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shakunetsubonfire · 5 months ago

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Mar Experiences the Five Stages of Grief

first yumeship fic ever yay! this is also my first ever fic, so sorry for any errors. i also have never posted something like this to tumblr, so apologies for formatting issues or anything, i wrote this on docs 😭

shoutout to ne for beta-reading the whole thing and helping me correct things! youre the best!

STAGE 1: DENIAL

Cater Diamond is a bitch.

…Is what Mar would like to say, but unfortunately, Mar is lying awake in his bed, it’s 2:41 in the morning, and Cater’s idiotic words are replaying over and over in his mind.

“Are you sure you don’t just have a crush on him?”

It was insignificant coming from him, a suggestion he had given when Mar was lamenting about Floyd for the umpteenth time during club practice.

“I just don’t get it. He’s annoying, but he’s entertaining. He doesn’t know how to leave me alone, and sometimes I feel like screaming,” Mar groaned, craning her neck over the back of her chair with a heavy sigh. Lilia seemed amused, nodding his head along with Mar’s comments every now and then. Kalim tried his best to be comforting, saying barely reassuring things like, “I’m sure he just really enjoys your company!” Or, “Do you want me to ask him to give you space?” Which was nice in prospect, but was not helpful in the slightest.

That was when Cater had piped up, saying something so unbelievably stupid, but still had Mar’s mind reeling.

In the moment she said, “What the hell is wrong with you?! Of course not!” and flicked Cater in the forehead. But despite club practice having ended several hours ago, Mar still couldn’t get that sentence out of his mind.

Mar angrily thrashed around in bed, clutching his stuffed pufferfish close to his chest.

Of course it’s not a crush, Floyd is nowhere near my type. He’s annoying, impulsive, and loud. Just because I occasionally crave his attention and affection, hang out with him between classes and follow him around doesn't mean I like him. The fact that Cater of all people thinks I have romantic feelings for Floyd is absolutely insane! He’s just a friend. A close friend. Someone I enjoy being around. Someone who understands me— someone who I like spending time with. Cater’s just an absolute idiot for assuming the worst,

He thought, all while still tossing and turning.

“Can you stop moving and just go to bed?” Mar’s roommate threw a slipper at him from across the room, which forced him to finally attempt to stop thinking and sleep. He would tell Cater in the morning about how stupid his question was and how he’s wrong in every way.

STAGE 2: ANGER

“You are out of your fucking mind if you think me and Floyd are romantically involved in any way!” Mar whisper-yelled at Cater, firmly jabbing him in the chest. Mar cornered him before he left the dorm for class, and the two stood in the Heartslabyul kitchen. Cater gave Mar an awkward smile and a shrug.

“Why are you so upset if it isn’t true?” The shit-eating grin he gave Mar made her want to choke him out.

Mar scoffed and sputtered, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. The two engaged in a silent staring contest, Mar giving Cater a dangerous glare before she relented to grabbing the collar of his shirt.

“If you keep saying stupid things like that, you’re gonna end up with a black eye and several missing teeth,” he shouted, slightly shaking Cater back and forth.

“If you keep saying things like that, you’re gonna get in trouble with Riddle,” Cater retorted, which prompted Mar to look around and realize that they were, in fact, not the only people in the kitchen. Several students gave Mar weird looks, a mix of concern and fear on their faces.

“This isn’t over,” Mar muttered, reluctantly letting go of Cater’s collar and storming out of the dorm into the mirror chamber.

The sound of overlapping footsteps echoing throughout the hall is all that Mar could hear, passing conversations going in one ear and out the other. He’s usually more attentive in the hallway, careful not to bump into anyone while simultaneously trying to get insight on some gossip. But nothing seemed important at that moment, as he was still hung up on the kitchen confrontation from that morning. His brows furrowed and his lips pulled into a frown as he trudged through the hallways of NRC. All he wanted was to get back to his dorm room and to be alone, isolated enough to think. But of course something always had to go wrong.

“Yo, Pufferfishie, whatcha frownin’ for?”

Floyd slung his arm over Mar’s shoulder, leaning in too close for comfort.

This is the last thing Mar wanted to happen today.

Screw Floyd and his impulsiveness, he mused to himself. Of course the boy had to show up right when Mar was almost free, only a few short strides away from the mirror chamber. Floyd poked at Mar’s cheek when she didn’t answer his question. “Helloooo, Twisted Wonderland to Pea-Puffer?”

Mar finally snapped out of her stupor, turning to look at Floyd with a blank look on her face. “Hi, Floyd,” is all she said, facing forward again and attempting to continue her walk to the mirror chamber, which seemed to take longer than usual. Except Floyd’s unrelenting grip around Mar’s shoulder prevented her from moving too much.

“What, didja not hear me the first time? Whaddya pouting about? Your cheeks are all puffy,” He pointed out, pinching Mar’s cheek.

Mar swatted his hand away with a glare, taking a deep breath and facing him properly. “Nothing important. Bad day. Don’t worry about it.”

Floyd frowned at that, tilting his head as if to say, You’re lying. Tell me what’s wrong. Then he smiled— that stupid toothy grin he always wears, squeezing Mar’s shoulder.

“I know exactly what’ll cheer you up! C’mon, follow me.”

Going to the Mostro Lounge typically wouldn’t have been a problem, in fact, Mar would’ve encouraged it. Any chance to annoy Azul makes for a good time.

Unfortunately for Mar, Floyd seemed to have different plans that day.

The two were sat in a booth across from one another, signature Mostro Lounge drinks placed in front of each of them. Mar was leaning her head onto her arms while Floyd’s arms were slung over the back of the booth, his head thrown back as he complained about how annoying all the minnows in his classes had been and how it would’ve been so much better if she had been there to quell his boredom and talk to him like usual. Mar hummed confirmations and occasionally agreed with him, but Floyd could tell her mind was somewhere else.

“Heeeey, are you even listening?” He looked at Mar rather sullenly, jutting out his lower lip in a pout.

Just as Mar opened his mouth to respond, Azul appeared, Jade standing behind him. Azul seemed as fake as always, his mouth pulled into a polite smile. Jade also gave his signature eerie grin, and Mar could tell something was up. The looks on their faces seemed too eager, too mischievous for her liking.

“Oh, hey Jade, Azul,” Floyd looked up at them, rather intrigued by their sudden presence. It didn’t look like he knew what was going on, either.

“Hello, Floyd, and Mar,” Azul began, pushing up his glasses with a smirk. Weird.

“We were just checking in. Is your date going well? Mar, are you enjoying your drink?” Azul inquired, his blue eyes peering into Mar’s soul.

“Excuse me?” Mar practically shouted, glowering at Azul. “Date?!”

“Why, is that not what they’re called? You seem rather displeased,” Azul chuckled, and Mar could tell this was deliberate.

She stood up, gripping the table harshly. “What are you getting at? We’re not together,” she looked to Floyd for confirmation, but he seemed unbothered, as if Azul’s words weren’t odd at all.

“You’re not?” Azul continued, looking even more smug, as if that was even possible. Jade stifled a laugh, which just infuriated Mar even more.

“NO! Why does everyone think that? What the hell is your problem!?” Mar closed the distance between her and Azul, her fists clenched at her sides. She would’ve grabbed him, but Azul would probably find some way to press charges.

“Chill out, pea-puffer. What’s your deal?” Mar’s sudden burst of rage seemed to confuse Floyd, like she was the one who was instigating. As if she was the one who started this.

That small question sent Mar over the edge.

“I don’t understand! Why is everyone acting like I’M the one making a big deal out of this?! We AREN’T dating!” she groaned, looking at the three merfolk in a combination of bewilderment and exasperation.

“‘Cuz you are,” Floyd pointed out, now giving Mar his own glare.

Mar promptly pushed Azul and Jade out of his way, wordlessly storming out of the lounge and slamming the doors behind her.

“She doesn’t know,” Jade remarked.

“Obviously,” Floyd sighed, laying his head on the table in defeat.

STAGE 3: BARGAINING

Mar thought it would be easy to completely avoid everyone and everything. What’s wrong with a few missed classes, work shifts, lunch periods, and club meetings?

A lot, apparently.

She had decided to make a deal with herself. I’ll avoid any situations where I have the possibility of running into Floyd.

Being in a school setting full-time did not make that very achievable. Mar had amassed several detentions with Trein, docked paychecks from Azul, concern from her clubmates, a constantly empty stomach, and a collar around her neck— courtesy of Heartslabyul’s housewarden.

“What were you thinking?! This is completely unacceptable! You have made a fool out of me as a housewarden, and now all your problems are falling onto me! Do you have any idea just how big of a deal this is!?” Riddle shouted, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa Mar sat on in the Heartslabyul lounge.

He shrugged, the look on his face only spelling out boredom, which only made Riddle angrier.

“Sorry if you’ve had to deal with my problems, but if you were in my position, I’m sure you’d be avoiding Floyd too,” Mar scratched the back of her neck, or at least the area that wasn’t constricted by the collar.

“Sorry won’t cut it! You should know better than to pull such a stunt. You will hand-write a three page apology letter to Professor Trein, and then go back to your duties as normal. The collar will be removed once you have completed these tasks,” Riddle tutted, to which Mar groaned. There’s no negotiating with Riddle.

The following morning, she returned to classes as usual, turning in a handwritten apology essay to Trein along the way. She ignores Floyd during classes and passing periods, opting to disappear into the crowd when he shows appears. Floyd continued to poke and prod at Mar, even throwing balled-up notes at her, notes that quickly began to pile up at her feet and were left unread.

By the end of the school day, Floyd is in a bad mood. Pufferfishie has never avoided him like this, and he doesn’t like it.

Floyd is finally able to confront Mar when he spots her on her way to the Pop Music Club room.

“Pufferfish,” Floyd’s voice is low and steely, sending a chill down Mar’s spine. The nickname lacks the usual enthusiasm he adds when he spots the smaller boy, and his grip on Mar’s shoulder is firm.

Mar slowly turns around to face him, a strained smile on her face. She tightly grips the guitar case straps slung over her shoulder, nervously laughing as she greets the boy in turn.

“Floyd,” he acknowledges, tilting his head in faux confusion. Floyd frowns.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Floyd states, his grip on Mar’s shoulder tightening. “Why?”

Mar sputters for a moment, looking around the hallway for an escape route. Unfortunately enough, the hallway is practically empty, and Floyd would be able to catch up to her in an instant.

“Um,” she begins, clearing her throat and doing her best to keep eye contact with the taller. Eye contact makes lying less obvious, she’d heard.

“I’ve… been busy… And not feeling great. Haven’t been talking to anyone at all, as of late,” he stammers, his heart racing.

Floyd seems unconvinced. “Busy enough to skip classes and work? Busy enough to skip club meetings? Busy enough to straight up ignore me?”

Mar shrinks under his unwavering glare, uncomfortably shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. “I’ve been dealing with my own problems."

Floyd’s glare only grows more intense, scanning Mar’s face for answers. He’s unsatisfied. He knows I’m lying, he concluded.

Floyd bared his sharp teeth, about to say something that could only be classified as threatening, when Mar’s saving grace appeared at the scene.

“Mar! You’re finally coming back to practice!” Kalim beamed, running up to the two. Mar visibly exhaled, relief flooding onto her face at the sight of her friend.

“Mhm, was heading there now. Wanna walk together?” He smiled sweetly, ignoring the way Floyd scowled at them both.

“Sure!” Kalim hooked his arm with Mar’s, looking up to Floyd in acknowledgment. “Sorry if I interrupted you guys. You should head to club practice too, Floyd,” he laughed. Whether this was an intentional save or Kalim just being himself, Mar was grateful nonetheless.

“I gotta hurry up and get to the club room. I’ll see you tomorrow, Floyd,” Mar excused himself and Kalim, quickly ushering the two away from the scene.

Floyd threw a basketball directly at Ace’s face that afternoon.

STAGE 4: DEPRESSION

Ignoring one of your closest friends is exhausting, Mar thought to himself, her head laid upon a cafeteria table dejectedly.

She did stay true to her promise, avoiding Floyd the best she could while still following her duties as a student, but everything was so boring.

Sure, she still had her dormmates and other friends, but things weren’t the same without Floyd around. Classes had grown more intolerable, the droning voices of her teachers practically putting her to sleep. She had even gotten in trouble a few times with Crewel for slacking off.

Once again, Cater had picked up on her odd behavior.

“What's up with you, Mar-Mar? You’re all sulky,” he commented, sitting down across from Mar.

Mar slowly sat up, her head resting on her arms.

“I miss Floyd,” she stated simply.

“Why don’t you just talk to him? Avoiding him isn’t gonna make you miss him any less,” Cater shook his head, tapping his chin in thought.

“I think you should just start talking to him again. Like how you used to. He’ll probably be eager to hang out with you again.”

Mar took Cater’s advice, (for once). It was helpful to hear it from someone else, despite already knowing what she should do next.

The next History of Magic period, Mar greeted Floyd as if nothing was wrong. Just like Cater had said, Floyd was happy that Mar started actually responding.

After class, Floyd cornered Mar again.

“Pufferfishie, let’s hang out!” He grinned, stepping in front of her. Mar was about to enter the mirror chamber to return to her dorm, but Floyd had thwarted her plans once again.

Avoiding him isn’t gonna make you miss him any less.

“Sure,” Mar agreed, linking her arm with Floyd as he led her to the Octavinelle mirror.

As soon as Floyd and Mar were seated at a booth with a plate of takoyaki between them, Floyd began his questions.

“Why were you avoiding me? Did something happen? Didja get in a fight? I saw you wearing one of Goldfishie’s collars. Crabby said ya looked upset when I asked him during practice,” he rambled, staring at Mar intently.

“Slow down,” Mar laughed, a sound that Floyd had been yearning to hear ever since Mar had begun her weird behavior weeks earlier.

“First off, don’t ask Ace about me, he doesn’t know shit. But to answer your questions, I was just kinda in a funk, I guess. Sorry for ignoring you and all,” she gave him a shy smile, picking at her nails nervously.

“I don’t like when you avoid me like that. I like bein’ around you, y’know? It’s boring when you’re not around,” Floyd squished Mar’s cheek.

“...Same to you,” Mar nodded back, her face beginning to heat up.

My face feels hot. Why is my heart beating so fast? She pondered, before the realization hit her like a truck.

Cater was right.

STAGE 5: ACCEPTANCE

When Mar went to ask her friends about the possibility of Floyd liking her back, they were not amused.

“Are you serious?!” Ace yelled, throwing his hands up in the air.

“I mean, probably. He hangs out with you, like, a lot,” Deuce shrugged, growing more awkward by the minute. Mar didn’t even know why she asked him.

“You weren’t already together?” Trey genuinely seemed confused.

“Do not ask me questions that do not pertain to your studies or my housewarden responsibilities,” Riddle scolded, his face reddened just by the name drop of Floyd.

All Cater had chosen to say was “I told you so.” What an asshole.

After Mar had gotten the confirmation she needed, she decided to go all in.

Floyd and Mar were basically inseparable. If one was around, the other was sure to be nearby. During the passing period, Floyd would squeeze Mar for so long to the point she would almost be late to her next class.

It was like there was some unspoken agreement between them to become even more insufferable. Mar was content with how things were and she assumed Floyd was too, until he confronted her once again, this time after club practice.

He practically appeared out of nowhere, the sudden appearance making Mar jump.

“I love you, Pufferfishie,” was all he said, smiling widely with his sharp teeth on display.

It wasn't that Mar didn’t feel the same, rather, it was the opposite of that. But the spontaneous confession had caught Mar off guard, to the point she didn’t respond for several seconds.

Floyd frowned, poking her shoulder. “Well? Are you gonna answer me, or not?” He waited expectantly, hand on his hip.

Mar’s face felt like it was on fire. She was going to die, and the last thing she would see was Floyd’s face.

Mar still stood there like an idiot, eyes wide and mouth hanging open for another minute until Floyd poked her again.

“I… umm… uhhh… h-hold on. Gimme a sec,” she stammered out, covering her face with her hands.

Eventually she spoke up, her voice hardly above a whisper.

“I love you, too.”

Floyd giggled, pulling Mar into his chest for a squeeze. He spun her around a few times before setting her down and cupping her face with his hands.

“Great! Now, let’s kiss.”

When Mar finally made it back to her dorm, two hours past curfew, both Riddle and Cater were waiting in the lounge for her.

After being subsequently collared and yelled at, Cater slung his arm around Mar’s shoulders, walking with her back to their respective dorm rooms.

“Was I right, or was I right?”

“Die.”

#marshieart🐡#yumeship #floyd leech #twisted wonderland #twst oc #twst #twst yume #self ship #oc x canon

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year ago

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I listened to Bridget Christie’s Mortal yesterday (not just because I’ve been listening a lot of Stewart Lee lately and you shouldn’t pick sides in a breakup – I’ve had Mortal in my stuff “to listen to” folder for a while anyway, anyway, sorry for bringing up Stewart Lee in a post about Bridget Christie). It was really, really good.

I’d heard her previous Radio 4 shows last year – Mind the Gap and Utopia, and I’d enjoyed them. They were pretty much just her stand-up shows cut up into shorter episodes, with some extra stuff added around it to make it more like a radio show, but not much of that. And they were good, because he stand-up is very good. It was a way for me to hear a lot of her material that I wouldn’t otherwise hear, so they definitely served a positive purpose, since it was good material and I’m glad I got to hear it. A bit of it was stuff I’ve heard elsewhere – her short spots on the Alternative Comedy Experience TV show, her one DVD (Stand Up for Her, very much recommended), a few other little things. But a lot of it has not been recorded anywhere else (as far as I know), it’s funny, it’s worth listening to for that reason.

But to be honest, I’d rather listen to most of that material in the form of a stand-up show than a radio show, just because stuff that’s written as a stand-up show is going to work better as one of those than when it’s been cut up for a radio format. So her older radio shows were good, as a way to hear her material, but there was nothing particularly radio show-like about them.

