#and brother isn’t about the pack?

[cardigansandteas]

don’t know why but @castleaudios and @maddsbuckley just go together. they just do. no, i won’t accept criticism or differing opinions. yes, i will accept anyone’s ideas on character and song pairings. thank you

[tenwhiteandalusians]

pertaining to the idea of tenax’s band of strays i do think it’s touching that the kids are the ones who saved him and waited outside the door to make sure he’s okay. for all tenax claims to be harsh and cruel it’s a fine indicator of his character that the kids won’t rest without him and are there every time he’s in danger.

[cherrysnax]

Jays been back for a few months because something Bad happened but I kinda miss our relationship before he tried to like. implode all of my irl relationships. that’s kinda how it always is though

[coquettepascal]

texas sweet

summary: joel is your friendly neighborhood dad of the year, so why is his driveway empty on father's day? better yet, why do you feel the need to make up for everyone elses absence?

tags: 18+, smut, handjob, desc of joel mastubrating, a "massage", neighbor!joel x f!reader, massages, general cheesiness, soft!joel, pathetic!joel, almost(?) sub!joel, reader gets blueballed (sorry), biting, joel whimpering, joel being a proud girl dad, no-outbreak, ellie and sarah exist, tommy is mentioned(!!), joel is a southern gentleman, mention of reader having parents, no desc of reader but she can fit between joel and the couch, dilf!joel (yum)

-> part. ii here!

a/n: my first joel fic ever... i would like to thank every person who has written no-outbreak!joel or pre-outbreak!joel. i freaked it.

texas sweet masterlist and my masterlist

(4.9k, not beta read.)

Moving to Texas was not the plan, or even the “blessing” your mother claimed it would be. Being the one who took over your grandparents home after they moved to a seniors facility? Fantastic! Amazing, even. Leaving your job, friends, and boyfriend, back home? Horrible. Heart wrenching and annoying. 

Austin, for the most part, was lonely. Long distance didn’t end up working between you and your boyfriend, your friends just got busier with their jobs, and it wasn’t like your parents could just drive 14 hours to see you every weekend. Co-workers were nice, but honestly who really wants to hang out with people you already spend 40 hours a week with? Maybe you were jaded, or picky, which was what your mother also claimed, or maybe your whole life was uprooted for what felt like no reason.

What you weren’t picky about, was the view from your bedroom window. You’re not a peeping tom, or a perv, but it isn’t your fault that your dilf-y next door neighbor is so easy on the eyes.

No, moving to Austin was not a blessing, but Joel Miller was.

Joel was the neighborhood guy. Need an oil change? Joel. Need your fence fixed? Joel. Block party? Joel’s yard. It’s like he doesn’t know how to say no to anybody, that southern politeness deeper than the drawl that lies in his voice. When you had first moved here he had helped you move your couch through the door, all smiles and polite nods. He barely introduced himself before he was asking if you needed any help, and he had called you “young lady,” which made you giggle. Such a giving man, but of course he was. A single father to two daughters? “No” wasn't in his vocabulary.

Sometimes, you think if your dad was as good a father as Joel Miller was, maybe you wouldn’t be fiending after him with such ferocity. Watching him with his two girls, Sarah and Ellie, was something that tugged your heartstrings no matter what. Sarah wasn’t around a lot anymore, apparently she went away to a fancy college. You had helped her pack all her stuff into Joel’s truck, but quickly went inside when you saw him getting misty eyed, you didn't want to embarrass the poor guy. Ellie is younger than Sarah and still lives at home. Honestly, you didn’t know much about her apart from the fact that she was adopted and that she’s in high school. She’s always happy to chat, but she’s also always going somewhere, which leaves Joel lonely sometimes. 

Joel seems better suited for loneliness than you are though. His brother Tommy comes around pretty often, though they seem fairly opposite. Tommy truly is sweet, has always chatted with you during block parties (even if it may be for nefarious reasons when he’s had too many drinks,) but he looks like… a fuckboy. Without fail, every time he rolls up to Joel’s house, he’s blasting some shitty new country music and wearing Pit Viper sunglasses as he carefully parks his spotless truck. Despite their differences though, they get along just as well. Your summer evenings are often interrupted by the sound of their laughs and the crisp sound of the two cracking open some cold ones. 

So why is it that when Father’s day rolls around, Joel’s driveway is empty?

You aren’t watching on purpose, you just happen to glance over that way a lot. The only action you see from his house is Ellie leaving for her friend's house sometime after noon, like usual on a Sunday. No signs of Sarah or Tommy. Part of you figured that maybe Sarah would make the lengthy drive down from her school, or maybe that Tommy would show up at some point, but nobody does. 

‘Not creepy,’ you assure yourself as you go upstairs to peer through your bedroom window to see if anyone is there. You could totally look through the kitchen window that directly faces his backyard, but you fear the day he’s looking right back at you. 

Looking outside, you see nothing. Joel’s grey-blue truck sits unmoved in the driveway, his plants are watered though so you guess he came outside at some point. The thought makes you feel a bit sad, the image of Joel and his soft eyes watering the plants, whistling to himself and trying to tell himself it doesn’t matter that nobody came. He probably really doesn’t care at all, a lot of men aren’t very sentimental or emotional about days like this, but you care.

He’s a good man, a good father, and a good neighbor. Seeing him be underappreciated on what is basically his day is ticking you off for some stupid reason. When 3pm rolls around you decide that you have to do something for Joel, it feels wrong not to. 

Which is how you end up in line for the register at Home Depot. You sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes racking your brain, trying to think of things that guys like, but came up with nothing. Joel is a contractor, so he’ll probably find some use out of a 50 dollar Home Depot gift card, but it still feels too impersonal. Joel literally fixed your toilet when a date you took home broke the handle off the tank mid-vomit. He’s too nice to just hand a stupid gift card with “Happy Father’s day” scrawled across the mini paper envelope. He deserves something thoughtful, something gentler than a gift card for (probably) his job. 

…Which is how you end up waiting in line for the register at the supermarket. You have a bouquet of flowers in your hand, with a Home Depot gift card shoved in your jacket pocket. It feels utterly ridiculous to give Joel Miller flowers, to pick out which colours you think he’d like and get the florist to wrap them up neatly with a bow, but you have a good reason. At some point in the past week you had seen a post about how a lot of men never receive flowers. It resurfaced in your head as you picked your brain again, making you wonder if Joel had ever received flowers. You know that he was married once, but that was when Sarah was little, it’d probably been 10 or even 15 years since he had any gestures like that made for him.

Not that this was for romance reasons. It was for father’s-appreciation-day reasons. Of course.

Maybe you shouldn’t be so invested in your neighbors emotions and life, but it’s too late now. You carefully pack away the flowers in the back seat of your car, snuggling the gift card into the ribbon that holds the flowers together. 

—

And if you thought that standing in line at Home Depot, or at the supermarket was bad, it’s so much worse trying to work up the courage to knock on Joel’s front door. You can’t figure out how to hold this bouquet of flowers behind your back without dropping them, so you just awkwardly knock on his door with one hand, flowers in the other. At least the gift card is managing to stay in place where you tucked it, but you wish you told the florist not to write his name in cursive.

Your repeating thoughts of “Is this weird? Am I weird?” are interrupted when he opens the door.

Joel looks… normal. He doesn’t look sad like you thought he might, if anything he looks more confused at you being there. His brown hair is tousled slightly and he’s wearing pajama pants, even though he smells fresh. Joel’s eyes meet yours and he tilts his head quietly, as if waiting for you to go on, but what do you even say? Oh shit that’s right–

“Happy father’s day,” your voice comes out shyly. You shove the flowers at him a little abruptly and he blinks in surprise, accepting them. It’s awkward for a second, the way his eyebrows shoot up as he notices the cursive lettering of his name written on the envelope.

“These’re for me, darlin’?” He asks curiously, still looking over the flowers.

A stammering of “um” and “yeah” leave your mouth pretty quickly and he smiles. You’re pretty sure he says thank you, but you just kind of stare at him awkwardly. A beat passes between the two of you as he admires the gift. “You uh– You don’t think of me as your dad, do you?” Joel asks. Oh fuck. You hadn’t thought about the fact that maybe that was what he would take away from this. All of your thoughts had been consumed by worries that he’d think you were trying to hit on him, but here he was thinking that you thought of him as a father figure. Which you didn’t. Your dad is fine, no need to replace him, at least not at this point. 

“No, no. Oh my god– Sorry,” You choke out, half laughing. It’s a quiet moment on the porch for a second, just the two of you standing there. Maybe you should explain your thought process.

“It’s just that you’re a dad and like– not to sound like a weirdo freak but nobody’s been at your house all day and it made me sad for you. Not that I pity you but,” your voice trails off as you fear you’ve made this worse. Joel seems a bit surprised at this, mouth opening slightly but then transitioning to a soft smile.

“And what if I told you that I wanted everyone t’leave me alone today?” He asks you slyly. And oh god, that is so much worse than him mistaking this gesture for flirting or pity. You never would have thought that maybe the guy who does everything for everyone probably just wants to be left the hell alone for a gift. Your heart drops in your chest, taking all the blood in your face with it. Embarrassment floods you with a force you didn’t realize possible, stuttered apologies leaving your lips as fast as you can. Joel shakes his head, laughing quietly as you sputter “sorry” repeatedly, like a broken sprinkler.

“I’m jokin’, sweetheart. I appreciate this,” he says. The crows' feet by his eyes shouldn’t be as charming as they are, but combined with that rumbling laugh and smile… he could get away with anything. He plucks the Home Depot gift card from the ribbon and huffs a laugh, like he’s impressed.

Well that’s… something? It made him smile right? Maybe feeling bad for Joel was better than feeling stupid in front of him. You step back, towards the stairs of his porch, but he shakes his head. “You were really this worried?” He asks, admiring the flowers. That makes your heart bloom in your chest, seeing how much he really liked this. Joel didn’t seem much like a flower guy, but you saw the way he kept his yard neat, with tulips in the spring and his lawn trimmed squarely. Shyly, you nod in response to his question. It feels silly to worry for him like this, you don’t know if he considers you a friend the way he is in your head.

“S’awful sweet,” he tells you. Something about his presence is so big, a balance of hospitality and intimidation all at once. Maybe it’s his big stature, broad shoulders and thick arms, a body built for work. Or his voice, the strong timbre of it, humbled in southern twang. Joel is a force of warmth, a heat that can’t be contained. His heart shines through his golden skin, forcing whoever he looks at to have a spotlight. That’s where the intimidation lies, in how he makes you feel like there’s a halo over your head, all his attention right there. 

He’s so hot you don’t even want him to look at you.

But there he is anyways, smiling as he admires the gift again, dorkily leaning in to dramatically huff the flowers. His mouth is moving but you're deafened by the sensation of a blush on your face. You thought it was just a silly little crush, because who wouldn’t find Joel attractive. He’s handsome, hard working, and just an all around traditional man. But this attraction… It's like your crush on him has given you tinnitus. His lips are moving and you aren’t registering the words. Wait shit, he’s speaking–

“Darlin’?” Joel calls. He looks at you, head tilted, and still fucking smiling. The way his eyes glimmer, the crows feet that squeeze them into a smile… Why is it so hard to hear him?

“I asked if you wanted to come in,” he repeats. 

—

You’ve never been inside Joel’s house, but you’d never thought about it either. Being in it, now, it all makes sense. Photos of his daughters are framed everywhere, their achievements plastered on the walls in shines of silver and gold. It’s hard not to imagine Joel hunched over his kitchen counter, tediously cutting pictures out to place them in frames. He was only an idea before, an idea of a man, and now he has become one wordlessly. All it took was stepping inside his house, smelling him everywhere. Life dances in the jackets that are tossed over dining room chairs, the toolbelt dumped by the shoe rack at the door. The picture of Joel you held in your mind begins to come alive, the movements in the details of his life stealing your breath. He is more than a good man, he is a great one.

And now, you have to strike up a conversation with him.

Joel grunts as he sits down on the couch beside you, placing two glasses of water down. He places his glass in front of the can of beer sitting on a coaster, distorting the label to nothing but warped blue and red. Is he hiding that he was drinking? Why is that cute? 

A pause hushes both of you as Joel gets comfortable, sitting down. He’s paused a show, but it just looks like it was whatever movie was playing on the local TV channel. 

“You must be so proud of them,” you say, eyes glazing over the pictures of Sarah and Ellie. You can tell exactly which photos were taken with a camera and which were taken with his phone. One picture of Ellie, maybe when she was 13 or 14, is from her soccer tournament. She’s smiling, holding up a ribbon for MVP, and Joel’s thumb is in the bottom corner. It’s strange to realize that Joel has basically been a father twice over, but also admirable. 

He talks for a little while, rambling about Sarah and her time up at college, and also how Ellie has been doing better in school this year. You always had a feeling Ellie was a bit feistier than Sarah was, but to hear how proud Joel is of her anyways makes your heart flutter. His love for them was so unconditional, so why weren’t they here today? You ask him, a half smile crossing his lips as he hears your question.

“Sarah called me ‘round lunchtime, one of them video calls. Had lunch with my girl and got to catch up with her. She’s so damn busy, y’know that? Always studying and,” he catches his breath, realizing he’s blabbing again. A reddish tone creeps up his neck in embarrassment.

“Point is, she called. Was nice of her, I miss her lots,” He finishes quietly.

Your eyebrow raises. He didn’t mention Ellie. Joel huffs.

“I’m 99% sure she’s over at Dina’s making me a gift, but it’s fine that she forgot. I’ve been on her ass about homework, fair’s fair.”

He looks cute when he’s begrudging, one side of his mouth sliding to the side so part of his cheek puffs over it. You nod, making a comment in response. The conversation is so smooth you forget what you’re saying as soon as you’re laughing. 

This is easier than you thought it would be. Joel’s always been friendly, obviously, but you just assumed he would be more closed off than this. Even if it’s just rambling about his daughters, or Tommy, or the jobs he’s been managing and how annoying his clients are, it’s something more. Something more than the passing glances and small conversation you’ve had before.

You talk a bit about your own life, how tough the move to Texas was, how lonely it can be. Joel doesn’t seem as receptive to this, but there’s an understanding in his eyes that you can feel. He’s a tough clam to slide your knife into, and you doubt you’ll feel his tongue today. The eager blabber he has for his family and career doesn’t extend to himself, and it seems you’ve hit a wall with him. Or maybe you’ve hit too close to home. “Sorry,” you say, feeling a little weird. 

This whole day has felt like you’re pulling against a lead Joel wasn’t even holding in the first place, like you’re always doing too much. But just like the rest of the day, he isn’t holding the rope around your neck. He’s surging forward with reassurances blooming out of his mouth, Texas sweet to the bone. 

He shakes his head, telling you that it’s fine, he gets it. A joke about being a single father, a smile directed at you, consoling. Vaporub for your congested anxieties.

“I’m sorry darlin,” Joel starts, and fuck is he sending you home? Is that your cue to leave? You did too much, he was just being nice.

“-- I didn’t even offer you water when you came in. D’you need somethin’ to drink?” He asks.

God, doesn’t he get tired of being this nice? Your neighbors warned you that he was a grump when you first moved here, dirty liars. 

“Oh, sure, uh. Water would be good, thanks,” you reply.

You’re only half paying attention to the grunt he lets out when he gets up the first time, your eyes busying themselves with the way his cotton tee stretches across the muscled planes of his back. But, after he hands you the glass of water and groans when he sinks back into the couch, you notice. 

You down the glass like you’re parched, but really your mouth just needs to be full right now. The sound of his groans are bouncing in your ear canals as your neck flushes red with each gulp of water. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.

“Bad back?” You ask after you catch your breath. 

He hums in response, talking about how it comes with the job he has. “All that lifting in my early years…” as if he’s a thousand years old. Joel mentions that he’s been to the chiropractor a few times, thanks to Sarah’s begging and pleading.

“I don’t know, I think it’s gimmicky. They get you on the table and the guy feelin’ you up acts like he’s Christ himself,” Joel says, rolling his eyes. 

The idea of Joel, shirtless and face down, grumbling as some guy works his hands over his skin. The idea of Joel groaning in relief as someone else works those knots out, God you wish you were a chiropractor, you wish you could put your hands all over him.

Greed hardens over your mind like a shell, and the words tumble out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“I could– I could help, maybe. My dad used to have a pretty bad back and I kinda figured out how to work knots out.”

Joel’s eyes widen, looking over to you with mild interest. For the first time today, around Joel, you don’t feel like you’ve overstepped. In fact he looks interested in this offer. A beat passes between the two of you, hesitation caught in his throat it seems.

It’s probably super fucked up in his head, his younger neighbor coming over and offering to rub him down. But your mind is still greedy, coated in thoughts of his skin under your palms, and that southern rumble that’s given you dilf earworms.

He looks like he’s about to say no when you speak again.

“You don’t even have to lay down, or take your shirt off. Could just lift it up,” you offer. 

Joel still looks like he’s going to say no, the left side of his mouth raising to make up some reason. You can’t let him, not when you’ve been this ballsy. Walking out of here now would make this infinitely more awkward.

“It’s your day, Joel,” you supply him with a reason to say yes. The reason might be silly, might be a last minute add-on to his father’s day, but who cares.

Apparently not Joel, since he pulls his shirt up to his shoulders, the fabric scrunching around his broad frame.

—

You feel a little stupid, slotted behind Joel on the couch. The two of you are basically shoved up against one another, Joel wriggling to give you access to his lower back. He hasn’t said anything yet, no reassurance that this backrub is any good. You think you’re doing well, you feel the knots loosening. It might be better this way, him not making noise. The groan you heard earlier was more than enough to push you into a frenzy.

Your hands work further down, where his waist begins to pull in. Looking closer you can see where the softness of his tummy is, a fatherly badge of honor. Continuing your movements, you gently press your thumbs into the flesh there, and earn yourself Joel’s first noise.

Not a grunt, groan, complaint, or cuss. A whimper.

Your voice clashes with his, both of you talking over each other accidentally.

“Are you okay–” you ask as his voice flounders again, a “Darlin--” leaving him out of his own volition.

Pulling your hands away you begin to pull his shirt back down his back, mortified. How could you claim you were good at this and then hurt his back more? Joel’s been through enough today.

“Please don’t stop,” Joel’s voice grabs your brain again, forcing your focus.

He’s sliding his shirt up again, just by rolling his shoulders as he hunches over, waiting for you to continue. His face is in his hands, and his ears are pink. It’s the first time he’s asked you for anything tonight, you can’t refuse him. 

Placing your hands back where they were, you begin to massage again. It seems like his lower back is the main problem, with the way he’s grunting into his palms. As your hands work away the aches he begins to swear to himself. 

“Fuck,” he grunts as your thumbs dig deep, soothing a pain he hasn’t felt eased in years. 

This is good. Pride spreads in your chest, knowing he feels better. Your hands work away, and you get laser focused on untangling these massive knots in his back. Eventually you break your focus, switching to softer rubs and small scratches up and down his back.

Tearing your eyes away from his skin, you realize the throw pillow that was beside you earlier is gone. The yellow corner of the cushion peeks at you from where you saw Joel’s belly earlier, over his lap. A thick forearm is crushing it into himself there, the veins in his neck pulsing. 

Flames lick up your face, onto the tips of your ears and down your neck, heating your spine. Is he aroused right now? “Joel?” You ask quietly. 

He shakes his head, voice tight.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just– it just feels nice,” he admits.

Your hands pause. Okay, so he’s admitted he’s hard. What do you do now? Keep rubbing his back and blueball the poor guy? On Father's day? That seems mean, and awkward. Everything about this is awkward though, so it couldn’t really get worse.

“I could… I could help it feel better,” you offer meekly.

You’re not scared of a dick. You aren’t. Your voice is quiet because it seems like he is horribly ashamed of this, probably feeling guilty.

Joel rubs a hand over his face.

“You don’t have to, you can just go,” he says, but his voice betrays him. Need is sewn in his tone, a desperation.

Part of you wonders how long it’s been since someone touched him like this as you reach around, palming the front of his jeans. The hiss he lets out tells you it’s been awhile. How wrong that is, an attractive man like Joel being forced to get his own rocks off.

Getting the button and fly of his jeans down is difficult when you can’t see, even worse when your brain is making up images of Joel masturbating. He’s so shy when he’s being touched, does he bite his sheets? Bite his other fist in the shower? Poor boy, he deserves this. 

His hips lift off the couch to help you shove his jeans and briefs down. Joel’s bare ass slides against you and he cringes. “Is it okay if you don’t look?” He asks. 

You hate that he seems so insecure, but you’re not going to push him. Nodding into his skin, you press your face to his back, resting your cheek near the blade of his shoulder. He’s heavy in your palm, warm skin with veins your fingers can trace over.

Telling him that he’s big feels redundant, you’re sure he knows that about himself. Neither of you seem very sure about what you’re doing, the shuddering breaths from his chest matching your hesitant grasp around his cock. 

“Are you okay?” You ask again.

Joel nods into his hand, asking you to please touch him. 

Admittedly, it’s a dry hand job, but Joel doesn’t seem to mind. The flick of your wrist is fluid, even if your arm is cramping from being wrapped around him. Joel lets out these little noises, grunts and whines. His hand is covering his eyes while the other one rests lightly on your forearm, like he wants to know that you’re still there.

Need is exuding from him, making his desperation take over his need to really give a shit about how submissive he might be appearing. He shudders particularly hard as you squeeze on the upstroke, voice choking.

“Shit– shit, please,” he gasps, “please can I spit in your hand?” 

It’s a little surprising, but again, you can’t refuse him. You say “yeah” into his skin, closing your eyes as you feel him spit into your hand. It’s filthy, his saliva on you as he guides your hand to jerk him off. Joel uses your palm to slick the head of his dick, teasing himself on your skin.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him be selfish all day. Part of you wants to call him a good boy, but part of you also knows this might not be normal for Joel. Hell, this isn’t normal for you either. 

Instead, you ask him if it’s good. A rasped “yes,” emanates from him between a low groan and a curse. Your head lifts from his back as he begins to shudder, his orgasm creeping closer. Listening to him is so good, you’re a mess between your legs, where your core nudges his ass.

Without a thought, you sink your teeth into the meat between his shoulder and his neck. Not enough pressure to bruise or hurt, just to let him know you’re there. There was no intention to push him over the edge, but your little bite does. A guttural groan is forced out of him as he comes into your hand, stringing sticky between your fingers. 

“Fuck– fuck I’m sorry, oh my god,” he pants, shivering. 

Your head is shaking again, reassuring him that it was okay, that he’s okay. 

“It’ll wash off,” you joke, feeling the stick of him on you. 

—

Joel does help you wash it off, once he’s done redressing. He’s clingy though, arms around your waist and chin hooked over your shoulder as you wash your hands in his kitchen sink. He’s definitely sleepy, eyes blinking slowly when you peek at him while you dry your hands.

You step close to him, your damp hands meeting his dry ones. The awkward spirit of the evening has been killed off, his shyness melted away.

“Usually I’d offer to return the favor but… I have to pick up Ellie from her friend’s house now. I’m really sorry, darlin’,” he admits.

Shaking your head, you push away the negative feeling that surfaces. How are you supposed to go back to being neighbors after that? But also, what did you really expect?

Joel leads you to the door, legs a bit shakey. A smug feeling joins the negative ones in your chest at that, but it’s not enough. 

“I really do apologize,” Joel says again, “but this just gives me an opportunity to see you again. If you’d like, obviously. I think I owe ya dinner.” 

And there he is, not holding your lead but reassuring your heart. He wants to see you again.

Your eyes meet his in the dim light of the hallway, catching those sweet eyes in your own. He looks so hopeful, so apologetic too.

“I’d like that, but you don’t owe me anything. It’s Father’s day,” you point out. 

Joel rolls his eyes. This Father’s day excuse is a little overused between the two of you now, but it’s still cute to him since you’re the one saying it. He opens the door for you, slipping his own boots on and grabbing his keys.

“Fine,” Joel says, “but when Pretty Neighbor day rolls around, you let me know.

[starkeysbaby]

When the turtle incident at the beach happens the reader gets hurt saving the turtle 🐢 and rafe snap. Everyone sees a different side of rafe

a/n: i LOVE this idea. - Unfortunately i feel like i didn’t do it justice 🥲🥲 but hope you enjoy!! <3

“if i ever see you round my girl again…”

pairings: s4 rafe cameron x kook but not kooky!reader [est. relationship]

warnings: S4 E4 SCENE DESCRIBED/USED (not sure if it’s really a spoiler tho as nothing plot wise is revealed) turtles being hurt, blood, death threat, canon rafe lol, use of swear words. (pls lemme know if i forgot any)

summary: you just wanted peace between everyone, unfortunately you and a turtle became collateral damage over a kook vs pogue contest. rafe is not happy…

navigation ⋅˚₊‧𐙚‧₊˚ ⋅ obx masterlist

You were a kook? Well that’s what your bank account said. However, you were closer with the pogues and basically hung out with them or your boyfriend.. rafe cameron. that was the weird part. It had been awkward since the pogues all returned from El Dorado. You had sort of become the middle man in between rafe and the pogues including his sister, sarah. It was an unspoken rule between you and rafe that you just don’t talk about them with him which you respected. He’ll come around in his own time you thought.

