattering lemon yellow dress, and her hair was pinned back from her face, so she was a bit more noticeable than usual. “One of our old classmates claims that the ‘ghosts’ of this school don’t approve of my ideas. Apparently they’re with Erica’s side of things.” This caused Edith to freeze up and turn around.

“B-but it’s true!” Edith admitted. “They think school should be about fun and enjoying childhood–!”

“Next she’ll tell us the ghosts are our old classmates who died all those years ago!” Melvin laughed and some others joined in. Erica frowned at Edith, but only Esme showed an interest in what the woman had to say–it made her think back to all those pranks and those mysterious comics that happened without any explanation.

“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about something you can’t prove without science, and I don’t mean the junk machines on those ghost adventure shows!” Melvin continued. “I think I’d rather talk about–DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY–O!” Without any warning, he bursted into singing with his arms bursting out into the air.

All eyes glanced on in confusion except for Edith, who waited patiently. Melvin realized what he just did and grabbed his neck as his eyes widened in shock.

“Sorry, what?” Erica raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s uh... quite a subject.” Mr. Pointe blinked.

“Uh, sorry!” Melvin let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know where that came from! I meant–ME SAY DAY ME SAY DAY ME SAY DAY-O!” He bursted into song again like he was a big time singer at a performance.

“Is this going somewhere?” An investor asked.

Melvin panicked. It was like he was unable to control himself! “L-listen!” He pleaded. “I just feel like–DAYLIGHT COME AND ME WAN’ GO HOME!” He felt compelled to jump out of his spot and sing once more. The moment he regained control of himself, he panicked. “What is happening to me?!”

Most everyone let out nervous giggling. “Well, Melvin.” Poopypants chuckled. “I guess you mean to tell us–WORK ALL NIGHT TO THE DRINK OF RUM!” He suddenly leapt onto his spot on the bench and threw his arms out as he sang next and, as if on cue, the music from the player nearby switched from soft jazz to a classic upbeat piece of music.

“DAYLIGHT COME AND ME WAN’ GO HOME!” Everyone except Edith suddenly got out of their spots and started to sing.

“Stack Banana ‘til de mornin’ come!” Melvin sang as his body moved in time to the music. “DAYLIGHT COME AND ME WAN’ GO HOME!” Everyone sang in response.

No one knew what was going on. It was as if something overtook them as they all found themselves dancing in time to the music while singing to a song that very few of them even knew. Yet no one saw what Edith saw when she heard childish giggling and she looked up with a smile. Floating in the air were the spirits of two children, with each one waving their hands as if conducting or moving them like they were controlling a puppet.

“I can’t wait until the finale!” Harold laughed.

“I know!” George happily replied as Edith continued to watch with a huge smile.

Everyone danced around behind their seats. All but three adults, with Erica and Esme shooting each other confused looks while Edith herself hummed to the delightful song. It then got to a point where everyone was bending over and sticking their rear ends out and shaking them around in time to the music, which made both boys laugh even harder.

“Day, me say day-o! Daylight come and me wan’ go home!”

“Daylight come and me wan’ go home!”

After awhile, the music came to an end and they were all forced to sit down, yet there was one more surprise in store for Melvin. The shrimp in his cocktail suddenly turned into a monstrous hand that reached up, causing everyone to shout or gasp and Melvin screamed but was unable to jump out of his seat in time as the hand grabbed his face and pulled him into the table, all the while his screaming increased.

George and Harold laughed even harder. “There’s no way he’s going to turn this place into a snore-fest now!” Harold gleefully declared.

“SOMEONE GET THIS THING OFF OF MY FACE!” Melvin screamed. With a lazy wave of the hand, George freed the red head, who pulled back with a gasp as all eyes stared in concern at him.

“Wh-what was that?!” He demanded.

“It’s like I said.” Edith told Melvin. “They don’t want you to turn this place into your kind of school. If you don’t want to have this happen again, you better do what Erica wants.” Erica herself was stunned at this to the point that she was unable to immediately say anything. Yet when she was ready to ask Edith what on earth she was doing, Melvin grinned.

“So you’re saying that there are real ghosts here?!” He then turned to Poopypants “You saw that all right?! No parlor tricks, mechanisms or weird gases, right?! Forget funding this stupid place, I’m going to buy it off the school district’s hands!”



“What?” Erica and Esme asked in confusion.

“What?” Edith asked with dread.

“What?!” George and Harold shrieked.

“I can’t get the school to be what I want it to be, but a location that’s haunted?! Do you have any idea how much that could help out with research and inventing new things?! Screw the school, I’m turning this place into a new research center!”


“WHAT?!” George and Harold screamed.

“That’s an excellent idea!” Poopypants grinned as he rubbed his hands. “I’m already thinking of the possibilities such supernatural energy can grant us!”

“It’ll make Piqua more than just a city of narrow minded simpletons!” Melvin added.

“No!” Esme yelled. “Mr. Pointe, you can’t allow this!” She pleaded to the school’s Super Intendant, but he gave her a nervous smile. “Where will the children go?!”

“W–w–well, I don’t see how this place can be safe with ghosts roaming around them.” Mr. Pointe stammered and let out a sheepish smile.

“It wasn’t any better without them!” Erica roared as Edith tried to speak her own thoughts, but was overpowered by the politician. “Do you have any idea how much of a danger zone this place was becoming over the years?!”

“Erica, I like you a lot, but this place was below standards in academics since day one!” Melvin butted in. “What good’ll it do to keep it open any longer?!”

“You can’t tear this place down!” Edith finally protested as loudly as she could. “The ghosts don’t want that! None of the children will want that! You–!”
 “No one cares what you say Edith, you aren’t holding the money or power like us!” Melvin snapped at Edith. “Can’t you get it through your simple, messy-haired, four year college degree head?! Don’t you realize how much money we’d all get from this?! Or are you too depressed over mommy and daddy kicking the bucket to even bother taking care of yourself?! This is reality, so either get on board with life or move along!”

Edith felt as if she was slapped across the face as Melvin went back to the others to talk of his plans. She felt Erica’s disapproving look as well as those from the people who were trying to save the school and she barely saw the boys when they now stood before her with worried looks.

“Edith?!” Harold pleaded. “Look, we didn’t realize Melvin would do this! We should have seen it coming!”


“We can still fix this!” George added.

“How?! Nothing works! Apparently pranking everyone isn’t enough! Do you have any ideas, Edith?!” The blonde turned to the woman. “Edith?” He asked in concern when he saw the woman staring at the ground with her face barely in view.

When her parents died, everyone ignored her to the point that she might as well have been invisible. When she tried to help support the school, no one listened to her ideas and expected her to be a ‘yes man.’ When she finally succeeded in that, it blew up in her face and she was still being treated like she didn’t really matter.

“You want to do something about all of this? Then all you got to do is say my name!”

“There’s still one thing I can do.” She realized as she remembered him from earlier. “Three times spoken, unbroken, right?”

“My real name. The one that hag cursed when she cursed me. Say it three times spoken, unbroken.”

The boys instantly understood what she meant.

“Edith no!” George protested as he and Harold began to panic.

“Benjamin.” She quietly spoke, and no one else heard her say it except the two boys who knew what was coming and flinched the moment he arrived.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!”

Edith heard some movement and was startled to see the familiar large figure standing right beside her. He still wore the same black and white stripped suit, the toupee was still black with touches of green and yellow, his skin was still a pale lavender as if his body lacked any air, and his shark like smile was wide with glee. “I knew you’d come around and see things my way! I swear you won’t regret this!”

“Edith stop!” Harold pleaded, earning him a dirty look from the adult ghost.

“Benjamin.” She spoke louder which went unheard over the arguing of the other adults. The ghost grinned even more as he adjusted his sleeves.

“That’s it! That’s it!” He was like a kid at Christmas about ready to explode with anticipation as his hideous grin only widened as he coaxed her. “We’re going to have a lot of fun! Come on! Just give me one! MORE!” He looked at her pointedly.

“EDITH NO!”

“DON’T SAY HIS NAME!”

She took a breath. She was tired of being invisible–tired of being treated like a joke–she wanted to be heard!

“BENJAMIN!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, causing all eyes to turn towards her in confusion, while those of the boys were filled with dread, and those of the ghost-demon’s were filled with satisfaction as he became surrounded by white light and smoke.

“It’s showtime!” He grinned as he threw this hands out.

The music came to a halt and everything went dark, causing almost everyone to scream in confusion and blindly stumble around. Moments later, the lighting of the room came on and became an ominous green as Krupp stood before them all.

“Can anyone see me?!” He demanded.

His response was a series of screams at the sight of the unexpected, hideous looking being.

“Now that’s what I want to hear!” He gave them an evil grin and rubbed his hands together. “God I missed that sound!”


“What the hell is that thing?!” One of the investors screamed and pointed.

“Yeah, who the hell invited you?!” Melvin demanded.

“I did!” All eyes turned to Edith as she felt a surge of confidence that she hadn’t felt in quite awhile. “I warned you and you didn’t listen!” Each word made her feel stronger until she was practically shouting. “You all never listened to me! Never took me seriously! And now this is what you get!”

“Yeah nerd, this is what you get!” Krupp sneered at Sneedly. “And I’m someone whose about ready to have a game I’d like to call ‘instant trauma!’” He threw his hands into the air and suddenly chaos began to ensue.

FIre bursted from the ground as if out of nowhere in random parts of the room, causing the gusts to scream and flee. Those who managed to get to the doors were only further startled by what appeared to be ominous glowing monsters with green eyes, mouths and sharp teeth that proceeded to chase after them (had they looked again, they would of seen that they were just possessed toilets). Anyone who tried to escape into the safety of the kitchen found more fire bursting from the stoves, causing them to run away.

“THIS WAS A MISTAKE!” Poopypants shrieked as he and Melvin tried to pull at some doors that refused to budge.

“Hey Little Man!” The scientist felt something crawl up on his back. He turned around to see a puppet version of Krupp with unsettlingly realistic looking eyes looming over his shoulder. “Ya’ want to play with me?!”

“NIEN!” Poopypants screamed in German and ran off as he tried to take the hideous abomination off him, but it only laughed with sadistic glee and tightened its hold on him.

“HEY DON’T RUN OFF!” Melvin screamed at Poopypants when suddenly he found himself getting hoisted into the air by something long and thick. He screamed and thrashed until suddenly he came face to face with a snake like monster that had Krupp’s head attached to it.

“Feeling like having this place all to yourself now, Sneedly?” He sneered at him. The man screamed and the snake like out a laugh as he thrashed him back and forth through the air.

“Ok that’s it, they get it!” George angrily yelled at the snake as he and Harold tried to approach him. “You can stop now!”

“Ah shut it, you two no longer have the power around here anymore!” The dead adult sneered at them, stopping them in their tracks. “Why don’t you two go to detention in the Neitherworld? You’re in for a long overdue visit!”