Mortal, from 2021, was clearly written to be a radio show. It was cut into four pieces that each had a theme, and each fed into the larger overarching theme, and had some recurring characters and motifs and storylines. It’s not fiction – it’s still basically a vehicle for Bridget Christie’s ruminations. But it coheres in the radio format better than the older ones. In addition to still having her say a lot of interesting and funny stuff. I’m not sure if everything from Mortal would work as well in a live stand-up show, but it works great in a Radio 4 mini-series.

It’s only four episodes, and it packs a lot into those. It makes you think, it subverts expectations at times, it asks a lot of questions and provides an array of potential answers. It makes you laugh in unexpected places, as well as some expected ones. It’s engaging, the time goes fast.

I found some of the stuff discussing the afterlife particularly interesting. Because I know Bridget Christie is or at least was religious, and my view on religious people who are also decent human beings is basically “I respect their beliefs because that’s what we have to do to live in a civilized and decent society and because it’s important to them and respecting other people matters – but it doesn’t just seem fine that they’re all under a mass delusion. It seems a bit weird that we’ve ended up in a world where we have to all respect mass delusion, even though we do have to respect it. It’s a grudging respect on my part, I know that.

I hope I don’t sound too much like an edgy teenager by saying this. I know it’s more complicated than just “those people are stupid”. I have some understanding of it; I used to believe in God, very deeply. Too deeply, enough so it mixed with some of my OCD-like traits (I add the suffix “-like” because I’ve been told as an adult that my childhood OCD diagnosis was incorrect and all those traits are actually the result of autism and not OCD, but the label doesn’t really matter when the traits look the same) and fucked up my brain pretty badly (if your brain is already saying your family will die if you don’t think the right thoughts, going to church every day and learning that God will kill your family if you don’t worship him hard enough is going to exacerbate that). I remember what it was like to believe all that stuff, I remember that it was often scary, but in other ways was deeply comforting and reassuring and secure and all kinds of other good things.

Anyway, the point is that I’m interested, these days, in how people who believe in religious teachings justify and understand it. And Bridget Christie talks honestly in this radio show about complicated things related to life as a religious person, like doubts, questioning your faith, explaining the reasons why you choose to believe. I found it fascinating to hear that from the perspective of someone who’s so smart and introspective and insightful.

And to be clear, it wasn’t all that. There was still humour in it. There was humour in all of it. There were good jokes and fun characters. Everything was woven together nicely the way Radio 4 should be. A lot of it was recorded during lockdown, so there’s stuff about that. But it’s not a main focus, more just background noise. A vague hand-waving explanation for why she was in the strange mental state that created all these thoughts.

Anyway, I recommend it if you want to hear a good radio series. I recommend Minds the Gap and Utopia if you want to hear good stand-up, cut up into separate pieces. Like Mark Watson's radio shows, but with more veneration of the Titans of feminist discourse.

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memento-morri-writes · 2 years ago

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Distraction! I would love to hear about your dnd characters?

Hi nonny!! Sorry I didn't answer this last night. I found out things were Okay-ish, and I went right to sleep. I also really wanted to give you a complete and through answer on this, because dnd is a hyperfixation/special interest of mine at the moment, and I want to do my characters justice. Anyways, let's get into it!

Here's a pic of my dnd character masterlist in Notion.

Each character has their own page, which follows the same general format as the character pages from this post with a few alterations. Really the only part that changed is the top part (4th pic on that post), which now looks like this:

Info about the actual character under the cut, cause this is going to get long!!!

First up we have Laverna. (pic above) She's a tiefling rogue (thief subclass) and was the first dnd character I ever came up with. I've been holding on to her character idea for almost 2 years now, though her background and concept has changed a bit since then. They were the child of a wealthy merchant family, none of whom were tieflings. (Pesky hellish heritage popping up at random times in the bloodline...) Their family treated her like shit, and they ended up breaking ties and changing her name when she left. Now she's a successful thief who steals from merchants and nobles in her home city. Also, she's a stabby rogue, not a shooty one. (All rogues are either shooty or stabby. It's just a fact.)

Next we have Zenara, who goes almost exclusively by Zen. They’re a (purple) tiefling warlock (The Fiend subclass, Pact of the Chain).

They are a direct result of the early phases of my Critical Role hyperfixation. If you’re familiar with CR, especially Campaign 2, then you might be able to figure out the weird mix of character personalities, backstories, and appearances that resulted in Zen. However, there’s also a healthy amount of my own nonsense in the mix. As for backstory, Zen grew up in a small town named Hunter’s Crossing with their parents and no other siblings. When they were about 17, raiders came and attacked their village. Everyone was either killed or captured, and Zen should have suffered the same fate. Except that they didn’t. They dreamed of a terrifying fiery entity who told them that as long as they were useful they wouldn’t die yet. They woke up with powers they didn’t understand and the fear of their patron taking control of their body for its own uses. Bonus fact, since they’re a Pact of the Chain warlock, they get to have a familiar, and that familiar can be an imp. So, they have an imp familiar who just showed up. But of course that would attract a lot of attention, so the familiar is always polymorphed into a raven, with red eyes, of course. The raven/imp is yet unnamed, and I need to come up with one soon, ideally before our next session.

Now we have Alarion, who I actually just totally retrofitted his character. He was originally supposed to be a sorcerer, but I realized that that didn’t really fit his character (plus I have another sorcerer concept), so now he’s a half-drow ranger.

He was found, abandoned in the wood, by his adoptive parent who is a druid who lives in the woods a few miles from a village at the base of the mountains. In those mountains is a passage to the Underdark, and sometimes creatures from there escape into the forests around the mountains. Alarion is the one who hunts them down and either kills them or returns them to the underdark. Being half-drow, he gets weird looks from the villagers, but they at least respect his involvement in keeping the village safe. He has a horse who he’s very close with, and he never goes anywhere without his longbow, a dagger in his belt, and his trusty cloak. Fun Fact: I’m shocked I didn’t have a ranger character until earlier this week when I changed his class and background, seeing as I was completely obsessed with the Ranger’s Apprentice series as a kid. In fact, I still have all 12 books on my bookshelf at home.

Next up we have Avra. She’s a Shadar-Kai rogue (assassin subclass). They aren’t currently part of a campaign, but I did get to use her for a oneshot where she was at level 12! She kicked ass with a rapier of wounding. (while she is a stabby rogue, she does have a hand crossbow to use if needed…)

Avra used to be a member of an assassin’s guild, where she served for 10 years. However, recently one of her missions went wrong, and she was captured and killed. Yes, killed. She woke up in the middle of the woods, half-buried. Since then she’s been on a search for answers regarding her return to “life”, as well as a potential betrayal by a member of the guild she belonged to at the time.

Next up (and the last of my strongly developed characters) we have Asra. They are a human fighter (champion subclass) who I am using in my campaign at my university.

Asra was an orphan who grew up in a city near the coast. Upon turning 18, she moved to the kingdom’s capital in search of new opportunities. Once there she was recruited to be essentially a bodyguard for a secretive organization. She was kept in the dark about the group’s motivations and goals, so she did not know that the group was a cult to the god of war and tyranny, who were trying to provoke war between two kingdoms. She had a girlfriend who was also a member of the “army”. At one point the cult decided to attack some important buildings, but failed. Asra’s girlfriend was killed, and most of the cultists were captured. They fled across the ocean to another country and another city, where they have been pit fighting, taking some of the betting pool as winnings.

My most recently-developed character, who also happens to be one of my favorites, is named Rook, and is a half-elven Swashbuckler Rouge.

He’s the bastard son of a nobleman who ran away after his family threatened to disown him for his improper behavior. He joined the crew of a pirate ship and excelled at it. He was named first mate at the age of 22, which made a lot of the older crewmembers jealous, so they plotted against Rook, drugged him and sold him to another pirate captain who kept Rook as a slave for 2 year until he escaped, burning the ship to the ground in the process. Needless to say the captain is not pleased. He’s an excellent duelist and exceptionally skilled with a rapier. He’s self-confident to the point of arrogance, something that get him in trouble a lot. And he loves cats. Oh, and he’s literally the definition of Chaotic Bisexual, lmao.

Semi-developed Characters:

She’s not well developed at all, but I also have an aasimar scourge oath of vengeance paladin named Asola Riava Ashmark (or Sola for short). She’s not currently part of a campaign, especially since I haven’t decided on a backstory or anything for her, but I’m excited to get a chance to use her someday!

I don’t know a whole lot (or really anything) about her backstory, other than the fact that she is trying to avenge the death(s) of someone (or multiple someones) she cared about.

The next character, who is more developed than Sola (but not by too much) is Elira, also known as Ellie. She’s a high elf abjuration wizard, who I love very much.

She’s rather naive, but incredibly smart and very academically talented. She’s used to being the best and definitely going through some Gifted Kid Burnout. Also way too pure for this world and when she finally has to kill someone, she’s going to have a very rough time. Oh, and she’s autistic and has a cat familiar.

My next semi-developed character is Commander Saber, who goes by Sabe. He’s a warforged fighter (battle master subclass).

[insert pic when it’s done]

Sabe was made for the military, made for battle. But following his “escape” from the military with the assistance of his friend, a humanoid artificer, Sabe found himself without purpose. So now he’s trying to find one. One that is entirely his own, not that of higher powers. He’s tired of being a piece on the game board.

My last semi-developed character is as of yet unnamed. They’re a half-elven (wood elf) college of glamour bard.

They wandered out of the woods near a small town about a year ago, with no memories. All they had with them were their clothes and a well-made flute. Though they remember nothing of their life before or during the woods, they have a talent for glamour and illusions, and the songs they know are haunting and utterly alien to the human ear. People are often disturbed by their unnaturally bright green eyes and “eerie” presence. (They have the Feylost background.) Also, they’re autistic. <3

That’s all the fully developed characters but I also have the following ideas:

an unnamed tiefling bard (college of swords) with the charlatan background. (They’re a red tiefling.)

a fire-based sorcerer named Orion. (maybe a custom subclass?? idk for sure)

a cleric to a death god who has zero issues with killing bad guys because “either I kill them now or they die of natural causes in 10 years. either way my god is happy.”

a half-orc barbarian

a black Tabaxi monk (shadow subclass)

an older dwarven artificer armorer

a necromancer

a blood mage (custom wizard subclass)

a changeling thief rogue

Wow, you made it through my mega infodump! If you made it this far, thank you so much for listening!! this literally took me an hour to do, adjskajdkas.

#Anonymous #morrigan replies #morrigan plays dnd #dnd #my ocs #dnd characters

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yuttikkele · 1 year ago

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sorry I’ve had to wait until I have enough time to respond to this post lol

also sorry I keep bringing mcyt comparisons in I know you don’t get the references, my brain just won’t stop talking about them ;0;

i can handle a lil bit of angst if it means viewing someone’s hard work and care of OCs so if you wish to show them off I am all for it :D and also, I like both fan and original original characters, I don’t really separate them I sorta just see them as the same thing

sorry i don’t know anything about vampire knight BUT it is good to know you have a purpose for all that suffering

and ah, an over-analyzer, i see. we need people like you because i barely overanalyze. Those are two very cool story ideas :00 alas I do not have a solution for you on that whole genre thing either. And yeah the relating to a character you like negatively makes sense! It’s like an anti-projection. Or, just negative projection probably I don’t think there’s anything anti about it I just wanted to use the word anti.

ye the whole soulmates just to be soulmates thing makes sense. there’s a time and place for unfleshedout stories, and actual thought out ones!!

as for homestuck, if you ever want to read it, do NOT read it on the official site, reading the unofficial collections (which you do have to download) is way better (I didn’t do that but also I didn’t know because I refused to look at the fandom until I was finished reading). yeah it does span across a couple different mediums, mostly it’s just comic but there are some videos and games, so if that’s not for you, it’s not for you. BUT homestuck is really more about the experience of reading rather than the actual story (I know I mentioned the moral of the story but that is simply just a different thing from the story) since i don’t think you’d get the story no matter how it’s formatted. even if it was purely “chronological.” It has some pretty epic worldbuilding that is barely explained tho, but it’s mostly comedy. Anyways yeah, mostly an experience.

And SMPs are just like watching any gaming content dw. skephalo is referring to the friendship of Skeppy and Badboyhalo! They met when Skeppy was trying to troll Bad for a video, and they have been best friends ever since! which to me sounds like a real “platonic soulmates” thing which is why I mentioned them lol.

ye I knew Dave Strider (the one in red and wearing sunglasses with the older brother) the most out of all the characters before reading (COUGH COUGH it’s because of TommyInnit)

also you can’t just mention and epic namlessshipping comic and not give the link :00

Maybe I haven’t seen many ACTUAL best friends to lovers stories where they actually end up together in the end, because when I think of friends to lovers, the third guy is usually never an issue. Yeah it’s probably because i’m thinking about ships I have, and let me tell you, not a ONE of those ships is canon soooooo. i Will instead tell you what my mind goes to when i think of friends to lovers. right, so it’s these two people, and they like each other, but they don’t know that they like each other, and they put each other over their “actual” love interest all the time, and people think they’re dating, but they’re like “whaaaaat nooooo” and when they find out that their feelings aren’t just admiration THEN we go into the weird pining stuff.

Or like, there just doesn’t have to be a love triangle at all. Or really any conflict. Just the friends realizing they more than friends.

but for the love triangle “one is obviously not an option” thing, yeah man I HATE that. Like what do you think? I’m being fooled by this? I’ll have you know, I’m not enjoying it either like you would watching the protag fight a fight they’re obviously gonna win. I am getting second hand embarrassment. And I just have the perfect example because I’m rewatching it right now and I KNOW it’s gonna happen soon and I am dreading it (and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet also sorry if you don’t know svtfoe) and it is starco (star x Marco). They made Star date Tom and like, woah dude I’m TOTALLY gonna believe Star’s gonna stay with her EX BOYFRIEND as endgame. And then they’re actually a good pair??? But you still KNOW it’s not gonna happen. Like yeah guys this will TOTALLY develop these characters as people more and it WONT make us seem like we’re ripping up a PERFECTLY GOOD relationship at all!! And Tom and Marco actually have chemistry going on and we KNOW star and Marco like each other and I’m pretty sure everyone in the fandom would’ve rathered the endgame be them all dating each other. On another note, Bro starco could be SO much better than it is, but it was just handled so poorly. It’s still a Good ship it’s just.. missed potential. Also I genuinely don’t think Star would be as jealous as she is I KNOW she’s not my character, but I FEEL it.

the one time I’ll let the love triangle short term dating thing go is with miraculous because 1. it was only like one episode where they were dating other people, so it’s bearable. 2. Kagami was just sorta like “let’s date” and Adrien was just like “ok might as well try!” since who he was pining for had rejected him oh so many times. 3. Marinette was just trying to have a successful love life, and she saw adrien wasn’t working, and that Luka took an interest in her so “ok might as well try!” And they both saw that didn’t work almost immediately. It was more of a test thing for both of them instead of an “IM MOVING ON” obvious lie.

and yeah, I say if a polycule can solve a love triangle: it’s not a good love triangle. It’s one of those fake flimsy ones. Unless, ofc, bringing out the cheesy rule, you want it to be cheesy.

the only ship I know of a successful best friends to rivals/enemies to lovers is catradora, and sadly I have not been able to watch all of spop yet. But it sounds like I would really REALLY like that ship. Especially since there’s a catgirl involved.

also yes i agree rivals does not equal enemies, but just to be clear, I put the two together because I like both of those tropes lol. And above in the castradora statement, i don’t know if they count as rivals or enemies really… like when you’re on opposing sides, but you’re not the main villain? Idk. I feel like they’re more rivals.

and honestly I guess I’ve SUBCONSCIOUSLY thought about the bully ≠ rival thing, but like not consciously of my own accord so now I AM thinking about it. Like marinette and Chloe. obviously Chloe bullies marinette, but marinette stands her ground and sorta rivals her in that way? But marinette wasn’t like that pre-miraculous so.. like would that rivalry even still count if it’s based off a bullied childhood? Yk what I’m also gonna bring up the forbidden bnha and bakudeku because they have the same thing goin on. Deku was obviously bullied by Bakugou, but once Deku stands up for himself they’re.. rivals?? Maybe?? I think that’s how it works, idk Imma see your opinion on it 😭😭

Blue does bully red, but I think we can assume red can hold his own seeing as he did a number on Blue. And also it’s not much of a bully thing since they were childhood friends then suddenly blue was like “I’m gonna be mean to you now” which really just sounds like blue has a crush. I gotta clarify that I’m NOT saying all kids that are mean to other people have crushes because I HATE when people say that, but, yk sometimes when kids get crushes they ARE mean; it happens.

that former friend of yours sounds.. very confusing XD hopefully now she knows how to make a more fulfilling ship happen??

It's weird to me people would count both game reguri and manga reguri as the same ship but not palletshipping. I would argue game and manga reguri are as different from each other as either are to palletshipping because the characters' personalities and backstories are totally different. Hell, manga reguri doesn't even have the childhood friends plot point shared between game reguri and palletshipping, so the dynamic's completely different. I feel like they're all different ships but counterparts to each other.

i thought that the fandom had already come to a consensus, and i was just unaware, but i see now that i have struck up a whole Discussion.

Btw anon I agree with you completely! Like I said in the og post, I thought palletshipping would fall under reguri since it’s another counterpart of the ship. Originalshipping and namelessshipping ARE just as different as they are from palletshipping, you’re right!

alas, what i am trying to figure out is if a majority of people classify palletshipping as reguri or not…

#i have not heard that but maybe i will try to listen to it when i respond to this post #i write the response tags first then go in for the big body text lol #ack #I SAVED THIS IN MY DRAFTS TO RESPOND LATER AND I CANT REMEMBER WHAT THE SONG NAME IS AND I DONT FEEL LIKE GOING BACK IM SORRY #I WILL NOT BE LISTENING TO THE SONG WHILE RESPONDING TO THIS POST

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evilknife · 3 years ago

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bdsp doodle… featuring my budew fiorello he’s an intelligent boy! a handsome boy! a boy of many talents! and he loves to pose for photos

#this did modest numbers when i posted on twitter so i felt empowered to also post on this acc…..#thought about cleaning this up before posting here but no.. this is fine #pokemon #pokemon bdsp #trainer dawn #trainer hikari #my art #and also sorry if this post ends up looking weird or being formatted weird i’m posting from mobile #budew #btw i found shiny budew as a random encounter in PLA me n fiorello r connected thru time and space

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mustachrryluvr · 2 years ago

Text

Reward

Word Count: 5.0k

Warnings: smut, oral (m and f receiving), spanking, Daddy kink, slight degradation, praise

a/n: this is my first one shot so.. plz let me know what you think! (also i like never post on here so if this is all formatted weird… i’m sorry! i’m learning!)