When the swell came in, your boyfriend and his friends were eager to hit the beach and have a surf day to which you wouldn’t turn down. meeting up at tannyhill, you saw that topper had bought his new girlfriend, ruthie who you weren’t too keen on. You had mentioned this to rafe a while back but he said that it isn’t yours or his business to get involved with toppers love life and told you to just stay away from her if you didn’t like her to which you couldn’t argue.

Arriving at the beach you saw your friends, jj, john b, kiara and sarah and quickly told rafe that you were going over to say hi. Rafe just mumbled something as he set up his towel and told you not to be long as he stared daggers at sarah.

“hey!” you wave jogging up to the pogues, hugging sarah then kie. “what’s up y/nn (your nickname)” kie asked. “not much. just thought we’d hit the waves. i told them we should go a bit farther from here but they didn’t listen… sorry” you explained, knowing it’s best if the kooks and pogues don’t cross paths today. “you’re good. it’s them we don’t trust” jj butts in. “yeah, no. i’ll tell them to lay off..” you smile then turn to sarah. “he’s trying. he’ll come around. i know it..” you tell her, referring to rafe. Sarah just shrugs, pretending as if not being on good terms with her brother isn’t bothering her. “wanna surf?” you smile and take sarah’s hand dragging her to the water as you both laugh.

After surfing with sarah and the pogues for a while, you had joined rafe on his towel and spent an hour or so just chilling with him. He showered you in attention and you did your best to ignore ruthies little comments about the pogues and how jj is a poor sport. At one point, rafe saw you side eye ruthie for shitting on the pogues again. “hey. don’t frown.” he mumbles turning your head to face him and pats your cheek. “i don’t get her problem rafe.” you sigh. “yeah it sucks, but cmon” “no. it’s unnecessary. they aren’t doing anything to her.” you tell him, referring to the pogues just minding their business apart from that tiny squabble with jj and topper in the ocean but topper didn’t seem to care too much so why does ruthie? “i told you, ignore her” rafe says a little sternly taking your hand in his, his thumb caressing the back of your hand. “yeah yeah…” you smile as you peck him, letting it go as you didn’t want ruthie to ruin the day.

While you packed up, unknown to you and rafe, ruthie was convincing topper to just ride the truck over to the pogues to mess up their set up. You in the meantime went over to the pogues to say bye, only to find them saving a turtle hatch in which you started assisting with. The next thing you know, you see ruthie driving her truck at a high speed straight at you. While sarah and kie do their best to get the turtles out of the way in time, you stand in front waving your hands trying to get ruthies attention to stop her. “hey! hey!!! stop! there’s a hatch!” you call out but she doesn’t hear you. you can vaguely see topper yell at ruthie, probably to stop but she’s just laughing. kiara notices ruthie has no intention of stopping and quickly pulls you out the way.

Luckily no turtles were hurt at that point but you see ruthie circling around to go again. You stand up again, trying to stop her. Rafe has also noticed this and starts making his way over to get, in his words, your stupid ass out of the way. You realise ruthie yet again has no intention of stopping so you quickly go to pick up a turtle that was in the way but you get hit slightly by the truck, knocking you out.

“what the actual fuck?!” kiara yells rushing to you, she takes the turtles from you and calls for rafe who’s at your side in seconds. He looks up at a shocked, somewhat guilty looking ruthie. “what the fuck is your problem?” he spits “did you not see her fucking standing there telling you to stop!” he yells as he takes off his shirt to wrap around a bloody scrape on your knee from something in the sand. Overall you weren’t too badly hurt but might need some stitches. That was enough for rafe to see red though.

As sarah goes to fetch water to splash you awake, ruthie stutters “i.. i thought she’d get out the way. why would she just fucking stand the-” kie cuts her off “there was a turtle hatch! look what you did! she was tryna save this turtle” kie yells at her, showing her the hurt turtle to which ruthie turns her face away from. “why the fu-” rafe cuts himself off on questioning you to wake you up with the water sarah got. As you felt water being splashed on your face, you sit up. “what happened?” you groan. “y/n im so so sor-” ruthie starts to apologise but rafe cuts her off. “no. you shut the fuck up and stay away from my girl” rafe snaps causing topper to get involved. “hey now rafe-” but again rafe cuts him off. “control your bitch, top” he huffs shutting topper and everyone else up.

He lifts you up and walks towards his truck. “my head hurts..” you mumble. “i know baby.. gonna get you to the hospital aight” he gently whispers to you to which you just nod. With a final “don’t pull shit like that again” from rafe, he places you in the passengers seat before shutting the door and quickly going up to ruthie. “if i ever see you round my girl again… i’ll kill you” he murmurs up close to her face in a terrifyingly dangerous way. Apart from sarah and a few of the pogues, no one has ever seen rafe like that.. so scary.. so threatening… so murderous. Ruthie just nodded which was enough for rafe to leave the scene so he could take you to the hospital.

a/n: hope you enjoyed - kinda struggled to find a way to set the dynamic where reader is dating rafe but close to the pogues at this point in the show cuz i couldn’t see rafes defending someone so furiously unless he was dating her 😭

requests are open!! enjoy lovelies - liv <33

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Yandere Contained Monstrous Family  

Thinking about being born into a monstrous family

You, a baby human lovingly in the arms of a vampire man and his werewolf husband 

“Aw isn’t our little peony just perfect!”

“Another gorgeous cub, in our pack. Good job hon!”

“Thanks!”

Inside your opulent crib with a bone ladden mobile above you and the heads of two of your eldest siblings show

“They haven’t got nearly enough fur!” your moth brother says 

Your basilisk sister scoffs,” Or any scales for that matter!”

Life is lovely for awhile 

You’re the apple of everyone’s eye as the youngest of the family

But it’d be early on when you’d discover that wasn’t all that made you different

If they had been more careful perhaps you wouldn’t have discovered what the family hunts were all about 

Chasing humans–creatures just like you–for sport

Who could blame 5-year-old you?

The school lessons you’d sneak to listen to always said to call the authorities if something was wrong

You can vaguely recall the events that followed your brain clearly walling off the memory out of guilt

Time has passed and you are a partially thriving adult

Able to support yourself and devote your time to your study of the mythical

In a movement that had recently come to light, plenty of creatures spoken about in folktales were appearing

And your place of work was housing them

Housing was a strong word

maybe detaining and experimenting were better

As part of the maintenance crew, your job is to upkeep the creatures by their specified scientists demands

Occasionally offering your observations about whatever habits they have when it comes to eating, cleaning, etc.

As someone who’s been working with the facility for a long time so long you may not remember when you’ve become the experienced lead of your department

But you do still interact with the creatures specifically the most high-priority or high-maintenance ones

And like any other, you’ll report for duty with the newly acquired vampire 

Apparently, they’ve been talked about for their violence and intelligent ramblings

Claiming it was married to an earlier capture and the father of some others

So far it drained forty of your employees 

So now it was time for you to come face to face with this menace

You’ll wave off the security guard as you come up to the window

“Your file says your name is Villar? 

“GRAAGRH!!!”

“We won’t get very far if you keep lashing out like this. I’m in charge of making sure you eat, I suggest you get it in gear if you want to ever to see your husband again.”

At the mention of his husband the blonde vampire deflates

His black scleras morph into white 

He tiredly rests his head against the silver bars despite the skin burning

“You…will let me see him?”

You tilt your head sympathetically,” If you can comply with some of our tests. It’ll be a lot easier to make it a necessity for you two to meet if you cease killing so much of our staff.”

He growls tearing himself from the bars to glare 

“What do I have to do to see him?”

You smile flipping through your clipboard

“There’s three blood tests, four endurance tests, and intelligence quizzes for a start. That sound like a plan?”

The vampire reluctantly nods 

You look back at the camera and begin to walk out 

“Hey! What’s your name so I’ll know to tear your throat out if they lie to me?”

You smile again on your way out hushing the security guard

“I’m (Y/n). Pleasure meeting you Villar.”

The black-haired vampire loses his vitriol as he’s reminded of the little bundle he’s agonized over losing so long ago

“WAI–”

“Doctor (Y/n) your absolute genius has saved this company again.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m just someone trying to have a peaceful work environment.”

As planned you handle the older werewolf man

Violent, giant, and usually rotting in his corner 

He hasn’t moved much until you got involved

*knock**knock*

“Hey bud, I’ve got good news for you.”

At the sound of your voice, the werewolf Rod is at the silver bars, practically grazing them as he gets as close as he can to your little window

“Hello (Y/n), have you been eating well today?”

“Sure did but I have an update about your husband.”

He stills but looks interested

“He’s going to work with us so he can see you.”

“That is…what you want?”

“Yes and for you to do the same.”

He stands tall for once, taking an unusual air of authority

“I refuse to do anything if my conditions are not met.”

“Even if it means not seeing him again?”

He growls and turns away from the window

“Look my Uncle is not going to let me go in alone for your tests. Even if you’ve been peaceful so far, he just doesn’t want to take that chance.”

He snarls at the mention of your uncle 

“Fine. Then come in with twice as many guards but I will only agree if it’s you.”

You thank him for his time, “we’ll have to see what Uncle says.”

When you leave the werewolf man slinks back into his corner 

You’ll have to negotiate with your uncle about the most prized pieces of his collection his facility

Not to count the latest editions claiming to be related to the vampire and werewolf 

The real obsession starts because every member of the original family realizes just who you are 

And using your job as a mediator to piece together how you managed to slip out of their grasp

When Villar and Rod finally meet they nuzzle and kiss each other as they whisper to one another

“That’s them! Isn’t it? Our baby’s okay!”

“I know, now we just have to take them far away from here.”

Thus chaos is bound to ensue as they balance escaping with their long-lost human child 

With promises to pay back your abductor and all these scientists back ten-fold for the pain they’ve brought their little family

Part 2

[starlightkun]

⇢ word count: 16.3k ⇢ genre: fluff, college au, brother's best friend trope, christmas/holiday themed, baseball player!jisung, rich kids!reader and chenle, part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon ⇢ warnings: chenle and reader are annoying as hell together lol (they love each other but would die before saying ily), everyone’s parents suck!, only minor proof-reading bc i wanted to post for christmas, FAKE pro baseball players mentioned (idk anything abt baseball and was not going to research any real baseball players and be wrong abt them ok) ⇢ extra info: this is part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, three short, unrelated fics starring jisung all with cheesy hallmark christmas movie-esque premises. there’s no continuing plotline between fics in this series, they’re all standalone fics ⇢ author’s note: ok so this one isn’t exactly “short” but as always, i got carried away. im just happy i got this one out in time and it didn’t end up being 20k+ lmao. anyway, this is my last fic of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, and of 2024, and i hope you guys had as much fun reading them as i did writing them! happy holidays and i will be back with even more fics in 2025! ⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20

Clicking the ‘submit�� button for your last final paper of the semester, you let out a sigh of relief. You were done, for now. The time in the corner of your laptop read 10:58 p.m. You’d submitted with an hour to spare. Usually, you hated cutting it so close, but four of your five classes this semester had assigned fifteen-page papers, and you wanted to take your time researching, outlining, drafting, and editing all of them before the deadlines.

There were only a few other students scattered around the library so late on the last academic day of the semester. One table away from you was another student, a boy who had also been hard at work on his laptop for the greater part of the past four hours. You had seen him around campus, not in any meaningful way, but enough that his face was familiar to you. And tonight, you had been stealing glances at him—when he let out a groan or a sigh that rang a little too loud in the dead silence, pushed his hoodie off his head to reveal his dark hair and handsome features, or stood up from his chair to go to the vending machine around the corner and walk around the library to stretch his obscenely long legs. Yeah, you’d done a bit of ogling, you also needed a break every now and then.

He was still typing away at his laptop when you had packed up for the night and were heading out, your path taking you right by his table. You were never usually this bold, but maybe it was the rush from finally being done with finals week, or how late it was, but you found yourself stopping next to the end seat the cute boy was occupying.

Upon realizing that you were there, he looked at you with wide, uncertain eyes, slowly taking his headphones off. “Hm?”

“Are you going to be here till closing?” You asked him knowingly, a playful smile on your lips and bag of gummy candy in your hands. You had bought it during a vending machine break earlier in the night but never ended up opening it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m hoping only another thirty minutes…”

“Here.” You offered the candies out to him. “I’m done for the night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You set them down next to his laptop. Not wanting to take up any more of his waning time left to submit his assignment, you started off towards the exit again. “Good luck. Have a good break.”

“You too…”

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21

“You didn’t get his number?!” Your roommate gasped in horror after you told her about the cute guy from the library. She had been asleep when you got home last night, and now the two of you were packing in preparation for your respective winter break plans. Sooyoung was heading back home while you and your brother would be driving to meet your parents at your family’s winter house in the mountains.

“Or his name,” you confirmed sadly. “I mean, the poor guy only had an hour left of the semester to submit whatever he was working on, there was no way he would’ve wanted me wasting it.”

“You have got to find him when we get back.”

“I’ll try,” you agreed.

There was a long honk from outside your dorm, and you rolled your eyes before peering out your window. Sure enough, your brother’s sleek black SUV was outside.

“Alright, I’ll see you in two weeks, Soo.” You hugged your roommate goodbye. Before you could even grab your bag, there was another obnoxiously long honk, followed by a series of shorter honks.

You immediately videocalled your brother.

Chenle picked up, already complaining. “Y/N, hurry up! You always take forever—”

“Shut the fuck up!” You retorted, flipping off the camera. “You’re so fucking annoying, I swear to—”

He laid on the horn again, and you could hear complaints start up outside from other people yelling at him to shut the fuck up. Then, you swore you heard another voice in Chenle’s car, quietly suggesting that he stop, but it was too indistinct for you to properly identify.

“Who was that?” You squinted at him suspiciously.

“I told you I was bringing a friend—”

“I know, I meant which one?”

“Get your slow ass down here and find out, or we’re leaving you!” With that, he hung up.

You pocketed your phone with a quiet scream, then turned to your roommate. “Ugh! Can you believe we’re related?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately, not even looking at you.

Hauling your stuff downstairs by yourself, you were a little out of breath by the time you shoved the front door of your dorm open. Your duffel bag started slipping down your shoulder, and as you readjusted that, you weren’t even looking out for the uneven slab of concrete that you knew stuck up in front of the entrance. Your toe caught on it, and you let out an unfortunate ‘eep!’ as you tripped forward. Your bag slid off your shoulder again, catching on your elbow and swinging around, the weight making you stumble a little more. You stayed upright, and you were thankful that only your brother and his friend saw all that. Yeah, Chenle was going to tease you for the entire three-hour car ride, and Mark or whoever was coming with would definitely get in on the ribbing, but you had plenty of dirt on them too. It was the natural order of things.

“Clumsy ass,” Chenle yelled at you from the car, the driver’s side window rolled down. You flipped him off on instinct. “Jisung, go help her before she hurts herself.”

Jisung. That was a new one. Admittedly, you didn’t know all of your brother’s friends, you two ran in different circles at school. You were usually introduced them in passing if you happened to run into each other at events, or some you knew from before college, like Jeno and Jaemin, the twins who lived next door to you guys growing up, or Mark and Donghyuck, who you all went to high school with.

A car door opened and closed before a tall figure was walking around the front of the car to meet you on the sidewalk. You blinked in surprise as you recognized Chenle’s friend that was approaching you, and not because of your brother. The cute boy from the library was standing in front of you, seemingly having a similar sense of déjà vu as he froze, hand already outstretched, reaching for your duffel bag.

“Hey again,” you chuckled, putting your bag strap in his hand. “Did you get everything turned in on time?”

“Yeah, I did.” Jisung unfroze and smiled at you, and you swore the sun seemed dim in comparison. “Thanks for the candy, by the way. Completely forgot to tell you that.”

“It’s okay, you were busy.”

“I’m Jisung, by the way.”

You nodded towards your brother’s car. “I had guessed.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Right.”

“I’m Y/N.”

“I had guessed,” he quipped back.

Chenle honked again, then yelled, “Come on!”

You rolled your eyes. “Pain in the ass.”

Chenle popped the trunk for you from his seat, and Jisung put your duffel bag in among their things that were already packed, then he took your suitcase to put away as well. As you opened the passenger door, your brother immediately shook his head.

“Nuh-uh.”

“What?” You looked at him incredulously. “I always get shotgun!”

“And Jisung gets carsick in the backseat.” He pointed at the boy standing awkwardly behind you. “I’m not having him puke all over my car. You’ll survive the backseat for once.”

Hating his condescending tone, but with no other option, you graciously stepped aside. Jisung gave you a quiet ‘sorry, thanks’ as he opened the back door for you. After buckling yourself into the middle seat and Chenle starting his music, everyone was ready to go.

“Y/N, Jisung,” Chenle made introductions over his shoulder, jabbing his thumb between you two. “Jisung’s on the baseball team and was in my bio lab last semester. Y/N is my annoying little sister.”

You kicked the back of his seat. “By ten months. As soon as you popped out, Mom and Dad were so disappointed they immediately decided to have another kid.”

“Regret saying yes yet, Jisung?” He asked his friend smugly.

Jisung, meanwhile, had been staring straight ahead at the road, clearly feeling uncomfortable as he didn’t want to get in the middle of your typical bickering.

“Ignore him, Jisung.” You leaned forward between their seats over the center console, your tone much more friendly. “So you’re on the baseball team? Do you have an athletic scholarship or something?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he answered hurriedly. “Uhm, it’s the only way I could afford to go here. Full ride as long as I keep my grades up.”

You all did go to a rather expensive private university—your parents were alumni, they wouldn’t have sent you anywhere else, of course.

“Wow, so you must be really good, then.”

“I mean, I don’t know—”

“A full ride, I would think they only give those out to the best players, right?”

“Well—”

Chenle cut in, “You’re making him nervous, Y/N. Back up, for fuck’s sake.”

You didn’t back up. “Am I making you nervous, Jisung?”

“No, it’s fine,” he rushed to reassure you, finally turning around in his seat to face you. He let out a squeak as soon as he did, probably not anticipating that you’d be as close as you were. He sat back in his seat, propping himself up against his seatback on his forearm. “Uhm, it’s just that this is only gonna be my second season. Still a rookie, you know. I don’t think I’m that good.”

Jisung sort of reminded you of a little hamster when he was nervous like this, and your lips twitched with amusement. He really was cute.

“When’s baseball season?”

“Practice officially starts in January, first game’s in February.”

“Don’t you get cold out on the field?”

He shrugged self-consciously. “I mean, we’re moving around a lot. And we have hand warmers and stuff for when we’re on the bench.”

You kept eagerly asking him questions. “What position do you play?”

“Pitcher. I’m a switch pitcher—I can pitch left or right-handed—so they like that.”

“So it’s a surprise for the other team?”

“No, you have to declare which hand you’re going to pitch for each batter beforehand,” he admitted, then quickly tacked on, “But it still kinda throws them off!”

You hummed thoughtfully. “What about when you’re hitting the ball?”

“I could do either, but I prefer my right.”

“You’re never this interested in my friends,” Chenle interrupted accusatorily.

“Because I already know like, way too much about the twins, Hyuck, and Mark. Wish I could unlearn some of it, actually,” you snorted. “And you’ve been trying to get me into sports for our whole lives. What’s the problem?”

“Basketball,” your brother corrected you. “I’ve been trying to get you to watch basketball with me. Jisung plays baseball. Wrong sport.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m five,” you snapped, kicking his seat again.

“Stop kicking my seat like a five-year-old and I might,” he retorted.

You scowled at the back of his big head.

“I can see you pouting in the rearview mirror.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, flopping back against your seat.

“Saw that too.”

“Wasn’t trying to hide it!” You snipped back childishly. Turning your focus back to Jisung, who was looking out the passenger window, you asked, “Is he like this to you, Jisung?”

“Don’t answer that,” Chenle directed him before the other boy could open his mouth. “She’ll tire herself out.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable!” You spat. “Talking about me like I’m not even here! Or like I’m Daegal!”

“Well, Daegal is actually trained.”

“Pull the car over, I’m going to beat your ass!”

“Hey!” Surprisingly, it was the soft-spoken Jisung who raised his voice over the sounds of you two fighting, shocking both of you into silence. He continued, “Chenle, you’ve been antagonizing Y/N ever since we pulled up in front of her dorm, man. Then you act like she’s crazy for being pissed off at you. It’s honestly pissing me off.”

Chenle huffed loudly, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel, before he finally said, “Fine. Sorry, Y/N.”

“Yeah, whatever. Thanks for apologizing because Jisung told you to.” You unbuckled and scooted over to the seat behind Jisung, buckling back in and looking out the window at the scenery rushing by.

The car was silent other than Chenle’s music, which he turned up as you pulled out your phone.

[you: i found out cute library guy’s name]

[soosoo: omfg the cia has nothing on u]

[soosoo: SPILL]

[you: i didn’t stalk him, turns out he’s my brother’s friend. his name is park jisung and he’s on the baseball team]

[soosoo: your brother’s friend that you’re going to be ALL ALONE WITH in the mountains for the next TWO WEEKS???]

[you: not ALL ALONE, chenle will be there, remember?]

[soosoo: unfortunately]

[soosoo: WAIT i found him on the team’s roster online and WHEW GIRL]

[soosoo: attached image.]

It was a screenshot of Jisung’s athlete profile on the university’s sports page. The small ID photo he had on there honestly did him no justice.

[soosoo: how is ur brother always friends w the HOTTEST GUYS who ALSO PLAY SPORTS????]

[soosoo: i need him to hook me up fr]

[you: don’t tell me ur thinking abt jeno and jaemin rn]

[soosoo: always]

[you: u don’t need chenle to hook u up if u rlly want, im friends with them too??]

[soosoo: YOU WOULD????]

[you: but you’d have to pick one]

[soosoo: god i am not your strongest soldier]

[you: exactly what i thought]

At the mountain cabin, you three were the first ones there, of course. You parents wouldn’t be arriving until Christmas Eve due to their work schedules. The house was already decorated like something straight out of a Hallmark movie—lights, red and green bows, candy canes, baubles, and other decorations all throughout.

“Wow,” Jisung breathed out, stopping in the foyer and turning around, his eyes wide as he took it all in. “Your parents are really into Christmas, huh?”

“Not really.” You had also stopped to watch his slow circle of awe. “They pay somebody to set it up.”

The wonder dropped off his face and was replaced with confusion, his brow furrowing. Chenle yelled for him from further in the house, and you jerked your head for him to follow. Your brother was at the threshold of the hallway where all your rooms were located.

“Yours is there,” Chenle pointed Jisung to one end of the hallway as you slipped by him to head to the bedroom at the other end. “Y/N’s is on the other side.”

“We share a bathroom,” you called over your shoulder as you opened the door. “Don’t use all the hot water in the morning!”

“And I’m upstairs.” Your brother indicated to a small ladder between Jisung’s room and the bathroom in the middle. “I got the loft. Won it in rock-paper-scissors almost two decades ago.”

“You cheated!” You reminded him loudly from where you had started unpacking your things in your room.

“Sore loser!”

“Sore winner!”

“Anyway, holler if you need something.”

You were still unpacking when there was a soft knock at your open door. It was Jisung leaning in your doorway.

“Hey,” he greeted you quietly.

“Hey.” You smiled at him brightly. “Bathroom’s the middle door. We both have doors that connect to it, so knock before we go in? Even if the light is off?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Jisung continued silently watching you unpack, then finally blurted out, “You egg him on.”

“Huh? Who?”

“Chenle.” He held his hands up in front of him defensively as you opened your mouth. “I know he started everything back in the car, but you didn’t help.”

You sat back on your feet in front of your open suitcase and dresser drawers. “Yeah, I know I’ve got a temper problem. I need to work on it.”

“I didn’t say anything in front of him because I kind of got the feeling that he was being extra mean because I was there.”

“When we’re hanging out with friends that we kinda share, like Jeno and Jaemin or whoever, it’s fine. You know, they met both of us at the same time. But I think when we’re with people that are his friends, it’s different,” you explained, gesturing to an armchair in the corner for Jisung to sit in while you talked. “We were always in the same grade and stuff, so obviously people assumed we were twins. That’s also why he really gets on the ‘little sister’ thing. When we got to college, we were both relieved to finally be different people, you know? Have different friends, different things that were ours.”

“You seem to understand him really well.”

“Known him my whole life,” you pointed out. “And just because I understand why he acts like this doesn’t mean it still doesn’t piss me the fuck off.”

“To answer your question from the car, no, he doesn’t treat me like that. He’s sarcastic, sure, but not like that.”

Zipping up your empty suitcase, you started on your duffel bag that was on your bed. “Sorry you had to deal with us like that, even more so that you had break us up. I’m sure the next two weeks were flashing before your eyes, huh?”

“Honestly, I’m just glad you didn’t actually start beating him up,” he chuckled.

“Me too, that would’ve been embarrassing.” You added, “For him. To get his ass beat in front of one of his buddies.”

He looked out the room down the hallway, checking to see if Chenle was coming, then admitted, “Don’t tell him, but I was sort of calculating how many swings to let you get in before it would look unreasonable for me to not intervene.”

“Oh really? And how many would you have ‘let me’ have?” You grinned, using finger quotes over ‘let me.’

“One good punch and a hair pull, I think.” He looked to be sizing you up, a teasing glint in his eye. “You seem like you fight dirty like that.”

“Could claim you didn’t want to hurt your friend’s little sister, let me get a few more in.” You mimicked punching and kneeing the air. “At least let me knee him in the balls.”

“I’ll consider it in the event you two do actually brawl while we’re here.”