“Oh like heck we’ll go!” Harold yelled back, though neither he and George saw a piece of chalk draw a circled on the ground around them.

“WELL TOO BAD, YOU’RE GOING ANYWAY!” The snake snapped as the ground opened up under the boys and they were sent screaming through it as all the other guests were attacked by more supernatural elements.

“SOMEONE HELP ME!” Melvin shrieked.

“PUT HIM DOWN!” The snake turned his head around to see Erica with Esme standing right behind her. The latter looked like she was going to faint and she stammered out prayers in Spanish, but the other just stared at the abomination before her in disbelief.

“Yeah, no.” She shook her head as Melvin screamed. Not satisfied with her reaction, the snake threw Melvin into Erica and grinned as the man screamed the whole way until he crashed into her.

The pandemonium grew worse as everyone found themselves getting chased down or screaming for their lives as things latched onto them, yet the only one who stayed calm was Edith who found herself not horrified. There was a strange, oddly enjoyable catharsis in seeing most of these people finally taken down several pegs.

“And now I’d like to play a little game I call–RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” Her diabolical assistant’s voice boomed over them all.

She watched as all the creatures and all the fire chased the others out through the doors–none of them ever realizing she wasn’t among them–and they slammed shut behind them, causing everything to vanish and for the silence to fall as everything returned to normal as if nothing ever happened.

“They’re gone.” Edith’s stunned voice broke the silence. Realization kicked in. “You  made them leave the school. You made them listen to me!” She let out an amazed laugh as Krupp–back in his ‘normal’ appearance–walked up to her with a pleased grin.

Seeing her smile–knowing that he made her happy–delighted him (and made him feel a little strange, but in a good way). “Yup! Looks like we aren’t invisible anymore!” He declared and hung an arm around her shoulders.

And that’s it–just something I felt like working at once in awhile.

[connorssock]

For @danae-b who helped put the plot into the idea.

Love Is Not A Victory March

Growing up, Gavin was always in the shadow of his little brother, the genius, the one who would go places. Just because he wasn’t so academic, it didn’t mean he was a waste of space, if only his parents could see it that way too. But because he didn’t spend the evenings poring over books and electronics, he was deemed lesser, his hours of practice and training as a gymnast meant nothing to them.

For his 18th birthday, Gavin was given a backpack and shown the door. Elijah needed more room in the house to work on his androids and Gavin’s room was the only available space. So Gavin was kicked out, it didn’t matter what he wanted, his dreams of being at the next Olympics came crashing down. There was nowhere for him to go and after a few cold night spent under bridges and being solicited for all manner of things, Gavin signed up for the army.

As with most things he set his mind to, he was good at it. Ended up being a sniper on a special ops team. He had no regrets, though he did pick up a few bad habits. Smoking, a wicked temper and a knack for acting before thinking when he didn’t have a rifle in his hands. After ten years though, he bowed out, he wasn’t getting any younger and he had no desire to become a fatcat behind a table while playing with people’s lives.

Surprisingly enough, the DPD took him on as an officer and from there it was a matter of getting shit done to become a detective. If he kept on track, he’d be allowed to sit the Sergeant’s exam in a year or two.

Of course, like all plans, his was derailed by the android revolution. They were suddenly recognised as sentient beings who had rights and choices like everybody else. So in a way it made sense that they got to choose their careers and everything else too. Which was how Gavin was summoned into Fowler’s office and introduced to his new partner.

Although a deviant, RK900 acted nothing like a creation with freewill. He was stiff, formal and precised. Oddly enough, Gavin appreciated that. It wasn’t common knowledge that Gavin was ex-army, Fowler knew but not the division Gavin had served in or what his speciality was.

Perhaps it was fate’s way of being funny when it came to light that RK900 had been built to military specifications, unlike his predecessor. It made Gavin take stock of him and reassess his initial impressions. Something told him Fowler already knew and was silently patting him on the back for matching up the two outcasts of the DPD who just so happened to have a common history.

“You already knew I was in the army?” Gavin asked.

“It was in your file,” RK900 replied evenly.

“Bullshit. It’s not in the public file. You hacked my records?”

“I didn’t hack anything. Merely teased open a box that was tied up with string as strong as candyfloss. Your record is quite impressive, even to an android.”

That at least had Gavin barking out a laugh.

“You’re alright, even for an android.”

Somehow, knowing that RK900 knew of his past made it easier. They never mentioned it, never spoke about it but there was a quiet trust that evolved between them. Even others in the bullpen noted how Gavin was more prone to gently ribbing his partner with ridiculous nicknames rather than have a go at him. The name “Nines” even stuck and suddenly, RK900 was part of the team.

Given their line of work, it wasn’t all the unusual for things to go a little tits up. Most of the drug traffickers they’d been after were already cuffed and on the ground but one was still missing. They should have expected him to go dashing away from them, quickly disappearing down an alley. Connor was off after him like a shot but it was android against android. With upgrades freely available, Connor was not longer top of the line and he wasn’t catching up quick enough.

“Give me that,” Gavin growled and swiped a rifle from one of the snipers who had returned from her post. He shouldered it and the familiar calm settled through him as everything but the target ceased to exist. One breath, sight. Two breath, aim.

“Connor DOWN!” he roared on his third breath.

Obediently, Connor dropped and on his next breath Gavin fired. Thirium splattered the walls and the criminal went down. Silence reigned as people stared and fear and awe at Gavin.

“A bit rusty,” Nines piped up from the back of the crowd. He’d been one of the few unlucky to come to blows in the raid, took a few hard knocks but seemed to have bounced back from it.

“Says the dented tin can.”

Connor had grabbed the perp in the meantime and was dragging him back alone until everybody got their wits about them. Gavin slapped Nines on the arm, grinned and left him to it.

The problem with being an android was that admitting to not being perfect was difficult. It was made even worse when the mentality of “keep going” was gouged into coding to such a level that it was borderline painful to go against it. Nines sighed as he woke from stasis, his power levels were insufficient still.

Since the altercation with the drug gang, he’d been out of sorts. A lucky hit had landed on the back of his neck and it must have knocked something out of alignment. For the last four nights, he’d tried to charge but to no avail. To miss another night where he was away from Gavin’s warm embrace had his stress levels ratcheting up even more. There were only so many excuses he could use to avoid going home.

“Morning dipshit,” Gavin grinned at him from across his terminal. Nines smiled.

“What, no kiss?”

It had become something of a habit almost. Stolen kisses when nobody else was around to see. The days Nines didn’t go home with Gavin, invariably the man turned up early to work and dragged him somewhere secluded for a kiss. Weighing up his options, Nines shook his head.

“It’s a busier than average day. The risk is too great.” What he didn’t say was that his power reserves were dangerously low. Excessive movement would only drain him quicker. Even as things stood, he’d shut down all non-essential functions, performed the minimal amount of processing and worked on a single task at a time. He missed Gavin’s look of disappointment.

The day wore on and Nines was conscious of the fact that he was slow. Not even by his or android standards but by human ones.

“Wakey wakey!” Gavin kicked him under the desk. “If you’re going to be slacking off then at least be subtle about it. I’m having to do all the hard work here today.”

“Sorry Gavin,” Nines murmured and dragged his attention back to his task.

He didn’t expect a mug to land by his elbow and a waft of warm thirium hit his sensors.

“Maybe a bit of pick me up will get you back into the swing of things. Considering your lazy ass hasn’t been out of your chair all day,” Gavin stood by his elbow and sipped from his own mug of coffee.

Usually, Nines would have laughed it all off, appreciated the gesture and probably would have pressed a quick kiss to Gavin’s cheek. But he wasn’t operating at his usual levels, he was tired, his power reserves were close to empty and Gavin was chiding him for trying to reserve them. The illogical selfishness of it all made something in him snap.

Nines shoved out of his chair and loomed over Gavin. He grabbed the lapels of his jacket and shook him once with a sneer. Coffee splashed on his shoes and the shards of the dropped mug clattered in the sudden silence as people watched.

“Look here, Detective,” Nines snarled, “I have had it with your prodding. I am doing my best to fulfil objectives but your inane attempts at flirting and general unprofessional behaviour make it beyond difficult. So it is in your interest to buck up your ideas and be hard at work by the time I return.”

He had no idea where he was going to go but Nines needed an out. Gavin stood rigid when he let him go and Nines took a few steps away from him, intent on heading for the door. Only, warnings flashed across his HUD, he’d run out of power and critical functions were shutting down.

It felt like he was watching it from the outside, the way his step faltered, limbs went limp and crashed gracelessly to the ground. Nines didn’t know whether he was grateful or not to find that at least his optical sensors were still functioning when he was rolled onto his back. He almost wished they didn’t work when Gavin’s panicked face drifted into view and a hand patted his cheek. Nines could blink and move his eyes around but nothing more.

“We’ll get you home, get you fixed,” he could read Gavin’s lips saying. They were nice lips. And his thoughts were everywhere if that’s all he could think about.

The world shifted and his vision was suddenly the crook of a neck that was intimately familiar. Their trip back to Gavin’s home was a blur as Nines drifted from thought to thought but they always circled back to Gavin. His love, his dedication, his loyalty. All things that Nines admired about it. He’d never met anyone who cared as deeply as Gavin but fought so hard to show nothing of it.

He felt the charger plug into the port at the back of his neck but nothing happened. From where he lay, Nines had perfect view of Gavin realising things weren’t right, fiddling with things and trying again. Each new attempt deepened his frown and Nines was powerless to reassure him.

The last vestiges of his reserves were slipping away, shut down was imminent and Nines watched Gavin grab his phone. It was impossible to read his lips as he turned away, but his shoulders were hunched, whole body tight with pent up fear. Whatever conversation he’d had didn’t go according to plan judging by the way he threw his phone onto the nearest surface before sitting on the bed next to Nines.

He lifted Nines’ head, pulled him into his lap for comfort Nines didn’t need or feel. Fingers carded through his hair and Nines knew that Gavin was speaking. But he couldn’t spare the processing power to figure out what he said. Eventually, Nines closed his eyes, vaguely aware when he was moved and then more than one set of hands was ghosting over him.

Booting up was never a fun experience, Nines’s cheek twitched as he worked out the kinks in his coding to bring everything back online. The first thing he saw was another android who smiled at him with warmth.

“You gave us quite a scare there, Nines,” she smiled.

It would have been prudent to make conversation with her but she was shouldered out of the way by Gavin who stood toe to toe against him and peered up at Nines in the maintenance rig.

“You do that again and I’m going to rip your wires out to floss the gap between your ears.”

As far as threats went, it was quite a different to usual one. Nines tried to wriggle free of the rig but hands on his waist stopped him.

“You’re not getting out of there until I am satisfied you’re not going to shut down on me again.”

“Let him get to full charge and then you can bully him some more, but let the guy be for now,” a third voice joined in.