--------------------

“Can I please have my reward now, then? I just want to please you. Make you feel good….You make me so happy, bunny,” she said as she sat back on her knees in front of him with the sweetest look of adoration adorning her soft facial features…

The one where Y/N is just absolutely horny for MSG Night 6 Harry…

— — — — —

Harry had just finished the sixth night of his scheduled 15 night residency at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Y/N hadn’t tagged along to this show because, as much as she would prefer to be able to give her unwavering attention and time to him all the time, she had some work she needed to focus on finishing before the day ended. She had gotten behind on some things at work since she had been following Harry to all his shows, so she needed to take a day to force herself to get things done that she had been putting off. Being able to do her job remotely was a blessing and a curse.

Y/N loved being able to work while simultaneously being able to travel the world with Harry, but she definitely got caught up in all the fun and wouldn’t care much about her responsibilities.

Harry had noticed that Y/N hadn’t been putting too much effort into getting her projects done for work, so he told her if she stayed home from the concert tonight to work (since there would be plenty more to attend), then he would reward her with a surprise after. NYC was one of Y/N’s favorite cities in the world. She had gotten to see a lot of places while traveling with Harry, but there had always been something about NYC that made her feel most herself.

The first time they ever visited the city together, Harry couldn’t get over the amount of happiness that radiated off of Y/N. He had never seen her more at peace, it was such a pure form of happiness, watching her walk around the city with a soft smile and big eyes.

So, knowing she would be a good girl and spend her day finishing up her work, Harry had already planned out the reward he was going to surprise Y/N with. One of the first things they had done together in the city was visit the One World Observatory deck. Y/N had visited New York once before and that was her most favorite place she had visited, so she was absolutely appalled when she learned Harry had never been in it.

“You’re kidding…right?”

“Why would I have a reason to lie to you about that?” Harry laughed. Simply gauging by the face Y/N was making, you would’ve thought Harry had just told her that he killed puppies in his spare time, not that he hadn’t been up on the One World Observatory deck.

“Harry. I promise. You have NOT experienced New York until you see it from there.”

“I’ve been up in the Empire State Building, it can’t be that much different of an experience, Y/N.”

“God, you have no idea! We are going. Today. No arguments about it,” she said with a stern look on her face, pointing at him (in all reality, she just looked like an angry kitten to Harry. Still adorable).

She had been right. He hadn’t experienced New York in that light until they made it to the highest point of the tower and looked out onto the city below. The view was beautiful, but being able to experience it with Y/N made all the difference for him.

The surprise he had planned for her was to go back to the observatory. They hadn’t gone back since that first trip, but he knew Y/N missed the feeling she got when she was above the city, and he missed the feeling he got when he saw her so happy. It was a special kind of happiness, and he dreamt of seeing her live that blissfully all the time.

Since Harry just finished up with a show and it was getting late in the night, he planned to take Y/N for her surprise tomorrow morning. He didn’t have a show for the next few days, so he figured they could take some time retracing the first steps they had ever taken in New York together without any strict tour schedule to follow.

However, when he returned to the hotel room, he quickly learned that Y/N expected her reward right then and there.

“Y/N? Lovie?”

As Harry made his way through the threshold of their hotel suite, he had expected to see Y/N curled up on the couch watching TV as she usually is at this time of night. Even if she was still working on her project, he still assumed she would be doing so in the living area as she had been when he left.

With a confused look on his face, he made his way to their bedroom. Since she wasn’t in the living room, he thought, maybe she tired herself out and will be snuggled up in bed. The thought made him smile softly. The simple idea of coming home to her in a warm bed relaxed his whole being. He couldn’t wait to get in there and cuddle his girl to sleep.

When he opened the door, he was confused again. This time his eyes shot up in surprise to find Y/N in the state she was… On the floor, naked, on her knees, hands in her lap, with a soft adoring look on her face.

Softly, he sat his bag down on the floor, closed the door behind him, and walked over to where Y/N was, joining her on the floor in front of her.

“What are you doing on the floor, bug?” Harry quietly asked, not wanting to startle her by being too loud. He brought his hand up and ever so gently touch her cheek which she immediately leaned into.

“Just waiting for you, H,” she responded just as quietly as him, still looking up at him with what he could tell was all the love in her heart. Now that he was this close to her, he could tell her eyes looked a little far away. Y/N wasn’t fully in subspace, but she definitely wasn’t in her normal headspace.

“Well,” he sighed, “I’m here now. Why don’t we get you off the floor now that I’m here? Then we can get all cozy in bed, how does that sound, love?” he said, still gently cradling her face, brushing his thumb along her cheek, trying to slowly bring her out of the floaty headspace she was in.

Y/N wasn’t usually one to enter any form of subspace without being provoked by him, so he just wanted to make sure she was safe since she had gotten this way without him there.

As he finished his sentence, Y/N’s face dropped into a pout.

“No, bunny! I’ve been a good girl like you told me to be and got all my work done,” she said quickly, with a sense of urgency in her voice. “You said if I was good, I would get a reward, right?” She tightly and hurriedly grabbed onto the arm that he had brought up to her cheek, almost as if she was afraid he would break away from her and leave.

She started to get up from her place on the floor in front of him, “I promise you I got everything done, I was such a good girl for you. Let me get my computer and I’ll sho-”

“Lovie, lovie,” Harry said, cutting her off and grabbing her cheeks with both his hands to keep her still. “I trust you, I swear I do. I know you were a good girl.”

“You do?” she asked with genuine concern.

“Of course I do,” he said with a soft smile. “You’re always such a good girl for me, that's why I already had your reward all planned out before I even brought the idea up to you,” he said gently, hoping to calm her brain back down and keep it from going into panic mode.

“Can I please have my reward now, then? I just want to please you,” she contently sighed. “Make you feel good….You make me so happy, bunny,” she said as she sat back on her knees in front of him with the sweetest look of adoration adorning her soft facial features, a great contrast to the worry she was showing on her face just mere moments ago.

Harry wasn’t stupid. He could tell that the type of reward she had been expecting wasn’t as innocent as the one he actually had planned. He wasn’t going to take advantage of her being unaware of what the real reward was and give her the reward she thinks he was about to give her. So he chose to be honest with her, and allow her to make the decisions about how the rest of their night would play out.

“Can I be honest with you, bug?”

“Always,” she responded, with a curious look in her eye.

He loved how no matter what headspace she was in, she always gave him her most undivided attention.

“The reward I have planned for you is actually something that we have to do tomorrow. It’s a surprise, but I planned for us to go somewhere. It isn’t something we can do tonight, though,” he tried to keep his explanation as simple as possible in hopes of not giving too much away about what they could possibly be doing tomorrow.

Her whole being deflated following his words.

“So, I can’t make you feel good tonight? Since that wasn’t what you planned?”

“That isn’t something I had planned, but if that’s something you still want to do tonight, then we can,” he stated, trying to make it clear to her that she was in complete control of the situation. He removed his hands from her cheeks and sat them in her lap with hers. Her hands immediately moving to play with his fingers.

She looked down at their conjoined hands as she spoke, “I think I would like that.”

He moved one hand in order to gently grasp her face and tilt it up so he could see her eyes. “You think, or you know? I need you to be sure, Y/N. Whatever you want to do, we will.”

She firmly nodded her head and smiled, “I know that I would like that. I’ve missed you today.”

He smiled back at her, “I’ve missed you too.” He paused. “Would it be okay if I made you feel good tonight, too, love?” He wanted her full consent before they moved forward, considering she had only expressed how she wanted to make him feel good.

Y/N was very much a giver when it came to their sex life. She worshiped every inch of his body with absolutely no shame, she loved every piece of him so completely. Sometimes there were days when she wouldn’t want to be touched, but she would beg and beg to be able to touch him in any way. As long as Harry was satisfied, so was she. So, Harry just wanted to see what exactly she was feeling today.

“That would definitely be okay, bun,” she responded confidently, but with a contrasting shy smile appearing on her face after the words had slipped out.

He leaned forward and nipped at her bottom lip which made her giggle, and in turn, made him laugh and smile even harder.

“Well, why don’t I get you off this uncomfortable floor since we have a perfectly good bed to take advantage of, hmm?” he said, already moving to stand and hooking his arms under hers to pick her up with him.

He stood with his arms wrapped around her, and then carefully placed her on the edge of their bed. He stayed standing in front of her, hands placed on the bed next to her thighs as he looked at her with an excited look in his eyes. She peered back into him with equal excitement and curiosity for what was to come.

He chucked, dropped his head forward, and shook it before gazing back at her face. “What got you all worked up tonight, my love? All floaty without me even being here?” He was genuinely curious about what had brought this on for her, he couldn’t imagine it was just completely random.

A blush rushed up through Y/N’s cheeks as she moved her stare from his intense eyes down to her less interesting hands that were laid in her lap. “I just…I saw some photos and videos of the show tonight…” She shyly glanced back up at him. With a small nod of encouragement to continue talking to him, Y/N continued, “Your outfit looked really pretty. Made you look extra extra pretty tonight.” She had focused her eyes on his t-shirt covered chest that was before her, thinking back to how it looked with only that denim vest to give his body any form of coverage.

Harry stood up from his leaned position over her, letting his hand rest on his hips. “You thought I looked pretty tonight, love?” he asked, testing to see if she would remember to use her words. He was slowly but surely allowing himself to enter his dominant headspace. Y/N didn’t seem to be in any rush, so he wanted to take his time and work his way up to complete dominance so he wouldn’t make her feel small or inferior. After all, no matter how dominant he portrayed himself to be, Y/N knew that she was the one with complete control of any situation they found themselves in.

To his surprise, she accompanied her excited nod and spoke up, “Always, H. You always are pretty…but that outfit tonight just enhanced you in a way I’d never seen before.”

With a smirk on his face and his eyebrows slightly raised, he couldn’t help but feel proud of how his girl didn’t hesitate to use her words and told him what she was thinking. It had taken some time to get there, Y/N used to be very shy when it came to their intimate moments (and sometimes still is), but they had worked really hard to try and overcome that in order to have complete openness and to feel safe with one another.

“Thank you for using your words to tell me that, angel. I’m proud of you,” he praised, wanting her to know that her speaking up didn’t go unnoticed.

“Now, can you tell me what it was about the outfit that made me so pretty?”

Y/A paused before answering, taking a look up and down Harry’s body. “Can I show you instead?” she asked, reaching her hounds out to lightly grasp the bottom of his t-shirt.

Taking her hint, Harry removed his shirt and threw it on the floor next to him before responding, “You can do whatever you would like to do, love.”

Since he was still standing tall in front of her as she sat on the bed, Y/N’s face was even with the butterfly tattoo that adorned his torso above his belly button. Leaning forward she placed a soft, gentle kiss on his skin, watching as the goosebumps scattered across his skin. Keeping her face near his body, she tilted her head slightly to look up at him. “That vest put all the attention right…here,” she said as she traced one of her fingers from his collar bone down to where she had placed a kiss right above his belly button. “It just all reminded me how much I adore you, just want to make you happy,” she said in a sultry tone looking back up into his eyes before she lowered her head to place a kiss below his belly button.

Harry’s mouth parted at her words and her actions, slowing his breathing as his heart rate picked up. He brings a hand up to the back of Y/N’s head and keeps her close to the skin of his torso.

“You always make me happy.”

“Maybe so, but let me make you happier… let me make you feel good, Daddy,” she said with a slight smirk and a look in her eye, telling him that she was fully immersed in the situation and was ready to pick up the pace.

Harry closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath before looking back at her, “And how would you like to do that, baby, hmm? Got anything specific ideas floating around in this head of yours?” he asked as he bent down to place a kiss on the top of her forehead and placed his hand cradled under her jaw.

Instead of responding right away, Y/N reached her hands up to the waistband of Harry’s sweatpants in a silent plea to take them off. He nodded, “Go ahead, love, do whatever you would like to me.”

With that, she swiftly removed Harry’s sweats and underwear and discarded them with his shirt.

Harry grabbed his shaft and gave himself a few pumps to ensure he was rock solid.

“Where would you like me, love? I know you’re dying for a taste,” he said, looking down at her. Her gaze was locked on his cock, it was taking everything in her to keep herself from pouncing on him. With a brief glance at his face, she asked, “Would you be okay lying on the bed? Keep us both comfy, spent too much time on the floor already.” She giggled as she finished speaking, just now noticing that her knees were actually really red from the time she had spent on the floor waiting for Harry. “Of course that's okay,” Harry said, moving to climb onto the bed.

Harry sat up with the headboard as Y/N crawled her way to sit in between his legs. Without even thinking, she bent over to press a soft kiss to the shaft of Harry’s cock.

“Eh eh eh, did you ask if you could touch?” Harry asked, with an eyebrow raised as he pulled Y/N back from his body.

She pouted and shook her head, “No, I’m sorry. I-I just got excited.” She paused, “Can I please touch you now, Daddy?”

“That’s my precious, good girl,” he responded, “It’s okay to be excited, go ahead.” He leaned back on the pillows he propped up against the headboard behind him and waited to see what she had in store for him today. Some days Y/N is soft and slow with him, but other days she goes right in for it. So, Harry was always excited to see what path she chose as he was going to be very happy with either option.

As Y/N gently wrapped her hand around him, he thought she was taking the soft and slow route and relaxed his body into the bed and closed his eyes, waiting to enjoy his time with his girl softly sucking on him. But when Y/N licked a long, wet stripe up the side of his cock, roughly spitting on the tip, and then taking him in her wet mouth, he knew soft and slow was out of the equation.

The sudden feeling cause Harry to let out a guttural moan, “F-fuuuuck, Y/N.” He panted, screwing his eyes shut as she hummed around him, adding to the pleasure coursing through him.

He opened his eyes the little he could and about came the second he saw Y/N’s face. She had her eyes closed, bobbing her head up and down his cock, continuously swirling her tongue around the tip. She was absolutely devouring him. Hungry for him as if this would be her last meal ever.

Focusing on his breathing in order to keep himself from coming too quickly, Harry moved one of his hands to pull Y/N’s hair from her face so he could have a better view of how good his girl was being to him.

“So so good for me, angel. Al-always so good,” he panted out. “Gonna come so hard down that tiny little throat of yours.” Y/N moaned around him at his words. “Hmmmmm,” he hummed out. “You like that, huh? You’re just a little cockslut for Daddy, fuck.. that’s all you ar- shit sh-shit SHIT!” he stammered out as Y/N reached up to play with his balls.

She lifted her head up from his cock, making eye contact with him while spit stringed from her mouth. She was panting, catching her breath as she continued to play with his balls in her hand. Harry looked back at her with his jaw slacked and eyes heavy. She giggled at the state he was in as she moved her hand back from his balls to his shaft, as her other hand softly stoked up his leg trying to ground him a little. “Tastes so good, Daddy. I love you like this so much,” she hummed.

“I love how easily you get me like this love,” he responded while throwing his head back as she continued to stroke up and down his cock with her hand.

Once she felt like she had caught her breath enough, she ducked down and brought her lips to suction around his balls.

“FUUUCK!” Harry screams out in a moan. She popped her mouth off of him, noticing that he was on the edge of an orgasm and desperately wanted to make sure he did so in her mouth.

“Please Daddy, give me all of it. I want your come dripping down my throat so bad,” she whined before she replaced her hand that was gliding up and down his cock with her mouth. She pushed her head as far down as she could, feeling her nose brush against the sparse hairs at the base of his cock.

“Just like that,” Harry rushed out, lightly adding some pressure to the back of her head to feel her throat contract around him just a bit more. “God, Y/N. You’re so good for Daddy…sh-shit fuck I’m coming bab-Fuck!” he yelled and squeezed his eyes shut as he felt his orgasm rush over him.

Y/N hummed in satisfaction around his cock as she felt his come shoot in ribbons down her throat. Greedily, she kept sucking, trying to milk every last drop out of Harry.

“Babe, baby, fuck,” Harry lazily spoke, trying to get Y/N’s attention as he was becoming too sensitive for her to keep sucking on him. As he lifted her head off of him, she whined in protest and pouted towards him. “Too much, baby. I love the way you love on me, but just a bit sensitive right now,” Harry said as he tried to catch his breath, feeling a wave of calmness crash over his whole body.

As much as Y/N wished to keep sucking on Harry, she never wanted to hurt him. She would keep his cock safe in her mouth all day if he would let her.

As Harry continued to catch his breath, Y/N leaned up and planted a gentle kiss to his parted lips. Still panting, Harry suddenly slid down to be lying completely flat on the bed and grasped Y/N’s hips to bring her center directly above his head.

A squeal and a giggle emerged from her by the sudden movements, but quickly settled in her place above him gripping on to the headboard in front of her.

Harry let out a deep groan at the sight of her center in front of him. “This fucking pussy is all mine, right?” he asked, using one hand to hold onto her hip and the other to give a harsh slap to her ass. She jerked forward at the feeling, mumbling a “shit” below he breath.

“Yes, Daddy. All yours. Always yours.”

She looked down at him below her and saw the fire burning in his eyes before he responded, “Forever my pussy to use.”

And with that, he immediately began devouring her.

Y/N was so wet from getting herself so worked up while waiting for and sucking off Harry, so he was already drowning and moaning at the feeling.

“Fuckin’ hell, love. Soaking me already, so goood to me,” he said, his voice slurred as if he was drunk on her. He softly nipped at her outer labia and gave her ass another hit, eliciting a scream to erupt from her.

“O-oh God, Daddy, please please keep going.”

Y/N was holding on to the headboard with so much strength that her nails were digging divots into the wood. Harry never was one to hold back when it came to eating her out, and today was definitely no different. If anything, he was going at her like a man starved for 30 years.