You looked up at the ceiling, thinking about your brother up there somewhere. “Eh, we’ll make up properly soon. One thing about us, we fight a lot, but it’s never for that long.”

“Okay, now I’m worried about the next two weeks.”

You laughed, maybe a little harder than his joke warranted, but you couldn’t help it—he was cute, he was funny, and he was making your chest feel tighter and your head spin faster the longer you were around him.

“Why are you in here?” Chenle had appeared in your doorway, looking genuinely perturbed at the visage of Jisung sitting in your chair.

“Because we’re talking?” You answered for him. “Or is he only allowed to talk to you while he’s here and I have to take a vow of silence?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he snickered, walking in and flopping on your bed.

“You first.”

“You want to do lunch in town then get the tree?” He checked the time on his phone. “Mom and Dad know how much you like Christmas tree shopping so that’s the only thing not done.”

“Or is it just another responsibility to pawn off on someone?” You snorted, opening the door into the adjoining bathroom to put your toiletry bag away.

Your brother’s distant voice called after you, “Even if it is, we can still have fun!”

You took a deep breath, and came out of the bathroom with a smile on your face. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

“Ew, stop that, it’s creepy.” Chenle threw a pillow at you.

You caught it and chucked it right back at him. “What? Smiling?”

It hit him in the face before falling to the floor. “Yeah, exactly. I’m done trying to cheer you up, keep being a little Grinch, it suits your face better.”

You climbed on the bed and grabbed a pillow to smack him with it. “Quit being fucking rude!”

He laughed and cackled, rolling away from your pillow attack until his eyes went wide with panic as he went right over the edge of the mattress and landed on the floor. It was your turn to burst into laughter at the sound he made, and when he started groaning and complaining, you knew he was fine. Jisung was also laughing from his seat.

You finally gathered yourself enough to peer over the edge of the bed, looking down at where Chenle was sprawled out dramatically like a cartoon character that had been crushed by an anvil. As soon as he looked at you, he started giggling too.

“What about this one?” Mr. Song, the elderly man who had run the Christmas tree farm in town for as long as your family had been coming for the holidays, was showing you around to the various trees they had for sale.

“Ah, too skinny.” You shook your head. “We have a lot of ornaments. And a vaulted ceiling too, so we can get a taller one.”

“Right, of course. How could I forget?” His eyes crinkled fondly as he walked you around by the elbow. “You and your brother have gotten so big, Y/N. I remember when you two were up to my knee. Always playing hide and seek in the trees.”

“We used to think you were Santa Claus,” you giggled, gesturing to his big, bushy beard. “We told everyone we knew that we got our Christmas tree from Santa every year.”

“Good to see that Chenle and your boyfriend get along so well.” He nodded to where Chenle and Jisung were throwing snowballs at each other. More accurately, Jisung was pelting them at Chenle with scary precision, and Chenle was doing his best to throw some back in between peals of laughter.

“Oh, Jisung is Chenle’s friend from school, he’s not my boyfriend,” you clarified quickly.

“My mistake.” Mr. Song patted your arm.

After circling the next one Mr. Song showed you, you were content, inspecting how dense the branches were, the height, and general shape.

“Guys!” You yelled out to get Chenle and Jisung’s attention. They ceased their (unfair) battle, meandering over to you. “What do you think?”

Chenle gave it a once-over before nodding. “Great pick as always, Y/N.”

“Is that going to fit through the front door?” Jisung asked skeptically, trying to fit his arms around it to gauge the size.

“It will,” you promised as Chenle pulled out his checkbook.

Two of Mr. Song’s grandsons brought the tree up to the cabin in their truck, and you had to open both front doors all the way for them to carry it in. They got it set up in the corner for you, and you sent them on their way with an extra cash tip.

“We’ve got to let the branches settle before we can decorate it,” you advised Jisung. “So we’ll do that tomorrow.”

“Y/N’s got a whole thing about the tree,” Chenle added from one of the couches, turning the TV on.

“Smells nice,” Jisung piped up.

“Did your family have real trees or artificial ones?” You asked, taking up the other couch.

Jisung seemed to momentarily panic about where to sit, before taking the empty space at the end of Chenle’s couch, facing you. “A fake one. It came with the lights already on. Easier for my mom to set up.”

“One or two?” Chenle asked abruptly.

“What?”

“Two!” You answered, and Chenle immediately played a movie from whatever streaming service he was scrolling through. You went to fill Jisung in, “It’s a game we like to play. One of us will assign numbers to things in our head without telling the other, and you have to reply with a number without really knowing what you’re picking.”

“I couldn’t decide which movie to watch,” Chenle added.

“So, instead of a coin flip, you used Y/N?” Jisung clarified.

“Sort of. You can do it for more than two options. Like…” You tilted your head back and forth as you tried to think of one on the spot. As soon as you had, you perked up. “One, two or three?”

“Three?”

“Hot chocolate it is.” You stood up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen.

Jisung turned in his seat to keep you in his eyesight. “Wait, what were the options?”

“That’s part of the fun.” You smiled. “Sometimes you never know.”

A few minutes later, you came back into the room with three mugs of hot chocolate, and handed one each to Chenle and Jisung before sitting back on your couch.

Several movies, rounds of various video games, and large pizzas later, you were beat. Standing up from your couch, you stretched and started grabbing everyone’s plates.

“I’ll get these if you guys put the food away?”

Chenle gave you a thumbs-up, his eyes locked on his phone screen.

“Night!” You tossed back over your shoulder as you traipsed out of the room.

“Night!” Your brother echoed.

“Goodnight!” Jisung replied.

As soon as you were bundled up in your blankets in your room, you videocalled Sooyoung. She picked up, the familiar scenery of her childhood bedroom in the background.

“Hey!” She beamed. “How was day one? Kill Chenle? Make any moves on cute library guy?”

“We know his name now, Soo!” You laughed.

“But a nickname is so fun and mysterious!”

“I did almost kill Chenle in the first ten minutes of the car ride,” you groaned. “Jisung surprisingly came to my defense.”

“Your brother’s friend took your side against him? Wow…”

“He’s really sweet, he’s making an effort to be my friend too.”

“Friend? Or something else?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, it’s been one day,” you giggled, rolling over onto your back. “Anyway, how’s your family?”

You stayed up chatting for another hour before finally going to sleep, giddy with thoughts of what could happen tomorrow.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22

In the morning, with no alarm for class to get you up, you woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep several times. Eventually, you decided that it was time to get up, and slowly shuffled out of your room. Chenle was already up, by the stove cooking something. Jisung was nowhere in sight, probably still sleeping.

Upon hearing your footsteps, he looked over his shoulder. “Morning.”

You grunted back.

“Mom called.”

You made another noise of acknowledgment, still rubbing sleep out of your eyes as you lumbered over to your seat at the table. Your brother set a plate of pancakes down in front of you, and you squinted up at him suspiciously. Typically he would’ve made you get your own plate, or more likely, make your own food. Actually, it was kind of weird that he was up before you. He must not have gone back to sleep after talking to your mom. It wasn’t unusual for her to have called early in the morning—your parents’ work took them all around the world, and often the only free time they could find had them calling at odd hours.

“They’re not going to make it for Christmas, Y/N,” he told you softly, still standing next to your chair.

“Of course,” you scoffed, lip curling with distaste as you picked up your fork.

“They’ll be here on the 26th, and we can do everything with them then.”

“Are they staying for New Year’s?”

His silence was all the answer you needed.

“Of course,” you repeated with more venom in your tone than before, dropping your utensil back down onto the table. “What the fuck else should we have expected? Honestly, why do they even fucking bother?”

He put a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Chenle, don’t apologize for them.” You patted his hand. “It’s not your fault.” Pushing your chair back, you stood up. “I’m not hungry right now. I’m going out back.”

“I’ll save your plate.”

Shoving boots on your feet and pulling a heavier coat on, you opened the door in your bedroom that led directly out onto the back patio. It had snowed last night, so you had to shuffle through the fresh layer to get to the swing seat back here. The cold morning air bit at your nose and cheeks, and you tucked your hands into your pockets to keep them warm—you’d forgotten gloves. Sighing, you watched your breath fog up in front of your face, until your tears overtook your vision and you couldn’t see anything past them.

You pulled your knees to your chest on the porch swing, pushing your face into the thick material of your pajama pants. Why did it still hurt so bad? They did this all the fucking time.

The sound of feet crunching snow came to your ears, and you wiped at your face as you looked up at who was approaching you. It was Jisung, two steaming mugs in his gloved hands.

“Uhm, Chenle said you weren’t hungry. Does cider count?” He offered one out to you.

You chuckled, accepting it, grateful to have something warm to wrap your chilly fingers around. “No, it doesn’t. Thanks, Jisung.”

“It’s pretty out here,” he commented, looking around at the scenery. “Or not, if you want me to go back inside.”

You laughed again, gesturing to the empty half of the porch swing next to you. “You can stay.”

Jisung brushed off the snow from the rest of the porch swing before sitting down. He wedged his mug of cider between his legs and you watched him curiously as he started taking his gloves off. He offered them out to you, making you shake your head.

“I’m fine, I’ve got the cider—”

“So do I.”

“Then how about this.” You plucked one glove from him and put it on your right hand, which was holding the handle of the mug. Your left cradled the body of the mug, where all the warmth was. “Glove goes on the colder hand.”

He chuckled, slipping his remaining glove on his left, and wrapping his right hand around the mug. “Innovative.”

“Thank you.”

The smile faded as he turned more somber. “I’m sorry to hear that your parents’ plans changed.”

You took a sip of the cider, staring out at the still landscape of snow-covered trees and mountains. “Me too. You think I would be used to it by now.”

“Chenle was talking about maybe going to this ice-skating place later. If you’re feeling up to it.”

“That’s what’s nice about having him. No matter how much stupid shit we fight about, we’ve at least got each other when they do stuff like this.” You half-smiled to yourself. “You know, sometimes I think they did that on purpose. Had two kids instead of one so they wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving us alone all the time.”

The tears had come back, and you wiped at them with your bare hand, not wanting to soil Jisung’s glove that he had given you. Shaking your head at yourself, you said derisively, “I’m sure I seem pathetic to you. Rich girl crying in her family’s winter vacation home because mommy and daddy won’t make it for Christmas.”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

You turned your gaze to Jisung to find him already looking at you, so sincerely, too. Swallowing down more tears, you asked, “Why aren’t you home with your family? I’m sure you’d much rather be with them than stuck here with us.”

“My parents are divorced. Every year, my dad and his wife go on some cruise for Christmas, and my mom spends it with my stepdad’s family. They say I’m welcome there, but they’re all strangers, except my mom.” He shrugged half-heartedly, blowing across the surface of his cider. “I know it’s kinda my fault too, I’m not making an effort to get to know them or whatever. But I just… don’t want to.”

“How’d you end up coming along with Chenle then?”

“Last year I stayed at school for Winter Break. Met Chenle in the spring, and when Winter Break plans came up this year, he was appalled at the idea of me eating at the dining hall for Christmas dinner.” Jisung chuckled, and you smiled fondly, able to imagine your brother’s horrified face. “It wasn’t even an offer, he decided for me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here instead of eating dining hall food by yourself.”

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry your parents suck too.”

“Shitty parents club.” He held his mug out to you.

You clinked your against it in a commiserative toast. “We need Chenle out here for our full membership.”

“Yeah, but this swing only fits two people…”

You smiled a little as you sipped your cider. “Then I guess it’s just us for right now.”

Jisung smiled back. “Guess so.”

That afternoon, as promised, you three went ice skating. The local nature reserve had a lake that always froze solid, and would rent out ice skates and sell hot chocolate and other treats to earn a little extra income—free admission if you brought your own skates. You were the first one to get your skates on, and shuffled onto the frozen lake excitedly. There were a few other people out here—couples, families, groups of friends—but the area cordoned off for ice skating was big enough that everyone had plenty of room to spread out. A wide smile immediately spread across your face. Chenle knew you well, which was a blessing and a curse. He knew exactly how to push your buttons and cheer you up.

Speaking of, your brother smoothly skated up next to you, smug look on his face. “Better?”

“With a head that big, I’d hope you’d have a good idea every so often,” you teased, lightly bopping him through his beanie.

“Ungrateful.” He snapped one of your earmuffs against your head, not hard enough to hurt.

You two had been milling back and forth waiting for Jisung, and you looked back over at the bench where you’d all been tying up your skates to find him still sitting there, fiddling with the laces.

Chenle followed your gaze. “What is he doing? He had them tied when I got up, I thought he was right behind me.”

You shrugged, exiting the ice to stop in front of Jisung on the bench. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just—” Jisung swallowed, squinting and scrunching up his nose nervously. “I’ve only been ice skating once, and I was a kid, so…”

“You don’t know how,” you finished.

“I mean—Yes.”

“Come on.” You offered out your arm out to him.

He waved his hands as he refused. “I’m going to do something stupid like fall and end up breaking your arm or—”

“No, it’ll be fine,” you assured him. “Seriously, I did ice skating lessons as a kid.”

“You did?”

“You’re in good hands, I promise.”

Jisung grabbed your arm, and using both you and the bench as leverage, stood up. He looked around warily as you patted his back.

“There you go, you got it. Now, you get to walk until you get to the ice.” As you coached him through the basics of operating his skates, you slowly guided him closer to the edge of the ice. You stepped onto the ice first, keeping a hold on both of his gloved hands for him to cautiously join you, one foot at a time.

“You didn’t think to tell us you’ve never skated?” Chenle questioned dryly as he joined you two.

“I have!” Jisung defended himself. “Once…”

“Well Y/N can teach you,” he offered you up. “She used to do lessons, till she got kicked out.”

“Wait, for what?”

You rolled your eyes at your brother just having to bring that up. Nudging Jisung forward to start moving his legs, you began relaying the story, “I called my coach a bitch to her face and refused to apologize.”

“Just because or…?”

“First of all, I was seven, so impulse control wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Second of all, she called another little girl in the class fat to her face! She had just gotten a new competition dress, it was this really pretty purple one with sparkles and stuff all over it, and the teacher told her she shouldn’t wear it because something about the pattern made her look bigger or something ridiculous. A seven-year-old! She’s just lucky she didn’t get an ice skate to the face!” Your rant picked up steam and volume as you continued, feeling freshly pissed off as you recalled the incident.

Jisung frowned, looking troubled as well. “That’s awful.”

“I know! Honestly, I’m glad I got kicked out. I hated that woman.” You pulled him away from a divot in the ice. “Watch out. Don’t want your blade getting caught in that.”

“Thanks. You seem to have retained a lot.”

“I didn’t get very far before I was booted,” you scoffed. “But I guess we still went to rinks and out here pretty frequently, so I haven’t lost the basics, at least.”

“So are we decorating the tree later?”

“Yep, should take the rest of the day.”

“Seriously?”

“We’ve got a lot of ornaments.” You snickered at his wide eyes, looking to your other side where Chenle had been skating for confirmation. Instead, your brother had disappeared. Confused, you scanned the figures on the ice, finally spotting him far ahead of you, skating backwards at an impressive speed. “He left us.”

Jisung finally detached his eyes from where they’d been glued on his feet, chuckling when he saw Chenle as well. “He’s not very patient, is he?”

“Not a virtue he was born with, no.” You turned your attention back to Jisung. “Think you’re getting the hang of it?”

His grip tightened on your arm. “If I say yes, are you going to let go of me?”

“No,” you laughed. “Not until you’re ready.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“But let’s try this.” You moved to hold both his hands, skating backwards in front of him. “Okay?”

“You can’t see behind you,” he said, nervously glancing between your face and over your shoulder.

You checked over your shoulder. It was clear, and you redirected your path to make sure you weren’t heading directly at the next closest people. “I’ve got it.”

“I feel like I’m leaning forward too much, how do I—Wah!” The distinct clank of Jisung’s skates hitting each other rang out, and he fell forward.

Not wanting him to faceplant into your skates or the ice, you braked and tensed your arms to try to keep him up. However, since you had braked and he obviously did not, his forward momentum sent him catapulting directly into you. His arms wrapped around your waist as his legs scrambled against the ice trying to find his footing again. You readjusted your hold on him to clutch him under the arms in an attempt to keep him up, but with all the layers that you were bundled up in and the slippery ice, it was a losing battle. You were a good skater, but you couldn’t haul him back to his feet like this. So you decided to just let the two of you slowly descend, squatting down until you could plant your butt on the ice and kick your feet out on either side of Jisung, careful not to hit him with your blades.

“You alright?” You asked him, pulling his beanie back from where it was entirely obscuring his eyes.

“Please tell me I’m dead,” he groaned, the half of his face that you could see was completely pink and his eyes were squeezed shut. His head was pressed against your middle as he was still clinging onto you.

“No, you survived that,” you laughed. “And so did I. No broken arms or other bones.”

“Will you kill me anyway?”

A spray of ice showered both of you as Chenle stopped next to you guys, proceeding to double over with laughter. “Clumsy ass.”

“Nice, thank you,” you scoffed, wiping off the cold ice from your face, then a couple drops that had gotten on Jisung’s cheek. “Anytime you’d like to quit being an asshole and help us up.”

“I don’t know, you two look pretty cozy to me.”

Jisung somehow turned even redder, squirming in your grasp. “Y/N, I’m sorry!”

“Chenle, shut up!” You scolded your brother. “You’re making Jisung freak out and he’s going to hurt himself!”

“You make him sound like a scared prey animal,” he snickered. Letting out a sigh, he patted his friend’s back. “Alright, Jisung, come on.”

With Chenle’s assistance, Jisung got to his feet, and you were then able to stand back up on your own. Brushing snow off your legs, you shivered, and saw that the entire front of Jisung’s pants were soaked through thanks to the ice, and you could feel that the back of your own had suffered a similar fate.

“I think that’s enough ice skating for today,” you declared. “My ass is quite literally going to freeze off if we stay out here any longer.”

Jisung nodded quickly from where he was clinging onto Chenle to stay upright now. “I’m skated out.”

“Good thing my car has heated seats then,” Chenle said, beginning to drag his friend back towards the exit.

After a hot shower and in a fresh change of warm pajamas, you were in front of the Christmas tree with all of the boxes of decorations for it. You had already wound the lights around it when Jisung joined you in the living room, hair still damp from his shower—he’d given you first shower out of guilt.

“Hey, you know where Chenle is?” You asked, flipping open boxes of ornaments. Chenle’s loft bedroom had a private bathroom, so you figured he’d be out by now.

“He got a call—Mark, I think,” Jisung informed you.

“Oh, that’ll take an hour,” you snorted. “You can help me. Put any ornaments that have Chenle’s name on them aside, he gets to put those up whenever he’s done.”

“Any ornaments with your name are yours to put up?” He guessed, reaching into a box and pulling out an ornament in the shape of a bear with a Santa hat on. The white band of the hat had ‘Chenle’ written in cursive.

“Yep. Everything else is fair game for you. Quick tip, any bear ornaments will be Chenle’s. That’s his parent-assigned motif.”

“Got it. And what’s yours?”

You held up the honeybee ornament that you’d just fished out, letting it dangle and twist in the air, the yellow gems catching the light. “Bees. They had a theme, kind of.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” He reached up to hang a blue and gold ornament on a higher branch, though you could feel his eyes on you as you put your own up on a middle branch. Finally, he blurted out, “Are you sure you didn’t get hurt earlier?”

“Yeah, Jisung, I’m okay,” you chuckled. “Really, we were both wearing so many layers we were practically bubblewrapped.”

He visibly relaxed. “Okay, good.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. But I crashed into you, not the other way around.”

“True, but you had a much less graceful descent.”

He visibly grimaced, a bashful smile on his face. “Mm-hm. Thank you for bringing that up again.”

“Pretty sure you brought it up again,” you teased, nudging his arm with yours as you reached in front of him to hang an ornament.

“And I would love to change the topic now.” He grabbed an ornament in the shape of a snowman.

“What’s your major?” You decided to save him this time. “You and Chenle had bio lab together, but I know he took bio for non-majors, so you’re not a STEM major either…”

Jisung made a buzzer noise, and you blinked at him in surprise. He cracked a grin as he said, “Cybersecurity.”

“Ah, so you’re a baseball jock and a little computer geek…” You nodded slowly, grabbing another ornament. “The duality of man, truly.”

“Geek?” He repeated incredulously.

“What? I think it’s cute.” You giggled and put up the glass snowflake in your hand. Then, you turned back to him hopefully. “Ooh, actually, my laptop gets possessed sometimes ever since Chenle clicked on one of those sketchy porn pop-up ads when we were fourteen. You don’t think you would be able to take a look at it sometime, would you?”

Jisung visibly sustained whiplash at your words, his head jerking back and eyes going wide before he furrowed his brows. “Wait, what? How old is your laptop? He did what to it? What do you mean it gets possessed? What exactly does it do?”

“Uhm… it’d probably be easier to show you.”

“Y/N, this thing is old enough to drive.”

You put your hands on either side of your laptop’s screen as if you were covering its ears, giving Jisung a stern look. “Sh! You’re going to hurt her feelings!”

He continued to look at you over his glasses, entirely unamused. This was the first time you’d seen him wear them—even in the library, he’d had contacts in. Now, with him wearing his casual clothes, glasses, sitting on your bed and attempting to fix your laptop, you felt like you were going to lose it, truly. Especially when you’d catch a whiff of his shampoo, and you’d have to stop yourself from leaning in to follow the smell of cinnamon.

“Seriously, why do you still have it? Chenle has the newest Macbook,” he asked, fingers flitting across the keyboard.

“Because it works fine!” You insisted, removing your hands. “I get the internal stuff cleaned out regularly, and make sure all the software is updated and everything.”

“It still gets software updates?”

“It just… gets possessed every so often.”

“I wouldn’t call the occasional possession ‘working fine.’”

“When it’s not possessed, it works great! And it doesn’t even happen that much, only like, once a month.”

“Once a month since you were fourteen?” He squinted at you in disbelief where you were sitting on the opposite side of the laptop screen. “And you kept the damn thing?”

“No, once a month now,” you clarified. “It happened the first time when Chenle clicked on that porn ad, then maybe once a year for a few years after, and slowly started happening more and more often.”

“And he was watching porn on your computer because…?”

“So it wouldn’t be on his internet history.”

He snorted. “Of course. I should’ve realized.”

“Can I watch?”

“Oh, uhm, sure?” He readjusted to make room to his left side on the mattress, angling the laptop that way as well.

You shuffled around to the other side of the computer, dropping to lay down on your front, propping your chin up with your elbows to observe. Tilting your head, you rested it against Jisung’s knee that was next to you. His hands froze over the keys, and you lifted your head back up, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

“Sorry—Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah, you’re fine.” He nodded quickly and pushed his glasses up as he returned his attention to the screen.

Leaning your head back against his knee, you settled in to watch him work on your laptop. You couldn’t follow what exactly he was doing to the computer, opening and closing different windows, folders, and applications. You zoned out, watching his hands and fingers deftly move over the keys instead. He was muttering to himself under his breath, his low voice pleasant to listen to even if you couldn’t make out the words he was saying. This close to him, you could smell the cinnamon better, and were starting to think that maybe it was actually a body wash or cologne.

“Y/N?” He said your name, making you snap out of a daze as you realized he was calling for you. “Hello?”

“Hm?” You perked up a little.

“We need to do an exorcism.”

That woke you all the way back up. “Wait, what?”

“Complete reset. Wipe everything and redownload the OS.”

“But I have everything on there!” You pleaded, stretching your hands over the keyboard to prevent him from doing anything else. “We’ve been through so much together! You can’t kill her!”

He sighed regretfully. “Is there an electronics store or something around here? We can get an external hard drive to back up all your personal stuff.”

“There’s a mall like an hour away. Chenle and I need to go gift shopping anyway so we can go tomorrow!”

“Why did I hear my name?” Chenle’s voice came from further down the hallway. He must have finished his call with Mark. Your brother poked his head into your room, briefly pausing when he saw you and Jisung. “I thought you guys were decorating the tree…?”

“Remember how you downloaded a virus trying to watch porn on my computer in high school? Jisung is fixing it for me,” you said pointedly, never missing an opportunity to bring that moment up. “But we need to buy something. I was telling him you and I need to go gift shopping anyway, so we can all go to that mall tomorrow.”

“Please tell me the thing you’re buying is a new laptop.”

“Never! She’s going to outlive you if I have anything to do with it!”

“Based off the fact that it sounds like a jet engine taking off right now, I’m pretty sure that was a threat on my life.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23

“Okay, so you’ll need at least this much storage for the files that you have right now,” Jisung explained, motioning to a few different options of hard drives that the electronics store had. He then gestured to a few more. “But if you really want to have her until Chenle’s dead, you might want to consider some more storage.”

You grinned, bumping his shoulder affectionately. “You said ‘her.’”

He covered his mouth as he let out a sputtering laugh, his cheeks turning pink. “Oh God—I didn’t even realize. That’s—Ah, you’re rubbing off on me.”

“I like that one,” you declared, pointing to one hard drive that was a similar colorway to the laptop case you had.

“Yeah, that’s more than enough storage.”

After purchasing your hard drive, you and Jisung headed out of the electronics store together. Chenle had already gone off to gift shop on his own so you and Jisung couldn’t see what he bought you.

You turned to Jisung. “Want to help me shop for Chenle?”

“Sure.”

The two of you meandered around the mall, popping into stores that seemed promising from the outside. As you passed by a jewelry display in a window, you tapped on the glass in front of a pair of earrings.