Peering over Gavin’s shoulder, Nines was a little taken aback at seeing Elijah Kamski. Though, truth be told, Nines should have expected it. He hadn’t been lying when he told Gavin he’d hacked his files, he knew everything about the man, including his family’s identity. Plus the few videos that still lingered from Gavin’s younger days when he competed in gymnastics. But that was a thought for another day.

Huffing, Gavin looked around and his eyes alighted on a plastic crate, no doubt used to haul the maintenance rig into their living room. He grabbed it and put it formly on the ground in front of Nines before standing on it triumphantly. They were eye level and their noses almost touched.

“Next time you’re injured, you let me know immediately, is that clear?” His tone carried vestiges of barked orders in the army and Nines could appreciate that.

“Crystal,” he replied.

“Good. Because I refuse to lose you.”

Gavin leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, making Nines wish his hands were free to hold him.

[aureumjeon]

Strip (M) Pt. 2 || JJK

●Pairing: Jungkook x Reader  ●Genre: College!Au, Smut, Fluff, Angst ●Warnings: Making out in a supply closet at school during school hours? Strip clubs/Stripper, Special services iykwim ●Word count: 6.3K

A/N: Hmmm some taehyung action grrr. Jimin will have his time, just you guys wait. btw jungkook is 3 yrs older than mc and taehyung ok Sorry it took so fcking long. Enjoy 

[Part 1] || [Part 3]

Finally, at home, you flopped yourself on the sofa and tossed your bag on the floor. You grabbed your phone from your back pocket and immediately texted Jin.

(You 5:49 PM)

-JINNNNN!

(Jin 5:50 PM)

-Yes, hun?

You screamed when he replied.

(You 5:50 PM)

-You won't fucking believe what happened today!

(Jin 5:51 PM)

-Spill.

(You 5:52 PM)

-Remember the VIPs you told me about???

(Jin 5:52 PM)

-Yes, omg I swear. Just tell me already! wHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

(You 5:53 PM)

-One of them. Uhmm. Jeon Jungkook..

(Jin 5:54 PM)

-The one with the thicc thighs? *wink wink did you guys fuck?

(You 5:54 PM)

-Yes. That one. And NO WTH. Last night, when I was performing. I kinda saw him eyeing me.

(Jin 5:54 PM)

-Girl everybody’s always staring at you when you perform. Haha

(You 5:55 PM)

-Omg stop. Hahaha okay back to the story. I bumped into him when I was heading home. I fucking got scared and ran for my life. Lol. And Guess what!?

(Jin 5:55 PM)

-WHAT stop it with the cliffhangers I’m about to choke you

(You 5:56 PM)

-HE IS A NEW TEACHER AT MY UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Jin 5:56 PM)

-Giiiiiiiiiiirl. You whipped. Tell me about it more the next time you come in. Saturday night? You available?

(You 5:57 PM)

-Yes, I have no plans Saturday night. See you then! Xoxo

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" you screamed at the top of your lungs, unable to express yourself. It felt like hundreds and thousands of tiny little butterflies swimming in the pit of your belly. Feverishly tickling your insides. You can't help but smile at the fact that things were actually doing great and not going downhill the way you expected it to be. You drew out a sigh of relief.

Fast forward the next day, you woke up earlier than normal to make yourself extra pretty for your teacher. Hair tied into a loose but cutesy top bun with side bangs resting just above your lashes. Makeup light and simple yet powerful enough to turn heads. Your outfit was a light blue tank top that perfectly hugged your curves in all the right places partnered with a white chiffon cardigan to make things a little more wholesome and plain black skinny jeans that accentuated your perfect ass. 

And for the pièce de résistance, you took out from your dresser the expensive perfume gifted by Jin last Christmas. You swore to yourself that you would never use it on normal days because there's no way in hell that you could purchase another of these high-end scents, but this time is different. You took one last look in the mirror and thought to yourself that this is probably the first time you tried to look good for a guy. 

Sure you've had a few boyfriends here and there but none of them were serious. The farthest you've ever gone with a guy was during sophomore year, you made out in the music room, he tried to get into your pants that time but you were scared that someone might walk in on the two of you, and the rest was history. You never had any relationship after that which kinda explains why you're still a virgin at 22. It felt kinda ironic when you think about it, a virgin working as a stripper, funny. You shrugged off all the unnecessary thoughts and headed off to school.

As you made your way through the door, your phone started ringing inside your bag. You took it and looked at the screen only to see an unknown number calling you. You had second thoughts about answering the call, what if it was a stalker? Or scammer? But you answered it anyway, what impeccable logic you had. " Hello? May I know who's this?" You asked in a soft tone. 

"Jungkook." 

Your eyes beamed with delight the moment you heard his voice "How did you-" He cut off your question and answered, "I asked the owner of the club for your number, I hope you don't mind." A grin made its way onto your lips "No, I don't mind. " You replied timidly. "Where are you now?" He questioned. "Ah. I was about to step out of the house. Why?" You asked. 

"If its okay, I could give you a ride. What do you say?" You thought about what you were going to reply. " Are you near X convenience store?" He added another question to his previous one. " Yeah! It's just right around the corner. I could go there now." You happily answered. "Great. See you." He hung up the phone. You locked the door behind and dashed to the location given.

Once there, you spotted a black BMW parked beside the shop. Not sure if that was his car, you took small steps and inched closer to the stationed vehicle. The window suddenly went down and you saw Jungkook. He stepped out and waved. Your eyes sparkled at the sight of him and made your way over to the passenger side where he currently stood. He opened the door and lead you by the hand to take a seat. He closed the door and marched to other side and got in. "Seatbelt." He said while buckling his. 

"Oh, right. Sorry." You replied with a hint of shyness on your face. Jungkook started the engine and began to drive. You couldn't help but stare at his face. His side profile was just as mesmerizing as his front. The line of his forehead to the slight curve of his bridge sloping down to the tip of his nose making it way back to his cupid's bow. You felt your mouth water as your eyes met his lips, pink and plush. Don't forget about his well-sculpted chin drawing a sharp line up to his jaw. Ah, what masterpiece of a person he is. 

Too immersed in your thoughts, you finally found your way back to earth and realized that silence had filled the confinements of his car making it hard for you to breathe. You had to think about something to break the ice and you had to think fast "Do you live around here, Mr. Jeon?" You awkwardly asked voice cracking " Call me Jungkook. Mr. Jeon is my Dad." He chortled. "And yeah, I live around here. My apartment's a block away from the club." he stated "That's why I was there last time. A senior of mine invited me. He said that the dancers there were amazing" he looked at you with a sinister smile "And he was right." 

You felt all the blood in your body rush to your face making you red all the way to your ears. A faint "Really?" Was all that you could reply looking at the window, hoping that he doesn't see your tomato face. He stopped the car at a cafe just outside the University. "Is here alright?" he said "I don't want to get you in trouble or have rumors spread about you. " You grinned at his words, he was so sweet and caring. "Yes," you said as you unbuckled your seat belt and hopped out of the car. "Thank you Mr. J-- Thank you, Jungkook." He smiled after hearing his name escape your lips. "You're welcome, Y/N. And by the way, you look very beautiful. See you in class." And drove away.

You breathe the sweet air in and then out "Ahhh~ If this ain’t a great feeling, I don't know what is." You murmured to yourself. Since you were early, you decided to check out what this little cafe has to offer. The bell rang as you pushed the door open "Hello, welcome!" The nice lady at the counted gleefully greeted you. "Hi, can I get one large Iced coffee?" You paused while scanning the menu "And a giant chocolate chip cookie." You added. "Is that all miss?" The lady asked not losing the happy tone in her voice. "You know what, today's a great day. Make that 2." You smiled while handing her the bill to pay for your order.

--

Lunchtime and you still haven't seen Jisoo, maybe she took the day off school. You wondered why maybe something came up. You made a mental note to call her later and see what's up. After you finished eating one of the cookies you bought you heard someone calling out to you "Y/N. What's up?" You shifted your attention to the left and spotted a very nervous Jimin. He sat beside you and interjected, "You look great, Y/N." You slapped his arm and replied "Stop it, Jimin! You're making me blush." While in truth he was the one blushing like crazy. "I mean it. You look extra good today." He smiled.

While you were busy chit-chatting with Jimin about academics and school-related topics, you heard your name being called out again "Ms. Y/N." You looked over the direction from where the voice was coming from and it was Jungkook. 

Your heart rate increased tenfold. "Mr. Park, Can I borrow Ms. Y/N for a while?" Jungkook asked the boy. "Yes, Mr. Jeon. Of course." Jimin replied. as he stood up from where he was seated "See you later, Y/N" he concluded and walked away. "Y/N," Jungkook said your name again, sending jolts of lightning throughout your entire body. 

"Yes, Mr. Jeon?" You asked trying your best not to look like a complete mess. "I need help with the handouts for finals, Is it okay if you come with me to the printing room?" He inquired. You can hear your heart beating so loud inside your chest while walking beside Jungkook and hoped that he didn’t. 

He opened the door to the tiny room where the printers, xerox machine, photocopiers, and other office supplies were neatly stored. "Y/N can you please set up photocopier while I prepare the set of handouts?" He asked politely to which you obliged. Once the both of you were inside, he carefully shut the door behind him, discreetly clicking the lock without you noticing.

"It's good to go, Mr. Jeon" you chimed while rummaging your bag searching for the cookie you were supposed to give to Jisoo "By the way, Do you like sweets? I have an extra cook--" You were taken aback when you saw him towering in front of you. He snatched the cookie from your hands and said: "Does it taste as good as your lips?". You felt him push the erection hidden in his tight black slacks harder on your stomach. 

You were amazed at how incredibly solid it was right now. Jungkook ripped the packaging of the cookie and broke off a piece. What he did next sent shock waves to your core making it instantaneously drenched with your juices. Jungkook took the piece, hovered it just above your chest and crumbled it with his fingers. 

Your pupils dilated at the series of events happening before you. Some of the flakes managed to stick to the skin of your chest while others made its way to your cleavage. Still overwhelmed, you somehow managed to speak "Mr. Je-- Jungkook. What are you.." You weren't even able to finish your sentence as he yanked your cardigan down in one swift motion exposing your shoulders. 

The cold air that suddenly brushed against your exposed skin caused goosebumps. His hand made its way to the small of your back pulling you closer to him. He let out a heavy puff of air and said "You drive me insane. Who allowed you to act so cute in front of another guy?" As he kissed your jugular passionately trailing down to your shoulders. You felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up the moment his lips met with your sensitive supple skin. 

"I want you all to myself, baby." He growled before diving into your chest, cupping both breasts with his hands. "Oh-- fuck" you moaned. The way he has his face buried in your breast, It felt like a dream. These kinds of scenario only happen in your head when you're horny as hell except this is REAL. Whatever the hell was happening right now, it wasn't just pure imagination. Like putty, you melted in his grasp, knees feeling weak to the point that they wanted to cave in.