She began rocking her hips against his face as he continued swirling his tongue around her clit. He would dip down and place his tonuge at her entrance which would cause his nose to poke against her clit, creating a wave of immense pleasure continuously flow through her.

“Yeah… tha-thats so so good…good Dadd-OH,” she breathlessly spoke until she was cut off by his fingers slipping up to enter her. His two fingers penetrated into her roughly, not giving her anytime to adjust. She was so turned on though, that she could barely feel a stretch, just a wave of more pleasure.

Harry could tell she wasn’t going to last much longer by the way she was completely soaking his face, so he wasn’t shocked that after just a few hits of his fingers against her g-spot she was coming undone on top of him.

Y/N’s orgasm washed over her so suddenly that she didn’t even have time to get a scream out. Her mouth was open in a silent scream with her eyes closed, as her body convulsed above Harry’s mouth that was delicately working her through her intense orgasm.

She finally was able to take a deep breath, and basically collapsed off Harry’s face onto the bed beside him. With her body still shaking and her eyes still closed, Harry quickly moved her into a comfortable position onto the bed and cradled her to his chest, rubbing his hands against any skin he could touch in order to ground her a bit.

“You’re okay, angel. Breathe for me, okay? You did so good for me,” he continued to whisper reassurances in her ear, hoping that would start to clear her mind some of the fogginess that was left from her orgasm. As her breathing began to settle, she snuggled herself closer to Harry’s chest. “There ya go, lovie. Just relax.”

After a few minutes, Y/N finally looked up at Harry with sleepy eyes and a small smile. He smiled back and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her lips.

“Hi again, bug. How are you feeling?” he asked her, still continuing to rub his hands up and down her body.

“Hi, H. Tired,” was all she was able to mumble out before closing her eyes again.

Harry smiled and chuckled, knowing she would be completely useless for the rest of the night as that orgasm took everything out of her.

He glanced at the clock, seeing as it was nearing 2am since he hadn’t even gotten back to the hotel before midnight. Looks like he wasn’t getting his 10 hours of sleep tonight. Y/N always called him an old man for going to bed early to ensure he gets a good nights rest, but she also admires how much he tries to care for himself and his body while touring.

With that, Harry got up to retrieve a wash cloth to clean Y/N up before getting back into bed to cuddle her to sleep.

Before he could doze off, Harry heard his phone go off from his bag that he had dropped by the bedroom door when he arrived. He wasn’t sure who would be messaging him this last at night, but decided to check just in case it was an emergency.

Once he grabbed his phone from his back and sat back on the bed to see what the message was, he couldn’t help but let out a laugh as he read it.

Harry Lambert: Sorry. I know its late, but I’m working on some new ideas for the added shows… any ideas you want me to incorporate? Xx

And Harry had the perfect response…

Harry Styles: Definitely more vests. Thanks Lamb xx H

— — —

“Harry, take this fucking blindfold off of me or I will casterate you.”

“That is an empty threat and you know it,” Harry responded before he whispered for only her to hear, “You’re too much of a cockslut.”

To which Y/N promptly hit Harry’s chest in response while saying through her teeth, “Shut up.”

“Okay, okay, you can take off the blindfold now.”

Y/N ripped off her blindfold ready to scold Harry for making her wear it, but before she could, she saw the view infront of her.

Absolutely shocked by the sight of New York, without looking at Harry she said, “Wh-why are we here?”

“Told you I had a reward planned for you, bug.”

She moved to look at Harry, with a shine in her eyes as if she was about to cry. “You make me so happy, bunny.” She smiled at him as he pulled her infornt of him and looked out onto the city together.

— — — — —

AHHHHHH omg this was the first blurb/smut/one shot (whatever you want to call it) i’ve EVER written but I had so much fun doing it.

I saw Harry’s outfit at the MSG N6 show and just…. couldn’t help myself.

Anyway! Enjoy!

also that photo of NYC is mine from when i went to the One World Trade Observatory deck 🤭🤭

669 notes · View notes

snackhobi · 4 years ago

Text

this is my part of the rockin’ around the christmas tropes collab with @yeojaa, @underthejoon @ladyartemesia, @ppersonna, @untaemedqueen, @xjoonchildx ✨ MERRY (early) CHRISTMAS Y’ALL

summary: yoongi is your favourite regular. he’s patient, polite, and predictable, a-large-black-coffee-to-go-please, no cream, no sugar, thank you. rinse and repeat. the seasons might change, but yoongi’s order stays the same.

and then one fateful day in winter, yoongi asks about the weekly specials, orders a cup of christmas and sugary sweetness, and everything starts changing.

pairing: yoongi x barista f!reader / word count: 14.8k / genre: coffeeshop!au, fluff, dash of smut (NSFW)

warnings: slow burn, terrible drink concoctions, pining, miscommunication (kind of/reader comes to incorrect conclusions based on literally nothing), the tiniest bit of swearing, heated makeouts, oral (m receiving), I think that’s it

a/n: I have a lot of people to thank: thank you to my loveliest most beautiful wife @yeojaa for the beautiful banner 🥺💖 thank you to @morndas for helping me name this fic and suggesting some of the awful weekly specials featured within 🥰 thank you to @yeoldontknow for letting me have multiple meltdowns at her and for letting me pick her brain about working in the music industry, and for helping me with plot points I wasn’t sure about!! 💕

also thank you to @hobi-gif for helping me brainstorm the original fic idea with her; she hasn’t beta’ed this fic because I am TERRIBLE and literally finished this like an hour before posting. that’s on me and not her. I am a shambles without her indomitable proof reading skills; any mistakes are down to me, and I apologise for that. I’ve only read this through like once, sorry in advance, I’m literally formatting this while I should be getting ready for work

Being a barista isn’t all bad.

Like, okay, you’re on your feet for hours at a time, the pay isn’t exactly the highest in the world, and coffee beans have a tendency to end up in the weirdest places (how did you get the light roast in your bra?)—but it’s not entirely terrible.

Here’s a (totally not comprehensive) list of good things about working at the Paradise coffee shop:

The free drinks (y’know, for taste testing purposes)

The free food (you probably eat more than you’re actually allowed, but who’s telling?)

Your coworkers (like Taehyung, who is—yep—currently shoving a whole mini panettone in his mouth)

Most of the customers are pretty nice, too (you have some lovely regulars)

(If you had to be more specific, there’s one regular in particular that you really, really like—)

(Yoongi appears like clockwork every week. Just after the Tuesday lunch rush, the bell above the door will sing out its greeting as he steps inside, ordering the same drink each and every time he’s here—a large Americano, to go, plain and simple and unadorned, no room for cream or milk, no added sugar or sweetener.)

(Yoongi really is the perfect customer. He has been from the very beginning, a point of quiet in a churning sea of hot, sweaty people all begging for frappés and milkshakes, the hottest point at the very peak of summer. The queue had been growing longer and longer, out of the doors as the blenders whirred their way through a neverending cascade of sugary, iced blends; the counters were a mess and all the baristas were running around and everything was chaos and in had walked this guy, all dark hair and dark eyes and dark clothes, even in the height of summer—you were ready for death at this point, hands sticky with syrup and apron streaked with flecks from almost every drink from the summer menu, and you’d braced yourself for some terse words, impatience and passive aggressive comments on the long wait—)

(—and this intimidating man had just patiently asked for an iced Americano, calm and quiet and polite.)

(You’d fallen a little in love, then and there. Fallen in love with that simple order, quick and easy to make, and fallen a little in love with the dichotomy of the man who looked like nothing but sharp edges being the softest customer you’d had all day. There was nothing rushed about his motions, no desperate need to get his drink and get away, no anger at having waited for so long.)

(He’d been ready to pay, too, no fumbling with his wallet or money; he’d tapped his card, easy and breezy and all lemon squeezy, but he’d left a tip in change, dropped almost thoughtlessly into the jar. He’d collected his cup with the smallest upturn to his lips, a tilt of his head, and then he’d left, other customers parting before him like the Red Sea.)

(The only thing that’s changed over the months is that the iced coffees of summer have changed into hot Americanos for the cooler months, autumn and now almost-winter, warding off the chill in the air. Everything else is the same; his dark eyes and low voice and patient smile, small but ever present, pressed lightly into the surprisingly soft line of his mouth.)

(So, yeah. Yoongi is your favourite customer. Even if you’ve barely spoken, really, the two of you dancing through the same short script each time he comes in—the longest conversation you’ve had so far is the one where you’d tentatively asked if he’d like a rewards card, and after a moment of contemplation, he’d quietly agreed.)

(You like to think that you’re Yoongi’s favourite server, too. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but—)

(Taehyung had been stunned into speechlessness, because, to quote his words exactly: “I tried getting him to sign up for a card last time and I swear he just pretended he couldn’t hear me? He just straight up didn’t respond? What?”)

(—you know Yoongi likes you at least a little bit.)

Anyway. You’re getting off the point. Paradise is a decent place to work, the people are nice, and the building is pretty and airy and welcoming and warm, toasty and cosy in the upcoming cold of winter. It’s one of the things that keeps people coming back, that lovely atmosphere.

Another thing that people apparently love about Paradise is the constantly changing menu. It’s not enough to have seasonal menus, no—you need to have weekly specials, apparently, to keep people interested. It’s like a gachapon, but instead of cute little capsule toys, it’s a random mix of concoctions that are hit or miss.

“Well, I liked the Peachy Keen Jelly Bean,” Taehyung says, around a mouthful of sweet bread, still chewing his way through the panettone.

“You’d be the only one,” you reply, swiping a cloth over the counters and crinkling your nose at the pile of coffee grounds you gather. “Iced peach tea with blackberry and vanilla and cherry and watermelon syrup has got to be one of the worst things we’ve ever served.”

That had definitely been one of the misses. This week’s special, though, is far more palatable, if incredibly sweet—Crystal Snow, a white chocolate mocha with whipped cream, dusted with powdered sugar, and a crystallised sugar stick to stir in. Sugar on sugar on sugar, basically. (Your teeth ache just thinking about it.)

But there’s always something so fun about making the winter specials, no matter how sugary they are; the smell of the sticky syrups, the swirl of cream to top off the cup, the dusting of cocoa or cinnamon, everything mulled in the sweet warmth of winter. Even if the drink you’re making is questionable, you get so excited about it, genuinely enthusiastic when you recommend them to customers, carrying everyone into the spirit of the upcoming holidays. You’d hardly describe making coffee a billion times a day fun—it’s pretty exhausting, actually—but you’ve always had a weird affection for the winter menu and the weekly specials alongside it.

You don’t upsell the drinks because you have to. You do it because you want to.

(You’re pretty good at it too. Not a flex: just a fact. Your customer service is on point.)

The only person you’ve never tried to persuade into trying something new is Yoongi. He might not be rude or short tempered, but he clearly knows what he wants, and you hate the idea of ruining the easy flow of his visits. You’re not about to embarrass yourself by asking Mr No-Cream-Or-Sugar if he’d like a drink that's nothing but cream and sugar. Asking about the rewards card had been nerve-wracking enough, even if it had been worth it for the genuinely-unintentional-but-definitely-not-unpleasant brushing of your fingers when you’d handed the card over to him.

(Okay. Look. Yoongi is patient and pleasant and polite and cute. You never thought that you’d crush on a customer, but here you are. He just… oozes masculinity in an understated, self-assured way that has you internally swooning. He looks intimidating and serious but when he smiles his eyes go soft-soft-soft, his voice a low rumble as he gives you his gentle thank you, and everything about him is just so… attractive. Even the way he holds his coffee is hot, fingers loose around the lid as he makes his way out of the café, your eyes tracing every motion as he goes. Like. Come on. Of course you’re crushing on him.)

(Just a little bit, though. Just a little bit. It’s just an itty bitty crush. A teeny weeny crush.)

The bell above the door chimes. Your kneejerk reaction is to snap your head over to see who it is—but you hold it together, instead letting your head turn at a normal, natural pace. It’s just an unfamiliar woman, rearranging the tassels of her long scarf with one hand and holding her phone with the other as the door swings shut, and you deflate.

(... It’s a small crush, you swear. It’s not like this is around the normal time Yoongi appears and you’d thought it was going to be him. Nope. Definitely not that.)

As the woman lingers near the counter, eyes flicking between her phone and the chalkboard menu on the wall above your head, Taehyung finishes licking the panettone crumbs off his fingers.

“It’s Tuesday,” he states solemnly.

“I know?”

“It’s just past two o’clock,” he continues.

“I know,” you repeat, glancing at him quizzically. “You told me what the time was less than five minutes ago.”

“I did.”

The bell chimes again. This time, a gaggle of giggling girls come bubbling into the café, cutting you off before you can ask what Taehyung is trying to say. You go to flick your cloth at him before thinking better of it, not wanting to rain dark roast everywhere.

“Go wash your hands,” you say, just as the scarfed woman approaches the counter, ready to order. A bright smile splits your face, voice rising into its usual peppy Customer Service tone. “Hi, welcome to Paradise! How can I help you today?”

She barely glances up from her phone as she orders, asking for a latte macchiato and croissant, a distracted ‘no thanks’ when you ask if she’s interested in this week’s special. Oh well. The girls behind her, though, all seem incredibly excited when they catch wind of it; they all eagerly listen as you describe what a Crystal Snow is, your eyes lighting up as you mime piping the cream and dusting the sugar on top, laughing when they ask if they can buy extra sugar sticks to take home, because of course they can, you’d be happy to do that for them, would they like those in to-go bags? Yes, the bags are cute, aren’t they, the snowflakes are lovely, you agree.

Taehyung’s just finished wiping the steam wand when you give him the next order. You see the way his face crumples before his brows lift and his lips purse, pleading as he looks at you with big eyes, and you just roll your own eyes affectionately.

“Yes, yes, I’ll make them even though you’re meant to be on the bar, it’s fine,” you say, and Taehyung’s whole face lights up.

You’ve worked with Taehyung long enough by now to know that it takes him until at least Wednesday to memorise how to make whatever that week’s special is. And there’s not a queue, so you don’t mind taking over, pulling espresso shots and steaming milk and pouring everything together, puffing air in Taehyung’s face when he peers at your cream swirling technique. (No matter how many times you’ve tried to teach him, he’s never been able to get it right, usually just farting a mess of cream out of the nozzle and hoping for the best. Results are… mixed.) Maybe the flourish you put into dusting the sugar on top is unnecessary, but, hey. It’s fun. You smile to yourself as you give a small flick of the wrist over each drink, powdered sugar floating down like snow, and, done.

You don’t like to toot your own horn but the drinks come out Instagram perfect, each latte glass set on a tiny napkin on a saucer, sugar stick on one side, and you take a moment to admire your work.

“They’re so pretty,” Taehyung says, and your smile grows wider.

The girls all agree, cooing over the drinks in a way that only makes your smile grow even more, wide on your face. You watch as they squirrel themselves away in a corner, talking and laughing and nibbling their food and sipping at their drinks, pleased at the way their eyes widen at the first taste.

Yeah, it’s the small things that makes your time here good. Being a barista is a thankless job most of the time, as relaxed as Paradise usually is, so you try to appreciate the small things. Like having fun when you make a drink, for example. Making nice customers happy. (Having cute regulars that you can quietly ogle.)

Actually, on the note of cute regulars—

“Your 2:15 appointment is here.”

You tear your attention away from the table of girls at the sound of Taehyung’s voice. “My what—?”

There’s someone in front of the glass display, hunched as they slowly and quietly peruse the selection of pastries and food inside—and you realise with a jolt that it’s Yoongi. You have no idea how long he’s been there, so distracted with patting yourself on the back for making a few nice drinks; oh, God, what if Yoongi had seen your pleased expression? Do you look smug? You probably look smug. Great, now he probably thinks that you’re a self-obsessed clown, honking your nose like some sort of narcissist.

“You’re spiralling,” Taehyung points out mildly, voice low enough that Yoongi doesn't hear.

His surprisingly perceptive comment snaps you out of aforementioned spiralling, and after shaking yourself off, you glance over at him. “Why didn’t you serve him?”

He shrugs. “He didn’t seem like he wanted to be served so I just left him to it.”

To be fair to Taehyung, he’s not wrong. Yoongi is staring intently at a slice of carrot cake—even if he’s never ordered any before—and it’s not until you move to your usual spot behind the till that his attention finally rises, meeting your gaze with his deep, dark eyes.

Your inner schoolgirl feels like she needs to sit down. Your entire stomach and chest is a looping mess of frantic butterflies after making eye contact with the cute boy who you’re crushing on, but you’ve got a great poker face; you’ve worked as a barista long enough that you’re good at shoving your real feelings down, none of your internal turmoil playing across your face as you smile. Customer service mode activate.

“Hi, and welcome back to Paradise. What can I get for you today? The usual? Large Americano, to go, for Yoongi?”

You’re a little softer than you would be with other customers, a little more subdued, dialing down how upbeat you normally are to match Yoongi’s level. His lips lift almost imperceptibly, the faintest smile playing across his mouth, and it takes all your strength for your knees to not immediately buckle.

“Hi,” he says. His voice is soft and low, faintest drawl at the end of his words, and yep, just your weekly reminder that you’re enamoured with him. Cool. “Yes, please, that would be great.”

He already has his card ready, you know he does. He always does; card to pay, loyalty card to swipe, tip to drop in the jar, quick and smooth and easy. This is normally where you’d rattle off the price—as if he doesn’t already know what it is—but you pause, thinking about how intent he’d been on the pastry display, as uncharacteristic as that is.

“Did you… want something to eat, too? I couldn’t, um, help noticing that you were eyeing up the carrot cake?”

Yoongi blinks, wispy lashes fluttering. You can see the muted surprise that flashes across his face, and you wonder if you’ve misstepped, thrown off the usual rhythm of his visit. It’s an unusual step away from your regular script, an ad-lib that he wasn’t expecting.

“Uh, no, thank you,” he says. “Maybe… next time.”