“Those are cute,” you commented, slowing down but not stopping entirely.

“You think so?” Jisung questioned, looking at them over your shoulder as you kept walking.

“Mhm.” You nodded, then clicked your tongue. “I’d get them, but I already have a pair like them.”

“You do?”

“Yep.” Keeping your gaze on the passing storefronts, you said levelly, “I don’t want to assume anything about what you think of me, Jisung, but I want you to know that I don’t expect a present from you. We only properly met two days ago.”

“Yeah, that’s… really reasonable,” he chuckled, the relief evident in his voice.

“Seriously, if you fix my computer, that’ll be the best Christmas present I get this year, hands-down. I don’t care what expensive crap my parents get me or surprisingly thoughtful, niche thing Chenle somehow manages to find.”

“I didn’t realize how much my computer exorcism skills were worth.”

“To me, they’re priceless,” you assured him. “I wish I had something to offer in return.”

“Hey, you already taught me how to skate,” he insisted, nudging your arm.

You tilted your head side-to-side contemplatively. “One could argue whether I was successful at that…”

“Completely my fault that the lesson got cut short, not yours.”

“Alright, alright. I suppose a computer exorcism can be our quid pro quo for ten minutes of ice-skating lessons.”

“I didn’t pay much attention in my high school history class when Mr. Yoo was talking about the bartering system, but I’m pretty sure those two things are equivalent, yeah.”

You burst out laughing, covering your mouth and squeezing your eyes shut as you started to go a little light-headed from how hard you were laughing. You were still walking forward alongside Jisung, and felt him grab your arm and tug you towards him at the same time he warned, “Watch out.”

You couldn’t see whatever you must’ve almost walked into as you were still trying to sober up from your chuckle fest, covering your face as more giggles bubbled up every time you tried to close your mouth. Jisung kept you right next to him, guiding you through the mall crowd with a gentle but steadfast grasp on your arm, not letting you bump into anybody or trip over anything.

“Are you really still laughing?” He asked, and though his words were exasperated, his tone was overly fond, letting out a soft laugh of his own at the end. “I don’t think it was that funny…”

You narrowed your eyes playfully at him, shook his hand off you, and suppressed your giggles to say, “Fine. I don’t think you’re funny at all and I hate you, actually.”

Jisung’s mouth parted as he stared at you in shock, and you couldn’t keep the bit going for very long when faced with his adorable look of being totally caught off-guard and floored, even if both of you knew it was all a joke. You grabbed his arm this time, your laughs getting muffled in his sweater as you buried your face in his shoulder and leaned against him for support.

“Oh my god, you looked like I ran over your dog or something!” You gasped for air between guffaws, apologetically rubbing his arm.

“You’re…” He trailed off, letting out a sigh instead, reaching for your purse that was on your arm and now awkwardly crushed between you two with you holding his arm. “Here, I’ll take that.”

He had already been carrying your shopping bags that you’d been acquiring from the various stores, and you now stopped to wordlessly shimmy off your purse for him to shoulder on his opposite side from you. You reattached yourself to his arm that you had been holding, and though his cheeks were turning pink, he had a small smile on his face as he looked down at his phone to check the time.

“Did your family assign you an animal too?” You asked him, your eyes getting caught on a kiosk of Christmas ornaments as you continued your journey through the mall.

“What?”

“Like how my parents decided when we were born that Chenle’s a bear and I’m a honeybee,” you explained, quickly looking back over to Jisung. “Did you ever have an animal or something that was like yours?”

He scrunched his nose as he thought, then shook his head. “No, not that I can remember. I always had a bunch of different stuffed animals.”

“I think you look like a hamster,” you informed him. “Especially when you do that with your nose.”

“Do what with my nose?” He questioned, his nose unintentionally twitching and scrunching up again as his eyes flitted around nervously.

You giggled, squeezing his arm tighter as you couldn’t help but coo over how cute he was. “That!”

He covered his nose with his hand, and though it obstructed half his face, you could tell he was pouting behind it.

“I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious, I’m sorry!” You apologized, grabbing his hand and trying to pull it away from his face. “I think it’s really cute!”

He stubbornly kept his nose concealed. “You still haven’t told me what it is…”

“You just scrunch up your nose sometimes, like this—” You imitated it, doing your best not to make it look like you were mocking him. “Seriously, it’s adorable! Please don’t ever stop, I might die!”

Jisung’s eyes crinkled and he dropped his hand back down as he chuckled. “Well we can’t have that.”

Your phone buzzed in your hand then, and you saw that it was your brother calling. “Mm, hold on, it’s Chenle.”

“Hey, where are you guys?” Chenle asked on the other end.

“We’re still on the first floor,” you told him. “By the pretzel stand. Where are you?”

“What have you two been doing? I’m on the third floor; I’ve been through the whole mall already. I’m done,” he scoffed. “Stay there, I’ll come to you.”

“I had to get my hard drive first, remember? You got a head start.”

“Anyway, are you done?”

“No, I have a couple more people to find gifts for.”

“Alright, hold on, I see you.”

You craned your neck looking for Chenle, still with your phone to your ear. “Damn bitch, how many old ladies did you take out on your way here?”

“Only two,” Chenle’s voice came through your phone and from directly beside you at the same time. He was loaded up with shopping bags on both arms.

You jumped out of your skin before rolling your eyes and hanging up the call. “Did you see a place that sold bath bombs and stuff?”

“Yeah, second floor, directly to the left off the escalator.”

“That’s my next stop, SooSoo loves that stuff,” you declared.

“There’s a baseball specialty shop on the third floor,” Chenle stated, eyes lingering on where you were still holding onto his friend’s arm. “If you want to go check it out, Jisung?”

You perked up, giving him an enthusiastic smile. “That sounds awesome! You totally should.”

Jisung turned to Chenle and nodded. “Yeah, sounds cool. Let’s do it.”

“I’ve still got a couple people on my list, so I’ll call you guys when I’m done so we can meet up and go,” you said, reaching for your purse that was still on Jisung’s shoulder. He handed it back to you, and you hurried off to take care of your final errands.

Back at the house, you watched on with bated breath as Jisung performed his laptop exorcism. The screen turned on, which already was good news. After a few more progress bars, you eventually saw your homescreen and looked at him with guarded hope.

“I still need to transfer your personal files back over. And you won’t know if it worked unless it just never gets possessed again, but…” Jisung gestured to your laptop with a certain finality.

“Ahh, thank you! Thank you!” You cheered, hugging him.

“O-Oh, you’re welcome,” he mumbled, hesitantly hugging you back.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24

Christmas Eve was ushered in with a fresh snowfall overnight, and maybe the Christmas spirit finally possessed you, because all three of you were outside playing in it like little kids. A rather lumpy snowman had already been built and decorated with various rocks, sticks, and kitchen utensils. Snow angels were scattered around, and Chenle had just thrown the very first snowball, hitting Jisung squarely in the back of the head.

You laughed incredulously as the pitcher turned around and calmly started packing snow between his hands.

“Are you stupid?” You snickered at your brother, who was also preparing another snowball.

Before he could finish readying that one, Jisung wound up and launched his snowball, nailing Chenle in the face. You weren’t even focused on your brother as he desperately wiped the snow off his face with both hands, however, your eyes still watching Jisung, who was chuckling to himself. You’d been too preoccupied at the Christmas tree farm to really watch any of their snowfall fight that had happened there, and obviously hadn’t gone to any of Jisung’s games before, so this was the first time you’d seen him really use any of his pitcher skills. While it wasn’t a proper pitch, the practiced ease and skill that he clearly possessed even in doing something as silly as throwing a snowball was admittedly really attractive.

Chenle had taken his loss and grabbed a stick to start writing something in the snow, a good distance away from where you and Jisung were, his back to the two of you.

Stepping deliberately closer to Jisung, you said, “That was really cool, Jisung.”

He fidgeted with making sure his beanie was down over his ears. “Ah, I mean, it wasn’t a real pitch or anything—”

“Then can you teach me how to pitch for real?” You requested sweetly. “I’m very into baseball these days.”

“Uhm, y-yeah,” he agreed, clearing his throat and nodding. He stooped down to pack more snow between his hands into a round sphere, then held it out for you. “Here, that should be the right size.”

You graciously accepted it, then looked at him expectantly.

“Do you prefer to throw with your left or your right?” He asked.

You held up your dominant hand holding the snowball, and he nodded.

“Okay, uhm, you should stand with your feet like this.” He demonstrated the correct positioning himself, and you copied.

Jisung went through the basic steps with you, making minor adjustments here and there, and you were actually finding it sort of interesting, outside of the cute boy teaching you something he was passionate about. Learning a new skill or something to that effect. When he was showing you how to actually move your arm when throwing, you were genuinely trying to do it per his verbal instructions, but apparently there was still something wrong with the way you were doing it. And so he walked behind you, covering your gloves hand with his. You could feel his warm breath on the back of your neck, and his other hand grabbed your opposite shoulder to correct your posture as he manually moved your arm through the correct motion. Slow at first, talking through it.

“Feel how it’s different than what you were doing?” He asked, doing it again, a little faster this time.

But you were long gone, your brain white noise and your vision blurring a little bit (but that was mostly due to the cold wind hitting your eyes). He still smelled like cinnamon, and you wanted to listen to his voice all day. Jisung could read you a car manufacturer’s manual for all you cared.

“Mm, mhm,” you agreed absentmindedly.

“Alright, I’m going to step back and let you throw your first pitch.” He patted your shoulder and did just that, leaving you feeling even colder.

You momentarily panicked as you grappled in your short-term memory for anything that he had just been saying. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes, deciding that you would probably suck anyway, and to just fucking do it. Trusting your gut and muscle memory of what Jisung had just been walking you through, you did your damndest to throw that snowball in something akin to a pitch.

Amazingly, the snowball actually hit the trunk of the tree that you had been aiming for, and you stared at it in disbelief, hands hanging down by your side. Jisung clapped, the sound dampened by his gloves, but his cheers were surprisingly upbeat for how soft-spoken of a guy he was.

“Wow! That was a really good first pitch!” He congratulated you, holding up both his palms for you to high-five. “So awesome…”

You high-fived him, but stayed holding onto his hands, wide smile overtaking your features. “Thank you.”

“I—You’re welcome.” He held onto your hands too, throat bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

“Jisung!” Chenle yelled out, reminding the both of you of his presence. “Can you get my phone? I made Daegal out of snow and I want to take a picture. It should be charging on my bed.”

“Yeah!” Jisung called back. He gave you a regretful look, letting your hands go to trudge back up to the cabin.

Rounding on your brother, you stomped over to him, observing the admittedly cute snow-Daegal for a moment before addressing him.

“You can get your own phone,” you scoffed, crossing your arms.

“I thought I might hurt Jisung’s feelings if I told him to leave to his face,” Chenle replied nonchalantly. He looked at you over his large-framed sunglasses. “I feel like I have to warn you, as your big brother—”

“By ten months.”

“—about Jisung.”

You gave him a sour look, knowing that he knew that you wouldn’t be able stop yourself from asking a follow-up question to a statement like that. “What about him?”

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

You immediately got fired up, hands balling into fists at your sides. “Don’t you dare start pulling the ‘my friends are off-limits’ card now. You’ve never—”

“Hey, I like Jisung.” He held up his hands defensively, an amused smirk on his face. “If I had to make a tierlist of my friends for you to date, he’d be like, the only one in S-tier.”

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Do you have a fantasy draft of boyfriends for me too?”

“I’m genuinely trying to help you here, alright?”

“So, what? Does he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Not exactly…” Chenle sighed. “Right before we left, during finals week, he met this girl in the library and just absolutely fell head-over-heels, okay? Like, he’s never even looked once at all the girls who show up to his games, but this one says three words to him and gives him some candy and he’s a goner. I don’t get it.”

It took everything in you to suppress your giddy grin and instead cock your head, playing dumb as you asked, “Wait, did he even get this girl’s name?”

“No, he never got a chance since they were both working on finals stuff,” he answered. “Anyway, I’m just trying to warn you. You’ve got to compete with the romanticized version of mystery library candy girl that he has in his head.”

“Mm. Tough competition,” you nodded with mock solemnity.

“I’m serious, Y/N. He called me at like midnight walking back from the library to tell me about it. He’s got it bad.” As if suddenly realizing everything he had just told you might dampen your spirits, Chenle’s entire demeanor shifted, and he gingerly patted the top of your head. “But uh, you’ve totally got this. I’m rooting for you, lil sis.”

“Right. Thanks… big bro,” you replied with intentional stiltedness, softballing a punch to his shoulder.

That night after dinner, you all sat down around the Christmas tree for your family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. You sifted through the presents under the tree, some of which were ones that had been shipped here ahead of time by your parents or other extended family, others from Chenle.

“Hmm… one or two?” You asked, your eyes on two particular gifts.

“One,” Chenle and Jisung answered unanimously.

You grabbed the one that had been under your left hand, returning to your seat next to Jisung. Chenle had already picked his box, and fished out a gift bag, plopping it in front of Jisung. He seemed surprised, blinking down at it.

“But—”

“I got you more than one gift, dummy,” Chenle cut him off, already guessing what his confusion was about. “Go ahead.”

“No!” You stopped Jisung. He looked at you with alarm as you snatched the gift bag away, putting it back under the tree and replacing it with a different, much smaller one instead. “Open mine.”

Jisung looked even more confused, and slightly betrayed. “I thought we agreed we weren’t doing gifts…?”

“Yeah, but then I saw this and…” You smiled sheepishly. “Just open it!”

Shaking his head, he pulled out the tissue paper, then removed the object at the bottom of the bag. It was wrapped in more tissue paper to protect it, which he carefully wrapped, revealing the ornament that you had bought yesterday while you were split up. It was in the shape of a hamster popping out of a present box, and as soon as you saw it at the mall kiosk, you knew you had to get it for him.

Jisung turned it over his hands, looking up at you still a little confused, but with a smile. “Wait…”

“It looks just like you!” You giggled, taking it from him to hold it up next to his face. Aiming your next question at Chenle, you asked, “Doesn’t it?”

Your brother started laughing, reaching forward to tweak one of Jisung’s cheeks. “Ha, she’s right. How adorable.”

Jisung pushed his hand away, rolling his eyes. His gaze softened when he looked back over at you. “Thank you, Y/N. It’s great.”

“Hang it up!” You urged, giving it back to him and gesturing to the tree.

He got up on his knees to reach forward and affix it to an empty branch, between a bear ornament and honeybee ornament.

“Okay, Y/N, you next,” Chenle directed.

Ripping the wrapping paper off the small box, you were met with a small jewelry box, and took that lid off. Inside was a pair of ornate, bejeweled earrings, a little flashy for your taste. You checked the card.

“Great-Aunt Ying,” you announced, and Chenle let out an ‘ahh’ sound in understanding. You put the lid back on the box and set it aside. “SooSoo will love those.”

“Who’s that?” Jisung asked curiously as your brother started unwrapping his present. “Not your great-aunt.”

“Sooyoung, my roommate since freshman year,” you explained. “She’s also like, my best friend. And those earrings aren’t really my style, but I know she would wear them like, all the time, so I’ll just give them to her when we get back.”

Chenle’s box was a bit larger than yours had been, and was similarly stylish. He turned it over to shake the lid off and make the contents fall out all in one go, catching the fabric that fell out in his hand. Holding it up, it was a tie in what looked like a nice material, a monochrome and not exceptionally busy pattern on it.

“Another tie, wonder who it’s from…” he snorted, picking up the card. “Oh, Great-Uncle Feng. Surprise.”

“Does he think you’re eating all the ties he gives you or something?” You snickered.

“I think he’s so old he forgets he’s given me a tie before and thinks I don’t own any.” Chenle then offered it out to Jisung. “You need a tie? If not, I’ll ask the other guys.”

“I would need a suit first…” Jisung admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Chenle stared at him in disbelief, then sighed. “Okay, so we’re getting you a suit when we get back to school.”

“What do I need a suit for?”

“Don’t you have formal stuff that you have to go to for baseball? Awards or press conferences or something?”

“That’s maybe once a year. I just rent a suit!”

“Jisung, don’t say another word, you’re going to kill me.” He put a hand over his heart as if it were going to give out any second.

You chuckled at their antics, starting to clean up the trashed wrapping paper. “Christmas movies?”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25

You felt like a little kid, unable to sleep the night before Christmas morning. It was after midnight, so it technically was Christmas now. And even thought you knew that neither Santa nor you parents were coming, you were still oddly giddy. You had already videocalled Sooyoung to recap the developments of the day, but you were still replaying everything in your mind, kept up with thought of Jisung. How it felt being that close to him when he was teaching you to throw a snowball, the information that apparently he was just as smitten with you after the library as you were with him. Even Chenle’s unofficial blessing put your mind at ease—not because your brother determined who you dated, but he knew Jisung better than you did and was brutally honest, so if he said that he liked Jisung for you, you knew he meant it.

Pushing your covers off, goosebumps immediately popped up on your legs that were now exposed to the cool air. You treaded over to the bathroom door. The light was off, but you still knocked. When there was no response, you opened it. You didn’t stop there, however, continuing on to the opposite door, which you knew led to Jisung’s room. Taking a deep breath, you knocked softly on that one too.

You heard the rustling of sheets and quiet padding of footsteps before the door handle twisted and opened, Jisung on the other side. He looked down at you, nose scrunched up in bewilderment.

“Hey, is everything okay?” He asked, rubbing one of his eyes behind his glasses.

“Yeah. Uhm, sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, I uh, I couldn’t sleep, actually.”

“Me neither.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause, and you fidgeted with the ends of your longsleeve. “Do you want to hang out for a bit? Since we’re both up…”

“Oh! Y-Yeah, sure.” He stepped back from the door, motioning you in. “Uhm, come in.”

“Thanks.” You stepped inside, and he closed the door behind you.

The bedsheets were rumpled on one side, so you sat down on the other side, pulling the blanket over your chilly legs. Jisung watched you, frozen halfway from the bathroom to the bed for a second.

“I’m cold,” you told him, turning your phone on.

“Of course, right,” he breathed out, snapping out of his trance.

He climbed under the covers as well, putting a headphone in his ear opposite from you and pressing play on a video on his phone. Curious, you peeked over at his screen to see what he was watching. It looked like a bunch of clips of professional baseball pitchers.

“It’s my favorite pro pitcher,” Jisung blurted out, pausing the video again. He had apparently noticed you snooping at his screen. “Well, that’s currently active. He’s a lefty, and he does this thing on some of his pitches where he gets this spin and—”

You blinked as he had abruptly cut himself off in the middle of his sentence. Tilting your head, you asked, “What? Why’d you stop?”

“You’re not really interested in baseball, are you?” He questioned, turning his eyes down to his lap. “You’re just being nice.”

“Hold on—”

“It’s okay, you can go back to what you were doing, I don’t want to bore you.”

“Jisung,” you giggled, turning over on your side fully to face him. “You really haven’t figured it out?”

His brow furrowed and he pouted slightly as he seemed to genuinely be confused. “Figured what out?”

“I’m interested in baseball because I’m interested in you,” you said bluntly, watching the gears turn in his head before his eyes widened.

“Wh—Oh. Really?”

“Mhm. But Chenle did warn me that apparently you’re head over heels for some mystery girl that you met in the library during finals week who gave you candy,” you teased, letting out a wistful sigh. “So I have no chance…”

Jisung dropped his phone to cover his face with both hands, letting out a noise of embarrassment from deep in his chest, shaking his head. “Oh my God…”

“I told SooSoo about you too,” you informed him. “After the library.”

He opened his hands to peek at you meekly. “Really?”

“Really.”

Jisung glanced upwards, and you snickered.

“Chenle’s not like that. He’s not going to care unless you’re a dick to me.”

“Because only he gets to be a dick to you?” He joked, slowly removing his hands all the way from his face.

“Yep. Same for the girls he dates. Nobody gets to be a bitch to him except me.”

“So, now what?” He asked nervously, glancing around the room.

“Now, you’re going to finish telling me about your favorite pitcher,” you stated, scooting over until you were snuggled into his side, head resting on his shoulder so you could see his phone screen better.

Jisung grabbed his earbud case from the nightstand, bringing the other one out. He offered it to you, and you put it in as he turned his phone back on. He restarted the compilation, but didn’t press play yet, instead launching back into his explanation from before, excitedly talking faster now.

“So this is Hwang Myungjun. Like I said, he’s my favorite pitcher that’s in the league right now. He’s a lefty and—you’ll see it in this video, but—he does this really cool thing on some of his pitches where he can get this certain spin on the ball and…”

You listened to him go on and on with a smile on your face, breathing in the warm smell of cinnamon.

In the morning, you stirred a little, sighing and pulling the covers up to your nose. Covers that smelled like cinnamon. Opening one of your eyes, you were greeted with Jisung already wide awake, sitting up against the headboard, staring at you from behind his glasses.

You rubbed your eye and yawned. “Christ—Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah, we get up early for baseball conditioning, so I don’t really sleep in even on days off.” He rubbed the back of his neck, ears turning pink. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Good morning…”

“Morning,” you mumbled, yawning again. “Sorry for falling asleep here.”

“It’s okay. Sorry for talking you to sleep.”

“No, it was nice. I like your voice.” You pushed yourself into a half-sitting position. Pecking his cheek, you added, “Merry Christmas.”

His face flushed as he smiled down at his hands. “Merry Christmas…”

Climbing out of bed, you stretched your arms over your head, then wrapped them around yourself. “Anyway, I should emerge from my own room. Just because he doesn’t care if we date doesn’t mean Chenle needs to think something other than watching baseball compilations happened in here last night.”

Jisung squeezed his eyes shut and nodded his head. “Good idea.”

“See you in a few.” You bid him a momentary farewell, opening the door to the adjoining bathroom.

Shuffling back into your own bedroom, you almost screamed when you saw a figure sitting on your bed in the dark. You grabbed for the closest thing in your reach, a candlestick on the dresser next to you, ready to swing. The figure turned on the lamp next to the bed, and you saw that it was Chenle, still contemplating hitting him anyway. You decided to set your weapon down, however.

“What the fuck?!” You hissed, stalking up to your bed and grabbing a stuffed animal to chuck at him instead. He caught the stuffed bee, holding it to his chest as he smirked at you.

“Something you want to tell me?” He raised an eyebrow. “About where you’ve been?”

You followed his line of sight between you and the bathroom door that you just came out of. “What are you, the piss patrol? Can’t a bitch pee in peace around here?”

“Toilet didn’t flush, sink didn’t run,” he immediately shot back. “Also, I’ve been in here for the past hour.”

“Don’t be weird about it—” You held up a finger in his face threateningly, and a victorious grin immediately spread across his features. “Jisung and I talked about how we felt, and I fell asleep in his room. Nothing else, okay?”

Chenle gave you a look that told you he didn’t entirely believe you, but he didn’t press you any further. “God, how am I going to choose between being your brother of honor and his best man?”

“We haven’t even gone on a date!” You grabbed a pillow and tried to pushed it over his face to shut him up. He narrowly saved himself from being smothered, cackling as you resorted to smacking him with it instead. “As if I’d even ask you to be my whatever you just made up! You’ll be lucky if you even get an invite, I swear to—”

The door to your room was thrown open from the bathroom, Jisung looking around the room wildly. “Y/N! Are—”

You stopped your assault on your brother to smile breathlessly at Jisung. “Oh. Hi.”

“I heard you yelling, I wanted to make sure…”

“I’m fine,” you reassured him. “Thanks, Jisung.”

“I know!” Chenle announced loudly. “I know everything, Park Jisung! Last night, you and my little sister—”

You succeeded in smothering Chenle this time, muffling whatever obnoxious things he was about to spew.

After breakfast and opening presents in the morning, Jisung excused himself to go call his parents. Chenle tsked, turning the gaming console on to start up one of the new games he’d gotten and tossing you a controller.

“He tell you how he ended up coming with us?” Your brother asked, his gaze on the screen.

“Yeah. His dad goes on a cruise and his mom is with his stepdad’s side of the family. So he would’ve just been at the school if you didn’t bring him,” you replied, only paying half-attention to the opening cutscene.

“At least ours pretend to make an effort,” he scoffed. “His mom didn’t even offer to pay for his plane ticket.”

“Hm?”

“His mom and stepdad live on the other side of the country. They technically ‘invite’ him to Christmas every year, but he’d have to get himself there and back.”

“So it’s hardly a genuine invite.”

“And you know what his stepdad does?”

“What?”

“CEO of that logistics company that Mom and Dad are always talking about. The big one.”

“Shit, really? And he can’t be bothered to pay for his wife to see her own son once a year?”

He clicked his tongue. “Apparently not.”

A few levels into the video game, Chenle’s phone lit up with a text. He paused the game, and sighed upon reading the message. “Jisung says we can eat lunch without him. He’s suddenly not feeling well.”

You winced. “I take it his phone calls didn’t go well.”

“You go check on him. You can handle crying people better than me.”

You nodded in agreement, getting up from the couch. Outside of Jisung’s bedroom door, you listened carefully first, just in case he was still on a call. It was quiet, and you knocked softly.

“Jisung?” You called out. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” he replied, his voice sounding far away.

Opening the door, you saw him laying on the bed on top of his covers, his back to the door. You stayed in the doorway, asking, “Do you want to be alone?”

“No.”

You sat down on the bed behind him, still giving him his space. “Do you want to talk or do you want quiet?”