In that heated moment, pure bliss was all that you could feel. Your muscles were tense but relaxed at the same time under Jungkook's ministration. His teeth nibbled at the little remnants of the sweet treat that clung onto the surface of your skin. Occasionally switching from fervent kisses to sloppy licks. Lewd sounds and your feeble moans echoed within the walls of the small room, you pray to God that no one hears. Jungkook brushed his hands along the sides of your upper arm up to your shoulders, slid his thumbs under the thin strap of your top pulling it downwards until your bra was exposed. 

He chuckled "I like the ones you wore at the club much better." You were practically frozen like a statue, your face bright crimson and breathing rapidly. "May I?" Jungkook questioned while his fingers fiddled with your bra's closure.

With the flick of his thumb and index finger, your bra came undone. He stared at your chest wide-eyed, slowly taking in the sight of you bare. "Wow" was all that he could make up as he was utterly mesmerized. Jungkook could no longer hold his urges back and helped himself. One hand on your right boob kneading it gently, thumb slightly touching your hard nipple while the other made its way to the curve of your ass. 

Jungkook took one last look at your flustered face before taking in one nipple in his mouth. The way he stared at you was unlike anything you've ever seen. His eyes were dark, filled with need and lust. You felt like butter that was slowing melting under a heated pan under his gaze. God, he was so beautiful. You knew that what you were doing was wrong but damn, it felt so right. By the time his mouth was on your chest, you could feel his tongue trace circles around your sensitive nub. Every movement sent you higher in the clouds and all your senses went haywire. Your hand flew up to the top of his head, grabbing a fistful of his dark locks. 

You can no longer conjure up words, moans and labored breathing was the only thing that managed escaped your lips. The feeling of him against your skin was heavenly. No words were enough to describe all the sensation rushing in your bloodstream. The surge of adrenaline coursing through your entire body made you feel delirious, sucking you into a whirlpool of emotions that had you on your tip-toes, arms reacting outward, desperately trying to pull yourself up.

(Un)fortunately, you were in too deep, there was nothing you could do about it so you just went with the flow, riding the waves of euphoria. You shut your eyes tightly and saw white stars everywhere as you felt the warm breath from his nose glide across your fragile skin as he takes your breast by the mouthful.

His hand that rested on your backside carefully slithered its way to your front, the gesture that he made caused you to slightly jolt and push him away. "J--Jungkook" you pant out "I--" your breath was heavy, chest heaving up and down trying to catch your own breath. "What's wrong, love?" He asked as he ran his thumb across the apple of your cheek, his tone seemed sincerely concerned.

"I don't know If this is okay.." You replied hesitantly. "This is...." Your voice was laced with embarrassment and your face clearly portrayed the emotion your feeling as you turned pink from one ear to another. "..my first time." 

Jungkook had a bewildered expression on his face for a few seconds before composing himself again "Ahh.." There was a pause "Y/N" He pulled your bra up by the strap one at a time, hooked the closure back together and your tank top followed. You were confused for a minute, thoughts drawing a blank. What the hell, did you say something wrong?

Jungkook picked up your cardigan from the ground and dusted off the dirt that may have stuck to it while it was on the floor. "You should've told me." He chuckled while he handed the piece of clothing to you. Your brain was still fuzzy and only a "Huh?" was all you could reply. Jungkook smiled at the sight of you complete dazed, he absolutely thought you were adorable. He gently held on the back of your neck, pulling you closer to him. He placed a light peck on the middle of your forehead. 

He looked at you with sparkling eyes and said "You should've told me. If I had known that this would your first time, I would've made it more special." He laughed. His eyes were now crescent, crinkled at the corners. Nose looking all cute scrunched up and his signature bunny teeth that get your insides all riled up was showing. 

“Doing it for the first in a small stuffy room at your school wouldn’t be an experience to remember.” He added. It felt like light years for your head to process the things he said. You were in complete disbelief, the image of Jungkook when you first saw him was completely opposite to what you were seeing right now. His masculine exterior, striking presence and unbelievably sexual aura was only one half of the man he truly was. He was sweet, caring and thoughtful clearly shown through his words and action. Absolutely downright charming every time he smiles, his personality was bright and blinding. It would always shine like the golden sun and all you would like to do was bask in his warmth. 

Cheeks tinted red and eyes looking elsewhere to avoid making eye contact, you were the epitome of the word awkward. To be honest, Jungkook could spend all day looking at you disoriented but no matter how cute you were, he knew that calming you down and bringing you back to your senses was the right thing to do. He pulled you into a hug, his arms around your waist, chin resting on your head and whispered "It's Alright. No need to be embarrassed." The scent of his cologne filled your space and got you in a trance-like state, in no time you felt your entire body loosen up, the slight ringing in your ears dissipated and your breathing was a lot smoother.

“I think lunch break is over.” He chuckled, looking at the clock hanging on the wall. “You need to get to your next class.”

You bit your lip and gave a slight nod before unlocking the door and exiting the stuffy room. The moment you walked out, you felt the rush of air pass through your nostrils as you deeply inhaled. 

“Y/N!” An out of breath Jisoo hollered out your name, arms flailing in the air. 

“Jisoo! What are you doing here? I thought you took the day off since I haven’t seen around all day.” You combed out the tangles in her hair, it was probably from her running around and looking for you.  “Yeah, sorry about that. I forgot to tell you that my mother and I picked up my cousin from the airport.” She chimed. 

“Ah, cousin?” You asked.

“Yeah, he studied here at our university for one whole semester.” She replied completely out of breath “After that, he changed school because his dad’s work required them to move around a lot from city to city. Well, now he’s back to finish his final year with us, though not in the same course.” She giggled, holding your hand in hers. “I can’t wait to introduce him to you! I kinda think it’s funny that you haven’t met each other around campus when he was here before.” 

“Jisoo, the school is huge.” You casually joked “I doubt that I even talk to at least 5% of the whole school population. And you didn’t even mention that you had a relative studying here.”  You crossed your arms while her hand was still intertwined with yours. 

“Yah, I’ll introduce you to him later! He’s pretty cool you know. He’s really good looking and smart, too.” She wiggled her brow teasingly. “Maybe you’ll like him and he’ll like you back.”

You pinched her cheek and stressed, “If he’s as good looking as you make him out, he’d never fall for a girl like me.” 

“Why?” She then gave you a foxy stare “I know someone who’d kill 10 men just to be your boyfriend.” 

“Really, who would that be?” You playfully wrapped your arm around her neck and placed her in a choke hold, coaxing her to spill. 

“I-I can't tell you.” She wailed through her laughter “I promised him that I won't tell you and that he’ll be the one confessing.”

You let her go as a sign of defeat. “Fine, fine. Whatever.” You looked at her and grinned “You owe me a cup of coffee for making me worry about you, I seriously thought something important came up to make you skip class.” 

“Okay!” She pulled on your hand and finally headed to class.

-

The rest of the day was so-so. Lectures, presentations, lab activities and what not. Just a few more months, after finals you were already graduating and a free woman. You can’t believe that you actually managed to send you self to school and actually make it out alive. But you had to admit, being a working student wasn’t all that fun and games and even if your part-time job was not something to brag about, you still felt pride well up in your chest as you were one step closer to reaching your goals. 

For now, the only thing that you’ve been looking forward to this afternoon was the coffee Jisoo was gonna treat you. You walked into the shop you bought the cookies from earlier, the image of what had happened in the supply room flashed inside your head the moment she handed you the same pastry you gave to Jungkook.

“Hello? Y/N?”

Your friend’s words cut you out of your thoughts. “Yeah?” You confusedly reply. 

“Want a cookie?” She hummed sweetly. 

“Ah..” You hesitated for a bit before finally taking the sweet treat from her hands. “Thanks..”

“Taehyung said he’d meet us here after his class.” Her gaze turned to her watch wrapped around her tiny wrist. “He said that his class ends at 5 o'clock. It’s 5:30. He’s late.” She scoffed, slightly irritated at her cousin’s act of tardiness. 

“Wait.” The wheel started to turn inside your brain when she mentioned her cousin’s name. ‘Taehyung, taehyung...Where have I heard that name before?’

“Jisoo.” A low voice called out from behind you. You slowly turned your head to the direction of where the voice was coming from. 

“T-taehyung?!” You exclaimed, recognizing the gorgeous boy standing in front of you. “K-Kim Taehyung?”

“Y/N?” He was in complete disbelief as you “Y/f/n y/l/n? Is that really you?” 

“Wait, hold up.” Jisoo stood up from where she was seated and interrupted this weird ass mini-reunion. “You know each other??” She questioned with an inquisitive look written all over the face.

“ Uhh..” You rubbed the back of your neck, thinking of ways to explain the situation to your equally shocked friend. “You see, Jisoo...” 

“We dated,” Taehyung announced, without a hint of embarrassment in his tone.

"Jisoo, wait let me explain!" Your hands were shaking, your eyes flickered back and forth from Jisoo to her not-so-stranger of a cousin. Taehyung took the seat next to you which only made your heart pump blood faster. He still looked good, or even better than you last saw him. 

 "It was only for a few months, Jisoo. 4 months? To be honest I can't remember. I didn't mention it to you because it wasn't something too serious, a fling probably and I didn't know he was your cousin! If I had known that he was I would have never even considered dating him in the first place." You rapped the words out of your mouth, now your lungs were trying so hard to catch your breath. 

 "Ouch." Taehyung chuckled, he placed his hand over his heart. "I really liked you, Y/N." 

"Oh. My. God." Jisoo shrieked like a little child. "I can't believe you two dated!" Her facial expression changed in an instant, looking over to her cousin sitting beside you. "Why did you guys break up?" 

"Ah..." Your voice once again faltered at her questions, you didn't have the guts to tell her that your relationship with her cousin went awry because you didn't want to go all the way with you know what.

"We moved, remembered?" Taehyung's tone shifted from a calm and collected one to a slightly irritated and annoyed one. "Stop making everything into a big deal, Jisoo. So what if we dated? We're not children anymore, we can date whoever we want to date. And for your information, it sure is none of your business so stop sticking your nose up my or Y/N’s ass. " He scolded her harshly. 

Your eyes grew wider at his sudden outburst, one minute he was chill and the next he's like a volcano with his words like lava spewing out of his mouth. "Hey!" You balled your hands into a fist and aimed at his shoulder. "Don't talk to my friend that way, you little shit."

"Y/N.." The flustered girl tugged at your hands, tightly gripping at it. "It's okay, Y/N. It was my fault." 

The expression on your face grew softer as you saw your friend grew guilty over being too nosy. "I didn't mean to pry or anything. I was just really surprised that you dated my cousin without me knowing." She laughed "Who would have thought, huh?" 

She then turned her attention over to her cousin scribbling something with a pen on a piece of a napkin on the table, he sure had the attention span of a squirrel she thought to herself. Maybe that was the reason why the did not last long. "Would it kill you to pay attention, Taehyung?" 