He’s polite as ever, thankfully. You’re not surprised at his answer but you do have to wonder why he was looking at the cake so closely if he hadn’t planned on getting anything; you know he likes getting served by you the most, if the evidence over the months means anything at all, but you don’t think he’d stare at cake just so he would avoid Taehyung. You’re making assumptions based on the fact he just drinks black coffee and literally nothing else, but you’ve guessed he doesn’t have a sweet tooth. (The only time he’s ever ordered food had been two months prior when he’d asked for a single croissant, and nothing since. Taehyung still talks about the croissant sometimes.)

Well, it doesn't really matter. If he doesn't want cake, you're not going to force it on him, and the rest of the transaction goes as normal. Yoongi hands over his rewards card, fingers long and knuckles knobbly and altogether lovely, pays for his Americano—made by Taehyung, cup wrapped in the sleeve that you’ve written Yoongi’s name on, black sharpie bleeding into the cardboard—and smiles at you both when Taehyung hands it to him across the smooth wood of the counter.

“Thanks.” He gives you that slight tilt of his head that he always does, and you smile helplessly back.

He’s a gentleman, through and through, even if he looks as distant as ever; dressed in all black, his ripped jeans the only splash of lightness in his dark outfit. Maybe you’re biased, but no matter what he wears, he looks stylish, somehow. It’s something in his aura. All cool understated elegance and power.

And here you are, in your cream jumper under the dark mulberry apron of your uniform, a flower blooming next to the name on your badge. All chirpy customer service, smiling broad and wide as you go through the same motions over and over with each new person that comes in. Sometimes you wonder what Yoongi thinks of you, as different as you are to him, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter—because he keeps coming back, doesn’t he?

“Have a nice day,” you say as he turns to go, and when he glances over his shoulder and says you too, smile soft and eyes softer, you know he really means it.

(And if your eyes always trail after him once his back has turned, who’s telling?)

“You’re staring.” Taehyung’s telling, apparently.

You tear your eyes away from Yoongi, bell tinkling as the door swings shut behind him. “He’s my favourite customer,” you say. As if that explains why you were staring.

“You’ve barely spoken to him.”

“He’s my favourite customer,” you say again, emphatically. “He comes in, he gets the world’s simplest drink to make, is always polite, always leaves a tip, and he goes. Literally the perfect customer.”

“Alright, true,” he says, as if he hadn’t considered that before now. “Cute, too.”

You sigh. A little wistful. “Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, he is.”

Taehyung opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else when someone spills their drink on their floor with an unholy clattering sound, even if nothing breaks; without saying anything, both you and Taehyung raise your hands, eyes narrowing at each other.

"Rock, paper, scissors," you chant. Taehyung promptly loses, and the pout that forms on his lips doesn't disappear until he's finished mopping everything up.

(“Why do I always end up having to clean spillages?”

“Because you never win rock-paper-scissors. You always choose scissors, Taehyung. You literally always choose scissors.”)

The tradition of the weekly specials at Paradise is a weird one, truth be told. Each Monday whoever’s on the opening shift will enter the coffee shop and find that the board on the wall has been updated, the recipe typed up and laminated, waiting on the counter for the baristas. You all assume it’s the mysterious owner, who no one has ever seen, and no one even knows the name of, apparently.

“Someone has to know their name,” you’d said, once, back when you’d first started, only to receive a shrugs from everyone.

“I heard one of the old baristas say the owner’s name was Jackson,” Taehyung had said, and you’d just blinked at him.

“Huh?” you’d said, but Jimin had rolled his eyes and told you to ignore him, so you had.

This week’s drink is the Marshmallow World. As always, when you and Taehyung start your shift together, you read the recipe and follow it step by step to learn how to make it. Warmed milk, vanilla syrup, topped off with marshmallow fluff instead of whipped cream—not bad in theory, if you like sweet things, although it does pose one significant problem.

“It’s clogged my hole,” Taehyung says sadly.

You sputter on your own drink, desperately hacking your lungs out as you try to stop milk from going down your windpipe. “I’m-sorry-it’s-what,” you wheeze all at once, struggling for air.

Taehyung tilts his takeaway cup at you, gesturing at the lid. (All the mugs are still out back or on a rinse cycle so laziness had forced you to make do.) “My drink hole. It’s blocked,” he explains. “The fluff is getting in the way.”

So, yeah. It clogs people’s holes, apparently. But other than that, you have to admit it’s pretty nice, and if you drink it in the café (and thus out of a mug) then you’re fine. You just get into the habit of warning the customers if they order it to go and laugh about it with them and it’s all fine and dandy and everyone is happy.

It’s starting to get busier, now. The nights are getting longer and the days are getting colder and everyone’s starting to think about Christmas, which feels both close and far away, all at once. Close, because you still have presents to buy and there’s never enough time for it; and far, because the lights have yet to go up and Christmas songs aren’t dominating the radio yet and you have yet to experience the real winter rush. Students home for the holidays and families out to see Father Christmas and workers grabbing Secret Santa gifts, everyone desperate for something warm and soothing, hot and comforting in the face of the snow which has yet to fall.

But there’s something in the air, that cool hush that lets you know it’s nearly here—the changing of the seasons, the burnt sunset colours of autumn melting into the iced blues and greys of winter. No matter if you prefer hot or cold weather, there’s something about the beauty of wintertime that’s undeniable.

And it’s a lot easier to sell something like the Marshmallow World on a day like this, the nip in the air almost solid, biting cold into the apples of your cheeks, nibbling at fingers that are so cold they feel frost-bitten. Once again, your genuine enthusiasm shines through, persuading people to give the drink a go, happy to add a shot of espresso for whoever needs it, desperate for caffeine to buoy them up through the day.

You’ve just finished laughing with a lovely old couple, wearing matching scarves and hats—awwww—waving them goodbye as they go to sit down, when you come face to face with Yoongi, blindsided by his sudden appearance. You’d been so caught up, once again, too busy giggling your way through the conversation with your other customers, able to persuade them to try one special to share alongside everything else they’ve ordered.

“Oh. Uh. Hi,” you say. Your hand is still by your face after you’d given the couple a cute wave, and when you realise, you freeze. Flustered. Behind you, Taehyung is struggling to spoon the marshmallow fluff neatly on the vanilla steamer, making small noises of distress, but you’re too caught up in your own distress to really notice.

Once again, you have no idea how long Yoongi’s been there. You’re slipping. You’re normally aware of him as soon as he steps into the coffee shop. (You know, because you’re always aware of when a new customer steps in. Like any good barista would be.) Had he witnessed you enthusiastically waving your hands and talking about marshmallows and s'mores? Seen the way you'd grinned and laughed as you'd gotten excited over the weekly special, yet again?

Well, if he had, he doesn't seem perturbed at all. His usual smile is on his face, though you would swear it seems a little softer around the edges, almost fond.

“Hi,” he says, and… that’s it.

There’s no addition of his usual that would be great, and that’s when you realise you haven’t asked about his coffee. In fact, your fingers are still curled near your chin, almost like a claw. You clear your throat and let your arm fall to your side, fiddling with the tie of your apron.

“Hi,” you repeat. Flounder for a second. Try to remember your usual line. “Large Americano?”

“Y/n.” Taehyung whines your name from the bar, loud enough that it catches your attention. “The marshmallow isn’t staying. Why do you keep recommending Marshmallow World? Why must I suffer through this torture? Every day I wake up and I make coffee—”

“Sorry, sir, one second,” you say, face scrunching in apology at Yoongi.

“It's just Yoongi,” he replies, gentle, and your heart thuds in your chest. "You don't have to call me sir."

Your face feels warm. "Um, okay, Yoongi." You've said his name before, of course, said it dozens of times to confirm his order, but never like this—by invitation from the man himself, an acknowledgement of familiarity.

Taehyung makes another noise. Yoongi's expression turns into one of faint amusement, eyes drifting over your shoulder to your friend; when you turn around, you can see why.

The other barista’s managed to get marshmallow fluff all over the edge of the glass, on the handle of the cup, all the way up the spoon, on his fingers—everywhere except on the drink itself. It’s funny, in a sad sort of way.

“Wow.” You have no idea how he managed it, but you’re here to help. “Alright, go wash your hands, Tae. I’ve got this.”

The cup is a goner. There’s no way you’ll be able to wipe off the sticky marshmallow. You’re acutely aware of Yoongi at the counter, able to watch your every move, but then you get distracted as you salvage Taehyung's attempt at a Marshmallow World. You just feel grateful that it’s a steamer so you can pour it into a new glass, not having to worry about layers of coffee and milk and foam; it’s a pretty easy fix. Good. (You don’t want to keep Yoongi waiting, as patient as he may be.)

It doesn’t take long to spoon the marshmallow on, whipped peaks in the sticky white, and by the time Taehyung returns you’re ready to present him with the picture perfect drink, not a single lick of fluff anywhere it shouldn’t be. You've got your hands on your hips as you survey your work proudly, and Taehyung sticks his tongue out at you.

“Witchcraft,” he says, and you laugh.

“You’re welcome,” you say. “Alright, shoo, go take this over to the table before they start wondering where it is.”

When you turn back, Yoongi’s watching you. Contemplative. You tamp down the flush that threatens to spill onto your cheeks, face burning, but before you can say anything, he speaks.

“Was that the weekly special?”

You blink. Blindsided. Yoongi’s never asked about the special before, never commented on the A-frame outside, the sign on the wall that sits next to the regular menu. No surprise there—why would someone who only drinks Americanos want to drink ninety-nine percent of the weekly specials you offer? “Um, yeah,” you say. “We’ve got the Marshmallow World this week.”

“Would you recommend it?”

You can’t help it. You light up. You love when customers ask for recommendations, and the fact that it’s Yoongi—whose blood must be made of coffee at this point—who’s asking about it? Americano Yoongi, asking about something without caffeine? Black coffee Yoongi, asking about a weekly special that’s nothing but sugar and sweetness? Something inside you switches on, a Christmas tree, all flashing lights and shimmering tinsel and excitement.

“Oh, if you like sweeter drinks, absolutely! It’s great for a cold day like today,” you gush. Maybe you should reel it in, far more exuberant than you usually are with Yoongi, but. You can’t stop. “It’s warm milk and vanilla, so it’s a lovely comfort drink, and we can add a shot of espresso too if you were wanting a little pick-me-up. And then you’ve got marshmallow fluff on top for some extra self-indulgence. We were meant to, uh, toast the top, actually, but we don’t have the necessary health and safety clearance for blowtorches. I guess you could do that at home if you really wanted to. Everyone likes toasted marshmallows, right?”

Yoongi hums, and you wonder if you’ve maybe gotten ahead of yourself. Oversold it. Maybe he was asking out of curiosity. Just because he’s asking about it doesn’t mean that he wants one—

“Can I get a Marshmallow World, please? Large, to go?”

—or maybe Yoongi is an official convert to the world of sweet drinks, changing after a lifetime of drinking unadorned, unadulterated black coffee. Holy shit. Holy shit? Holy—

“And a large Americano to go, too, please.”

(Record scratch. Freeze frame.

Yoongi of-the-black-coffee is ordering his usual drink, and another. Both large. Too much for one person to reasonably drink before one of them got cold. He’s not ordering for one person; he’s ordering for two people. Of course Yoongi wouldn’t order something as heart-stopping as the Marshmallow World—not for himself, anyway.

Mental maths. Two plus two is four, four plus four is eight; one large Americano and one Marshmallow World is two people. Yoongi and one other person is two people, a couple of people, a couple—

Oh, God.

A couple.

You’ve been crushing on a taken man.

You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes before you die? It’s sort of like that, but rather than remembering your life, you immediately recall every moment over the months where you’ve looked at him or thought about him with even the smallest iota of longing and you want to crawl under the counter and never come out.

You feel weirdly guilty. Like… like you’re some sort of unintentional homewrecker. Even though, you know, you thought Yoongi was single and you haven’t made a single move on him and nor had you had any plans to. The guilt bubbles up inside you anyway.

All at once, you feel immensely, incredibly embarrassed. Of course he’s taken. There’s no way he wouldn’t be, as attractive and nice as he is, and you’ve just been sat here crushing on him like a big dumb idiot.

You are the worst.)

You manage to squeeze this internal breakdown into the span of a few seconds. You’re grateful that you have your customer service face locked on, giving nothing away—from the outside the smile looks just like that, a smile, rather than the rictus of deathly mortification it actually is, burning through you like a wildfire.

Yoongi seems none the wiser, just patiently waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of his order. Most of your brain power is still taken up with the mish-mash of humiliation and guilt that’s roiling through you. Luckily, though, the part of your brain that’s still in the moment (trying to drag you back to the real world, shame-faced as you are) forces you to move before things get weird.

“One large Americano, one large Marshmallow World, both to go.” You tap the drinks into the till on auto-pilot, dimly noting that Taehyung’s been pulled into conversation with the old couple at their table, having delivered their drinks and food to them. It’s just you behind the counter, no one else to man the coffee machines. “Let me get those started for you.”

Luckily, making the drinks means you can turn your back to Yoongi, oscillating through the five stages of grief as you fiddle with hot milk and coffee grounds and paper cups. You always take pride in your work—especially when it comes to Yoongi—and you take even more pride now, determined to make these drinks as lovely as they can be. His Americano is fairly simple, but the Marshmallow World requires a bit more finesse, and you lavish attention on the fluff, swirling it beautifully, even though you know it’ll stick to the lid anyway.

(Okay, listen. Whoever this person Yoongi is seeing must be as nice as he is. They both deserve nice drinks.)

There’s something sweet about it, actually. Before the lids go on, you spent a second staring down at the drinks and the juxtaposition between them; black coffee and white marshmallow, bitter and sweet, night and day. It’s lovely, really, these two opposing things coming together. You wonder what Yoongi’s partner is like. Exuberant and bright, rather than his subdued warmth? A balance, yin and yang, opposite but complementary.

(Isn’t that a nice thing to think about? Finding someone who’s different to you but matches you so well?)

You firmly press the lids into place, making sure they’re secure. The protective cardboard sleeve of Yoongi’s Americano has his name—the name you’ve memorised, written out countless times—while the Marshmallow World has a scrawled happy face, and an enjoy! on it, for this mysterious person who likes sweet drinks. You do sincerely hope they enjoy it. You really do.

“The fluff blocks the hole,” you warn, sliding the cardboard tray for both drinks carefully across the counter. “It’s probably a better idea to just take the lid off.”

Something flickers across Yoongi’s face, too fast for you to identify. But then he nods, lifting the tray up with equally careful hands. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says.

He’s always polite to everyone, Taehyung and the other baristas, but he seems to smile at you the most. He’s smiling at you now, curling at the corners of his lips, and you smile back, fighting through ten layers of embarrassment and self-inflicted shame to do so. Just because he smiles at you the most doesn’t mean anything. You can smile at people and not have it be weird; it doesn’t mean you return their ill-fated attraction.

Why, oh why, oh why.

By the time Taehyung returns to the counter, having escaped the chatty, kind clutches of the elderly couple, Yoongi is long gone. Your fellow barista finds you crouched down in front one of the cupboards with your head in your hands.

“Y/n?” He sounds incredibly concerned. “Are you okay? Do you have a headache? Are you sick?”

You let out a quiet noise, a mix between a whale dying and a hippo trying to swallow porridge, muffled into your palms. “I’m such a doughnut,” you say. “Just an absolute doughnut.”

Taehyung crouches beside you. “A glazed doughnut or a jam doughnut?”

Your hands drop away from your face as you think. “Plain,” you say, eventually. “Unglazed. No toppings or fillings.” A little sad and disappointing. It seems fitting.

Taehyung puts a hand on your shoulder, warm and comforting. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You feel embarrassed all over again, thinking about admitting your (now-squashed) crush to your friend. It was stupid in the first place, crushing on a customer, especially as you’d barely spoken to him; Yoongi might be cute, and nice, but your crush was silly and dumb and you’d been silly and dumb not to think that he was already in a relationship.

“I’m fine,” you say. “Just going through it. And by ‘it’ I mean life generally, you know?”

Taehyung makes a noise of understanding, patting your shoulder. “Big mood,” he says sombrely. He always knows what to say, empathetic to a fault.

“Uh,” a customer says, craning over the counter to see the two of you. “Sorry to interrupt, but can I get a refill on my coffee, please?”

That effectively kills the conversation, which is good. Keep yourself busy and distracted. By the time you see Yoongi next week, this crush will be dead and gone and you’ll be fine. Just fine. Absolutely fine.

He’s dyed his hair.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, the café is full of people, and Yoongi has dyed his hair.

You’d spent all of last Tuesday alternating between all-consuming guilt and embarrassment, Taehyung catching you with your head in your hands in one moment and furiously cleaning the steam wand the next, channeling your tumult of emotions into anything that will distract you.

It had worked. Mostly. You’ve had a week’s worth of time since, to get over this month’s long crush, your brain consistently reminding you that Yoongi is in a relationship, with someone who’s probably lovely and attractive and all around just wonderful (just like him). You remind yourself about this every time you find coffee grounds under your nails, or notice milk flecked on your apron, soured and off-white after a day of work; your life isn’t a meet-cute, and you’re not the cute barista who falls in love with the cute regular. You’re the tired barista who makes more cups of coffee in a day than most people probably drink in a year, and Yoongi is the cute regular who’s already in a long term relationship and comes to Paradise just because he likes the dark roast you use. That’s as far as it will go, because this is real life, and not a romance film or novel. (Even if you wished that it was.)

You’ve come to terms with it. Really, you have. But then he has to step into the coffee shop looking like that, his hair bleached so blond it almost looks white, silver hoops in his ears, and he’s still dressed in dark clothes but he’s wearing glasses, no, this isn’t a drill, Yoongi’s dyed his hair, he’s all light and dark, soft and sharp, and you want to crouch behind the counter again. Because he looks so good and of course he’s in a relationship because he’s hot, and you feel dumb for not having realised it sooner.

You can’t hide behind the counter, though. There’s a queue of people, all waiting for your attention and your time, and it’s still just you and Taehyung; none of your usual Christmas temps are back yet, still away at uni, hence the we’re hiring! posters that are up for all the customers to see (and mostly ignore). The seasons are changing and the weeks are passing and the really eager people are starting to think about Christmas shopping; you swear you don’t even need a calendar, able to trace how close you are to Christmas just based on the amount of foot traffic the coffee shop gets. You’re definitely hitting peak.