“My dad didn’t even pick up,” he muttered. “And my mom—God, I got to tell her about school for all of five seconds before she started gushing about how her grandbabies are learning how to write or whatever. I’ve never even met those kids, honestly, I don’t give a fuck about them. They’re not even her grandkids, they’re her husband’s. Apparently, one of them is on a little league baseball team. When she started saying I could teach him how to pitch when I come to visit for summer, I pretended the call was dropping and hung up. ‘When I come to visit’—I live with my dad in the summer because he didn’t move away from me.”

“I’m sorry, Jisung,” you said, feeling the hurt in your heart as his voice tightened and cracked.

“It’s funny, they used to have these-these blowout fights every year about who got me for Christmas,” he sniffled. “And now that they moved on and got their new families, they couldn’t care less about me.”

“Lucky for me and Chenle, then. Because we got you this year.”

He laughed, finally rolling over to face you. He wiped at his eyes, but you still saw the tears that had run down the side of his face. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do.” You gently stroked his hair, brushing some of it out of his face.

Jisung scooted closer, until he could pillow his head in your lap instead, his eyes fluttering shut as you resumed your ministrations. “I’m glad you guys got me too…”

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26

A knock on your bedroom door woke you up. It opened, and somebody who was neither Chenle nor Jisung peered in.

“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” your mother hummed lightly. “Are you up?”

“Mm, yeah,” you grunted, pushing yourself up against your pillows.

She came over to press a kiss to your forehead. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas,” you smiled up at her, letting her take your hand in hers. “Did you and Dad just get here?”

“A few minutes ago. Your father’s getting Chenle.”

There was a loud thunk from above you, followed by a yelp and two very familiar and similar laughs that you recognized as your families’. You chuckled as your mom rolled her eyes fondly.

“I think he was successful,” you snickered.

“We’re going out for breakfast when you’re ready,” she informed you, squeezing your hand before letting it go.

“Mmkay.” You yawned as she headed for your door. “I’ll let Jisung know.”

She paused, tilting her head. “Who?”

“Didn’t Chenle tell you his friend was coming? Park Jisung?” You pointed at the room next door.

“Oh, I thought he was bringing Mark for some reason.” She looked at you with concern. “Does Jisung like basketball too?”

“I… don’t know? He plays baseball?”

“Oh. Hm.”

“So, what are you studying, Jisung?” Your mother asked, stirring sugar into her coffee.

The five of you were at a diner in the small town at the base of the mountain, you, Jisung, and Chenle packed into one side of a booth and your parents on the other. The car ride had been filled with you and Chenle filling your parents in on your various happenings from this semester, but now your parents seemed to have zeroed in on the newcomer.

“Cybersecurity,” he rushed to answer.

Both your parents seemed impressed by that. Your dad spoke next, “And what do your parents do?”

“He’s got an athletic scholarship, Dad,” Chenle cut in before you could. You both knew what he was really asking about.

“Full ride,” you added proudly. “Baseball. He’s the pitcher.”

“Really?” Your dad’s interest was piqued—he was a bigger sports fan than your brother.

“Yes, sir,” Jisung replied.

“The school doesn’t give out full athletic scholarships frequently. You know that?”

“No, sir, I-I didn’t know that.”

Your dad took a sip of his own coffee, regarding Jisung like he was evaluating his investment portfolio. “So what makes you so valuable?”

“W-Well, uhm, I-I don’t—”

“He’s ambidextrous,” you answered for him. “He can pitch with both hands.”

“Switch pitcher?” Your dad hummed thoughtfully. “You know who the best switch pitcher in the history of the league is, right?”

“Kim Beomjin, sir,” Jisung replied firmly.

“Has he passed your test, yet, Dad?” Chenle scoffed. “Come on, stop treating him like he’s interviewing at the company.”

“I was trying to get to know—”

“You were being a bit much, dear,” your mother interrupted your dad’s attempts to defend himself.

“Alright. My apologies, Jisung.”

“It’s fine, sir, really.”

You didn’t understand why your mother had asked if Jisung liked basketball until you got back to the house. Your parents had brought a few more presents with them, including, kindly, a couple for Jisung. Except they hadn’t been expecting Jisung, they had been expecting Mark, which evident in the gifts. Both Chenle and Mark loved basketball, so the matching jerseys for their favorite team would’ve made the perfect present, if it had been Mark receiving it.

“I’m so sorry, Jisung,” your mother kept apologizing, clearly embarrassed at the mistake.

“No, I-I like basketball too, ma’am,” he tried to reassure her.

“It’s a requirement for being my friend,” Chenle helped him out. “If only I could’ve made it a requirement for being my sister.”

“If we got to pick, I would’ve made not being annoying as fuck a requirement for being my brother,” you retorted.

“Language!” Your mom scolded you, at the same time that your dad warned Chenle to “Be nicer to your sister!”

Your parents were gone again after dinner, leaving in a flurry of hugs, kisses, and promises of celebrating Christmas together properly next year. As soon as he’d shut the door behind them, Chenle turned to you, cynical disbelief on his face already.

“No way,” he chuckled and shook his head. His phone rang then, and he tutted. “Gotta take this. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Jisung was already in the living room, and you plopped down next to him on one of the couches, dropping your head into your hands.

“Your parents seem nice,” he said quietly.

“Mhm, they’re really great when they’re here,” you agreed bitterly. “Sort of makes it hurt worse. It’d be easy to just hate them if they left us all the time and changed plans last-minute and were awful when we did see them. But they do all that shit, and then I see them and it’s good. And it makes me start thinking that maybe it’ll be different, maybe they’ll really keep their promises next time.”

“I get that.” He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “But maybe this time you just don’t get your hopes up. Might be easier on you.”

“Yeah, probably.”

With a sigh, you sat up, turning into Jisung’s side and snaking your arms around his waist. He wrapped his arms around you as you buried your face in his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head. His other hand slowly rubbed your back, encouraging you to relax into his embrace even more.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31

The morning of New Year’s Eve, the three of you were sitting around the kitchen table silently eating breakfast scrounged together from various leftovers and the singular grocery store trip you’d taken since Christmas. Then, there was a knock at the front door, and with your cereal spoon sticking out of your mouth, you gave Chenle and Jisung a bewildered look. They, however, didn’t seem put off at all.

“Y/N, can you go see who it is?” Chenle asked you, returning his gaze to his phone screen.

“Are you expecting someone?” You retorted. “You go answer it.”

The knocking came again, more insistent this time.

“Y/N! Just get it!” Chenle demanded loudly.

“Fine! Fine!” You got up, stomping over to the front door.

Opening the solid wood door, your jaw dropped when you saw six figures on the other side, before you were tackled in a hug by the one at the front.

“Surprise!” Sooyoung squealed, nearly squeezing the air out of your lungs.

“Soo!” You gasped, hugging her back. “What are you doing here?”

“We were invited!” Jaemin informed you cheerily, grabbing you for a bear hug next.

“We’d never pass up an invite to a Chenle-Y/N party,” Jeno’s eyes twinkled as he pecked the crown of your head.

“Especially a New Year’s Eve party,” Donghyuck added.

“Since when have we been throwing a New Year’s Eve party?” You spluttered, still in delighted shock as you took in all of your friends standing in your foyer.

Mark hugged you too. “Chenle texted us a couple days before Christmas to see if we could make it for New Year’s.”

You grabbed your roommate’s hand, bewildered the most by her presence. She wasn’t friends with Chenle or any of the other guys standing there, to your knowledge. “But how did you…?”

“Jisung’s idea,” Chenle had joined you all, standing at the threshold of the foyer with the baseball player. “We figured out that Renjun and Sooyoung were in a study group together this semester and…”

You’d spotted Huang Renjun, one of Chenle’s friends from college whom you’d met several times before, hanging back on the fringes of the group. You smiled at him before beelining for Jisung, throwing your arms around his neck and kissing his cheek a couple times in your excitement.

“Thank you!” You were smiling ear to ear, so much that your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t help it.

“You’re welcome, Y/N.” Jisung returned the hug, rubbing your back. “My late Christmas present to you.”

You let him go to hug your brother next, hooking your chin over his shoulder and squeezing him so tight you felt like your chest might burst, and you hoped he could feel how much all of this—how much he—meant to you. Despite everything you may say or do to each other. “Thanks, Chenle.”

“Of course,” he whispered, hugging you back just as tight.

“SooSoo, I’m serious, not that much has happened!” You promised, laying on your bed to watch as she got settled in your room. She had of course insisted that you filled her in on every details of everything that’s happened between you and Jisung, including things that she had already heard before since you two talked almost every night. “It’s only been like a week, and my brother is literally here.”

“We all saw those little cheek kisses earlier,” she replied pointedly. “You’re at least going to kiss him at midnight, right?”

“Maybe,” you giggled, quite literally kicking your feet as you thought about it. “Onto you—You just spent three hours in a car with them, have you figured out if you want me to set you up with Jeno or Jaemin?”

“We took two cars. I was in Renjun’s with Donghyuck,” she informed you with a desolate sigh.

“Why did you—”

“He offered because he knew I didn’t know anybody except him, and I didn’t know how to explain why I wanted to go in the other one!”

“Foiled once more by empathy and kindness.”

“I’ll figure it out before we go back to school!”

“Maybe you can get one of their numbers on your own before then.”

Despite the reputations that ‘Chenle-Y/N’ parties carried amongst your friends, and your friends also bringing enough alcohol to host a full-blown kegger, the event itself was pretty low-key. You’d gotten the firepit on the back porch going, food ordered, music going throughout the house, and had already completed several different games.

You were fixing yourself a cup of eggnog in the kitchen when you spotted someone out by the firepit. Pouring another mug, you took both out with you. Jisung looked up when he heard the back door open. He smiled as he recognized that it was you, scooting over on the bench to make room for you to sit with him.

“Eggnog?” You offered a cup out to him. “I didn’t spike it, but I can go add something in if you really want.”

“No, this is perfect,” he chuckled, his laughs rising as white wisps in the cold air. “I’ve been thinking…”

“About?”

“Were the three options hot chocolate, cider, and eggnog?”

It took you a second to catch up, but once you had recalled your first night in the mountains, you burst into laughter, nodding. “Yeah, those were the three options when I made you pick a number.”

He smiled, taking a sip of his drink. “There was something else, that I was thinking about.”

“Oh?”

“Are-Are we going to kiss at midnight? Do you want to? I know we haven’t gone on a real date or anything—”

“I do want to kiss you,” you admitted. “Do you?”

He nodded hurriedly. “Yes, god.”

“You still seem… fidgety. We can wait, if you—”

“That’s not it.” He set his cup of eggnog down, and you did as well. “I want to kiss you. I just don’t want the first time I do to be in front of a bunch of our friends.”

You smirked, tilting your head curiously. “Are you asking to practice before?”

He blinked. “I don’t think I was before, but I definitely am now.”

You snickered a little, leaning in and gently touching your lips to his in a feather-light kiss. He let out a small sigh against your lips, one of his hands coming up to cup your cheek and pull you closer, sealing his mouth over yours. Everything was warm, no matter the fire or the cold wind or the thick jacket you were wearing, you were being heated from the inside out.

When Jisung pulled back, he had such a dazzlingly soft smile on his face that you couldn’t help but stare, wanting to burn that image in the back of your eyelids forever. He moved to duck his head shyly, but you grabbed his face.

“I think we might need some more practice before midnight,” you teased, nuzzling your nose with his affectionately.

“Mm, of course,” he agreed humorously, kissing you again. And again, and again, and again.

⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

TAGLIST

@annenakamura @bee-the-loser @lotties-readings @ppddpjdr @reiofsuns2001

@classicroyalty @giirlfriendd @shaqs-oatmeal @sofipolii01

@tearinka @yoursyuno @yutasputa69

@winkeuu

[hottiesforhockey]

may the best brother win pt. 1 ⎜hughes brothers

pairings: quinn hughes x afab!reader ⎜luke hughes x afab!reader ⎜ jack hughes x afab!reader ⎜ genre: romance ⎜bachelorette-esque situations ⎜angst? ⎜friends - to - lovers warnings: mentions of lack of experience with dating ⎜mentions of a bet / competition⎜friendly love-hate relationship ⎜ synopsis: you have been friends with the hughes brothers for years - but why does this summer feel so different? word count: 4.2k authors note:  this is the first part in my new series on my new blog!! 🎉 I hope you all enjoy. this will be coming out in 3-4 parts so each brother will have his own chapter let me know what you think the other brother would do for their date. (p.s. i will be posting chapter aesthetic pics at the bottom so you can get an idea of what I was picturing :) )

(unedited)

The Hughes brothers had made a name for themselves over the past few years. 

Professional athletes. 

All top ten overall draft picks. 

Captain of the Vancouver Canucks. 

Hotshot forward for the New Jersey Devils.

And the rising star defensemen in the league. 

They had certainly found a way to make every parent look at their own kid and wonder where they went wrong. 

But no one really knew what absolute imbeciles the Hughes brothers truly were. 

“If you put down the pan, I’ll drop your phone.” Jack negotiates, his hands in the air, your phone swinging from the tips of his fingers. You glance down at your right hand, the cast iron pan gripped tightly before shooting your gaze back to Jack, whose face scrunches when he realises you’re not going to concede that easily. 

“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. You got secrets to hide or something?” Jack continues flipping the phone into his hand as he tries another passcode for the fifteenth time. 

“None of your business, Jack.” You sneer, lunging for the phone again, only for the hockey player to slip just slightly out of reach, his steps backing him towards the staircase. 

Fuck, he’s gonna make a run for it. 

“Just tell me what you’re hiding from me, and I’ll give you the phone back.” He quips

“Or I could knock you on your ass with a metal pan.” You respond, your gaze shooting up as you look at the man approaching from behind him. The phone is expertly snatched from Jack’s hands as he lets out a long whine in protest, his lips dropping into a pout as he watches his younger brother gently hand you back your phone. 

“Maybe she’s got a boyfriend and doesn’t want you to ruin it for her.” Luke teases, giving you a smile as you mouth ‘thank you’ at him, holding your phone close to your chest. 

“If we weren’t forced to be friends, I wouldn’t think twice about dropping you.” You hiss, pointing an accusatory finger in the thief’s direction before following his younger brother into the kitchen. 

“You would tell me though, right?” Jack’s voice carries as he follows you and Luke into the room “like if you were seeing someone, you’d tell us?” He continues - sliding into one of the bar stools at the counter, dropping his chin into his hands. “You wouldn’t hide something like that?” You frown at Jack, tilting your head in confusion as Luke bustles about the kitchen pulling out the extra large party pack of chips and a freshly made container of salsa. 

“Why would I not hide something like that?” You question back, your words making Luke’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise as he shoves a chip in his mouth, “I mean you guys hide your relationships all the time - isn’t it normal at this age?” You add quickly noticing the way Jack’s face drops a little. 

“From the public.” Luke notes quickly, before dipping another chip into the salsa. 

“We don’t hide things from you.” Jack says softly, sliding off his seat and making his way out of the kitchen leaving your standing there in confusion. 

“Don’t look at me, I just want to eat my chips.” Luke huffs when you turn to glance up at him, his shoulders shrugging as the eldest of you walking in from the backyard, a towel wrapped around his waist, water already soaking through his t-shirt. 

“What did I miss?” Quinn questions, as you groan and reach over stealing a handful of chips from the bag. 

“Nothing.” You huff, drawing yourself in salty goodness. 

“She has a boyfriend.” Luke says, letting out a groan as you shove your elbow into his side. 

“And you didn’t tell us?” Quinn asks, his head tilted as your frown deepens. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend, it was a hypothetical.” You shoot a glare at Luke, pointing your finger up at him, “consider us enemies now, Warren.” 

“Anyway, she thinks it would be normal for her to hide a relationship from us if she was in one, and Jack got all pissy because we don’t keep secrets from each other.” Luke shakes his head at your warning, handing you the bag as you go to reach for more chips. 

“Well the point is moot, because I don’t have a boyfriend.” 

“Yeah but how can we trust you now, you’ve been suspected as a liar and essentially confirmed you would if you could.” Quinn argues, leaning forwards on the kitchen counter with a teasing grin. 

“I can one hundred percent confirm that I do not in any way shape or form have a boyfriend.” You swear, holding one hand against your chest and the other in the air, the two boys smiling as they watch your oath, “Besides I’ve never even been on a real date let alone had a relationship.” You sneer, shoving another chip in your mouth as the room falls silent. 

“What?’ Quinn is the one who breaks the silence, standing up straight as his brows furrow. 

“Huh?” You pause your motions. 

“You’ve never been on a date?” 

“You’ve never had a boyfriend?” The two brothers ask at the same time, both glancing at each other before looking back at you.  “But you’ve brought people home, I’ve seen you.” Quinn continues, the bag of chips forgotten on the counter as you look around for an escape route. 

“Firstly, don’t be a creeper and secondly I said I’m a dating virgin, Quinn, not a virgin virgin.” You snort, slowly side stepping the tallest brother as you beeline for the backdoor, hearing Quinn call out after you. 

“Luke go get Jack, it seems the four of us have some talking to do.” 

+

+

“So it’s in agreement.” Jack says as you all sit around the pool, your legs swishing the water as you grumble under your breath. “We are going to woo you, give you the real dating experience.” 

“I don’t understand why this has to happen at all.” 

“Because we will show you how you should be treated on date, and in turn you can tell us who is the best dater” Jack explains, his brothers nodding in agreement as you let out another long groan. 

“So you’re the ones actually using me, don’t think I can’t read between the lines, Rowden.” You huff, slipping your legs out of the pool and standing in your spot. “You are using me to settle a bet aren’t you?” 

“There may be something like that.” Luke admits softly, his own legs dipped into the water as he ignores the dirty glare Jack sends him. 

“Well now the cats out of the bag, may the best brother win.” The four of you are silent for a moment, each seeming to be deep in thought before Luke cuts in. 

“How do we decide who goes first?” 

“I suppose I should go first, considering it was my idea.” Jack responds, nodding his head in determination as he glances down at his watch before looking back towards you. 

“I’ll pick you up at six.” He says quickly ripping his phone out of his pocket and typing away quickly. 

“We live in the same house.” 

“Just be ready.” He yells as he presses his phone to his ear, talking softly into the device as he leaves the house, his keys pressed tightly in his hand. 

“I’m going to regret agreeing to this aren’t I?” You ask the other two, both of them just giving soft shrugs. 

“It might end up being fun.” Luke says, pulling his own phone out of his pocket pulling up google as he scrolls through his search results. You watch as Quinn stands from the deck chair rounding the pool behind you, his hands placed gently on your waist as he squeezes past, his lips pressed to your ear as he whispers, “we’re definitely going to have fun.” 

You shiver slightly as Quinn lets your waist go, the sudden rush of warm air behind you making goosebumps rise on your arms. 

“So, do you have anything you’re hoping for in particular?” Luke asks slowly, a sly smile on his face, as he waits expectedly for your answer. You let out a soft sigh, pushing some loose hair away from your face, “Honestly, I don’t really know, I just wanted a quiet summer, I wasn’t really expecting to be apart of a hometown bachelorette.” 

“Think of it more as a chance to see what you want from a date, besides competition can be fun sometimes.” Luke responds, quickly adding, “And you can’t complain you love the bachelor.” You roll your eyes at his words but can’t help to small smile tugging at your lips. 

“God I hate when you’re right.”

+

+

You flatten out your light green summer dress against your thighs as you look at the reflection in the mirror, jumping a little at a heavy knock on your bedroom door. “There’s someone here for you.” Luke says as he pops his head through the slightly opened door, his mouth dropping open a little as he looks at your reflection. 

“Do you think this is okay?” You start turning to face him, tucking your hair behind your ears as you chew on your bottom lip. “I don’t know where he’s taking me, and I thought something cute but function—” 

“It’s perfect.” Luke cuts you off straightening his posture before clearing his throat and adding, “You look perfect.” Luke looks away from you his neck burning a bright red as he clears his throat again. 

“Thanks, Lukey.” You coo as you pull your handbag off the bed patting his shoulder as you squeeze past him to leave your bedroom, quickly making your way downstairs skidding to a halt in front of the shoe bench by the front door - pulling on your black and white converse before making your way towards the voices in the kitchen. 

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going or not?” You mumble as you stop by the counter double checking that you had everything you might need in your purse. 

“No that would ruin the surprise and if I tell you then it’ll take away half the fu— holy shit.” Your head shoots up at Jack’s interruption of himself, his mouth open in surprise his brother watching amused as he sputters. 

“Yes?” You question, glancing over at Quinn who glances between you and his bewildered younger brother before sending you an entertained grin. 

“You’re wearing that?” Jack stumbles.

“What, you don’t like it?” You tease. 

“No, I do.” Jack rubs a hand down his face, his younger brother giving him a knowing pat on the back as he walks past him to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. 

“Should I change? I don’t want you to be distracted on our date.” You coo, slipping your purse higher on your shoulder as you glance down at your outfit again. 

Maybe it is a little too much.

 I mean it’s not like it’s a real date, and the low cut of the dress is going to make things difficult if he’s taking you to do an activity. 

Jack can see your mind start to spin, your teeth digging into your low lip as you adjust the dress a few times, your shoulder sinking as you suddenly become too aware of yourself. 

“Nope, nope. We don’t have time for you to change.” Jack interrupts your thought spiral, reaching forwards to clasp your hand in his, “I think I can make this work.” He says, taking one more long look down your body, working his hardest to hold in a grown before shooting a look at his older brother. 

“We will be home late. Don’t wait up.” He yells as he drags you toward the front door, not giving either of his brothers time to respond as he slams it shut behind the two of you, ushering you to his car, opening the door for you as you slip inside. 

“Jack maybe I should change.” You grumble, crossing your arms over your chest as he slips into the drivers seat, his gaze flicking down to your bare legs, before focusing out the windscreen. 

“No.” He says quickly, moving to pull on his own seatbelt before glancing over at you, noticing your belt not pulled over your chest. “We have places to be, my dear.” He adds, reaching over the centre console to grab hold of your seat belt, his hair tickling the side of your face as he pulls it over your chest, clicking the buckle into the slot, before dropping back into his own seat. 

“We’re on a slight time crunch.” He admits, glancing down at his watch before putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway. 

You can’t help but laugh at his urgency. “You sound like you’re leaving the scene of a crime or something.” 

Jack chuckles, his eyes lighting up as he navigates the streets, “Well you never know when the cops are going to show up. I’m just trying to keep the night alive.” 

“Oh, is that what’s happening?” You respond, glancing out the window at the familiar neighbourhood passing by - Jack’s quick, snarky responses helping ease a little bit of tension. 

“Oh yeah, this whole thing is going to be the best date you’ve ever had.” 

“It’s the only date I’ve ever had.” You correct quickly, noticing the quick and very dramatic eye roll from Jack as he takes a familiar turn. “Is this leading to the lake?” Your question is ignored another turn onto a quieter street making you shoot a quick glance over to the man besides you, a knowing brow raised. 

“Stop trying to ruin the surprise.” He groans. 

“What if I don’t like surprises?” You huff, Jack letting out another groan, the smile on his face growing as he slows the car to a stop. 

“Trust me, you’ll like this one.” He says as he turns off the ignition, sliding out of the car as he races around to your side, quickly yanking the door open before you get a chance to open it yourself. “My lady.” He says as he offers you a hand to help you out of the car. 

You can see the sun descending in the sky as you adjust your dress, watching as Jack shoves the car door closed before holding out his hand for you to take. “Have you brought me here to murder me?” You joke, looking out to the lake, the sun setting a golden glow to the water, Jack’s squeezing yours as he swings them between the two of you. 

“Hmmmm, undecided.” He hums - his steps slowing as you take in the set up before you. 

The plaid picnic blanket laid on the soft grass, a large assortment of snack laid across the mat as well as two canvases and some paints in the middle. “These are for you.” Jack says as he lets go of your hand to reach down to the picnic blanket picking up the bouquet of daisies sitting on top of the picnic basket, holding them out to you with a wide grin. 

“Oh my god, Jack.” You gasp taking in the set up basked in the warm glow of the sunset with a look of awe, quickly taking the flowers from his hands to lift to your nose. “I didn’t know your brain could even imagine something this romantic.” You tease as he ushers you forwards onto the picnic mat, taking the spot opposite you as he lets out a soft chuckle at your words. 

“Well I’m glad I can still surprise you after so long.” He says pulling two champagne glasses from the basket, reaching in to pull out a bottle of freshly squeezed lemonade. 

“No, seriously Jack this is amazing.” You continue, gratefully accepting a glass of lemonade from him, taking a long sip as you stretch out your legs. 

“Just wait until you see desert.” He says with a mischievous grin, clinking his non-alcoholic beverage against yours, “to spontaneous adventures.” He says. 

“To spontaneous adventures.” You echo, feeling the warmth of the setting sun wash over you as you settle more onto the blanket, taking in the scene again in amazement. “So are we just gonna sit here or are we going to do some painting?” You ask. 

“Let’s eat some snacks first.” Jack says, picking some cheese and crackers off the charcuterie board before popping them into his mouth and motioning for you to do the same. The tension you felt earlier melts away with each shared smile and joke.

“So tell me honestly,” you start, swallowing what’s left of the food in your mouth before continuing. “What inspired this whole set up? I mean a picnic and painting, seems a little out of the ordinary.” 