"I'm listening, I'm listening... Sheesh. Would ya stop putting your panties in a bunch, cous?" He pointed out, stuffing the piece of paper in his back pocket. 

"Okay okay... I think I've had enough of this bickering." You explained "Jisoo, sorry for not telling you about me and Taehyung dating. It was no big deal back then so I hope that it won't be a big deal right now. And Taehyung.." You looked to you right, now eye to eye with the guy who had the face of a Greek god. Fuck, what did he ever do in his past life to be given a face like that? Well, He is Jisoo's cousin. Beauty really does run in their family. 

"It's great seeing you again, really. The fact that you’re my best friend’s cousin is flipping amazing and proves what a real small world it is. And you're totally right, we're not kids anymore, we should act like the adults we are and not let whatever happened in the past ruin the way we treat each other now." You put your hand out in front of him, waiting for him to shake it. He watched you intently, his eyes scanning your seated body up and down before reaching his hand to hold yours. 

 "Lets." A small smirk found its ways onto the corner of his lips, though you were too busy to notice it because you were now smiling happily at your best friend.

--

45 minute passed by so quickly, you wouldn't have noticed it until a text from Jin popped up on the screen of your phone. 

 [Jin 6:15 PM]  -You coming in tom hun? xoxo

 [You 6:15 PM] -Yes! See you then! 

 [Jin 6:16 PM]  -Yes girl, thanks so much for helping out! I'll buy you dinner next time, promise! 

You smiled at how sweet Jin was to you, he really was the sister you never had.

The small bell attached to the door went off every time a customer entered the shop, casually mixing in the music playing in the background. You were too immersed in the conversation you were having with your friends that you failed to notice the light tap on your shoulder until a stunned Jisoo pointed a finger behind you. 

“M-M-Mr. Jeon?” You abruptly stood up from where you were seated, causing you to lose balance and fall straight into the arms of your teacher.

“Are you alright, Y/N?” He asked, holding your waist and giving you the much-needed support. “Are you feeling sick?” He checked again, holding a hand on top of your forehead.

“Ahh..” You quickly pulled away from his grasp, fixing your messed up hair in the process. “I’m alright.” 

Teahyung carefully studied you, deciphering the look on your face as well as your body movement. He knew from just looking at how you reacted so anxiously around the other male that something was up, but he had to make sure of it.

“Taehyung, Y/N Ex-boyfriend.” He rose from his place and greeted the man. “And you are?” He quirked a brow.

Why the hell were things turning out this way? What the hell was this, a battle of who has the most testosterone in his body? They seriously looked like two wolves ready to kill each other for the title of alpha male and you and Jisoo could only watch in terror. 

“Jeon Jungkook.” He smirked with no intent of backing down form this little fight “Y/N’s Anatomy professor. Nice to meet you, Taehyung.” 

“Pleasure’s all mine.” The blond haired boy took his seat again, combing his fingers through his hair. “What brings you here, Mr. Jeon?” Jisoo cheerfully asked the young man.

“I was actually on the way home when I spotted Ms. Y/N here and thought it would be nice if I could join you guys.” He beamed, eyes sparkling like a puppy dog. Taehyung could only scoff at the man’s cheesy words.

“Excuse me?” Jungkook snapped at the rudeness younger boy.

“No, no. I’m sorry, you’re free to join us, Mr. Jeon. “

“I will after I buy Y/N a cup of coffee.” The black haired boy insisted with a sweet smile plastered on his equally sweet face. You looked at your friend with a pained expression and telepathically asked whether or not you should, of course, she understood and gestured you to stand with the curl of her lips. 

“O-okay..” You shyly followed him to the counter and ordered,

“Okay, what's the deal with him?” Taehyung hissed through his teeth, glaring at the man who was obviously flirting with you.

“What the hell is your problem?” She told off  her cousin “It’s not like your still dating Y/N to be jealous.” 

The boy’s cheeks immediately turned pink, he then covered his hands over his entire face to hide his uneasiness. 

“Shut up!” Jisoo gasped, she leaned in closer to her cousin and hypothesized based on Taehyung reaction to Jungkook “You still like Y/N, don’t you?” She reckoned that her assumption was true as Taehyung sealed her mouth with his hands. 

“Pipe down.” He growled, “Now, are you gonna help me get back together with Y/N or not?” 

Jisoo slapped the boy’s hand away from her face and shared “Sorry to burst your bubble but I’m already helping someone out with Y/n, and he’s a better match for her so I can’t help you sorry cous’.” She mocked Taehyung. The blond clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in dismay. 

--

“Jisoo... Taehyung..” You whined, standing in front of them with a warm cup of coffee in hand. “I have to go. I remembered that I had the only key to the apartment, I have to get home before she does or she ends up waiting for me outside the house. I’m really sorry.” You frowned. 

“Let me take you home.” Taehyung implied, waving the keys of his car in the air. 

“Uh.” You hesitantly mouthed “Mr. Jeon already offered to take me home.” 

Both of the Kim’s eyes were about to pop out of their sockets and their mouths were hanging wide open. 

“And we’re going in the same direction as well so... I thought it’d be okay.“ You quietly noted. 

“Whatever.” Taehyung irked while eyeing Jungkook from head to toe. “Let's head home too, Jisoo.” 

And with that, the four of you left the shop and bid farewell to each other. Before you could even get into Jungkook’s car, Taehyung suddenly called out to you one last time, trotting in your direction. 

“Y/N.” He grabbed you by the arm and pulled you closer, sneakily sliding the piece of napkin he’d been hanging on to this whole afternoon inside your back pocket which caused you to jolt. He inched his lips closer to your ear and you could swear that you could feel his hot breath dance inside your ear canal. “Call me.” 

You’re entire body froze and his bold actions left you speechless. 

“Y/N..” Jungkook wrapped his arms around your waist and guided you back to his car. 

The car ride was silent, too silent. 

"Taehyung." Jungkook suddenly worded out of the blue. You felt a hard lump stuck in your throat as you try to swallow your saliva, needing something to wet your dry throat. "That was years ago." You nervously replied. "And It was only a few months." He simply nodded in response, placing his free hand on your clothed thigh, humming to himself. When you arrived at the convenience store he picked you up earlier, he suggested that he drop you off directly at your house. You politely refused and said that it was too much already. He was your teacher and not your personal driver. "Wait." He stopped you before you could open the car door and planted a chaste kiss on your forehead. "Take care." You nod and got out of the vehicle. The walk was calm and refreshing, the cool wind caressing your skin felt wonderful. You thought about the crazy things that had happened today.  Doing inappropriate things at school with your teacher, finding out your best friend's cousin was actually your ex-boyfriend and that said teacher giving you a ride back home. Today was kind of a wild ride, unexpected plot twist and what not, but you smile and sighed looking forward to a good night's sleep. -- You spent your Saturday afternoon lazing around the house, munching on Cheetos and binge-watching the new season of Riverdale. You decided to text Jungkook, asking if he's free later tonight. [You 7:56 PM] -Jungkook? He instantly replied. [Jungkook 7:56 PM] -Yes, Y/N? [You 7:56 PM] -Are you free tonight? [Jungkook 7:57 PM ] -Yes, What did you have in mind? [You 7:58 PM] -I'm heading to Jin's bar later, they need extra people. 10 PM [Jungkook 7:59 PM] -Okay, see you. You took your time in the bathroom, shaving whatever patch of skin your arms and back were flexible enough to reach. Vigorously scrubbing your body with a loofah sponge until it was squeaky clean. You then put on your favorite pair of sweats and not to mention your grimy old ass hoodie, slinging your backpack on your shoulder and left for work. "Y/N! C'mere!" Jin exclaimed when he saw you enter through the back door. "Whoah, I just got here and you're already screaming at me." You playfully giggled at the older man. "You know I don't allow you to do special service, right?" He hummed sweetly, something definitely smelled fishy and judging by the tone of his voice, he wanted something from you. "Right?" You looked at him reluctantly, anticipating what he was going to say next. "Jungkook." He deadpanned. "Jungkook?" You absentmindedly repeated his words. "Jungkook. Wants. Your. Services." He stated word by word. "If you want, I'll give him the heads up and personally assist him to one of our private rooms." You were dumbfounded that you didn't make a sound. "If your not comfortable enough, I'll tell him to try his luck next time. So, whatchu say hun?" He added. Your heart was beating rapidly inside your rib cage, each thump ringing inside your ears, you had to decide and you had to decide right now because Jungkook was waiting on the other end. "I'll do it." You confirmed. Jin's face was filled with delight, he knew that you fancied the young man and that the young man fancied you too. This could either go right and bloom into a wonderful relationship or tragically end into an awkward situation. "Then it's settled, you don't have to perform tonight if you're catering to one of our VIPs. Get underdressed and meet me back here, I'll inform hot legs that his date is set." He winked and carried on to whatever he was doing. "Fuck.." You exhaled, your chest feels tighter with every breath you take. "Y/N! What are you standing there for? Come on and get dressed!" Jin yelled, he was few feet away from you, signing papers in his hand. You shook the jitter off your entire body and headed towards the dressing room. --

"You're really gonna make me wear this, huh?" You whined, looking at your self in the mirror. "Yes, doll." "Can I at least lose the bunny ears?" You mewled. "That's the best part about that lingerie, doll. Can't wear it without the bunny ears." He proclaimed, admiring how well the makeup, done by him of course, matched your outfit.

"Whenever you're ready, Y/N." Jin peeped through the door, wiggling his eyebrows. 

"I'm ready." You announced, following Jin since this was your first time being near the special rooms. 

"Don't worry, I gave you the best and cleanest room in this section. You only need to worry about yourself." He joked, nudging his shoulder against yours. "Go ahead, he's been waiting inside for at least 20 minutes. Wouldn't want to make a man that beautiful wait any longer." 

You bit your lip and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it before knocking on the door. 

"Mr. Jeon?" 

END 

a/n: Should mc lose the v tonight (on chapter 3)?  sorry for typo and errors, will proofread tom. thank u

[owlways-and-forever]

Summary: The Marauders are getting older, and that means so many things. Mischief, heartbreak, and trying to figure out who they really are. They’ll face problems within their group, prove their loyalty to each other, and discover the ugliness that is brewing in the wizarding world at large. Welcome to Years 2-4 of the Marauders time at Hogwarts. **This piece is a sequel to Behind the Mango Tree, however, you do not have to have read the first installment to pick this up. It does stand alone, but there is some carry over from the last book, especially with inter-character relationships. Basically, you don’t have to have read BtMT, but it certainly helps. Word Count: (2,136) 22,361 Links: FFnet | ao3 | tumblr: Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6

A/N: The best laid plans, am I right? I sincerely apologize for the long delay here, its been a lot of one thing after another. Between moving, and traveling, my computer breaking, and some family news, things have been a little bit crazy. I finally finished the next chapter today, but I didn't want to make you guys wait any longer (it's been long enough). So looking forward... the next chapter is almost done, but I'm going to wait until next Wednesday to post it, to give myself time to edit and stuff. So next chapter on 4/10. Depending on how things look next Wednesday, I'm going to make a decision as to whether or not to keep this weekly, or switch to every other week. I hate keeping you guys waiting, but I want to make sure I have adequate time to write these chapters properly. But, like I said, we'll see how things look next week.