But it’s fine. You have this down to a fine art. You and Taehyung are both good on the till and scarily efficient at making drinks and plating food, dancing past each other with an ease that only comes with time spent working together and friendship alongside.

People aren’t ordering the weekly special as much, either, not today. You can’t blame them. Candy Cane Dreams is a white hot chocolate, flavoured with mint and coloured green, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles of candy cane bark and red and green drizzle too; it’s… pretty overwhelming. So it means you don’t have to take over for Taehyung from the bar, focusing on smiling at customers and soothing them after their wait, taking their orders and shuffling them along as quickly as you can. You keep a smile plastered on your face as Taehyung pulls espresso shots and grabs tea bags and heats milk, routine and familiar.

When Yoongi steps up to the counter, you’ve barely had time to mentally prepare yourself, so focused on serving everyone else in the queue; it feels like a slap to the face, a kick to the knees, but then you take one deep breath and exhale. Long, deep, slow, forcing air out of your lungs and thoughts out of your mind, and you smile.

You’ve been so careful up until this point, wanting to keep Yoongi happy, wary of misstepping—but he’s just a regular customer. You feel more confident, now, less worried about breaking this tenuous thing you thought you’d had; less worried about what you’re doing being construed as some weird, roundabout way of flirting, because. You know. He’s in a relationship, so it doesn’t matter either way. He’s definitely not interested. You can talk to him like you would anyone else.

So you say: “You dyed your hair.”

And, just like you suspected, Yoongi doesn’t seem bothered that you’ve broken your usual script. “Oh, yeah.” He reaches up, touches his head, as if he’d forgotten. “I did.”

“It looks nice,” you continue, because it does.

He’s smiling back at you. He looks pleased; maybe a little bashful, even, as surprising as that is. “Thanks,” he says, warm and genuine. (The tiny gremlin of a crush that’s still lurking in your soul lets out a wistful sigh.) “Can I get a large Americano and a—” he squints at the board— “large Candy Cane Dream, please?”

(One plus one is two, Yoongi and his other half, the sugar to his coffee.)

“Sure!” Your voice is bright. “I’m guessing the Marshmallow World went over well?”

There’s a brief beat of silence, but you don’t notice, too focused on typing Yoongi’s order into the till.

“Yeah, it was great,” he says after that moment of quiet, and you smile. Good. You’re glad they enjoyed it.

“I’m really happy to hear that,” you say, genuine and bright.

“What’s actually in the, ah, Candy Cane Dreams?” Yoongi asks, and you laugh, leaning forward conspiratorially.

“It’s horrendous,” you say in a low voice, as if you’re sharing a secret. “Have you ever seen green hot chocolate before?”

You’ve never spoken to Yoongi like this, easy and light, and it’s… nice. He gives no indication of surprise at your sudden friendliness after months of barely talking. If anything he looks pleased, and at one point he even gives you a smile you’ve never seen before, wide and wonderful, flashing his teeth and gums. (The crush gremlin rattles at your ribcage like prison bars, trying desperately to escape, but you don’t give it a chance.)

“Alright, let me just swap with the other barista, he’s still not gotten the Candy Cane Dreams recipe down.”

You hear a suspicious crunch as you make your way over to Taehyung. He turns to you with a guilty smile, edged with sugar, munching on shards of candy cane while his back is to the customers.

“You’re terrible,” you say affectionately. “Go take over on the till, I have a special to make.”

Taehyung glances over, sees Yoongi making his way down to the collection point. “Huh. Alright.”

The Candy Cane Dreams recipe might be a questionable one, but it’s definitely fun to make (watching the white hot chocolate turn green makes you feel like a kid all over again, mixing shampoos together in your bathroom and calling them potions), and maybe you’re overly generous with the candy cane bark, giving Yoongi’s beau more to nibble on and enjoy. It’s not Christmas yet but you’re already in a giving mood, so sue you.

“Here you go.” You slide the drinks towards him, the man busy reading one of the vacancy fliers, eyes flicking away from the poster when you appear. Your lips quirk up. “Looking for a job?”

You’re expecting a huff of a laugh, a small shake of the head, but he answers you seriously. “Not me, but I have a friend who is,” he says, reaching to take the tray.

You realise your hands are still curled around the cardboard; you quickly pull away so that there’s no chance your hands will brush. (You might have shoved your crush down as far as it will go, but you have to be careful with your weak, gooey heart.)

“We could do with any help, honestly. Your friend is more than welcome to apply.” You glance over at the queue, which is small but ever present, and you know it’ll only get worse as time goes on. “And, hey, if you ever decide for a change of pace from whatever it is you do, we’d be glad to have you, too.”

This gets a laugh from him, a warm burst of sound. (The gremlin points out that this is the first time you’ve heard him laugh, really laugh, a little raspy and a little quiet and altogether lovely; you beat the gremlin back with a stick.) “I’m better at drinking coffee than I am at making it,” Yoongi says, eyes soft with lingering amusement. “I’ll leave that to the experts.”

You might have gone off script, but the nod he gives you is his usual one, that familiar tilt of the head. “See you next week?” His eyes are dark, dark and deep, and it’s so hard not to fall into them, to fall all over again.

“See you next week,” you echo, hoping the smile you plaster on your face doesn’t look as forced as it feels, as you struggle once more. Yoongi is just nice, okay? He's just being nice, but still. He needs to let a girl breathe.

(He needs to let the gremlin of her crush wither away, instead of making it threaten to come back as strong as before, fuelled by his smile and his eyes and his everything.)

(... maybe you’re not as over this crush as you thought you were.)

It seems like the we’re hiring! posters actually worked.

“I’m Jungkook,” says the new starter, all crooked smiles and warm eyes and thighs so thick they threaten to split the trousers of the café’s uniform, ties of his apron emphasising his small waist.

(“Good lord,” Taehyung says faintly.)

It’s the last week of November and even though Jungkook is still learning the ropes, he’s a massive help, and you know he’ll be a lifesaver over Christmas. He’s eager, learns quickly, and gets stuck right in, material of his shirt straining across his shoulder blades when he rips a bag of coffee beans open with his bare hands, rather than having to use scissors like you or Taehyung.

Taehyung watches with stars in his eyes as Jungkook pours the beans into the grinder. You cover your smile by sipping at one of the espresso shots Jungkook has pulled—full-bodied and dark, rich in your mouth.

“This is really good, Jungkook,” you say. He looks over, eyes squeezing into a smile.

“Thought it would be,” he says, and you can’t help but huff a laugh into the tiny espresso cup. He’s cocky and competitive, telling you that he’d never made coffee before but he was going to do a better job than any of the other baristas here. He’s too endearing to come across as arrogant, though, and you have to admit that the coffee is good. (Not as good as yours or Taehyung’s, of course, but still. Pretty good.)

Taehyung coos at him and reaches out to shamelessly squeeze his bicep. “Jungkookie is a natural barista.”

Jungkook’s cocky smile turns equal parts pleased and flustered. You continue to sip at the espresso as Taehyung moons over him, then the bell above the door rings, and the mooning temporarily is put on hold. (Temporarily, because Taehyung continues to moon over him for the rest of the shift, insisting on doing the bulk of his training, which is fine by you.)

It’s the 1st of December tomorrow, so not only do you have to clean after the café is locked up, you have to put out all the Christmas decorations, too. But it’s more fun that it is work, the three of you dragging the tree out of the storage room and decorating it with a menagerie of tinsel and baubles; Jungkook lifts Taehyung so he can get the star on the tree, wrapping his arms around Taehyung’s waist and hoisting him up effortlessly, leaving your friend with a pleased smile on his face.

Jungkook is new, only on his second shift, but he’s slotted in so easily. He laughs at Taehyung when he wiggles his butt along to the Christmas songs you've put on to play, and he helps steady the stepladder as you string garlands of snowflakes on the ceiling, even if he doesn’t really need to.

He absently readjusts the reindeer headband Taehyung had unearthed from the storage room and proudly placed on his head. “Yoongi-hyung talks a lot about this place,” Jungkook comments, offhand.

If you’d heard this a few weeks ago, you probably would have fallen off the stepladder, inner gremlin grabbing your heart with both hands and squeezing tight-tight-tight. As it is you only pause for a moment, one of the larger snowflakes cradled in your palm, before you go back to your job of hanging them up.

“So you’re the friend he mentioned that needed a job,” you say.

“That’s me.” Jungkook grins, boyish and bright, and you laugh. “He really, really likes this café. Wouldn’t shut up about it, even before he told me that you were hiring.”

You can’t imagine Yoongi gushing about a café to his friends, but then again, he clearly is passionate about his coffee. Jungkook will know him better than you, having a real friendship rather than this patron-and-customer back-and-forth that you’ve had, so who are you to imagine what’s normal for Yoongi and what isn’t? You didn’t even know he was in a relationship, after all. You don’t know anything about the guy, really.

“Well, we appreciate his custom,” you say. “I know Yoongi is the one who actually comes in, but you can thank his other half, too, and I hope they enjoy their drinks as well.”

You’re too busy hanging the garland to see the way Jungkook’s face twists.

“Huh?”

“You know. Yoongi always comes in for his Americano and the weekly special for his partner,” you say.

You’re focused on stepping down the ladder without falling to see the expression on Jungkook’s face, nose scrunched and lips pursed, like there’s something he’s smelled that he really doesn’t like.

“Did he say that to you? That it was for someone else?”

“Hm?” You pause in grabbing another string of snowflakes, glancing up. “Oh, no, I just worked it out, you know? Yoongi is a religious coffee drinker, why else would he order something that’s basically hot sugar water? I think it’s cute,” you add, belatedly. “That he always comes in to grab something for them, too.”

(You wish you had someone to do that for you.)

There’s a beat of silence. Jungkook’s holding the stepladder, ready to move it, staring at you in a way that’s weirdly intense. “I see,” he says, like that isn’t weird or mysterious at all.

Then he drags the stepladder’s rubber feet across the floor with such a loud noise that Taehyung startles, bauble falling out of his hand and shattering. Jungkook, of course, profusely apologises and insists on cleaning it up��but not before making sure Taehyung is okay, of course, grabbing his hands and looking over them, as if the bauble had broken in his palms and not the floor.

Taehyung looks immensely pleased. You just smile quietly to yourself, roll your eyes lightly, and go back to hanging snowflakes as Jungkook speaks to Taehyung, soft and low.

You think your favourite thing about training a new starter is witnessing their reaction to the weekly special.

“So,” Jungkook says, slowly. “You put in the whole gingerbread man—gumdrops and icing and all—and just blend it?

“Yep.” Taehyung’s reply is cheery. “Straight in and whizz it all up.”

This week, it’s You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Frappé which is a) probably the longest name known to mankind and b) probably the most questionable name known to mankind and c) who orders a frappé in December?

These thoughts are clearly playing across Jungkook’s face as Taehyung coaxes him to drop the gingerbread man into the blender, and you’re too busy enjoying the consternation on Jungkook’s face to notice someone stepping up to the counter—until they clear their throat, that is, and you all turn.

“Hi,” Yoongi says.

“Oh! Hi,” Taehyung says.

“Hyung! Look!” Jungkook says.

“Jungkook, wait—” you say.

“Whirr,” the lidless blender says.

It’s chaos. Frappé ends up everywhere, splattered over the counter and the floor, splashed across the wine-red aprons of both of your fellow baristas, as close to the blender as they were—saving you from any of the sugary fallout, unwitting human shields.

There’s a beat of silence, where you all stare at each other—

And then Yoongi laughs.

You’ve never seen Yoongi laugh this loudly, eyes squeezed so hard you wonder if he can even see, almost cackling as he laughs at Jungkook’s expression, joyful and loud and free. It’s another dimension to him, another new part you witness as Jungkook wipes gingerbread and ice off his face and Taehyung stares at the mess spattered across his hands and arms.

It makes you think of a paper crane. Yoongi is this unfinished thing in your mind, each new thing you learn about him another fold that you add, a flat sheet of paper turned into something entirely and wholly new. You wish that it weren’t so alluring, watching it come together, finding out more and more about this man you’ve technically known for months, but only recently started to get to know.

(You wish that it wasn’t so easy to keep falling for him.)

Once the counter is cleaned, both Jungkook and Taehyung retreat to replace their aprons, leaving you—once again—alone with Yoongi. He’d stopped laughing to tease Jungkook, to gently rib him, but you can see the smile that’s etched on his face, the echoes of mirth written across all his features.

“We usually train the baristas to keep the lid on, I swear,” you say, and Yoongi’s face splits into another smile.

“I was going to say that it’s an unorthodox blending technique,” and you can’t help but smile back at this, even if you’ve been trying not to laugh. Professionalism barely wins out, your lips trembling as you try to hold your giggling back, but Yoongi spots it anyway, looking pleased, like he’s accomplished something by getting you to (nearly) laugh.

You’re not laughing when you have to make one of the special frappés, though. You stare at the gingerbread man as you hold him above the blender, at his cheery iced face and his cute little buttons (not the gumdrop buttons), and brace yourself to drop him.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, and let him go, before quickly slamming the lid on top and turning the blender on so you don’t have to look at the betrayal you’ve just committed.

When you turn, Yoongi has an expression of sympathy on his face; for you or the gingerbread man, you can’t tell, but his face smooths the second he notices you looking at him, blinking innocently, as if there’s nothing unusual going on. It’s disarming, seeing that expression on his face, when you’d gotten used to seeing him act more reserved, but it’s cute.

(It is cute, whether you’re crushing on him or not. It’s just a statement of fact, okay? It’s nothing more than that. Even if that tiny gremlin of a crush still lives in your chest, scuffing its feet against your heart, reminding you of its presence when you least need it.)

(It digs its heels in when you put the frappé and Americano side by side, nestled snug in their cardboard tray. You slide it towards Yoongi and you’re a little too slow, fingers brushing his when he reaches for them; you’re surprised by how quickly he moves, how eager he seems to be reaching for his order, fingertips dragging across the back of your knuckles, and the gremlin kicks your heart, pulse rising just at that glancing touch. Even if you know it’s fruitless, useless, you can’t help but like Yoongi anyway.)

(“See you next week,” he says, and you can’t do anything but smile helplessly back.)

You normally love snow. You love waking up to the sight of it, pure and pristine white, adding another dimension to your familiar world—you love snowball fights and snowmen and snow angels, even if it all leaves you feeling cold, chilled right to the bone, nose running and hands freezing. The best part about winter is getting warm again, the season of throw blankets and hot water bottles, knitwear and scarves, tea and hot cocoa, all cosy and lovely and wonderful.

It’s a bit different when you have to work all day, though. You watch as the snow on the streets outside is threatened by the spray of salt and a thousand spinning car wheels and busy feet, ice turned to slush water; for now the snow is winning, though, and judging from the weather forecast, you think that’ll be the case for the rest of the day. You hope it lasts through to tomorrow, too; by the time you get home you’ll be too tired and it’ll be too dark to play in the snow, and it leaves you feeling disappointed and sad.

(Winter is lovely but it can be a hollow season, too, something about the leafless trees and fogged windows making everything feel like an empty dream.)

At least Paradise is warm, even if you’re cooped up inside, safe from the still-falling snow that keeps trying to turn the world into an untouched, frozen wonderland. It’s quiet in the coffee shop today. Only the bravest of people have ventured out into the not-a-blizzard-but-basically-a-blizzard, plastered against radiators and putting drinks to their faces, letting hot steam heat their cold cheeks.

It’s why you’re both surprised and unsurprised when Yoongi appears, bell chiming above his head as the door swings shut and he stamps his feet on the front mat, knocking snow off his boots. He somehow looks disgruntled and soft all at the same time, a royal blue beanie on his head forcing his fringe down to sit messily over his eyes, bundled up warm even if his face is scrunched up and his cheeks are red from the cold.

“I hate cold weather,” he tells you once he reaches the counter, gloves peeled off his fingers so he can reach for his wallet, his nose tinged pink as he sniffs.

You proffer him a box of tissues. “You look like you need it,” you say gently, and he smiles at you, a warm hearth in the cold winter.

“Thank you.” His voice is equally as gentle as yours, and something aches in your chest.

It’s just you behind the counter right now, so you take Yoongi’s order and make the drinks too—one large Americano and one large Latteggnog (a basic latte made with eggnog instead of milk, rich and thick and creamy), this week’s special: everyone’s favourite Christmas drink, but with a twist of coffee.

The quiet gives you time to think. Jungkook and Taehyung are out back, the older barista coming up with the most ridiculous excuses to take them away from the counter; you don’t mind that they’re taking the time ‘counting the coffee beans’, as deserted as the café is.

The café is practically empty and Yoongi hates the cold but here he is, venturing into the ice and snow to get this person he cares about the drink they want, because they’re that special to him. (You hope they realise how lucky they are.)

You’re normally okay being single. Don’t really think about it. But there’s something about today, this moment, that has you reflecting; Taehyung has this budding thing with Jungkook, Yoongi has this steady thing with his love, and here you are, by yourself, alone. It’s hard to summon up your usual energy, going through the motions as you make the drinks. You tilt your head forward, dusting nutmeg on the eggnog latte, watching the way the sprinkle of spice settles delicately and softly in the foam. No flourish, no flick of the wrist, not today.

(There’s two cups in front of you now, but later, when you’re home, there’s just going to be one. Yours. Yours, and no one else’s.)

(When you get home, you’re going to do what any self-respecting single person would do: order too much takeaway, rewatch The Good Place, get emotional over Eleanor and Chidi’s relationship—they’re so different but they’re so perfect for each other, why can’t you have that?—mope for a bit, rewatch The Princess Bride, get emotional over Westley and Buttercup—where’s your cute farmboy who saves you from an evil prince?—mope a bit more, before finally climbing into bed and hugging a pillow to your chest in the space of having someone else there. You know. Perfectly normal single person things.)

When you turn to Yoongi, drinks ready and raring to go, you’ve forced a Customer Service Smile onto your face. They say that just the act of smiling makes you happier, right? Maybe if you smile hard enough, you’ll cheer up, chasing away this sudden sadness that lingers in the back of your throat, scratching at your lungs like black ice.