Jack leans forwards, a mock-serious look on his face as he speaks, “Well I realised we’ve spent so much time together as friends, I want to see if I could pull of something a little more… special?” He pauses for a moment sensing the shift as he adds, “Besides, I’ve always wanted to paint a sunset.” 

You raise an eyebrow, a teasing smile creeping onto your lips. “You wanted to impress me with your artistic side? Are you sure you’re not just trying to cover up your terrible drawing skills?”

He throws his head back and laughs, the sound rich and contagious. “Fair point! But I’m confident in my abilities. Just wait until you see my masterpiece!”

With a sense of excitement bubbling in your chest, you reach for one of the canvases and set it on the blanket. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve got, Picasso.”

“Watch and learn,” he says dramatically, picking up a brush and swirling it through the paint. You can’t help but giggle at his theatrics as he begins to paint, his tongue poking out in concentration.

As you start to create your own piece, you steal glances at him, noticing the way the setting sun casts a golden light on his face, highlighting his features in a way that makes your heart flutter. You can’t help but feel that this moment is something special—something more than just a casual outing.

“Okay, time’s up!” Jack declares after a few minutes, throwing down his brush. “Let’s see what we’ve created.”

You both hold up your canvases, and the sight makes you burst into laughter. His painting is a chaotic blend of colors that vaguely resembles the sunset, while yours is a collection of abstract shapes and splashes that, while lacking realism, feels vibrant and alive.

“It’s… unique,” you say, struggling to contain your giggles.

“Just like us,” he replies, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

As you both continue to joke and critique each other’s work, the last rays of sunlight disappear, leaving a deepening twilight around you. 

“Hey,” Jack says, his voice softer now. “I’m really glad you’re here. This was my favorite idea yet.”

“Mine too,” you admit, your heart swelling at his sincerity. “Thank you for putting all this together. It’s perfect.”

He leans a little closer, the air between you charged with an unspoken tension. “Just wait until the stars come out. I think I have one more surprise.”

“Another surprise?” you ask, intrigued. “You’re going to give me a heart attack at this rate.”

He chuckles, then reaches into the basket, pulling out a small, twinkling string of lights. “I thought we could add some ambiance.”

Your eyes widen in delight as he begins to drape the lights around the picnic setup, the soft glow illuminating your surroundings. It transforms the scene, creating an intimate atmosphere that feels like it’s straight out of a movie. As the stars begin to twinkle above, you lean back on your hands, stealing glances at Jack, who’s focused intently on arranging the lights. There’s a warmth in your chest, a budding hope that maybe this night could lead to something more.

“Alright, now for the grand finale,” he says, turning to you with a playful grin. “Dessert time!”

You sit up, your curiosity piqued. “What did you bring?”He rummages through the basket, finally producing a small cake adorned with whipped cream and strawberries. “Tada! Strawberry shortcake. Thought it would be fitting.”

Your eyes light up. “You really went all out, huh?”

“Only the best for you,” he repeats, handing you a slice before cutting himself a piece. The two of you dig into the soft cake, watching as the sun disappears behind the houses, the start shining a bright white as you finish off the dessert, the side of your face burning. 

Turning your head slowly, to glance towards Jack you’re surprised when you eyes meet his, his gaze travelling over your face before he tilts his head, putting his empty plate down besides him and shuffling forwards on the picnic mat, his hand reaching out towards your face. 

“Here, you have a little bit of cream on your chin.” He whispers, his body radiating warmth as his finger gently swipe just below your lip, your body shivering slightly as he pulls his thumb away dipping it his mouth quickly to get rid of any evidence of the food he just removed from your face.  “Are you cold? Maybe we should start heading back?” He says quickly, his eyes locked with yours as your shake your head quickly. 

“I don’t think the cold is the problem.” You try to joke, your hesitant chuckle getting caught in your throat as Jack’s eye light in knowing. 

“Oh.” He says softly, his hand hovering awkwardly in mid air as he contemplates the choices he has - your body frozen as you wait for him to decide. “Is it weird to kiss on the first date?” He asks nervously, your shoulders shrugging as you respond. 

“You tell me, Jack.” 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He whispers, his body shifting closer ever so slightly as he hand reaches up to cup the side of your neck, your eyes searching his. 

“You’re not.” You say softer then you thought was possible, the anticipation building in the bit of your stomach, his thumb rubbing soft circles against the burning skin on your neck. Jack pauses for just a moment before leaning forwards to close this distance, his lips capturing yours in a kiss so soft you barely even register that they’re touching. 

You sigh into his mouth as your hand reaches up to cup the side of his jaw, your movements all the permission he needs to press his lips firmer against yours as his other hand reaches up to cup the other side of your neck, his thumbs gliding along the underside of your jaw, his hands pulling you closer towards him as your lips move in sync. 

“Wait.” He says softly as he pulls away, his hands moving up to cup your cheeks, as he smiles, leaning forwards to press one more chaste kiss against your mouth before releasing you, and letting out a shuddered breath. “The mosquitos are gonna come out soon, we should head home.” He says, and you nod, your lips still tingling from where his lips were pressed against them, your head nodding as Jack makes quick work of packing up the date. 

His hands held out to help you up off the ground as he folds the blanket up quickly, rushing to bring everything to his car and shove it into his trunk. You meet him at his car, pressing your lips together to try and ease the swelling you know will be starting to show. 

“Well, if I don’t win this competition, I’m gonna say it’s rigged.” Jack jokes as he closes the trunk of his car running a hand through his hair as his words give your pause. 

The bet. 

You forgot about the stupid fucking bet with his brothers. 

“Oh.” You laugh, tucking your hair behind your ears in embarrassment. 

How could you forget about the whole reason he was doing this? 

The only reason he was doing this. 

“Yeah, I don’t know how they’re going to top that performance.” You let out another tense laugh as you open your own passenger door and slide into the car - trying to ignore the way Jack tilts his head in confusion at your sudden shift. 

“You feeling okay?” He asks as he follows you into the car. 

“Yeah, just really tired all of a sudden.” 

“We better get you home then.” Jack’s smile is gentle, as he places his hand on the head rest of your seat before reversing back onto the main road - your body folding in on itself as he makes quick work of the drive home - his hand resting awkwardly between the two of you, as if he was waiting for something. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jack asks as he pulls into the driveway, killing the ignition of the car before turning to face you, “That kiss didn’t make things weird did it?” 

“No, Jack.” You say quickly, adding “It’s just part of the competition, right?” You don’t glance at him as you let yourself out of the car, hurrying back inside to escape to your room. 

Stupid fucking competition. 

[jjkbambi]

is it new years yet? luigi mangione x reader (18+)

summary!!! you run into ex-boyfriend!luigi mangione at a nye party! smut!

warnings: fratboy!luigi, darkfic (very much implied he slips something in ur drink), cnc?, long fic, mentions of calvin harris music, inspired by the fact that he had to nominate himself to win this category

masterlist

the new year was meant to feel different.

yet, the doors at phi kappa psi open for you and a chances of anything more seems to slim. a record number of beer cans trashed in the hallway, the kitchen buried in chaos, and the overwhelming stench of beer clings to the air, impossible to ignore. you were surprised at how easily they’d let you enter—the bouncer was known for being a bit mean, strict on names and IDS and ages and sorority associations, yet one short smile was enough to get you and your best friend, lacy, into their annual new years eve party.

there wasn’t a second break from avicii or calvin harris, the crowd bouncing with red solo cups in hand. about a dozen of drinks were spilled on you already, and you were sure this was an indicator of a good night.

“is that him?” your friend’s nudge proves your prophecy wrong. your stomach drops immediately as you turn to the direction she was staring in—and yes, there he was, shirtless and six-packed on new year’s eve, surrounded by his pack of fraternity brothers.

the world suddenly feels so much smaller. you turn quickly. “lacy, he cannot see me.”

“have you spoken since the breakup?”

“if i had, id be in classier heels,” you retort, shaking your head.

you show her the reason you’ve been off your phone so much recently. about 34 days since you’ve seen each other in person, and a stunning 78 texts and 29 missed calls left in lieu of a breakup conversation. it honestly felt like too little an amount considering how long you’d been dating, but perhaps that was the least of your relationship problems, seeing as though you’d caught him making out with another girl at a football game.

she groans. “why’d we have to come to this house?”

“free entry? fireworks?” you come up with a lie that’ll make the both of you feel better. “i honestly don’t think we’ll run into each other. it’s such a big place.”

“he’s walking over here.”

“aaand we’re moving,” you sing, dragging her into the crowd of calvin harris enjoyers. for two hours, slipping in and out of the chaos seemed to be a surefire solution in avoiding your ex-boyfriend. that is, until you turn and suddenly your best friend isn’t there. you stiffen immediately, backing into the kitchen. in that step back, you bump shoulders.

“y/n,” an all too familiar voice says.

oh for fucks sake.

you smile tightly at the sight of luigi, trying not to make this already awkward situation more awkward. he looks different than he did the last time you’d seen him. his usually short hair had grown out longer, his beard more prominent. he looks… grown.

“hey!” you say, attempting to make a swift getaway. “happy new year, man!”

“get back here.” he grabs your wrist, pulling you right back to him. “what’re you doing?”

“it’s new years!”

“what are you doing here? wearing that?”

you smile, feigning innocence. “getting a re-fill!”

luigi’s eyes were dark and his grip firm. your air of innocence is almost completely defeated at his warmth, his body leaning into you, intent. “i’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

no, you can’t do it. this was gonna be a new year for you. no setbacks, no cheating ex-boyfriends.

“i’m surprised you even noticed, with all your other distractions.”

luigi’s head tilts. “what does that mean?”

“you know what it means.” you pull away from him with as much force as possible. “seriously, lu, it’s over.”

“no, it’s not.” he argues. you shake your head as you walk away. “y/n, we’ve got to talk about this—“

“just leave me alone!” you leap out of the kitchen as soon as opportunity arrives, and pour the entirety of what’s left of your cup into your mouth. the wicked sting of alcohol had never been so relieving.

minutes pass but the sound of avicii is constant. phi kappa psi has promised fireworks and began to gather in the backyard and you want nothing more than to join in on the party—but lacy. your best friend. you need to find her. the recovery mission begins with a stumble down the hallway and a headache. it’s more than a headache, it all of a sudden feels like you reallyreallyreally need to take a nap.

“hey, hey, i’ve got you,” it’s luigi again. you can tell by his warmth and his scent and the way he grabs your hand. “where are you going?”

“lacy.”

he takes the drink out of your hand, then lifts your arms to wrap them around his neck. and suddenly, the warmth of his body isn’t so intimidating anymore. “that’s not my name.”

“i know.”

he leans in closer. “come on then, what’s my name?”

“lu,” you murmur. “i need to go.”

“you’re not going anywhere.” luigi promises you.

within a second, his lips are on yours, and suddenly his warmth is everywhere. you whimper into the kiss, trying to spell out protest but you’re too weak. “relax for me,” he tells you.

you were entirely too relaxed. any reasonable part of you wouldn’t allow for him to be this close. but before you can stop him, his hands slide down to grip your thighs, pushing them apart to accommodate him, and you gasped at the feel of his length pressing against you. he’s so hard.

“i love this dress on you,” he murmurs.

desperate, you try to push, “no, no, we need to find—”

“we’re taking care of her, too, baby, don’t worry.”

you squirmed underneath his touch, which only made the friction hotter. “what?”

he doesn’t care to tell you anything more grinding into your resistance mercilessly as his hands clamp around your hips, rocking your body back and forth on his thigh.

“you’ve got some fuckin’ nerve, you know,” he grumbles into the kiss, his voice so low and gravelly, you felt its deep tenor roll down your spine and settle in your core. every kiss he gave you was hungry and heated, and you gasp when he goes to nip at the sensitive skin of your neck. “walking around my house dressed like a fuckin’ slut. got me all worked up in front of everyone.”

you despise the helplessness that washes over you as he holds you down. tears sting at your eyes as you beg, “lu, stop.”

“pull your dress up,” he orders, drinking in your scent. his scruff scratches your skin.

“no.” you shake your head again, though his kisses are persistent. “luigi, we can’t.“

“you’re right,” luigi agrees, chuckling into another kiss. “i’m not fuckin’ sharing you.”

his lips don’t leave yours—theyre all over your lips, your cheeks, your neck, your tits—as he carries you into the nearest room, and you’re too lost in the moment to notice whether it’s his own. your dress hits the floor and his hands are all over your nude. the mix of confusion and pleasure leaves you breathless. before you can process it, you’re on the bed with your ex-boyfriend on top of you.

“you know how many other guys were looking at you tonight?” he growls as he flips you over. “swear ill fucking kill them”

he was so big and your body was so unprepared that you’d screamed, which only made luigi laugh. a choked gasp left you, and your mouth was soundlessly parted as he started to thrust into you, hips snapping against yours every time.

“fuckin’ knew it,” lu groans. your teeth sink into your lips as you tremble underneath him, his hard length relentless in its assault. “knew you’d take it f’me like this, yeah? like a good fuckin’ girl.”

the bed shook beneath you as he pounded into you. he goes to bite your neck, his curls tickling your skin. he feels so good, but the weight of how wrong it is lingers in every touch. “lu,” you moan.

“what?” he says, smug. “what d’ya wanna say?”

“it hurts,” you whine.

”i don’t care,” luigi says in your ear, grinding his cock into the depths of your cunt until you were whimpering beneath him. “you know how fuckin’ long it’s been since ive had you? no, you’ve got no clue. drove myself crazy thinking i’d never have this pretty pussy again.”

“it’s your fault—“

“shut the fuck up.” his hand comes down hard on your ass and a whimper slips from your lips. he growls low, feeling how tight you’re holding him. “you’re mine,” he grunts. “don’t you ever forget that.”

“luigi, wait,” you moan, your mind going blank. it’s too much—wrong in every way, yet too good to resist.

you feel him smirk against your neck. despite yourself, you felt your cunt clench hard around his stiff length as a flood gushes from your trembling core. he chuckles darkly, mocking your resistance. “can’t take it? too much?”

“lu, please.” your voice was embarrassingly breathless. he goes faster, which felt entirely impossible.

he must’ve heard the plea this time, because he doubled his efforts. he picked up the pace of his thrusts, fucking you hard and fast, spanking your ass mercilessly while his other hand went to massage your clit. you could hardly breathe.

“so good,” he groans. “be a good girl and cum for me, princess. all over me, come on.”

“please,” you whimper again. you’re not sure what you’re asking for, but it hardly mattered. the most devastating orgasm of your life was building deep within you, an unstoppable force growing stronger with every moment—and you were desperate to chase it.

“you’re all fucking mine,” he laments. “i wanna hear you say it.”

you couldn’t possibly. your mind goes blank as he ruts into you, pounding into your cunt and ass so hard that the clapping of his hips against your skin was filling the room and almost drowning out the sound of the new year celebration.

“tell me what i wanna hear.” he demands.

“yours,” you mewl.

“good girl.” he bit out, his mouth brushing against your cheek, his stubble rasping against your skin and making you shiver. he fucks you harder, faster, slamming into your slick cunt like he was trying to leave a mark inside you.

you couldn’t take it anymore. your pride snaps inside you and you felt liquid gush between your thighs, coating his massive cock in your cunt. pleasure consumes you until all you knew was the sensation of ecstasy drowning out everything else. he groans at the sight of your orgasm, his cock still driving into you, his thrusts turning wild and desperate as he growled in your ear.

luigi grumbled a soft, “fuck,” and then pressed deep, burying his cock deep into your still pulsing cunt as he came. he let out a long moan, his cock twitching against your inner walls while he emptied his balls into your pussy, the warmth of his cum filling you up.

“i’m so glad you came around, so glad,” he murmurs, turning you over to kiss you over and over and over again. “i love you, baby, you know that, right?”

the day after

[skybreakprimeonao3]

He had a name before he was assigned to a battalion, even though everyone called him Shiny until he proved himself in battle. Though once he did earn the right, he decided to stick with the name given to him by the other cadets.

“I’m called Two Tone,” he told his Captain, who raised an eyebrow. To the silent question, he shrugged. “No one told me why.”

And that was the truth. He wasn’t inclined to whistle or sing. He got the name long before he reached the age of his voice cracking in forced puberty. Just one day in class, one of his batchmates laughed and called him Two Tone, and it stuck.

Somehow, he never figured out why he was called that until after a joint battle with General Unduli and General Kenobi, fighting to take back a planet from the Separatists, at the request of the local government. Everyone was giving him weird looks ever since he had painted his armor, and he just told himself it was probably because of the design. He always had problems getting it correct on his armor, and he didn’t want to ask someone for help, so he was stuck with his own quality.

Cleaning up after the fight was normal, trudging around the battlefield to find any fallen comrades and equipment, seeing the medic if hurt, packing things away again. Two Tone thought it was weird when he didn’t bump into anyone from the 212th, but figured it was because they might have been on the other side of the battlefield. He did his best sticking to his brothers as things began to get loaded into the LAAT/is, tired and quiet as he road the drop ship up to the Venator.

He assisted with unloading things, feeling the ship shudder faintly as it transitioned into hyperspace, though his movements came to a halt as he saw General Kenobi walking by the area. Frowning, he turned to the Clone beside him.

“Why isn’t General Kenobi with the 212th?”

The Clone frowned at him. “This is the 212th…”

Two Tone prided himself on being levelheaded, so when he started to panic so hard that General Kenobi came to an abrupt stop and looked at him, he was proud that he didn’t run away or collapse or simply imploded.

“Are you all right, dear one?” General Kenobi asked and a part of Two Tone’s mind was amused to learn that the rumors were correct about the endearing terms the man used.

“I apologize, sir,” Two Tone managed to squeak out. “But… I was assigned to General Unduli… I’m on the wrong ship.”

General Kenobi’s head tilted to the side curiously, glancing over Two Tone’s armor.

“Have you been tested for colorblindness?” the General asked curiously.

***

“Deuteranopia colorblindness,” Obi-Wan said, giving Luminara a faint smile. “The poor man was so embarrassed. Evac tested him and decided to do a ship wide test. Apparently colorblindness isn’t too uncommon among the Clones.”

The holo of the Jedi Master shook her head, a fond sigh escaping her. “When he painted his armor orange and green, I thought he was living up to his name. I am glad to hear that we hadn’t lost him in battle.”

“No, just temporarily misplaced,” Obi-Wan said with a chuckle.

“Joint custody then, until you can return him to me?”

“Well keep him safe, I promise you.”

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

Yuu has the audacity to ask a question. It leads to some interesting moments  

Jade Leech, Rook Hunt, Vil Schoenheit, Floyd Leech

Jade Leech 

“Jade, can I ask you a question?” It’s not often that the library is so packed that you end up sharing a table but if it had to be with anybody, at least it was Jade.  

Jade wasn’t naturally academically smart. He took a lot of notes and studied in order to come out in the middle. There were folks that thought he was simply keeping his head down, but Yuu found out by accident. She knew Jade was incredibly street smart and people savvy though, no matter what grades he got. It worked in her favor though, as Jade let them copy notes from last year in exchange for not sharing the information anywhere. Not that Yuu planned too, but they weren’t going to pass up such an opportunity either.  

“Of course, I will assist in anyway I can.”  

“Do you have any books that you would recommend for scavenging for local flora and fauna in the woods back at Ramshackle? I’ve tried searching through the library but it’s a bit too vague for what I need.”

If Yuu had blinked, they would have missed the brief surprise and delight on his face.  

“Well,” he sets his pen down, “As the president of the Mountain Lovers club, I’m sure we could discuss that during our meetings. If only you were a member.” he sighed  

“If only Crowley would allow me to join any clubs.” Yuu muttered, “I know it's a requirement for first and second years to be involved in at least one, but he says I have far more to offer as his unofficial assistant. Unpaid is more accurate but what do I know.”  

Jade smiles, the one that matches his brothers. Wide and full of teeth.  

“Leave Crowley to me, dear Prefect. You just meet me in the morning behind Ramshackle. Bring a basket and your camera, oh, and dress warm. It'll be cold for you.”  

He writes some extra instructions on a slip of paper and collects his things, turning left at the library doors. Damn, that was straight to the headmasters’ office too. Jade really doesn't play around when it comes to the Mountain Lover's club.

While Yuu isn’t able to attend every meeting, the Mountain Lover’s club apparently includes trips to other countries, recipes cooked in the Ramshackle kitchen as well as appreciating cultures and crafts made by various peoples which slowly starts to decorate the rickety dorm into something interesting and unique. Jade becomes a different person as a traveler and seems to find joy in just exploring and discovering all the different ways that people create and eat and live.  

After he graduates, Yuu gifts him the book that the two of them created, with pictures and descriptions of all the Night Raven College fauna and flora, their uses, if they are edible, and different recipe and potion ingredients, the regions it comes from, and even snippets of stories and memories they share.  

Jade is not an emotional man, but when he asks you to come with him on his next expedition, his smile is full of joy.  

Rook Hunt

“Rook, can I ask you a question?”  

Rook looks down from his spot in the tree, a camera perched in his hands. “Amazing eyesight, Mon Trickster! I did not anticipate being found. Ask away, but be quick, less Roi de Lion suspects me.”  

“Are there any plays or poetry books that would be good for a beginner? I read a lot back home but I know there is cultural and historical context I'm going to be missing-” 

“I am so happy!” he practically drops the tree, taking both of her hands to kiss the knuckles, “I would be happy to help you. Come, come!”  

Oh, they are going to the library now. Right now. Ok, Yuu should have expected that.  

Rook is always excitable, but he’s mindful as well. Picking out smaller volumes at first, and adding some reference materials, putting a few back as he asks questions about what she has already read or what she typically enjoys. He also writes out a list for audio books and radio performances. Thank the Seven that Crowley finally got them a phone and they could excuse the data usage for school.  

“I have the films I would be willing to lend, but I would ask you be incredibly careful.”  

“Oh, I don’t have a TV or any type of DVD player at Ramshackle. We try and keep the places as authentic as possible. It helps when the ghosts come to visit on Hallow’s eve.” They don’t have wifi either and their electricity runs off a backup generator, but Yuu doesn’t mention that. They are distinctly aware of how rundown Ramshackle is, but they try not to advertise how badly.  

“What dedication you have to your dorm and the history of Night Raven College. We may do so in Pomefiore!”  

And that’s how they end up having movie night basically every Wednesday night, sometimes with other Pomefiore members or even Vil himself refreshing on the classics. Rook would sit close by, quietly explaining certain contexts and even joining Yuu on reading through some of the poetry books. His passion comes out more with his knowledge than his speech in those moments, and it’s...nice. Normally Rook is the most reserved person she knows. He’s family is still a mystery, but she’s learned more about his beliefs and insights into how he perceives life in general. 

“This is how I met Roi de Poison, you know. He enchanted me at first sight, but his mind...he understood my passion for theater, music and beauty. He respected me, once I proved that I loved him for more than his looks and roles.”  

Crazy fan he might have been in the past, it was definitely more of an equal relationship once you saw past the surface level. Yuu eventually started picking a few habits and fashion tips, slowly becoming a bit more refined. Elegant even, she might say.  

When she hesitantly asks for help with other things, it's easier each time. Help with skincare routines, or experimenting with make-up, what colors work best and how silhouettes come across. It’s never been this fun to experiment with her style. It helps that Rook, while thinking certain things definitely work, will be gentle in the things that aren’t.  

“They do not enhance your beauty,” he says, sounding like Vil, “And you are already magnifique.”  

He is the first person that she shares her book of stories with, the precognitions that she has  

“Do you think fairy tales are fiction?” He asks her, quietly skimming over the passages of Snow White. The Fairest Queen is barely mentioned, but without her, there is no story.  

“Living here feels like a fairy tale, but if it is, you’ve made it a wonderful dream.”  

Rook looks at her, a surprised chuckle slipping out. Before he can hide it, his nose crinkles, a smile wide enough to show his gums, and Yuu thinks it enhances all the best of him.  

Vil Schoenheit 

“Vil, may I ask you a question?” 

“At least somebody paid attention when I went over manners. You may.” Vil says, as he adds in some sort of lilac powder. Normally, they wouldn’t have any classes together, but with Yuu acting as an ‘assistant’ towards the teachers to make extra cash, they got to see the second and third years more than even the other first years in their dorms.  

“How do you make time for it all? Between the acting jobs, getting good grades in school, indulging in potionology and homebrew makeup in your limited free time, it seems like you get so much done with just as much time as the rest of us.”  

“Thank you for noticing.” Vil says, looking up from his potion work. “And yes, I do keep a very organized schedule. Every minute is planned and my down time is spent decompressing efficiently.”  

“Is there any articles or techniques you would recommend? Or a template you used?” 

“You could just ask me for help, you know.” he retorts, huffing a bit.  

“I know I could, but I also want to be respectful of what you have on your plate.”  

“Ah, potato...I have plenty of time, especially in this season. I don’t schedule anything this close to finals. Come sit with me this evening for dinner and we will talk goals and progress markers. There is more to this mentally than most people think.”  

Vil is a bit less than impressed when he sees just how much Yuu accomplishes for Night Raven College with no credit and makes a note to talk to the teachers and Crowley about getting her properly compensated or at least. But overall, it goes well, making time for exercise, hobbies, studies and even some time with him. Telling her about the techniques he used and actually practicing them were two different things, and some things are just easier to show rather than tell.  

“Alright, let’s start here.”  