As always, comments are always welcome, and very much appreciated (even if it's just one word), so please let me know what you're thinking!

Now that that's settled, I don't really have any other notes for this chapter, so enjoy, and I hope you like it!

Chapter 7: Peter’s Plan

November rolled around bringing with it a plague of scorch throat, and Sirius was delighted when he came down with it right around the full moon. He might not be able to be with Remus while he transformed, but at least Sirius could be with him while he recovered in the hospital wing. He tried to make Remus laugh by exhaling flames with every word he spoke, hiding the winces each time he felt the burn tear through his throat. It was worth it to see even the most fleeting of smiles on his friend’s face.

That month, the full moon was worse than it had been before, and Remus had been sick the whole day leading up to it. He’d woken in the middle of the night vomiting from the pain, and he had rushed to the hospital wing, settling in the bed next to Sirius until sunset.

“I wish there was something we could do to make Remus feel better,” James sighed as he and Peter trudged through the chilly halls to class.

“We try to help him get better as much as we can,” Peter answered, sadness passing over his face despite his words. “And we help him with homework and notes and stuff so he doesn’t fall behind.”

“I know, I just... those transformations must be bloody awful, and I wish there was something we could do to make them easier,” James said.

“What happens if he bites an animal while he’s transformed?” Peter asked, an idea nipping at the edge of his mind.

“Nothing,” James answered with a shrug. “Well, not nothing, but they don’t get, you know, infected.”

“So animals can’t become werewolves?” Peter clarified, chewing on his cheek slightly.

“No, only humans,” James said, Peter’s line of questioning lost on him.

“What do you think would happen if he bit a person who was transfigured into an animal?” Peter continued, not entirely sure about what he was suggesting.

“Dunno,” James said, cocking his head to one side. “Why? What are you thinking?”

“Well, just that, if animals are immune to lycanthropy, and wizards take on all the traits of animals when they... morph into them or whatever... well would that mean that they couldn’t be infected while they were in animal form?”

Peter looked nervous as he asked the question, as if concerned that James would laugh and say he was being ridiculous.

“I’m not sure,” James answered. “No one really knows how much you change. But I think... I don’t think so, I mean they’re still human, right? You don’t really turn into the animal, you just take their form. But genetically, you’d still be human, so I think you could be infected.”

“But what if you can’t though?” Peter pushed, feeling a little more confident in his idea.

“Well, it’d still be pretty risky,” James said. “I mean, werewolves are still pretty lethal, you could still get mauled or eaten or something.”

“Yeah, but maybe not,” Peter proposed, a bright glint in his eye.

They had reached the door of the Charms classroom, and the two boys ducked inside, filing into their seats. Peter mulled things over in his mind as the class continued, unable to focus on their lesson about Cheering Charms.

About halfway through the class, Professor Flitwick asked a question that Peter didn’t hear. Lily’s hand shot into the air, and Peter watched as James reached up from his seat next to her and slapped her palm in a hard high-five. Lily let out an annoyed huff, but she didn’t acknowledge James’ action in any other way, her hand never wavering. James grinned happily and leaned back in his chair, pushing the front two feet up into the air slightly.

“You are a complete arse, Potter,” Lily hissed, after she had answered Professor Flitwick’s question, the satisfied smile slipping from her face.

“C’mon, Evans, you know I’m charming,” James smirked, and she rolled her eyes in response.

The rest of the class, and the day, passed in a bit of a blur. Peter felt unfocused, his mind drifting away at every opportunity, and he couldn’t have brought it back if his life depended on it. As he went through the motions of going to class, eating dinner, even visiting Sirius, Peter’s thoughts kept returning to Remus, trying to piece together a way to help him.

Once the other Gryffindor boys had all fallen asleep, a chorus of snores echoing from James, Lance, and Firmin’s beds, Peter decided he had to have an answer to the question burning in his heart. He leaned over and grabbed a pair of socks from his trunk, sliding them off his feet, and then slipped silently through the dormitory. It must have been later than he realized, as the common room was nearly empty, and the few students who were there paid no attention to Peter as he snuck through the portrait hole.

“Going somewhere?” the Fat Lady asked, as the portrait closed behind Peter.

“I need to see Professor McGonagall,” he squeaked in surprise.

“You’d better hope that no one else finds you along the way,” she answered, giving him a curious look.

Peter didn’t wait to find out what her expression meant, turning on his heel and walking quickly down the hall. He reached the door of Professor McGonagall’s office without incident, and he took a deep breath as he raised a small fist to knock on the ancient wood.

It was a long moment before the door opened, Professor McGonagall standing on the other side in a tartan dressing gown. Peter had a flurry of nerves as he saw her, suddenly wondering why he hadn’t just waited until morning to do this.

“What are you doing out of bed so late, Mr. Pettigrew?” Professor McGonagall asked, as she looked at the young boy in front of her.

“Professor, you know how on our first day of class in first year you turned into a cat and back?” Peter said, shuffling his feet nervously.

“Yes, Mr. Pettigrew, I vaguely remember,” she answered dryly.

“What’s that called again?”

“An animagus, Mr. Pettigrew, you ought to pay better attention,” she chided, although she was not surprised. First years were almost always too nervous or excited to pay much attention on the first day of school. Those with nonmagical upbringings hardly ever remembered anything about animagi until they began to cover it much later on.

“Right, well, I was wondering... if a werewolf bit an animagus while they were an animal, would they become a werewolf too?” Peter asked, trying to seem as casual as possible.

“Why do you ask?” She raised an eyebrow at him, immediately suspicious of his question.

“I was... reading about werewolves and it said only people can be affected.”

Professor McGonagall seemed surprised that he had retained this information, or indeed been reading about anything academic other than the passages that his coursework dictated.

“You were reading about werewolves?” she clarified. “A topic which is somewhat beyond your current education level?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Mr. Pettigrew, if you think –“

“I don’t,” Peter said hurriedly. “And if I did I wouldn’t tell a soul. It wouldn’t be right. But I don’t. It’s just a... a hobby. An interest.”

“Well, Mr. Pettigrew, I must assure you that you are quite safe from werewolf attacks, and needn’t worry –“

“I’m not worried, Professor, I was just curious... it must be lonely for them...” he explained, lost in his thoughts for a moment.

“Since I see very few instances of curiosity from you, Mr. Pettigrew, I feel inclined to encourage it by answering your question, but only if you stop interrupting me,” Professor McGonagall said sternly. “I do not believe that a wizard, bitten while in his or her animagus form, would be inflicted with lycanthropy, no. They are, physically, the animal they appear to be, with its traits, including, I believe, immunity from lycanthropy. Of course, no study has ever been performed on the subject. It would be incredibly dangerous, and as such, not many would volunteer for it.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Peter said sincerely, turning to leave her office.

Professor McGonagall watched him go, his words sticking in her mind, and she considered the young Gryffindor currently alone in the Shrieking Shack. Peter had a point, Minerva couldn’t even imagine how terrifying it had to be, transforming into something so wild and uncontrollable, doing so alone. In an instant, she knew what she had to do.

Minerva left her office, pulling her warm, tartan cloak from its place on the coat rack and wrapping it around her shoulders as she moved. She swept through the halls of the empty castle, until she stepped into the night air. A gentle rain was falling, giving the autumn air an extra bite. The moon was full overhead, visible mostly as a hazy glow through the cloud cover.

“Lumos,” she whispered, the tip of her wand igniting, lighting her path.

Minerva strode through the grounds until she found the Whomping Willow. With a wave of her wand, a branch on the ground transformed into a snake and slithered to the base of the tree, pressing a knot in the trunk with its tail. Immediately, the branches of the tree stilled, and Minerva was able to step closer.

There was a small opening between the willow’s roots, which Minerva knew led to a dank passage. She closed her eyes and focused on her transformation, a moment later finding herself in feline form. Quickly, she trotted through the stilled branches and down into the tunnel. It was a long trek, particularly as a cat, but it was easier than being hunched over.

Some twenty minutes later, Minerva felt the ground slope upwards beneath her paws, and she emerged into the creaking entryway of the Shrieking Shack. She could hear snarling from above, footsteps pacing back and forth. Long nails clicked against the wood, and a loud growl accompanied a crash.

Carefully, Minerva padded across the floor and up the stairs, soft creaks issuing from beneath her paws. When she reached the landing, she could see the werewolf pacing through the gap in the doorway, his claws reaching to destroy any furniture he could find. Minerva sat in the doorway, watching for a moment.

Softly, she meowed, getting his attention. Remus. His yellow eyes fixed on her, and for a moment his lips curled up to show his teeth, a deep rumbling echoing in his chest, but then he paused. A hint of recognition seemed to cross his face, and his muscles relaxed a little.

Remus returned to pacing the room, but he seemed less frantic, less agitated. After he passed by her for the third time, Remus stopped in front of Minerva, staring at her, and growled lightly. But it was more of a conversation than a threat, like he was trying to tell her how frustrated he felt, how angry, how scared.

They spent a few hours this way, in passing conversation of sorts, before Remus curled up on the floor, huffing heavily. Minerva crept closer to him and leapt onto the sole in tact chair, curling up herself. She meowed softly once more and watched Remus close his eyes, watching over him as he drifted off.

[virgils-hoodie]

Music of Our Lives - Chapter 1

Okay, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to go on an adventure together!! This is my first Long story, and I plan to update as often as I can, so we will see how this turns out for everyone involved. Enjoy! 

First Day of High School… Wonder how I’m gonna screw this up.

Virgil approached the High School, nervous for what lay ahead of him. His parents promised him that they wouldn’t move again until after he had graduated, but he doubted that, prepared to leave in a couple months.As he made his way down the hall, Virgil checked his schedule.

1A-Concert Band                                 S146      Jason Mabrey 2A-Biology                                           E202       Frank Nosal 3A-CP English 9                                  W374     Jessica Fisher 4A-Intro to High School                       W260      Mike Preskorn 1B-World History/World Geography    W355      Hollie King 2B-Latin 1                                            W285     Julie Marshall 3B-Algebra 1                                        E120      Eric Haupert 4B-Intro to Photography                       E158      Karen Slusher

Virgil groaned upon remembering what his first class was. Earlier in the summer, his parents told him that they were going to have him take a performance elective, and they had him pick out an instrument, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy band class. They had also decided that they wanted him to be in the band so badly that they would buy him whatever instrument he wanted, as long as he learned it over the summer.