“Here you go!” Your voice seems too loud for the quiet hush of the café, but you roll with it anyway. “Enjoy your drinks!”

Yoongi takes them from you, hands carefully cupped around the tray, but his eyes don’t leave your face. He doesn’t return your smile, as convincing as it should be (even Taehyung struggles to tell between your real smile and your work smile, sometimes); he stands for a moment, looking at you.

You think he’s about to say something when he clearly thinks better of it. He tilts his head, like he always does, but you’d swear his expression is tinged with concern. ��Thanks,” he says. Pauses. “The roads are really icy. Get home safe, okay Y/n?”

Blink, blink. Your eyelashes flutter. You suddenly realise that he’s never said your name out loud, never had a need to, even if he must have known it all along from the badge on your chest. It sounds so good in his mouth, soft and safe.

“Oh,” you say, slow with surprise. “Thank you. I will. You, too.”

Yoongi nods again, as if to himself, before he turns to go.

He stops one more time before he goes. He stands at the open door, glances over his shoulder before he steps out, dark eyes meeting yours, as if checking that you’re still there, still tethered to the ground. Seems satisfied when he finds that you are. He gives you one last smile, all soft around the edges—that’s something you know intimately about Yoongi, that he’s soft through and through, even if he can look sharp, as cold as the ice outside—and then he goes, back into the falling snow to deliver a steaming sip of warmth into the hands of the person he loves.

(Your heart aches.)

It’s the week before Christmas. The whole world has that feeling it always does at this time of year—excited and bright, if a little frantic, the hanging lights in the city a backdrop to people’s last minute shopping, their breaths pluming out into the air as they rush around in the cold. The whole world feels full of life, that final push towards the end of the year; the hearth fire of Christmas before that weird in between before the new year, that held breath of potential, before the clock ticks over and the world is thrown into the next year.

Paradise has been busy. It’s like summer, only instead of sundresses and shorts, everyone is in knitwear and scarves, shivering as they wait to be served, desperate for a drink to warm them up, something to eat to fill their bellies. You spend more time in the coffee shop than you do at home, pulling overtime shifts to help your fellow baristas out—everyone thinks Christmas is a time of relaxation and coming together, but it doesn’t feel like that when you work in a customer facing job, oh no. It’s just non-stop busyness and being rushed off your feet.

(You’d barely had a chance to speak to Yoongi, café full when he’d stepped in, your pace frenetic as you’d danced around behind the counter with Taehyung and Jungkook; you’d slid his drinks towards him, his Americano and the special, and maybe your smile had looked more harrowed than you thought because he’d caught your hand and squeezed it.

“I hope you get a chance to rest over Christmas,” he’d said, concerned and sincere, as you’d stood in stunned silence, not expecting that almost-intimate touch, gentle against your skin.

“I will,” you’d said eventually. Yoongi had seemed to suddenly realise he was still touching you, fingers clasped around yours, and he’d withdrawn quickly, giving you a smile that felt like a whispered secret, before leaving you to deal with the ever-growing queue.)

Suffice to say, it’s been a long week, and you’re tired, and your feet hurt after all the running around you’ve been doing, and you just want to go home. You just need to finish the close, need to finish setting everything up for the open tomorrow, need to finish cleaning everything, and then you can get some sleep.

At least, that’s what you thought. Instead, you’re standing across from Jungkook and staring at him incredulously. You can feel a headache coming on.

“Wait.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “What do you mean, we need to deliver some coffee?”

You don’t know if Jungkook is being deliberately obtuse, but he just stares at you as if you’re the one talking nonsense right now, and not him. “We have a customer order to deliver,” he says.

“Yes, I gathered that,” you say. “I just mean, why did no one tell me sooner?”

Paradise doesn’t do deliveries, as such. You cater for events, and you technically do deliveries then, but it’s less ‘one coffee to go’ and more ‘enough sandwiches and pastries and bagels and coffee to feed an entire office’. It’s not that you can’t bring someone their order directly, it’s more that you just… don’t.

“Taehyung took the order,” Jungkook says, as if that explains everything.

You pinch the bridge of your nose again. You can’t ask Tae about it, the other man having had to leave just as you’d been about to flip the sign to closed (‘Jimin says Tannie peed in his shoes again! I have to go clean it up! I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll cover a close for each of you next time!’), so it’s just you, and Jungkook, and the slip of paper on the counter between you. You’ve worked with Taehyung long enough to trust his judgement and his decisions, as inexplicable as they might seem sometimes, but you do think it’s weird that he’s taken this delivery on board.

“It’s not too far from here,” Jungkook adds, peering at the address on the paper. “It won’t take long.”

“We have to finish closing, Jungkook,” you say.

He shrugs casually, carelessly. “I’ll do it, I don’t mind. You can just do the delivery and then go home straight after, it’s whatever.”

“It’s not whatever,” you mumble. “Why can’t you deliver it?”

“You’re the senior barista, you’re a better representative of the brand,” he says, and you have no idea where he pulled that from. (You blame Jimin. You know they’ve had shifts together, and Jimin is too smooth-talking for his own good.)

As much as you want to argue, you can’t help but cave, because the prospect of getting home early is one that you’re not about to sniff at. (You’d worry that Jungkook would get home late, what with the amount of prep he still needs to do for tomorrow, but you half suspect that Taehyung will reappear at some point, anyway.) You’re too tired to want to argue. “I just want to say this is a one off, and normally we cater for events, we’re not really a delivery service, okay?”

“Duly noted.”

It’s a simple enough order, anyway—it’s just two drinks. The first is a large quad shot latte with caramel and toffee syrup, extra whipped cream and cinnamon on top (something you’d definitely order, you think, indulgent and milky and with enough caffeine to kick you up the ass). Jungkook dutifully cleans as you start the second drink. The special this week is far, far less sweet than normal; a Rudolph the Red-eyed Reindeer: a simple red eye with a pinch of holiday spice, coffee with an extra espresso shot and topped with cinnamon and nutmeg. You take in a deep breath, swallowing down the warm smell and letting it flow through you before you double check the details on the note.

It takes you a second as you squint at the address, wondering why it looks familiar—and then you pause. This is Yoongi’s office, you think to yourself, and it feels a little like there’s an apricot pit sitting heavy in your stomach, heavy and hard. Paradise had catered a breakfast for them last week, and it hadn’t been on your shift and so you hadn’t gone, but—you’d heard enough about it from Jimin, the type who gets to know everyone and everything the second he walks in the door. You’d heard about the team that Yoongi manages, found out that Yoongi works in music, in artist and repertoire, and when you’d had the chance to Google exactly what that meant, you’d been bowled over. He has such a complex, high skilled job, and here you are, struggling to get a job with your degree, hence the barista thing. (Thanks, economy.)

You hastily shuffle past the address, trying to ward off your sudden sense of inadequacy, focusing on the name instead. What sort of name is Suga? you think to yourself, and then shrug. Probably one of the workers had enjoyed the breakfast the other week and was still hanging around before going on holiday for Christmas, or something.

“Alright, I’m off.” You’re ready to advance into the cold outside: coat on, scarf looped around your neck and hat secure on your head, cardboard tray of drinks clutched in your hands. “If you need help closing, just call me and I’ll come back, okay?”

“I won’t, but, thanks,” Jungkook says, equal parts self-assured and reassuring. “Don’t fall on your ass!”

It is icy outside, the entire world a winter wonderland, beautiful but cold and daylight long gone; snow drifts slowly from the sky above, dusting your shoulders and the top of your hat, flakes caught so softly by the weave of your clothes. It’s the kind of day that’s perfect spent indoors, curled up with the people you love, warmed through and through—and here you are, picking your way across the pavement slush to deliver a coffee to someone. (You’re not even getting paid for this.)

At least it’s not too far, really, just a few blocks away. The building is small, which is a plus, because it means you won’t have multitudes of rooms and offices to trawl past to get to your destination. The receptionist is more than helpful, too, when you say that you have a delivery for Suga; she gives you exactly directions and then she smiles at you, pleasant and pretty and lovely, and that gremlin that’s still clinging desperately onto your feelings for Yoongi whispers: what if this is Yoongi’s girlfriend? She’s beautiful.

Shut up, you think, before smiling back and thanking her, and heading on your way.

This close to Christmas you’d think that the building would be almost empty, but you’d be wrong. It’s not a buzzing hive of activity but there are still people walking around, speaking behind closed doors or laughing through open ones, decorations and tinsel hanging from the ceiling. Up ahead you see a someone come out of a room, shutting the door behind them before they walk in your direction. It’s a man who looks like he’s just stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine and as you pass in the corridor he pauses, raising his eyebrows at you. Not suspicious, just surprised.

“Uh, I have a coffee for Suga,” you say without prompting, as if he was about to accuse you of some sort of nefarious scheme and your coffee delivery is the only thing saving you from that.

“Oh,” mister-model-handsome says, suddenly smiling widely, like this is all perfectly normal and not weird at all. He’s got some of the poutiest lips you’ve ever seen. “You’re nearly there, he’s just down the corridor and on the right. Have fun!”

“Uh, you too?” you reply. (Is he Yoongi’s boyfriend? He’s tall and broad shouldered and incredibly attractive, with the type of smile that makes people’s hearts race, and Yoongi definitely deserves someone like that.)

Your destination seems to be the office the (probably) model just came out of. You look around the corridor, which seems to be deserted now, the hubbub of people elsewhere in the building. You knock quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush that’s filled the air around you.

A beat. Then: “Come in,” someone says, voice muffled through the door.

It swings open easily at your touch. You stand on the threshold, mouth open around the announcement of your delivery when the words die on your lips.

Yoongi’s there, sitting behind a desk and his head bowed as he scribbles something in a notebook. He doesn’t look up. “Shut the door,” he says. Dumbstruck, you do just that, and it’s not until the door’s quietly clicked shut that he starts to raise his head. “Hyung, I already said that I don’t need to eat—”

And then he spots you standing there.

He stops mid-sentence, mouth open, eyes widening. He looks as shocked as you feel, utterly taken aback and agog, and even now you can’t help but notice how good he looks. He’s in a black button up, sleeves rolled to the elbow and top button undone, revealing the pale skin of his collarbones. It’s another juxtaposition, the Yoongi that you’re familiar with (an aura of effortless authority and attractiveness) in a place you don’t know at all, completely professional, his desk neat and the entire space put together. There’s a tastefully decorated tree in the corner but it doesn’t throw off the balance of the room at all.

“Uh.” You cough lightly. “I have… a delivery… for Suga?”

Yoongi stares at you.

“Is this… not the right room? I can go,” you mumble, gesturing over your shoulder with a thumb.

This seems to snap Yoongi out of whatever thoughts he was having as he shakes his head. “No, this is… Suga’s office,” he says. “I just didn’t order any coffee.”

You open your mouth. Shut your mouth. You don’t have an Americano on the tray, but he’d probably like the red eye, coffee with extra coffee, no sugar or cream. Just a little pinch of spice.

“Maybe it was a surprise, or something? Couples get each other gifts all the time.”

Yoongi’s lips quirk up. “I’m not really the type that gets surprised with gifts.”

Something about this strikes a discordant note in you. He’s always delivering gifts of coffee—he deserves those expressions of love returned to him. You can’t help but say as such.

“You’re always giving gifts, though,” you say. “Those weekly specials. I wouldn’t be surprised if your other half is returning the favour.”

Blink, blink. He looks perplexed. “I don’t have an other half?”

Your mouth opens again. “Uh,” you say eloquently. “What?”

“I… don’t have an other half? I’m… single?”

“You’re…” Your face scrunches up, wrinkled in confusion. What? He’s… what? “But you always buy two drinks?”

Silence. Then: “I… the Americano is for me,” he says. “I usually just pour the special away. I only started ordering them because you got so excited talking about them and making them. I never planned on drinking them.”

Your mouth falls open, soft around a quiet breath, a soft oh. “You—wait. You ordered them because I got excited about them?”

Yoongi’s eyes are so dark, so gentle; melted chocolate, warm. “You started to talk to me more, after the first time I did,” he says, and you know you had. Because you thought it was safer to talk to him, though you were secure in the knowledge he wasn’t single—but he is single. “So I kept doing it, because I wanted to talk more to you. I thought you knew? And that’s why you started having real conversations with me.”

You’re frozen in place, eyes as big as dinner plates. Min Yoongi, your futile crush, who looks as sharp as a knife but is as sweet as spun candyfloss, has been coming back week after week—for you. He’s not in a relationship, and he’s been flirting with you.

Or at least he thought he had been. You, however, hadn’t even realised.

“I was going to ask you on a date after Christmas,” he continues, calm and steady, as if your brain isn’t melting. He’s still sitting behind his desk, and there’s something about his tousled hair and bared lower arms—watch on one wrist and a few bracelets on the other—that has your heart pounding, that casual air somehow not at odds at the weight of the surroundings. Because the world is a backdrop to Yoongi, and he makes it work.

“What the fuck,” you say. You realise you’ve never sworn in front of him when something flickers in his eyes; not a bad flicker, no. Definitely not. “I thought you were taken.”

“I’m very single,” he says lightly, belying the weight behind the words. And then his eyes drop to your hands. “You said you have a coffee for me?”

Which leads to this: Yoongi, in his chair, you, leaning against his desk. He’s taken the red eye (of course) while you sip at the latte, relishing the punch of espresso, the flavour of the syrups.

You’re both staring at each other as you drink, air in the room growing thicker by the moment, when Yoongi breaks the silence. “This is probably the only weekly special I’d actually want to drink.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Black coffee with more espresso? That’s you all over,” you say. “The other specials aren’t so bad, though. I think you just need to give sweet drinks a chance.”

You’re speaking without thinking, but the second those words leave your mouth, the air turns electric. Yoongi’s still staring at you, unwavering and intent, and everything inside you is melting, leaving you flushed and hot. The smile hasn’t left his face, which had been warm but it’s changed, evolved, edged with something sharper.

“If you say so,” he says. His eyes are on your lips. “Let me try?”

His fingers are so gentle on your face, hands cupping your jaw as he tilts your head down. All your thoughts leave you. There’s nothing in your mind but Yoongi, his warm hands and dark eyes, the heat of his body so close to yours, his mouth; you can’t help but look down, tracing the shape of his lips with your gaze, a small soft pout that’s so at odds with the weight of his intensity.

When he kisses you, it’s featherlight. Barely the softest of pressures, the potential of something more—and then he pulls you in deeper, and there it is, that heat flickering in your stomach jumping into a full fire. The kiss turns hot and wet as he licks the flavour of caramel and toffee syrup out of your mouth, and he tastes like coffee, dark and bitter; you make a noise against his lips and he swallows it down, pulls you closer.

You’re straddling his knees, a little awkward and cramped in his office chair, but you don’t care. You’ve been wanting to kiss Yoongi for so long, even when you felt like you shouldn’t, thought about his dark eyes and pink mouth, the curve of his lips, the paleness of his hands; a steadying presence around your waist, holding you in place.

When you pull apart, Yoongi’s lips are flushed, kiss swollen. It looks good on him. Really good on him.

“I’ve thought about that more than I’d like to admit,” he says, and you can’t help but feel warmed by it, the realisation that you’ve wanted to kiss him but he’s wanted to kiss you, too.

“This really isn’t comfortable,” you say, wriggling a little—your ass is starting to go numb, sat on Yoongi’s knees—and Yoongi sucks in a quick breath at the way you’re all but squirming in his lap, even if he doesn’t say anything.

Oh, you think.

When you move away, he lets you go without protest, hands sliding off your waist. It’s not until you fall to your knees that Yoongi realises what you’re doing, his eyes widening.

“Y/n,” he breathes. “You don’t have to—”

“Please, Yoongi, I’ve wanted to do this for months,” you say. Maybe it was a little crass to start with, wanting to get on your knees for a man you barely knew just because he was hot and polite to you, but now you know he wants you back. You’re not about to let this opportunity pass you by, staring up at him between his knees, hands braced on his thighs. “But if you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”

He looks torn, just for a second, eyes darting away from your face and to the door. It’s shut, but it’s not locked, and though the building is quiet there’s nothing to say that someone couldn’t walk in at any second.

Without thinking, you lick your lips. Yoongi’s eyes flicker back at the motion, watching how your tongue moves, and you can see how he crumbles.

“I don’t want you to stop,” he says, and you dig your nails into his trousers, electricity shooting through you.

“You’ll have to keep your voice down,” you warn, and reach for his zipper.

It’s a struggle for him, you can tell. He’s already biting his lip by the time you’ve tugged his trousers and boxers down, hardening under your grasp, and you knew his dick would be as pretty as the rest of him. You don’t have the luxury of worshipping him the way you want to, acutely aware of the fact you’re in his office, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to make Yoongi feel good. It’s dirty and messy, the way you suck his cock into your mouth lewd and wet, lavishing attention on the most sensitive parts; his hips jump as you circle the head with your tongue and jerk the rest of his length with a hand.

Everything’s sloppy with spit and precum and Yoongi’s biting off curses, hand tightening in your hair as you take in as much of him as you can, relaxing your throat and swallowing him down, down, down. When you look up at him through your lashes he looks wrecked, the paleness of his skin flushed pink, and you can’t wait to see that all over. Can’t wait to see Yoongi entirely bare in front of you, when you have the luxury of time and pleasure.

But there’s something about this, too, that has your heart racing, cunt throbbing. You’re running your spit slick lips down the side of his shaft, tonguing the throb of the vein there, when you hear footsteps nearby, muffled through the door. It doesn’t sound like they’re coming in this direction and Yoongi seems almost entirely lost to the feeling of your mouth on him, but you flick your tongue across the spot where the head of his cock meets the shaft and he bows forward, swallowing down the noise that threatened to spill from his lips. He’s so fucking hot like this, falling apart under your hands and mouth, and you know he’ll give as good as he gets.

“Gonna cum,” he rasps. You smile up at him before taking his cock back into your mouth, jerking him off hard and fast as you lick and suck—and when he cums it’s with a noisy exhale of breath, a muffled groan, and even as you’re swallowing down his cum and mouthing at him until he winces with oversensitivity, you’re imagining what he sounds like when he doesn’t have to be quiet.