Mindfulness, ironically for somebody outside Scarabina, is important to Vil. Sinking fully into the experience of his daily life, looking at all the colors, enjoying his foods with no screens, or just enjoying the quiet while he removes makeup. His decompress is like a valve that he releases in minutes throughout the day, not hours at the end of it.

“This takes practice. Don’t discourage yourself if you don’t get it every time, eventually it will come more naturally.”  

And it does. Over the months, Yuu feels more productive than ever, even finding time to wonder about her own style. It is a bit embarrassing when Vil enters Ramshackle to use the Guest Room to study and sees her hastily trying to wash off eyeshadow. 

“Oh, spudling, not your color. No, no, here.” He sits, and teaches, a bit harshly at times, but he wouldn’t be Vil if he wasn’t direct. Much like Riddle, he fully believes that people can reach his level, and sees no reason why they shouldn’t. And while Yuu will never be Vil pretty, she certainly feels more beautiful and confident now than she ever has before.  

It isn’t until Vil is reviewing one of his performances that Yuu makes a comment, some offhand remark about the script not quite matching the vernacular expected for the period, that he invites her to sit and review more.  

Yuu doesn’t think it’s anything spectular, it’s kind of obvious, but apparently it wasn’t to the rest of the audience.  

Vil sits at thier usual tea table in the Night Raven Gardens, and slides a ticket over to her.  

“If you have time. I know you recently picked up a few photography jobs in town that would be a shame to miss. Rapport with clients is key, you know.”  

It’s the red-carpet event to a 5th year anniversary movie he did as a child. All glitz and glam, showing just how much they have grown as actors and people since their debuts. It’s a milestone even for Vil, the first and only role where he was played a supporting role that wasn’t a villain or antagonist.  

“What colors are you wearing? I might have something that compliments.” Yuu asks, already going through their mind for anything suitable in Ramshackle.  

“Well,” Vil preens, opening his laptop. “We will just have to buy something together to ensure we match, won’t we? When are you free?” 

It’s so small Yuu almost misses it, but hidden underneath his painted blush is a heated blush, quiet and pink and delighted.  

Floyd Leech

“Floyd, can I ask you a question?”   

Floyd doesn’t even bother looking up from his spot at the table, “Better not be a boring question Shrimpy, or I’ll squeeze ya~” 

“Where do you go to get your shoes repaired?”  

His head snaps up just a bit, left eye brighter than usual.  

“Ace had mentioned that your sole had torn during practice,” Yuu continues, feeling like they have to explain themselves with how intensely he was staring, “But the next day it had been stitched back on like new. There are some fantastic leather boots from the old NRC uniforms that I'd love to use, but I’m trying to find somebody who won’t butcher them or tell me they aren’t repairable just cause there old or out of style, you know?”  

Floyd nods, eyes still searching before ultimately just shrugging his shoulders. “Hmmm...at least it wasn’t boring. Meet at Monstro Lounge at 6 lil’ Shrimpy, bring the shoes!”  

He walks away before Yuu can even say that they have to meet with somebody else, but that really isn’t a possibility when a Leech brother has demanded your attention. Looks like you’ll have to reschedule with Deuce.  

The Monstro Lounge is fairly steady, though Yuu has never seen it slow. Always some sort of deal or exclusive that sets these rich bastards running through the doors, even if it’s just so they don’t have to deal with the lines in the cafeteria or cook their own food.  

Jade waves you in, taking the box from your hands in a gentlemanly manner, and leading you to the side. Floyd is quick to intercept, mumbling a thank you before his long strides leave you almost jogging.  

“Alright, let’s see what we are working with.”  

The dorm is clearly shared between him and Jade. Crisp white walls, a seashell and sea motif on the desk and headboard and some floating shelves that look vaguely like drift wood, exactly what she expected from Octanvinelle. But that’s about all the two sides have in common. Jade’s is organized, of course, but notable is the terrariums on the shelves and a stack of geology books tucked into the corner, along with photos of places he may have been or plans to go.

Floyd’s half is a mess, yes, but it’s organized chaos, like looking at Ace and Deuce’s dorm. High protein snacks are tucked on the shelves, completed 3D puzzles, and...fashion magazines? Huh, he did say that merpeople didn’t really have a reason to wear clothes so land peoples being so obsessed with it would be interesting, especially in different regions or cultures. And the trends are constantly changing. It actually started fitting, the more Yuu thought about it.  

Floyd set the box on the desk, picking up the shoes and bending them this way and that, pressing on the heel or pinches the toe.  

“You’ve taken good care of them,” He says, “The stitches are loose and the nails need to be hammered back in, but the leather is clean and strong. I’d get some new leather laces though, the wax on these has completely frayed from misuse. How old are these?”  

“They're from back when Ezra and the others went to school, but they don’t have a great concept of time.” Floyd raises an eyebrow. “Oh, the ghosts at Ramshackle.”  

“Huh, no wonder it felt like the place was trying to kick us out.” Floyd walks over to the walk-in closet and Yuu has to double take. She would have mistaken the closet for Jade’s! On the left, the clothes are hung neatly on the rack except for the everyday items like the basketball or school uniform which have their own spots hung neatly on the door itself. Below that are clear boxes that seem to hold all sort of tools. Are these hobbies that Floyd has picked up and gotten bored with?

But the right side of the walk in closet is just racks and racks of shoes. Wing tip dress, loafers, even a few kitten heels and red backed stiletos. All perfectly shined and displayed.  

“Floyd, you repair your own shoes?” Yuu taking the box he hands her.

“When you are as tall as me and Jade, you end up having to customize and fix a lot of your own clothes, unless you wanna pay some stupid prices, and standing there while they pin and stuff is boring. I’d rather just do it myself.” He takes out a wicked looking needle and a stand, securing it to the desk with a flick of a lever. “Which pair is your size?”  

“Oh, these.” she says, picking up a pair of loafers and ankle boots. “I can’t afford for you to do this for me Floyd. I don’t have the funds right now.” 

He just leans against the table with a laugh, “Oh, I aint doin’ it for free. Your gonna pay me by letting me keep a pair, specifically those.”

He points to the bottom of the box, a pair of thigh high riding boots from what she can tell.  

“Those are the ones in the worst shape?”  

“Oh, I won’t be able to get them to their original form, but I can lengthen the sole and toe area a bit, add a heel, and have a wicked pair of thighs high stilettos that’ll have even Betta fish jealous~” 

“With your legs, you’d look really good in a skirt.”  

They both blink.  

“Shit, sorry, my mouth ran-” Floyd laughs, something softer than usual.  

“Your damn right Shrimpy.” He smiles, “I do look damn good in a skirt. I prefer dresses though.”  

He takes a seat, motioning for her to take the other side, sets the shoe inside the stand, and starts explaining the process. It doesn’t always make sense but he’s clearly passionate about it.  

This might be a truer version of him, Yuu thinks, seeing him carefully take out a rusted nail to pull out a fresh silver one from an even smaller box. One that isn’t bored or moody, but just...getting able to do something that actually interests him.  

“Hey Floyd. Do you want to go thrifting with me and Kalim on Sunday? I think you’d have some interesting things to say about some of the finds, especially the clothes mart. They literally have a bin of vintage pieces for a dollar a piece.”  

He leans back, and does that smile again. All teeth but his eyes relax, all boyishly charming.  

“You got all the audacity in the world, don’t you?” He chuckles, “I’ll get my shift covered.”  

[rafeskiss]

pretty voice ! ᥫ᭡

pairing: matt sturniolo x popstar! reader

word count: 1.7k

summary: you’re a singer and your tour has made its way to boston where your boyfriend and his brothers attend your show. matt is sure to let you know how well you did after the show

warnings: smut duhhhh, unprotected sex (don’t be silly wrap his willy!!), p in v, throat fucking, dumbification, dacryphilia, stomach bulge, swearing, creampie, use of “y/n”, probably more that i can’t think of! :)

authors note: fair warning, this is my first time publishing smut, so don’t have insanely high expectations! i’ve written it before but never shared so keep that in mind. however, i can assure you this isn’t completely horrible and i did my best to make it seem realistic but hot at the same time :) hope ya like it!

you had been counting down the days until your sold out world tour made its way to boston, massachusetts. your boyfriend, matt, and his brothers were set to attend the show which made you feel slightly uneasy.

the triplets have never seen you perform live, which is what makes this show so special. you wanted matt to know you were good at what you do. so, you paced around your dressing room doing vocal warmups and eating tablespoons of honey to help your throat.

a stage worker knocked on your door twice before coming in and attaching your mic pack to the back of your dress. tonight, you wore a black strapless mini dress from versace that had hearts of many colors scattered across. you paired this with knee high black boots, which your friends referred to as your “stripper shoes”. you fixed your hair, spraying some dry shampoo on your roots and mentally said a prayer before walking out of the dressing room.

you received your cue to enter the stage, walking up 4 steps before you were greeted with hundreds of screaming teenage girls. you forgot about needing to impress matt.

that was, until, you locked eyes with him. he was standing on the second floor of the venue, the balcony, resting against the railing. watching you so intently, mouthing the lyrics to your songs. nick was singing along to all the songs he knew, while chris just knew the popular songs. but matt knew almost all of your songs. he was your biggest fan. and you were his. most times, you would be spotted attending the triplet’s shows when your schedules aligned. you’d stand backstage, just barely out of the crowds sight. all decked out in blue attire to support your boy, and even the things the rest of the world couldn’t see were blue, too. but matt got to see them after the show. your blue bra and matching blue panties; it drove matt crazy how he got to see you like that after the show, especially if he was the one winning that night.

the show came to an end and you said your goodbyes to the boston crowd, exiting the stage. you walked into a lounge area where the triplets were, along with members of your team. you were swarmed with the usual compliments: “you sounded so good” or “you look great” and you were grateful for them, but tonight they didn’t matter. the only person who’s input you cared about was matt.

he approached you, draping his arms around your neck and you wrapped yours around his waist. he whispered in your ear, “you did so good. ‘m so proud of you.”

you blushed at this, pulling away from the hug. “thanks,” you gushed.

since your next show wasn’t until saturday, you had two days to kill here in boston. you were going to stay with the triplets until you had to get back on your tour bus and depart from matt, so you had to make it count.

matt drove you all home, you took chris’ place in the passenger seat, still in your performance outfit. the drive home was filled with conversation about the concert; what their favorite part was, what songs they liked, etc. and while you were a decently known singer, you never felt famous. until now. matt made you feel famous, like you are on top of the world. you have everything you’ve ever wanted; friends that support you, a successful singing career, and a hot boyfriend. what more could a girl ask for?

you walked through the door barefoot, matt holding your unusually heavy boots. he sets them on the floor by the door as you make a run for the couch, laying down and sighing. while it may be just a simple couch, it feels pretty damn good after wearing “stripper shoes” and prancing around on a stage for an hour and a half.

nick and chris go to their own rooms, knowing you and matt need alone time after not seeing each other for a couple weeks. matt joins you on the couch, he lifts your head up and places it on his lap. his legs were your pillow and the only thing missing was a blanket, still in your tiny dress.

“you cold?” he asks, almost as if he can your mind.

you smile, “how’d you know?”

he reaches to his side and grabs a big blue blanket and tosses it over you, it’s big enough that it covers your whole body.

matt lightly strokes your hair as you lay there in the comfortable silence.

the way your head rests is so close to his dick and he can’t help it if it slowly is getting harder, which it is. you tease him, nuzzling your head deeper into his lap, a.k.a. his dick, which causes him to speak up.

“the fuck are you doing?” he laughs.

you play it off, “just getting comfy!”

“yeah, comfy my ass.” he rolls his eyes playfully.

you press a small kiss to his clothed bulge, he’s wearing baggy jeans and his dick still stands out. he sighs, not complaining.

“you gonna do this right here? in the living room?” he questions.

“mhm..” you hummed. he helped you unbutton his jeans, his black calvin kleins peaking out through the zipper of his jeans. he pulled his boxers down, revealing his dick. he was packing a very pleasant 8 inches that wasn’t too shabby in girth either.

you licked the tip first, then you licked from shaft to tip. matt closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the couch. he placed his hands on the back of your head, pulling your hair into a makeshift ponytail.

“voice sounded so good tonight, y/n,” he breathed. “bet it would still sound good if i fucked your throat.”

he pushes your head down all the way to his pelvis, feeling you gag against his cock. he thrusts into your mouth, the wet sounds like music to his ears.

as he fucked your throat, you felt tears forming in your eyes. you hollowed out your cheeks and looked up at him with doe eyes, laying on your stomach on the couch. you admired the way his eyes fluttered shut everytime he hit the back of your throat, how he’d let out small breathy moans.

“fuck,” he whispers, pulling away. he pulls his boxers down farther so his thighs are exposed. you climb on top of hip and he rolls your tight dress up to your waist, pulling your panties to the side.

“easy access, huh?” he remarks.

you whine, “put it in already…”

his dick enters you and he wastes no time slamming you down on it, his hands firmly gripping your hips. “want it so bad, yeah? you want it so bad?” he taunts, lifting you up and slamming you back down fast.

you are shocked with the speed he did that, not able to form a full sentence. “i- uhm- mhm,” you mumble.

“use that pretty voice of yours, y/n. such a pretty voice… let me hear it,” he rasped.

you bounced on his dick, the couch shaking. “mmmmm, i love your dick so much,” you moaned.

matt smirked, “there’s that pretty voice. so, so pretty.” he continued helping you bounce on his dick, his tip repeatedly hitting your g-spot.

he pulled the top of your dress down, revealing your bra-less tits. now your dress was basically like a belt, just covering your waist. your boobs bounced perfectly in front of his face, he was mesmerized.

you brought your hands up to his hair, running your fingers through it and pulling it when he’d hit your g-spot.

you let out a moan that was almost melodic, matt moaning after. “love hearing you moan on my dick.” he spoke. he gripped your hips tighter, slamming you down harder onto his dick every time.

“i’m gonna- oh god!” you whined.

“do it.” matt instructed. “cum for me.”

you nodded, babbling incoherently as you came undone on top of him. his right hand left your hip and found it’s way to your clit, rubbing you through the orgasm.

“fucked ya dumb, huh? damn,” he said.

you hummed in response, and once your orgasm passed you started bouncing again, desperate for more.

matt turned you around and pushed you onto the couch, in missionary now. now he can pound into you way easier, which is what you’re trying to ask for but you’re unable to speak.

“i— oh—“ you try.

matt smirks, “words, baby.”

this fucker, you thought. there are no thoughts inside your head other than how good his dick feels inside you, there’s no way you can speak.

“oh god… so, umph,” you sobbed as he thrusted into you with an insane amount of force. “so good,”

his thumb found its way to your clit again, rubbing it fast. your eyes rolled back as another orgasm approaches you.

“uhhh- uh—“ you babble. your brain is mush at this point, you don’t notice the bulge in your stomach. but matt does, as his hand leaves your clit and presses on the bulge his dick makes in your tummy with every thrust.

“look at that,” he says proudly. you squirm beneath him, cumming yet for the second time.

his thrusts don’t slow down, and neither do the tears running down your pink cheeks.

“can i cum inside you?” he asks as if you can even answer him. you let out a bunch of moans in response.

you let out a bunch of moans, “i’m gonna take that as a yes.” matt groans before thrusting into you once more. you lay on the couch with your dress still pulled over your pussy and your breasts pulled out.

matt stands up and pulls his boxers and pants up. he plants a kiss on your forehead before he picks you up and carries you to his room. he lays you down in his bed, his silk bedsheets feeling good on your overheated skin.

you’re exhausted, you feel like you melt into his bed. you’re on the verge of sleep but you’re startled when you hear either chris or nick’s bedroom door open.

you lift your head up, and matt opens the door to see what is going on. matt laughs and closes the door.

“what’s he doing?” you ask sleepily.

“nicks wiping the couch down,” matt giggles.

you hear nick through the walls, “i’m gonna fucking cry. never do that shit again.” he whines.

[wreckofawriter]

Only If You Catch Me

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

pairing: fred weasley x fem!reader

summary: fred had always been frustrated by your endeavors with other men, especially other men that always looked quite a bit like him. after a disastrous mistake during quidditch practice you find yourself wondering how you had never seen fred Weasley in the light you saw him in now

word count: 4.4k

warnings: jealousy, language (maybe?), only proof read once so sorry for any mistakes!

a/n: this is my first big piece in ages, I hope you guys enjoy and im so sorry for my prolonged absence i fell off on writing for a while and im just now getting back to it

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Some things were just facts, plain and simple; the sky is blue, two and two is four and you had a type.

“Another ginger I see.” Alicia murmured as you sat down across from her, pints of butter beer clinking together. Your eyes were locked with a pretty freckled boy by the bar. 

You huffed even though she was quite right, this must have been the third redhead that you set sights on this year. “Well William got boring and,” You paused wrinkling your nose, “-pushy” 

The Three Broomsticks was packed, the sounds of chatter and warmth guarding you from the icy cold of the blizzard that had swept through Hogsmeade. You and Alicia had joined the dozens of students seeking cover in the popular pub and quickly snagged a small table near a large fireplace where you now looked out on the sea of flushed faces and smiles. 

“With your type it's a wonder your last name isn’t Weasley.” Your friend chuckled and you laughed. 

“If I could have gotten my hands on Charlie, it would be.” You replied, your silly crush on the older Weasley brother lasting from your first year to what you were sure would be your last. 

Alicia giggled, taking a large swig from her pint, licking the foam off her top lip. “Why not one of the twins then?”

“What twins?” A voice asked from behind you.

“She couldn’t be talking about us now could she, Georgie?” Fred jested.

“No no,” The other replied, “I mean what could Spinnet possibly want from us?”

Alicia rolled her eyes with great effort, “Trust me when I say I want nothing to do with you. As for my friend here, I don't know if I can say the same.” she said with a smug grin and you sent her a furious look.

Fred smirked, leaning over the back of your chair, his large palms ghosting your shoulders, “Is that true? Do you need something from us?” He leaned in even further, his nose brushing your hair, “from me?”

You began to look a bit red as he pulled away, “Please Weasley,” you managed to scoff “since when do I need things from you? In fact, I believe you still have my Charms notes.”

Fred had come to stand in front of you now, George joining his side, “It's just that your notes are so much better for writing Flitwick’s essay. ” He argued. 

“You don’t even take notes.” You said, exasperated. 

“Exactly” The twins replied in unison. 

Alicia snickered beside you.

Chairs appeared and Fred and George sat. The table seemed half the size it was before as Fred's elbow knocked against yours.

“Made yourselves at home have you?” You spoke, wincing.

Fred just grinned and leaned purposefully closer, thighs now brushing.

You slid towards Alicia who was turning a laugh into a cough and set your eyes back on the boy with freckles. 

“You headed to the Slytherin match next weekend?” Alicia asked absently.

“Of course.” George replied, “I’ve bet Lee a galleon that Malfoy catches a bludger with his nose.” he chuckled,  “He reckons it’ll be his gut.” 

You all smiled at the idea, no one hated Malfoy more than those on the Gryffindor quidditch team. 

“We also have business to do.” Fred said, wiggling his eyebrows mischievously.

“You don't have any more of those nosebleed nougats do you?” You asked, eyes still across the room, “I’ve got to get out of Binns’ class tomorrow.” 

Alicia's eyebrows shot up, you hardly missed History of Magic, or as you liked to call it, nap hour. “Why's that?”. 

“No reason.” You mumbled, intently staring into your butterbeer. 

Fred’s eyes darted between the two of you. 

“Of course we’ve got some.” grinned George, oblivious, “2 sickles a pei-.”

“Or for free if you tell us what you're up to.” Fred interrupted, catching a strange look from his brother. 

“I'm not up to anything!” You gasped with a bit too much enthusiasm. 

Alicias eyes had narrowed to slits and Fred had never looked more unconvinced. 

Your face began to grow hot and you found yourself wishing you had more grace in the act of lying.

“Oh come off it,” George said, “If she wants to snog Murphy instead of hearing about the seventh generation of goblin rebellions, who are we to judge?” 

You were glowing pink now, sending a vicious look at George who had taken to sipping his drink innocently. 

Fred looked appalled, his face contorted like he had just caught a whiff of something horrible, “Murphy!” 

“Keep your voice down.” You hissed angrily, glazing across the room again to be sure he hadn’t heard, “I'm trying to keep it quiet.” 

Fred was fuming, “Who wouldn’t, swapping spit with a git like that.” 

You scoffed, pulling out a small coin purse, “Can I just have some nougat?”

“Nope.” Fred responded, voice suddenly ferocious, “We’re out.”

You were beginning to grow frustrated, “George just said you had some.”

Fred glared at you, “We’re out.” he repeated his nose high in the air.

You turned to George looking for help but he threw you an I’m-not-getting-into-this look and you were forced to round back on Fred. 

You glared at each other for a moment before Fred caved, "Fine we’ve got some,” He huffed, “Three Galleons.” 

Your mouth dropped, “George said 2 sickles!”

He crossed his arms, “They’re in high demand.”

You stood, chair flying back into the wall with a loud crack, “You’re a complete prick.” you said sharply snatching your bag and sweeping past Fred and over to meet Finn Murphy  who was now standing to leave the pub. 

“Well I think you handled that well.” Alicia said, grinning at Fred who looked as though he had been slapped. 

George, who looked all too happy with himself for instigating such an interesting conversation, helped himself to the remains of your butterbeer as you and Murphy bowed out into the flurry of white followed closely by Fred’s glare.

“Looks as though she's gonna snog every redhead at school before you.” Alicia snicked. 

“Yeah,” George snorted, “You might want to keep an eye on Ginny.”

Alicia giggled even harder, pressing a hand to her lips in an attempt to keep her drink in her mouth. 

Fred could hardly hear them, too busy envisioning your latest with large boils all over his face or perhaps vomiting indefinitely. 

Alicia managed to contain herself and shot Fred a sympathetic glance, “I've been trying you know, I keep bringing you up but she seems far more interested in Charlie.” 

“Charlie!” He guffawed, “But he's been gone for ages!”

“Well he seemed to have made quite the impression.” Alicia chuckled. 

“He was captain when she was appointed to the team.” George pointed out. 

“Yeah when she was TWELVE” Fred gasped. 

Alicia couldn’t help it, she had started laughing again, “Relax,” She spoke between breaths, “It’s just a silly school girl crush.” 

Fred looked unconvinced and began to tap his heel incessantly against the floor.

“Take it as a complement!” She continued, “Charlie looks quite a bit like you, I mean you are related after all.” 

Fred was not taking it as pleasantly as she suggested and began to rap his foot on the ground even faster, “We’ve got to do something.” 

“We?” George snorted, “This is all you mate. I’m not the one in love with her.” 

Freds ears grew pink, “I’m not in love with her!” he sputtered. 

“Whatever you say.” Alicia spoke rolling her eyes.

The truth was that if Fred wasn't in love with you, he was so close he may as well have been. At the very least he had been pining after you for years and he had never been particularly quiet about it. In fact he was the opposite of quiet about it. His flirtatious remarks and dazzling complements were quite consistent. Unfortunately so was his coursing jealousy as you paraded around with boy after boy who was not him.  Every year he swore would be the year. The year where you finally realized it was him you needed and all would be right in Fred's world. But time and time again he failed as you walked out the door with a different redhead. He was growing nervous, his seventh year was upon him and this may be his last chance before you were all carted off in different directions never to see each other again. The frustration of it all was turning him bitter.

That night Fred lay awake on his four-poster, staring at the ceiling venomously. What was it? He wondered, What was it that he didn't have that every other ginger you knew seemed to possess? Why was it never him pulling you into broom closets and meeting you after classes? What was he doing wrong? His thoughts spun until he drifted into an uneasy slumber. 

By the time he arrived at the quidditch pitch for practice the next morning, the rest of the team was already changing into their robes as Angilina scribbled vigorously on the chalkboard in front of them, already changed and ready. 

“Fred!” She shouted watching him try to sneak his way into the bustle of the team unnoticed, “What took so long? I was beginning to think I would have to send George back up to wake you.” 

He shrugged, “Sorry Cap, I didn’t get much sleep last night if you know what I mean.” he winked at her and she looked sorely unamused. 

You on the other hand perked up at the insinuation, finally looking at the twin who, in protest of his behavior the day before, you had been ignoring. 

“She gets what I mean,” He smirked nodding towards you, “Up late with Murphy boy last night?” He asked viciously. 

You flushed as the changing room filled with chuckles. 

“Murphy?” Angelina asked, turning to you, “Isn’t he a bit,” She paused, “dim?” 

You scowled at Fred silently before snatching your broom from the rack and marching so quickly out onto the pitch that you hadn’t even noticed you had hit Harry in the temple with its handle. 

As Potter groaned in pain and fixed his askew glasses Fred looked over to Alicia who was shaking her head slightly. As the rest of the team slowly followed you out onto the field she and George made their way towards him. 

“You’re an idiot.” Alicia groaned, “No wonder she won’t go out with you.”  

George chuckled.

Fred glared at the pair, “It’s not my fault she insists on only snogging boys who are 'a bit dim.'" he spoke, mocking Angelina.

“I know that this may be hard to wrap your head around,” Alicia spoke sharply, “But maybe she went out with Murphy because he was, ya know, nice to her.” She then shouldered past the twins leaving Fred gapping at his brother desperately. 

The day was crisp, the heavy licks of winter drawn in by a bitter wind. But the sky was clear and the sun was out, much to everyone’s appreciation. 