So, naturally, Virgil decided on the least conspicuous instrument he could. One he could easily toss in his backpack and not worry about. He chose the piccolo. What he hadn’t thought of, however, was the high range of the small instrument. And the fact that he may be the only guy playing it. And the fact that he would most likely get a lot of solos.

As Virgil made his way to the band room, located in the basement of the school, he was worried about what he might find down those stairs. He pushed away the concerns as he took his first step into the band room.

The first thing he noticed was the chaos of all the students in that class warming up at the same time. He made his way to a seat near the flute section, after not seeing any other piccolos. This did not look good for him.

The second thing he noticed was the overall age of these students. Most looked like Freshman, but there were a few here and there that stood out as upperclassmen. One such upperclassman was currently taking charge of the clarinet section, getting them all in order and seated neatly. Another was talking to the Alto Saxes, giving them instructions about something Virgil couldn’t quite hear.

As the director made his way up to his small podium in the front of the room, Virgil quickly set up his piccolo and waited as the room quieted down. The Band director spoke with authority as he addressed the band.

“Good Morning Concert Band! For most of you, welcome to your Freshman year. First things First, I would like to introduce some people to all of you. These are the people to talk to if you need help, unless it’s serious, in which case, bring it to me. To begin, we have our Flute and Piccolo section leader, Danielle Stella, then we have our clarinet section leader, Logan Prince, and our alto sax section leader, Patton Hood, Low Reeds, Kimberly Hood, Trumpets, Damon Bernal, Trombones and Baritones, Maddie Smith, Tubas, Cody Blanchette, and Percussion, Nicole Brady.”

Virgil sighed lightly, leaning back in his chair and watching as each one waved at the class.

“Now, I want to see just what kind of instrumentation we have today. We are going to go in Score order. I want everyone to say their name, grade, and favorite song. We’ll start with Piccolos.”

Virgil sat up abruptly and stared wide-eyed as he said that. The director turned towards the flute section.

“Do we have any piccolo players?”

As the girl next to him pointed at Virgil, he panicked. What was he supposed to say? What if his voice cracked? What would everyone think of him? What- His thoughts were cut off when the girl next to him gently nudged his arm, smiling encouragingly. He took a deep breath and spoke just loud enough to be heard in the room as everyone went silent.

“My name is Virgil Sanders… I am a Freshman, and my favorite song is “I’m not Okay. (I Promise)” By My Chemical Romance.” He glanced around the room as everyone stared at him until Danielle spoke up as first for the flute section.

As he leaned back in his seat again, he watched the others around the room for a bit before moving to read a book on his music stand. It wasn’t until the voice of one person in the back cut through his thoughts that he looked up to see who it was.

“I Am Roman Prince. I Am Currently In My Freshman Year Of High School, And My Favorite Piece Of Music Is “All I Do Is Win”, By DJ Khaled.” Virgil scoffed slightly, figuring only the girl beside him could hear, but he could have sworn he saw Prince throw a pointed glare at him.

By the end of the class, Virgil was exhausted without even playing anything. This was largely due to the discovery that any freshmen in Band are required to join the marching band. Which started the next day. He made his way towards the door as everyone was packing up when Danielle ran over to him. “Virgil! I know you’re new to the area, so I was wondering if we could trade phone numbers... I-In case you have any questions, of course. And also to make sure you know when the marching band events are.” Virgil looked over at her, then nodded reluctantly, quickly scrawling down his phone number on a piece of paper.

“Just know that if I don’t know who it is, I block the number, so say your name when you text me. Also, don’t share that with anyone. I don’t want to be in any group chats, or be sent any chainmail texts, Okay?”

She nodded quickly, then walked off, leaving him alone to wait for the bell to ring, until... “Virgil?” He looked up, only to see that Roman was making his way towards him. “It is Virgil, right? I was wanting to talk to you. I saw your family moving in up the street from me at the end of last school year.”

“So?” Virgil replied, getting annoyed.

“Well if you let me finish, J.Delightful, I was getting to that. I was wondering if you needed any help finding your classes.”

Why would he want to help me?

Virgil shook his head. “No Thanks, Princey. I think I’ll find my way just fine.”  As the bell rang, he quickly left the band room, eager to get away from the crowd of musicians.

As the day went on, Virgil slowly became more and more annoyed with everything and everyone, eventually reaching his breaking point when he walked into his last class for the day, Intro to High School and saw Him. Virgil quickly sat as far away as possible from the flamboyant fantasist, then pulled his phone out to avoid being noticed by him.

By the end of the day, Virgil was ready to leave, heading straight for the busses until he felt a hand on his shoulder, making him turn around and slap off the hand, looking at who was behind him. “Apologies, Virgil.”

Virgil sighed. “What do you want, Princey?”

“Well, I saw you heading for the bus, and I was wondering if you’d like a ride home. I already cleared it with Logan, so he’s okay with taking you home. I know that the bus is very crowded, so I figured you would prefer to ride in a car and go straight home.”

He looked up at Roman, debating. He knew Roman was right. He despised the bus, but he also wasn’t sure why Roman would be offering to help him. Curiosity got the better of him and he nodded.

“That would be great, thank you.”

Roman smiled. “Awesome! Follow me.” As he walked off, Virgil stayed beside him, keeping pace with his long legs.

“Roman?”

Roman looked over, surprised. “Yeah, Virgil?”

“Why are you so determined to be nice to me? I understand being polite, but this is above and beyond... So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, What gives?”

“I want to help you because I used to be you. Back in 7th grade, my family had just moved here. They agreed that we wouldn’t move again until Logan had finished High School. He’s only got this year and next year left. I’m hoping they decide to let me finish as well, but Logan is their prize child. He gets the good grades and the Academic Honors. I’m just a Band and Theater kid, average at best. I could do theater and band anywhere. It’s harder to transfer academic success…”

Virgil watched as Roman’s face fell, and his façade faltered.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up... I was just curious... Most people usually don’t want to help me. I was just wondering if this was genuine, or-”

“-Another Trick.”

Roman smiled over at Virgil, who sheepishly grinned in return, happy to have found someone who understood him.

AN: Wow, this was a beast to tackle. Starting a story is always the most interesting part for me. Anyways, I will be taking Holiday AU/Prompts for the remainder of December, and I will write some of my own until I get suggestions. Let me know if there is something you want to see!

Tags: @sassy-and-messy @tinysidestrashcaptain (Let me know if you want to be added to any Tag lists for my work!) 

[col22promo]

Kyra Zabala | Twenty Seven;  Survivor

House: Torren Security Class: 3 Status: Infected - Empatheia

History

Kyra was going to be a big star some day. This knowledge followed her for years: growing up in Hollywood, she was exposed to the rich and the glamorous despite her own more humble beginnings. Her mother was an SFX makeup artist, so naturally little Kyra had the best Halloween costumes each year– though that was where the maternal bond began and ended. With her mother often away for weeks on end doing shoots, Kyra was left more or less at the mercy of her father.

‘At his mercy’ wasn’t as bad as it could be, really. He was uncomfortable with children, and never coddled her. If she brought a fingerpainting back from kindergarten, he would happily offer up criticisms and refuse to hang it up on the fridge until she worked on her colouring. The only interest he really showed her was when it came to drama class; thanks to their location, Kyra was given a comprehensive grounding in the dramatic arts, and it was something she had a real flair for. She knew how to play an audience and get the reaction she wanted, and the limelight suited her. 

Her teachers encouraged her to apply for drama academies, come the end of her high school career. Competitive though entrance could be, they believed it was her only real shot. Kyra had flashes of brilliance, but she was lazy and unmotivated and certainly wasn’t going anywhere based on her academic merits. The day she was accepted into the country’s top performing arts academy was the happiest day of her father’s life. Or so she assumed, for he wasted no time in messaging their social circle about her success. The next four years were good ones, filled with praise over her acting talent and landing roles in their theatrical productions. Some of her classmates began taking small movie parts, but Kyra was adamant that she would concentrate on her studies before committing herself to such a thing.

Graduation came and went, and Kyra began auditioning. The first few rejections stung, and then irritated her, and then were just another part of her life. It was nothing personal, they said, the market was just too competitive. She landed a few roles; never the lead. She got the sidekick, or the sassy receptionist, or the background character with great legs. The first starring role she landed was for an indie horror flick: Baba Yaga. And Kyra was to star as old Baba, who lived in her chicken legged house in the woods and offered poultices and potions to local women, in exchange for their youth and beauty. There was also a great deal of throat slashing and sex, naturally. And Kyra was determined that it should succeed, and launch her out of obscurity.

She recalled the Blair Witch Project, and Paranormal Activity, and how their successes were borne on the shoulders of their viral marketing campaigns. Independent of the studio, Kyra made up her mind to begin her own viral campaign for Baba Yaga, and it started off with the foley artist being found hanged in the set’s decorative vines. And then the plucky young blonde with almost as many lines as Kyra found herself with slit wrists in a warm bathtub. And finally, the director was discovered with enough pills in his system to kill an elephant, drowned in a pool of his own vomit. It worked: the cursed nature of the movie brought hordes of people in for the premier. And Kyra played her part perfectly, dashing tears from her eyes and giving a speech of thanks to her deceased crew members, sniffling about how the movie wouldn’t have been made without them.

It was actually hard to resent the police for crashing in when the credits had finished rolling. She had to laud their excellent dramatic timing, and her face lit up the screen of every news outlet for weeks after. At just twenty years old, Kyra Zabala was a bigger national star than Angelina Jolie ever had been. 

The charm wore off quickly, as she was grilled by psychiatrists and detectives, manhandled through the court process. Slapped carelessly with a diagnosis of psychopathy and bundled away in an orange jumpsuit for what looked to be a life sentence, Kyra grew more and more resentful that her story could fizzle out like that.

Kyra Today

She had been stewing in her cell for three years when D-Day came. In and out of solitary confinement for assaulting other inmates and staff members alike, she hadn’t become the well loved starlet that had inhabited her dreams. Thank god for the asteroids, she thought, cutting off power and allowing her to push the cell door aside and leg it into the night.

When a gang of looters approached her, Kyra wasn’t nervous. She felt them as kindred spirits. And now it no longer mattered that she was sloppy and unprofessional, because there were no police left to find stray hairs on her victim’s bodies. She came to find a certain pleasure in killing– the rest of her group killed because they wanted supplies, or something that the corpse had to offer. Kyra killed because she was fascinated by the way flesh peeled back like so much raw meat, and how white bones really were. These days are naturally undocumented: as far as the Echo database knows, her body count still lies at three.

As many did, she and her group travelled. They stole vans where they could, or walked for days. Once, they stowed away on a ship and took control from its crew. They spent weeks on that voyage, loving the freedom that the sea offered. It was only by pure bad luck and ignorance that they sailed straight into a storm, and the boat went down. Kyra surfaced, gasping for breath. No one else was in sight, so she hauled herself ashore by herself. Within hours she was found, shivering and soaked through, by a group of crusaders from Colony 22. Now, though Kyra was arrogant and self centred, even she didn’t believe she could survive alone in this wilderness, so she went along with them.