He’s not shy, either. You’ve barely tucked him back in when he’s reaching for you, kissing you. There’s no taste of coffee any more and you shiver, molten and boneless at the way his tongue presses into your mouth.

“Still want to take me on a date?”

You’re being cheeky, voice light as you joke, but Yoongi’s responding look is equal parts serious and affectionate. He sweeps a thumb over your cheekbone and you relax into his hands, feeling like a cat that got the cream. Here you are, on your knees in his office, the glittering lights of his Christmas tree thrown across your hair and skin, warmed by the touch of a man you’ve wanted for months but never thought you would get.

“Of course,” he murmurs, gentle-gentle-gentle, as if you hadn’t just sucked his soul through his dick—and you love that about him, love his inherent soft core, his big heart. You might not know him as well as you’d like—not yet—but you already know that much about him. “I owe you a present, too.”

Your face scrunches. “What, because I gave you a blowjob?”

At this he laughs, mouth split wide and gums on show as his whole body shakes with the intensity of it. “No, because you brought me a coffee,” he says. He still has your cheek cupped in his hand, palm warm against your skin. “But if you want to say it’s because of the blowjob as well, then sure.”

“There’s plenty more where that came from.” You smile at him, gentle expression at odds with the meaning behind the words and your position—still on your knees.

You don’t know if they ache when you stand, because Yoongi is kissing you again, distracting you. And it’s easy, this back and forth you have, comfortable as you finish the (now lukewarm) coffees and get ready to go, because Yoongi insists on walking you home. Because he’s a gentleman, your gentleman, and he even holds the door open for you.

You’re not sure if you can reach for his hand, if that would be too forward in his place of work, if he doesn’t want to when this thing between you is so tentative and new. But you’re barely halfway down the corridor when he stops you with a gentle hand on your arm; when you look over, he’s smiling at you, and then tilts his chin up.

“Oh!” You stare at the huge bundle of mistletoe above you, tied with red ribbon and messily taped to the ceiling. It brings a smile to your face. “Oh, how cute.”

The hand on your arm shifts down. Yoongi weaves his fingers with yours.

“You know about the tradition, right?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, and it’s not just from the lights from the ceiling above, turning his dark eyes into warm chocolate, deep brown. “Kissing under the mistletoe?”

You can’t help but blink, surprised at his sweetness, his forwardness. There’s nothing to say that someone couldn’t walk by right now, to see the two of you hand in hand under the mistletoe, but Yoongi doesn’t care at all. He’s staring at you like you’re the only other person in the world, and you feel like a fountain of champagne is bubbling inside you, heady and sparkling and light.

“I think I’ve heard of it,” you say, and he’s still smiling, a small thing, just for you. “Do you think you can show me?”

And he does, with his hand in yours, your lips against his, and up above, the mistletoe sparkles.

(Your phone rings. Caller ID says it’s Taehyung, but when you pick up, he’s not the one who speaks.

“So.” Jungkook sounds knowing, his voice bordering on smug. “How did the delivery go?”

In the background you can hear someone crowding close, put it on speaker, Kookie, I want to hear too, and you can’t help but smile at Taehyung’s eagerness.

“Good,” you say. Yoongi’s palm is warm against yours and you swing your joint hands together, looking at him, entranced by the way the snowflakes dust his eyelashes. The sky above is dark and the wind around you is cold, but the man beside is so bright and warm. You feel wrapped up in it. “Yoongi says he’s going to kill you, by the way.”

“He won’t,” Jungkook says cheerfully, loud enough that Yoongi can hear. He looks fond.

“Well, tell Taehyung I’m going to kick his ass for lying about Tannie peeing on Jimin’s shoes,” you say.

“You won’t,” Taehyung says, equally as cheerful, and you can’t help but smile.

“No, I won’t,” you say.

You think about the seasons. You think about the man walking beside you; the man who says he hates cold weather, but has kept his gloves off so he can feel your hand against his. The man who came out in the snow to order a drink, just to make you smile. The man who looks like winter but feels like spring, something cold bursting into potential, new life.

In the depth of winter, under the snow and twinkling Christmas lights above, Yoongi squeezes your hand.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon @vensulove

#btswritingcafe #btswriterscollective #magicshopnet #houseofddaeng #yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #bts #yoongi au #bts au #yoongi #yoongi scenario #yoongi imagine #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #joy.masterlist #PLEASE feel free to message me with any typos or whatever and I'll get on those when I have a chance

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comfortbucky · 3 years ago

Note

Hey! If requests are still open I was wondering if I could request a fluffy fic where reader is having a bad day and Bucky notices and cheers them up? 💗💗

HELL YEAH!!!

REQUESTS!!! ARE!!! OPEN!!!

𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝘁 ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ｡˚ ☁︎ ˚

pairing: bodyguard!bucky x fem!reader

warnings: anxiety, anxiety attack

tags: grumpy!bucky, bodyguard!bucky, fluffy bucky!!!

A/N: okay i have never written bodyguard!bucky before but i just thought it would be such a sweet concept to see him being soft🥺

sorry if the ending is kind of bad😭 i didn’t know how to quite wrap it all up, but i hope u enjoy!!!!!!!! <3 i had so much fun writing about bodyguard!bucky!!!!!

word count: 2.9k

my masterlist!

completed requests!

Y/N groaned as her phone alarm went off and hit snooze for the fifth time. She reached her hand out, head facing away and resting on her pillow, fumbling for her phone to turn off the incessant sound. Before she could shut it off, the noise stopped. Y/N turned her head slightly to see a large, dark figure in the corner of her eye. She turned her head fully to see her bodyguard with a frown on his face as he shut her alarm off.

“Your alarm, it’s annoying,” Bucky grumbled. “You should get up anyways, busy schedule today.” He walked out of the room before she could respond. Super soldier hearing was no joke if he was able to hear her alarm from his bedroom down the hall. Y/N sighed as her face planted into the pillow.

She was not looking forward to the events planned out for the day. During the day, there was a slew of interviews she had, back to back, and at night, a gala she was being forced to attend by her father.

Being the daughter of a wealthy tech tycoon had its perks for sure, but Y/N did not consider all of the press she did as a part of them. She never liked being in the spotlight but was forced to be, a birthright she had. Growing up with her dad, she’d developed a fascination for tinkering with computers, game consoles, and everything in-between. She spent a lot, practically all of her free time, with her dad when her mom had passed away. Her dad ended up throwing himself into his life’s work and she worked with him closely in the beginning, but slowly started to drift apart from him as she started to make a name for herself.

Earlier that week, her dad had sent her a text, informing her that a big announcement would be made at the gala. Big parties and large crowds weren’t really her thing, but it seemed like she didn’t have the option to avoid this one.

She got ready for the day, walking down to her kitchen to see her bodyguard, Bucky, sitting at the table, reading a book. As soon as he heard her come down the steps, he stood up and put his book away.

“C’mon, we’re already running late,” he mumbled, making his way to the door. Y/N rolled her eyes in response, grabbing a granola bar as she briskly followed behind him.

When her dad became a big name in the world of tech, the last thing Y/N thought she needed was a bodyguard, but her dad felt otherwise. It took one, very close call, of her almost getting mugged for her dad to immediately assign a personal bodyguard for her. She insisted that it was unnecessary, seeing that she was a fully grown adult, but her dad refused, as he was the one paying for Bucky’s salary.

Bucky had always been rather closed off since the beginning, and not much had changed since he was first assigned to her a little over a year ago. He kept their relationship very professional, only speaking when necessary and leaving the room whenever he wasn’t needed. She had tried to get him to open up more, learn about his past, but he always shut her questions down by either ignoring her or changing the topic to discussing something work-related. He was an enigma to her, which only left her wanting to solve the mystery that was James Bucky Barnes but couldn’t seem to crack the code.

Her first two interviews went smoothly, exactly what she was used to. A couple of questions about her current projects at work, some about her dad sprinkled in, and what she had planned for the future. It was a format she was used to and had come to appreciate, not exactly enjoying being the center of attention. During her last interview, however, she was caught off guard by one of the last questions she was asked.

“I know this might be an awkward question to ask, but I just have to! The people want to know: do you think your dad’s ever going to return to the dating pool?”

Y/N choked on her saliva. She knew her dad was an attractive man, seeing posts on social media of people fawning over him. Although she found it to be very weird and uncomfortable, she just brushed it all aside, not wanting to think about it as it only led to her thinking about the loss of her mom, a sore spot for her.

Y/N cleared her throat and forced out a chuckle. “I think that’s a question only he can answer, I don’t always know what’s going on in that crazy head of his.”

The interviewer laughed and proceeded to transition into the next segment. Y/N quickly thanked the interviewer and left, Bucky swiftly following behind. He had a feeling that something was off, as Y/N would typically stay behind to chat with the interviewer, crew members, even the service staff, whenever she finished an interview. It was always something he admired about her, how down to earth she remained, despite all of the privileges she had. She went out of her way to thank everyone on set, no matter how small their role might seem. He always told the drivers to pull the car up a little later than originally planned, just so she would have the extra time to talk.

Y/N pushed the doors open, only to find an empty street. She turned around and gave Bucky a curious look.

“Sorry, the driver just texted me,” he said, as he sent a text to the driver, telling him to come now. “He’s running late.”

Y/N nodded and leaned against the wall, looking down to fiddle with her hands. Bucky leaned against the opposite wall, facing her, his arms crossed over his chest.

“You okay?”

Y/N looked up at Bucky to find a gentle look in his eyes, slightly taken aback at the sight. She always found herself drawn to his piercing blue eyes, but they usually had a colder glint to them. This was a look she’d never seen before.

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” she replied, averting her gaze down as she felt her cheeks flush at the sight of Bucky’s soft gaze.

The car arrived, cutting off Bucky’s train of thought as he was thinking of what to say to her. For a moment he debated on continuing the conversation in the car but figured she already had a long night ahead of her and didn’t want to push any further.

After a quick pit stop back to Y/N’s place, allowing her to change into an evening gown, the car headed to the venue of the gala. Bucky got out of the car before her, walking around to the other side to open her door. Before she stepped out, Y/N took a deep breath in and exhaled, plastering a fake smile on her face as a surge of flashing lights from cameras greeted her. Bucky watched, seeing her seamlessly transform from Y/N, the girl who needed to set a million alarms before actually waking up, to Y/N, tech extraordinaire, one of the most powerful people in the tech world.

Once they were inside the venue, Bucky stuck to his usual routine. Scope out the exits, look for any potential threats, and make sure Y/N was in his eyesight. Bucky kept close by but also kept his distance. He wanted to make sure that he gave her enough space whenever they were out, knowing that having him around was her dad’s idea and that she wasn’t too fond of having security detail in the first place. So he did everything he could to make himself blend in with the crowd, allowing her to roam freely, only following her when she moved out of his line of vision.

Y/N walked around, not knowing a single soul but making polite small talk with the rest of the guests. She became accustomed to knowing how to act at these types of events over the span of her adult life. Food, drinks, more food, home. Crowds made her uneasy, but she always felt calmer when she saw Bucky in her peripheral vision. Y/N would never admit it out loud, but over the last year, he had become a constant source of relief at these public events. Just knowing that he was there if she felt uncomfortable, unsafe, or wanted to leave early made her public outings much more bearable.

“Hey, sweetie! I’m so glad you made it.” Y/N turned around at the sound of her dad’s voice and smiled, moving in to hug him.

“Yeah well, you said you had a big announcement, so I figured I’d stop by,” she joked, eliciting a chuckle from her dad as they pulled away from each other.

“I’m about to make it now,” he started, placing his hands on Y/N’s shoulders. “And I was wondering if you could join me on stage for it? I know that’s not your thing, but it would mean so much to me, Y/N.”

While she absolutely hated the idea of having to stand in front of thousands of people, she reluctantly nodded. Y/N and her dad had slowly grown apart the past several years, only talking a couple times a month to catch up. With both of their busy schedules, they always seemed to miss each other. Despite their growing apart, she would do anything for her dad, especially if it meant so much to him.

Bucky slowly followed behind, as Y/N and her dad walked up to the stage. Y/N glanced behind her to give a slight smile to Bucky, to which he nodded back. He stood backstage, watching them from behind the curtains.

“Hi everyone, thanks so much for coming out tonight,” Y/N’s dad spoke into the mic. She was standing beside him, hands clasped in front of her, trying to look calm and not totally anxious.

“Since the success of my brand, people have said that I am a man who has everything. And I definitely have a lot to be thankful for, my company, my friends, and most importantly, my daughter.” Her dad extended a hand out to point to Y/N and the crowd cheered. Bucky couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips. Despite his brooding attitude, he had come to grow fond of Y/N, being able to see her for who she truly was. She was smart, witty, and had a heart of gold.

“The only thing I’ve been missing,” her dad looks down at the ground for a second, before looking back out at the crowd. “Is someone to share it all with.” Y/N’s smile faltered and felt her stomach drop. She couldn’t fully register the words coming out of her dad’s mouth.

“After Sarah, my wife had passed, I didn’t think I would be able to love again. Until I met Alyssa.” Y/N was frozen in place upon hearing her dad’s confession. She’d never heard of anyone named Alyssa during any of their catch-up calls and now he was saying he loved her? Y/N quickly turned as a woman walked out on stage. The woman walked over to her dad and he wrapped one of his arms around her waist before speaking.

“Now I feel complete, now I have everything.” He pulled Y/N to him and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, smiling for the cameras ahead. There were a lot of strategies Y/N had devised over the years to deal with potential unexpected and uncomfortable situations in a composed manner to avoid having a PR nightmare.

She didn’t have one for this.

Tearing herself from her dad’s hold, she ran off stage, heading towards the exit that led to the outside. Y/N took in the fresh air, trying to stop her hyperventilating. It wasn’t working. Her chest felt tight as she began gasping for air, struggling to take in oxygen.

She was having a panic attack. It was nothing she hadn’t experienced before, but it had been so long since she’d had one. The last time she remembered, was at her mom’s funeral.

Her mom. Her dad. Alyssa.

Her thoughts were pushed aside as her vision blurred, her eyes swelling up with tears. Y/N felt like she had no control over her body and shut her eyes, allowing the panic to consume her.

Then, a firm, but gentle, warm feeling in her hands.

Y/N blinked her eyes open to reveal Bucky, standing in front of her. She looked down and saw that it was his hands in hers, holding them tight.

“Can you breathe for me, honey?”

His voice came out in a soft whisper, accompanied by the warmest and welcoming smile. She shook her head, unable to control her quick and rapid breaths. Bucky squeezed her hands a little tighter, rubbing his thumb in small circles on the back of her hand.

“Yes you can, just breathe with me, okay?”

He started to breathe in and out slowly and eventually, she was able to follow his lead, deciding to focus on his eyes. There was that look from before the ride to the gala, the gentle look in his eyes. She’d always felt that his blue eyes reminded her of stormy seas, but now, now they made her think of the calmness of the ocean in the early morning, waves crashing softly on the shores.

As she regained her composure, she realized she’d been staring into Bucky’s eyes for, probably, far too long. Bucky felt her tight grip on his hands loosen and reluctantly let go of her hands. He immediately missed the softness of her hands and how small they were in comparison to his much larger, calloused, hands.

“T- Thank you,” she stuttered out, her gaze locked on the ground, as she placed her hands to her sides.

“It’s no problem. I get them too,” he replied. She looked up at him as he clarified. “Panic attacks. PTSD from serving overseas.”

Y/N face drops, her stomach churning at the thought that Bucky had ever experienced panic like she had. She returned her gaze to the ground as a silence washed over them.

“He didn’t tell me about her,” she spoke in a quiet voice. “Never brought her up once. But I guess she must be pretty special for him to do all of this.”

Bucky stood a couple steps in front of her, seeing teardrops fall from her face. She lifted her head up to wipe away her tears, her hands shaking from anxiety. Y/N placed her hands on her face and started to sob.

She was slightly hurt by the idea of her dad loving any other woman than her mom but knew that he’d have to move on eventually. What hurt her the most was the fact that he didn’t tell her, not until they were on stage, standing before a crowd of people. It was too much for her to handle and she reached her breaking point.

Bucky’s heart dropped at the sight. He cautiously stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Something his PTSD had taught him was how pressure from a hug could help relax the nervous system and calm him down. He held her firmly in his arms until he felt her breathing slow. She looked up at him, remaining in his embrace, her eyes glassy from crying, nose red and sniffly. Bucky felt his heart skip a beat and immediately pushed the thought away.

“You wanna leave, honey?”

She nodded in response, staying in his arms for just a second longer before pulling away. Y/N longed for his warm touch, feeling like a child who had their security blanket taken away. It didn’t help that it was also cold outside, sending a chill down her spine.

Bucky noticed and shrugged his suit jacket off to wrap around her shoulders. She beamed a smile at him and he smiled back.

The pair walked around the outside of the venue to find the car when they ran into a mob of paparazzi, shouting questions at Y/N about her sudden exit. Like a reflex, she grabbed hold of Bucky’s hand and he gave her a comforting squeeze as he cleared a path towards the car.

Bucky and Y/N were sat next to each other in the car, which was not the typical seating arrangement they usually had, usually sitting on opposite ends of the car. But Y/N hadn’t let go of his hand, not quite ready to separate herself from his warmth. Bucky had absolutely no problem with that, mindlessly rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand. She felt safe. She always felt safe with Bucky around.

Y/N felt her eyelids become heavy, struggling to keep them open. She was exhausted from her long day, and her panic attack had taken most of her energy away.

Bucky felt a weight on his shoulder and turned his head slightly to see Y/N’s head resting there. He felt a warmth rush to his cheeks and smiled, resting his head on top of hers.

“Thank you for tonight, Bucky,” she mumbled, keeping her eyes closed. “You always make me feel so safe.”

Bucky felt a surge of tenderness rush through him. That was all he ever wanted to do. He wanted to keep her safe. He kissed her forehead, causing her to snuggle closer to him.

“Of course, honey. I’m here, always.”

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