And in the few weeks since she arrived to the Colony– immediately branded high threat and often watched by the guards– an infection has made itself known. Her empatheia infuriates her, because the negativity of others now drains her and leaves her exhausted, where before there had been nothing. Worse still is the fact that she requires joy and laughter from other people to regain her strength. Though Kyra is theoretically capable of being friendly, she struggles to be anything less than an abject asshole to most. She misses her freedom, hates her infection, finds most of the other survivors weak-willed and flimsy, and thinks this New Wave Reformist bullshit is some of the most ridiculous shit she’s ever heard of, because she didn’t ask to get saddled with her stupid Infection and why should she be punished for something she had no control over?

Her only relief comes in training. Nobody ever taught Kyra a thing about physical combat, and though technically she is one of the weaker in her sessions, she has a passion for it that few can rival. Indeed, her trainers are about the only ones capable of getting more than a ‘fuck yourself’ response from her. It is hoped that, as she recovers both from her imprisonment and her years out in the wilds, Kyra will try to be a little more personable. As of yet there is little evidence of that, but as her therapists say, it’s early days yet.

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.

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no one’s meant to stay  (memoir)

During our first day I didn’t talk to anyone even a hi to my seatmate or anyone who smiles at me. I only talk to my friends out of my classroom during vacant time and get back to being quiet after the given vacant for our recess. Everything went easy on my first week in school full of introduction to each teachers in my subjects. That cycle went for almost 3 weeks but it didn’t last until some of my classmates are approaching me and I already started talking to them little by little and have a short conversation during vacants. Then I met this guy named Jaysen.

Mr. M.P gave us a performance task that needs to be done in less than 2 weeks as we part our ways going to our designated groups we were asked to choose who’s gonna be the leader and assistant, I was chosen for being their leader and Jaysen was my assistant then. After that short voting, we started with the activity. We distributed the task for the short jingle-dance presentation that needs to be filmed as well. While they are thinking about the concept for our presentation I asked Jaysen

Mr. M.P gave us a performance task that needs to be done in less than 2 weeks as we part our ways going to our designated groups we were asked to choose who’s gonna be the leader and assistant, I was chosen for being their leader and Jaysen was my assistant then. After that short voting, we started with the activity. We distributed the task for the short jingle-dance presentation that needs to be filmed as well. While they are thinking about the concept for our presentation I asked Jaysen “ano kanta gagamitin naten para mastart ko na yung sa dance steps naten na related sa math lessons na sinabi”, he answered “hindi ko rin alam eh pero pag-isipan na muna naten ayusin muna natin lyrics” then the conversation stopped there and worked again

Months have passed I already got comfortable with my classmates I get to start a conversation to each one of them if there would be a time. Since Jaysen was my seatmate back then, we used to talk about stuff during vacants. T’was my birthmonth and my 16th celebration was approaching so I invited them to join me on my small celebration at home. That’s when Jaysen started to talk to me everyday, chatting me through my social media accounts, reacting to all of my Instagram stories that was all nothing for me because I didn’t like him that time. 

Until one day we decided to stay at my place after our class since we were halfday. Jaysen was there as well, soon as we arrived we ate our lunch already and after that we stayed at our sala played the game truth or dare. Couple of spins were done, until the bottle stopped spinning to me, I got nervous because the game was kinda risky. “ano truth or dare? hahahah” 3 of my friends asked “sige truth nalang ayusin niyo ha!” I answered 

 I didn’t expect that he’ll be the one to ask me and most of all the question shocked me “kung may crush ka man sa mga classmates naten, sino siya? bawal kj ha” Jaysen asked and he sounded like he was expecting an exciting answer from me that would make his ass giggle. Being the honest one I answered “wala akong crush no, kakasimula lang ng school year crush agad baka gusto niyo muna magpass ng jingle presentation sa math at pumasa hahaha”. All of them laughed like I was lying to them. The 2nd to the last spin of the bottle was pointed to Jaysen, soon as the bottle stopped from spinning he already said “sige na nga para may thrill naman laro natin, dare pipiliin ko na may halong truth hahahaha promise ‘di ako magiging kj katulad nung isa diyan” I only laughed with what he said. “Naks ang tapang mo. kung may crush ka man sa mga kaklase naten at nandito siya ngayon umupo ka sa right side niya, kung wala naman siya dito tawagan mo tyaka mo sabihin na may crush ka sakanya. GO! Hahaha” Neth asked him while smiling like something is about to be spilled. 

I was about to stand that time to go to my room and get something when Jaysen stood up and sat beside me smiling. I was shocked because I didn’t expect it but I didn’t mind it and said “kabud nalang ako hahaha kayong mga lalaki talaga manloloko kayo, ‘di meron kang girlfriend do’n sa pagcor building”, everyone were saying “oopss” “naku po” “nilaglag sarili hahahah!” after that we stopped playing already and faced our gadgets. 

 When that day had passed, it became little awkward between me and Jaysen because of what happened with the game. After 3-4 days he approached me and saying sorry for what he did that made me uncomfortable and said that he and his girlfriend already broke up couple of months ago. I let that pass and we were good with each other. We became more close to each other until one day when we were staying at my friends place he asked me “I will court you okay.” No words came out from my mouth and felt those butterflies in my stomach but thank God when my bestfriend Chin saved me from being awkward again she said “nagugutom na ako ‘di pa ba tayo magmemeryenda?” 

 After how many weeks, we were back from our late night calls and everyday conversations after class. Everytime I see him coming from afar I can feel those butterflies in my stomach and that was some kind of strange and new. Until I made a reflection on myself, realized that I am slowly liking him already. Things went differently we often go out after class if we have free time, eat outside during weekends. Until he told me that he’ll be courting me for real, he didn’t ask for an answer if I’m giving him the permission to do so. He chose to show his feelings for me even if he doesn’t have the assurance from what he started. 

 He was really an ideal man, boyfriend material, someone who you would wish to have too as your suitor and boyfriend. Months of courtship, we became officially in relationship and legal with both side. Our 2 months as girlfriend and boyfriend wasn’t that healthy we thought we won’t make it. Fast forward to our 5th month we rarely argue, still the same we go out when we are free from academics. We became more comfortable with each other, telling secrets, movie dates and stuff. 

 We were given a task in our MAPEH subject, we have to present a role play that involved singing and dancing our section was divided into two groups with 20 members. I was in a group with Jaysen, since they knew that we are in a relationship and to make things more easier we were asked to be partners since our play is Cinderella.mikayIn the middle of our presentation, Jaysen was staring at me while doing my part in the role play taking some pictures of me wearing a red&black cocktail dress. On the part where the prince and cinderella are dancing he gently held my hand and waist while dancing, I felt his sincerity and made me appreciate him more with his actions. After that presentation he escorted me going to the comfort room since I was wearing a 4 inches heels and I had to dress up for our next subject. While changing to my dress to uniform I couldn’t remove my mind’s focus with the way he looked at me during our presentation. After changing, I washed my face to remove the applied make-up and went out the comfort room.

As I stepped out the comfort room I should be asking him to eat for a while because I didn’t ate for breakfast but Jaysen handed me a mineral water and 5 pieces of siomai with a cloud 9. I smiled at him and said “’di kana dapat bumili, aayain sana kita kumain after ko magbihis pero thank you” he answered me by kissing me on my forehead. 

Fast forward to when were almost there for our anniversary when something went wrong, I knew that he was talking with his ex girlfriend through messenger without telling me, his friend was the one who told me about that and I was mentally and emotionally blocked. I had these couple of questions to myself are they getting back? What’s with them? Why are they talking behind my back? But I let that pass and waited for him to tell me the truth but him being the asshole didn’t confess and acted like nothing’s happening during those time. I started to confront him the next day before our exam, asked him if there’s something that I need to know but he refused to say the truth and answered me “wala naman akong ginagawa na ikakasira ng relationship natin tyaka I’m not betraying you don’t mind it any—” I slapped him and showed him a screenshot of Jaysen’s ex girlfriend conversation with him and a picture of them both kissing that was sent to me. I didn’t let him to explain his self, I left him in the classroom and went to my next class. 

My situation didn’t went that easy. The man whom I expected a lot that won’t break my heart and ate all his promises. After a year of suffering from the pain that he gave I saw myself change the old me is slowly fading, the old passionate lover and risk taker in all aspect was already gone. Couple of months ago I was about to leave the house going to school when my phone vibrated with an Instagram notification that says someone sent me a direct message from a guy.mikaynamed Thirdie, he’s from Italy, also he was a former schoolmate of my bestfriend. We often talk after I attend school since phones aren’t allowed. 

 He flew back here in the Philippines and decided to study here for his 12th grade. His place was somewhere at Mexico, Pampanga. A month ago was our term test, I asked Nen and Doy why don’t we meet and review for the heavy subjects to examine on they agreed and meet up at Bon Appetea, Sto Domingo. I knew that Thirdie was just kilometers away from me, after 4hours of reviewing our lessons, Nen asked us a favor if we can help her to get her things from a friend in TinajeromikayHe flew back here in the Philippines and decided to study here for his 12th grade. His place was somewhere at Mexico, Pampanga. A month ago was our term test, I asked Nen and Doy why don’t we meet and review for the heavy subjects to examine on they agreed and meet up at Bon Appetea, Sto Domingo. I knew that Thirdie was just kilometers away from me, after 4hours of reviewing our lessons, Nen asked us a favor if we can help her to get her things from a friend in Tinajero, fortunately Thirdie was also there catching up with his friends since he was away for a long time. 2 hours have passed we went to Tinajero to get Nen’s things and we decided that we will immediately go home when she have her things already. 

But we were asked to stay by her friends to play a mobile legends for a while, they were all playing except for me because I didn’t had the mood in playing instead I read my reviewer. It was 6 pm when we are about to go home and about to call a tricycle to ride on going to the terminal, but Thirdie called me on my phone saying that he’ll drive us home. That made me think that he’s gentlemen and kind not knowing that he has a crush on me at that time. Week after, we used to talk to each other and get comfortable with each other asking how was our day, updating each other and stuff. He’s understanding, kind, gentlemen and has a big respect to woman kind of guy. To make the story short we had our 3 days retreat, 2 days no phone. We weren’t able to have conversation but that was okay with us, he was very understanding with the situation we had during my retreat and I appreciate him for that. The night after our retreat, everything was like a popped bubble. I didn’t received any kind of message from him anymore, even a message that he’s gonna stop talking to me he just left like nothing. 

 All I thought he was the answer to one of my prayers. I could only think of him everyday, dreamed of him every night. But all I could do is to let this things pass by, let him go and let myself breathe again from pain. Maybe he is meant to be a blessing and a lesson for me, we were only meant to meet to learn something new and get challenged with that kind of situation. I don’t blame anyone with what happened because I know everything happens for a reason and something big will come in exchange for what was lost.