Fred mounted his broom still angry, feeling foolish for upsetting you yet again as you stood with your back to him defiantly. 

The whistle blew and the balls were released as the team kicked off, snow flying in all directions as you did so. 

Fred's head was not in practice as it should have been but instead on you, watching you speed towards the goal posts with the quaffle already under your arm. You scored easily on Ron with a feign left.

Fred was so absorbed in you that he had completely forgotten about the bludgers, one of which was hurtling at him with frightening speed. With little time to react he swung his bat wildly and pitched the bludger in the opposite direction, which with a sickening feeling he realized was right at you. 

He tried to shout but you must not have heard him over the howling of wind in your ears. Because when the bludger struck you heavily between the shoulder blades you were completely unprepared. Your vision danced as the air was knocked from your lungs. You were flung from your broom with a shriek and began to plummet.

Fred streamed after you, urging his broom towards the ground with a frightening speed. His Cleansweep shuttered under the immense pressure he suddenly held it in and never before had Fred wished so badly for Potters Firebolt. 

He managed to get beneath you mere feet from the ground. The force at which you hit him knocked you both into the snow with a heavy thud, and there was a sickening sound as his broom snapped in two. 

Neither of you moved for a moment, the snow settling around you and beginning to melt through your robes. 

“Are you alright?” Fred asked and was struck with panic when you did not respond. He sat up quickly pulling you with him, your legs tangled together in the snow. He called your name desperately, hands holding your face as you lay limp in his arms. 

Angelina landed beside the pair followed closely by George and Alicia both of whom were wearing nervous expressions. 

“Y/n!” Fred shouted again, tears stinging his eyes, fear gripping his throat like a vice. He was moments away from shaking you when your eyes slowly peeled open. 

“Fred?” You mumbled, confused. 

The boy let out a barking laugh of relief and then dove into a hug, almost knocking you back to the ground. 

Bewildered, you returned his embrace and realized quite suddenly how much larger than you Fred really was. You practically disappeared into his chest, his broad shoulders shielding you from the wind that whipped across the pitch. You felt frighteningly warm listening to his heart beat quickly beneath his robes. Your cheeks were hot as he pulled away from you and began to search for any look of pain or damage on your face. 

“Are you alright love?” He asked again and was washed with relief when you nodded. 

As you fully realized what was going on around you, you gasped, pulling the handle of Fred's broom out of the snow.

“Your broom!” You looked horrified, “Fred, your broom broke!” 

Fred on the other hand brushed it off helping you to your feet and beginning to pat the snow off your robes, “It’s alright, I’m sure it's fixable.” he shrugged, “Listen, I am so s-”

But before Fred could finish his apology George burst between the two of you, “I am so sorry!” He spoke hurriedly, “The bludger caught me off guard. I swear I wasn’t aiming for you.” 

You chuckled, giving George a pat on the shoulder, “I sure hope not, but 's not me you should be apologizing to anyway.” You said, “It's Fred’s broom that broke.”  

George did not issue his brother any regrets and instead sent him a wink, whipping his wand out of robes and shouting “Repairo!”

The broom snapped back together and Angelina, who was desperate to get back in the air, looked to you, “You alright then?” 

You nodded with a grin and turned back to Fred who was testing the strength of his brother's repair. 

“Thank you so much Fred,” You gushed, looking up at him through your lashes. 

The boy's heart skipped a beat, stomach lurching, “It was no problem really.” He breathed and miraculously found you in his arms for the second time as you lunged towards him.

“Thank you.” You murmured into his robes before disconnecting and swiftly boarding your broom again. 

Fred watched you leave struck for a moment. Alicia shot him a thumbs up and a grin before he was able to clumsily climb onto his own broom and follow you back up into the air. 

By dinner the story of your fall had been told and retold so many times that you were now said to have plummeted upwards of a hundred meters before Fred had heroically scooped you onto his own broom, saving what was sure to be your life. 

In the great hall you kept getting asked if you were okay as down the table Fred got clapped on the shoulder and congratulated for his great save. He seemed to be enjoying the new story a fair bit more than you were. 

Finn had come over to ask about you halfway through dinner but you found suddenly that he was no less than boring and he returned to the Hufflepuff table after a few short minutes with a look of disappointment on his face. 

Fred watched this with such delight he was sure he was glowing. George -who he had been applauding as the best wingman one could ask for all day- poked him hard in the side and pointed down the table to where you sat. Fred turned to catch your eyes already on him. He winked exuberantly and you turned away with a scoff, but your cheeks had taken a rather deep shade of red. 

He grinned so wide at George he thought his lips might split, “I mean this is some real progress!” He cheered, “Did you see that? She was staring at me!” 

Down the hall you turned to Alicia, cheeks still pink, “Have you ever noticed how tall Fred is?” You asked so suddenly she choked on her pumpkin juice. 

You stared at her curiously as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve smiling, “Oh yeah very tall.”

You hummed looking back down the table at the elder twin who was now laughing wildly at something Lee had said, “I guess I never really thought about it before.” 

Angilina shot Alicia a glance as you were distracted and the two of them broke out into giggles. 

“What?” You demanded though you were still smiling. 

“Oh nothing.” Angilina grinned and you huffed turning back to your dinner. 

You found yourself wishing Fred had chosen to sit a bit closer to you as you watched a group of girls across from him break out into giggles at something he said, “There's no way he's that funny.” You muttered knowing he in fact was. 

  Yet you couldn’t find yourself being all that jealous as he kept glancing up at you, as if checking to make sure you were still watching him and much to his delight you always were. His shoulders, you noticed from where you sat picking at plum pudding, were quite wide, his arms toned. It was no wonder that he had engulfed you completely out on the pitch. 

How had I never noticed this before? You found yourself wondering. How had he managed to escape your list of potential suitors when he was so obviously perfect for you?

The thought struck you rather abruptly and while you would have liked to have sat with it for a minute, Alicia was standing and you knew it was time to head back to the common room. 

As students began to flood from the hall you fiddled with the sleeves of your robes, thoughts full of brown eyes and freckles . 

As if summoned, Fred appeared at your side grinning widely, “Hello.”

“Hey Fred,” replied Alicia. 

“Have you guys heard the news?” He asked, throwing an arm around your shoulder. You tried hard not to blush and instead shook your head, staring at the floor. “Apparently, you owe me your life.” He was beaming down at you now and you found it hard to look away. 

“Oh yeah?” You smirked, “And I heard it was actually you who hit me with that bludger.” 

His smile disappeared only momentarily and you were happy to see it recover so quickly. 

“Ah well, I figured Angelina wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.” He shrugged, “Though I swear if I had a choice I would have knocked her off her broom instead.” 

And for the first time that evening jealousy took you strongly, “Oh yeah? I suppose she would have been a bit more fun to catch then?” 

Fred looked startled by your bristly reaction, “Nah,” He responded, “That would have been Georgie’s job.” 

You were satisfied with this answer and felt yourself leaning against him as you began up towards the tower.

George was delighted to see you still tucked beneath his brother's arm when you reached the common room. He called you over to where he sat and you placed yourself in a large squishy armchair as Fred perched himself beside you on an ottoman. 

You spent your evening rather uneventfully, finishing an essay for Snape as the Gryffindors slowly filtered off to bed in pairs. When George rose to take himself to the dormitory you expected Fred to follow but instead he stayed rooted by your feet where he now sat cross legged on the carpet looking over what looked like an extensive order form. 

Hours later you yawned, stretching when you finally finished your work. It was now well past midnight and only a few fifth years remained, cramming for a quiz in transfiguration the next day. You turned to look at Fred who had long since sprawled himself across the couch before the fire and found him snoring softly. 

A jolt of infatuation made your stomach flip. His messy hair glowed shockingly bright in the fire light, his pink lips slightly agape. You gathered your things slowly, sure not to wake him before you stood beside him.

You knew you should wake him, you were the reason he had not retreated to bed after all. But he looked so peaceful like this, so soft. Instead you found yourself slowly counting the freckles that sprawled across his cheeks, leaning close to brush a strand of his bright red hair out of his face. He woke immediately at your touch, large brown eyes locking with your own.

You felt your cheeks go hot, “You should go up to bed.” You mumbled beginning to pull away. 

He snatched your wrist with such haste it took you by surprise, “Do that again.” he spoke.

You furrowed your brow, “What?” 

“With my hair,” It was his turn to blush now, “Touch my hair again.” 

It felt as though the air was sucked from your lungs yet you found yourself obeying, fingers coming to comb through the soft waves that spread across his forehead. 

He hummed, leaning into your touch slowly, gaze still locked with yours. The two of you stayed there for a moment, you kneeling beside him fingers in his hair, his hand still loosely wrapped around your wrist. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmured and you looked at him confused. 

“For what?” 

“Hitting you with a bludger.” he responded remorsefully. 

You laughed softly, your head thrown back, “It's okay Fred.” you grinned. You were close now, so close Fred could feel the tickle of your breath on his cheek, “I forgive you. You made up for it after all.” 

He smirked in spite of himself, “I suppose I did, saving your life and all.” 

You were giggling again and Fred was sure he was in some beautiful dream where all he could ever hear or see was your joy. 

“I wouldn’t push your luck if I were you.” You grinned, “I may just chuck the quaffle at your head when you're not looking.” 

“Only if you catch me when I fall.” Fred whispered, leaning closer still. 

You let him, your lips connecting slowly. You were pleased to find he was a fantastic kisser, his lips soft and plush, eager to please. His free hand cupped your cheek as he pulled you closer still until you were practically on top of him.

One of the alarm clocks the fifth years had been attempting to turn to roosters burst to life and you pulled away abruptly remembering bitterly that you and him were not the only ones in the room. Fred chased after your lips with his own desperate for even a moment more with your mouth.

“You should get to bed.” You repeated standing now, knees a bit shaky. 

Fred was disappointed by your departure but grinned wildly nonetheless as you gathered your books into your arms and turned back to him. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow Fred.” You yawned and began up the stairs to your dormitory determined not to let him see the childish glee that had spread across your face. 

“Wait!” He called after you, lurching from the couch and stopping at the bottom of the steps. 

You turned back to him taking in the wonderful sight of him staring lovingly up at you. He looked delightfully disheveled, his hair a mess and his lips swollen from your touch. You took two steps down now only one above where he stood on the hardwood floor.

You looked down at him expectantly as his eyes bore into your own. 

He lifted himself onto his toes and grabbed your shoulders forcinging you forward where you connected for a second time. 

This time his breath was hot and heavy on your lips, his earnest intensifying to a level that you could only describe as hunger. Your feet dangled momentarily in the air as he lifted you fervently into his embrace. You were suddenly engulfed in Fred again, he was all you could smell sweet and cinnamon, all you could hear were his pants in your ear, all you could feel was him, his arms around your middle, his thigh pressed between your legs and his lips and tongue working so well together that it was you who chased after him this time, whining in protest when he pulled back.

You stared at him, out of breath and stunned to silence. 

Fred looked as though he had just won something very expensive the way he was grinning with triumph, his eyes dark with lust. 

 “Sweet dreams love.” He murmured leaning down to give you one final kiss, his lips moving sickeningly slow against your own, wet and warm. He hovered inches form your lips for a moment, as if debating diving back in, before he backed away tucking his hands casually into his robes.

“You should go to bed, love.” He smirked, “We’ve got an early practice tomorrow and I do believe you made me a promise about knocking me off my broom.” 

You bit your lip to keep from breaking into girlish giggles. Your heart was still pounding as though you had just run a long race. 

“Only if you swear to catch me though.” He added with a wink.

“I’ll always catch you Freddie.” you assured him before turning and hurrying back up the stairs, grinning so wide your cheeks had begun to ache.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

taglist: @accio-rogers @roslea @k3nz-dood13 @theseuscmander @sleepingalaska @chloe-geoghegan1 @coldlilheart @the-natureofme @trickylittlewitch @layaa-layaaa @sarcasticallywitty @rosieweasley @dracosgoodgirl @inglourious-imagines @princess-jules47 @daedreamss @d22malfoys @evyiione

m.list

[help-itrappedmyself]

Dead on Main AU 3

Masterpost

So this one is a bit longer, but that's because part of it is the same phone conversation from the other side.

~~~~~

“Road trip!” Dick calls out. All of the- siblings(?)-younger people start to scramble before Bruce calls out for them to stop.

“This is going to be a 12 hour drive one-way, which means we won't be back until dinner tomorrow at the earliest. Not all of you can go.” This causes a lot of frowns and Danny holds in a chuckle. They start arguing over why they should be able to go and Bruce pinches his nose, right between his eyes as they shout at him.

“First and Foremost, I do believe that Masters Duke, Damian, and Stephanie have school tomorrow.” Alfred inserts. Everyone quiets to listen to him, Danny notes. Everyone else they’ll talk over, he must be important, be extra nice to him.

The three must sigh and sit back down at the table. 

“Cass, if you wouldn’t mind staying to keep them out of trouble overnight. I’m sure Alfred will see them out to school.”

Cass shrugs, then signs at Dick who responds “Of course!” Danny hadn’t realized that she was speaking sign language this whole time.

Bruce then turns to face Dick and Tim. “You have absolutely no way to keep us from coming.” Dick sing-songs.

“You both have work tomorrow.”

“Actually, Dick and I called out ten minutes ago, family emergency.” Tim shrugs. “We won’t be in for a few days unless things change.”

“Alright, go grab your things.” They both whoop and you can just tell they were both about to start running when they catch eyes with Alfred and just start walking really fast. “Pack light, and grab some changes of clothes for Jason!”

Before they can leave a phone starts ringing. They all look around before all eyes settle back on Danny. He feels around his pockets for where the phone is, before pulling it out and seeing his own number on the caller ID.

“Oh, it’s me!” Danny hurries to pick up as he hears someone mutter “Why didn’t we think of that?” from the table. Dick and Tim are almost immediately right next to him as he mumble out a hello.

“Um, hello, Jason?”

“Yeah, this is Jason. You with my family?” His heart thumps when he hears his own voice coming out the other side of the phone. It somehow makes the whole situation seem a bit more real then it did before.

“If the people that were in the room with you before are your family. I really only have confirmation that one of them is your dad.”

“Hey, we’re his family”

“We’re all his brothers and Cass is his sister.”

“Have those motherfuckers not even introduced themselves?” 

So much talking at once, Danny tries to focus on his own voice coming through the phone. It’s a little deeper than it usually is, gruffer and lilted like it’s trying to talk in an accent the mouth isn’t familiar with shaping. Danny supposes the voice he’s speaking with now must be doing the same.

“Sort of. Eventually.” Jason sighs loud enough to hear over the phone and Danny chuckles at the response. 

“Right, well your name is Danny right?”

“Yeah! Have you talked to my family yet?” They were all home the last he checked, and Jazz usually tells him before she heads out. 

“No, haven’t left your room. Your name was on your homework though.”

“Oh, please do not judge the homework.” Danny rubs a hand down his face just thinking of that - his homework- being his soulmate's first real impression of him. 

“Didn’t even look at that part. So, I’m assuming that you guys are coming to me?”

Danny shakes off the embarrassment “I think so?” 

“Of course we are!”,  “Was he not paying any attention as we decided who should go?”, “We were just planning.” There are so many people talking at once again.

 Danny pulls his face away from the phone and turns to the room at large “Stop it, buzz off!”. He turns to face a wall and takes a few steps away.  “They said yes.”

“Please tell me they’re not all planning on coming.”

Danny hums, focused on something else. “Look, I do need to warn you…” what if he goes ghost, can he go ghost with Jason in his body? What are his parents working on today? “ about a few things actually. Jazz, my sister, her room is across the hall and she’ll be able to help you if you. I sort of have… like a medical condition. I would rather explain that to you in person, but she’ll watch out for you if you go meet her.”

“I can do that. Anything I should look out for?” Weird ice mist coming out of your mouth would be pretty unexplainable at the moment, but random things shooting at him can be avoided!

“My parents leave all kinds of weapons around the house, and sometimes they’ll target me-you- at random, so try not to touch anything, and either stay upstairs or have my sister take you somewhere in town. Whatever you do, don’t go in the basement, the lab is down there.” Almost everything in that lab is to be avoided, although since he is already in Danny’s body he shouldn’t be bothered by the potential radiation.

“Kid, what?” 

“This is really an in-person talk.”

Danny does not know how he would explain this over the phone, with a room of eavesdroppers behind him. Although they’ve become respectfully quiet, more whispers than anything now. 

“Sure, okay. Find Jazz, preferably leave the house.”

“Yep!” That would be best, Jazz will definitely help him. “Is there anything I should know?”

“Shit, if I had time I would give you a warning about everyone in my family individually, but for now… I don’t know if this will translate over…” It will, but there’s really no way to explain that. “I have… I guess it’s sort of a health condition as well. My family knows what triggers it, and they should be on their best behavior right now anyways, but if you wouldn’t mind putting someone on the phone I can threaten them properly.”

Danny laughs and puts the phone on speaker before calling out to the room, “You’re on speaker!” so everyone in the room knows as well as Jason. 

“I swear to god if any of you scare him, hurt him, or anything I’m going to kill you. I know everything you love and if you don’t act normal, just know, it will be destroyed.”

“Yeah, yeah. Jay, this is your soulmate!” Dick has bounded back over to Danny, right up in the personal space. 

“Also, most of us love you so that threat doesn’t work as well as you think it does.” Steph yells from the table, where she continued eating at some point.

“Bitch, I died once, I’ll do it again. Don’t test me on this right now.”

Danny starts laughing so hard he doesn’t register everyone else in the room having frozen at the outburst.

“Oh, wow, same.” Danny gets out once he can breathe again.

The room is staring at him again, but they seem to do that a lot.

“You must be Jazz.” They hear coming through the phone. “I’m Jason.”

“Jazz!” Danny calls out. 

“Danny would like to talk to you.” There’s a small shuffle. 

“Danny?”

“Hey, Jazz! So, apparently I’m the younger, so today’s the day. I’m with his family right now.”

“You have a plan? Are you coming home?”

“Yeah, just. Would you mind keeping an eye on Jason until I get there? It’s going to be a long drive so could you make sure nothing shoots him and that he gets edible food?”

“I’ll take him to Nasty for dinner, don’t worry.” Danny sighs in relief, he knew Jazz would help, but he did not need his soulmate food fighting with dinner.

“Sounds good, he’s in my body so he shouldn’t really be poisoned but Mom and Dad still can’t really cook. Speaking of which! He is in my body so if anything happens with the, um, medical condition, help him through that as well.”

“Of course, Danny.”

“Thanks Jazz! We were just deciding who was coming along, but apparently, it's about a 12-hour drive? So, you guys won’t see us until tomorrow.”  There’s a lot unspoken in this conversation, but Danny knows she’ll do her best. “Try not to interrogate him, and no psychoanalyzing!”

[lovecla]

TEACH ME (HOW TO MAKE HIM COME) | jack hughes.

nhl masterlist, nsfw, @lovecla’s kinktober collection, chapter four:

<last chapter> <next chapter>

➴ chapter warnings: oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, softdom jack, p in v, no protection (don’t do this kids!), praise kink and degradation if you squint, dirty talk, wet n messy!, subspace kinda, dacryphilia.

➴ word count: 3.4k

💌 from me to you: can we talk about how they completely forgot about the whole teaching thing and just straight up fucked each other? wild! also, will sarah and jackie wake up with trevor almost yanking jack’s door like morgan from criminal minds? maybe. have a nice reading loves!

𖧷

IF YOU had to describe what you were feeling, you’d have to say you are…

Well. Horny.

Being late to everything in your romantic life, you had never felt aroused towards a man before. Of course, you have had crushes on boys and you’d love if things went further than that, but besides Zack, you had never really intended on having sex with any of them.

Even with that guy back in high school, you only did it because you felt pressured to. You didn’t really like him, and you can only guess that he didn’t really like you either.

Until Jack.

You were sitting on the bench near the lake at your brother’s house, the bonfire near you is almost completely extinguished and you’re staring at the dark, lowkey scary lake in front of you.

It was late at night, everyone Trev had invited to his little lake party had already left, Jack included.

“Hey,” Jack’s honeyed voice reaches your ear, as you finish putting on your sweater. Everyone was inside already, and you could hear Trevor’s nonstop talk. “What’s up with the pouty lips, pretty?”

“I’m not pouting…”

He leans closer, chuckling. “Yes, you are, baby. What’s going on?”

“I just…” you sigh, hoping the darkness around you both hides the blush in your cheeks. “Can’t we move on to the next lesson?” Whispering, you look down to your feet.

Jack’s laugh makes you frown even more.

“It’s not funny, Jack.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispers. “It’s hard, baby. Trevor’s already complaining about you sneaking out at night and only coming back in the morning.”

“He would never connect the dots, Jack.”

“Baby—”

“Besides that, I’m twenty!” You raise your voice, only to lower it again. “I’m twenty, Jack. If I want you to f-fuck me, it’s my business.”

“You want me to fuck you?”

Jack had a playful, yet amused smile on his face, and you wanted to kiss him really badly.

“I mean, y-yes?”

He leans closer, briefly pecking your lips before stepping back. “Believe me, I want that too, baby. But we can’t right now, so be patient okay? I don’t want Z to give you too much trouble,” he sighs, putting his hands inside his front pocket. “Get inside soon, alright? Don’t want you to get cold. Text me if you need anything, pretty.”

You nod, watching as he smiles at you before leaving.

And you’re still outside, an hour later, with your mind working nonstop. The thought of laying underneath Jack, with his dick inside of you, in and out, while you’re nothing but a whimpering mess under him made you so fucking horny it isn’t one bit funny.

Before, when your friends or even Kiara would talk about wanting to fuck someone, you thought they were just exaggerating to make you want to do the same, and after your first time going awfully terrible, you started to believe that, but now, as you get up and head inside to pack your things, you realise they weren’t kidding.

“Where are you going?” Trevor asks, sounding tipsy as fuck. “Saraah.”

“I’m— I’m going to a guy’s house,” you blurt out, zipping up your bag. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

“What?” He gets up, suddenly looking a whole lot sober, walking in your direction. “What do you mean? No!”

“What do you mean ‘no’?” You scoff, suddenly brave. “I’m twenty and last time I checked, I’m free to do whatever I want. And if what I want is to go to a guy’s house,” And fuck him until I can no longer speak. “Then I’ll do it. Good night.”

“What— Sarah!”

Trevor keeps shouting your name, but at this point, you’ve had enough of his protective bullshit. He’s been fucking girls since he was seventeen years old, so what’s the big deal anyway?

You call for an Uber and put on Jack’s address.

It was now or never.

𖧷

“I’M PLEASED yet scared to ask what you’re doing here, or how you even got here in the first place,” Jack laughs as he lets you inside his house. You look around, seeing the TV on with some random hockey game playing, and a bag of chips opened on the coffee table. “Does Z know?”

“No, but this time he’ll probably figure it out by himself.” You roll your eyes.

“Do I have to worry about him showing up at my door tomorrow?” He raised his eyebrows and crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Maybe,” you shrug. “I don’t care.”

Jack stays quiet for a while, walking towards you with a mischievous expression on his face.

“Are you this desperate, baby?” He whispers. “Are you so needy for something inside that greedy, little pussy of yours that you’ll run from your brother at midnight just to have my dick inside you?”

“Jack,” is all you manage to say, dropping your things on the floor and ending the distance between your bodies.

“Answer me, baby.”

“You already know the answer to that,” you close your eyes, holding the hem of your sweatshirt tightly. “Stop being mean.”

“I’m not being mean, baby. I just want to hear you say,” he grins. “Tell me, baby.”

“I’m— I am desperate. I want you so bad I think—” you breathe, opening your eyes to stare at his. “I think I’m going insane.”

“Are you?” He tilts his head. “How so, pretty?”

“I think about you all the time,” you start, pushing your embarrassment aside. “I wake up w-wet, after dreaming about you all night. Everyday before I get up I have to t-touch myself, pretending it’s your hand instead of mine down there.”

Jack leans closer and kisses your neck, inhaling your perfume right after, before squeezing your waist, hard. “Is that so, baby?”

“Mhm.”

“Then you’re not the only one going insane,” he mumbles against your lips. “Because I think about you all the fucking time too. I’ve always cared for you, and you know this, baby, but you grew up and suddenly you’re not Z’s little sister anymore, you’re a fucking woman. And I want you so fucking bad, Sarah.”

You can feel his dick hardening beneath his pants and you try to get closer, even if it’s physically impossible.

“You drive me fucking crazy when you wear those little things that you call skirts, or when you wear those bikinis so fucking tight your tits look edible,” he chuckles. “When you asked me to teach you how to fuck? Sarah, you gave me everything I’ve ever wanted on a silver platter. All I could think about was fucking you.”

“Then do it,” you whisper. “Fuck me, Jack.”

“Sarah—”

“Don’t think about anything else,” you continue, running your fingers through his chest. “Just fuck me, please.”

“Fine,” he smirks. “I’ll give you what you want.”

𖧷

JACK IS absolutely gorgeous and you’re just one single step away from losing your mind. You had imagined Jack fully naked before, and even seen his dick and all of that, but once again, the entire thing did nothing to the real thing;

Jack has a tanned, toned body, abs that you wanted to wrap your hands around and squeeze— his thighs were toned and probably illegal in, like, forty-six countries at least. His dick was flushed and red, rock hard too, and his lips were slightly parted as he stood naked in the middle of the room.

“You’re such a pretty thing, aren’t you?” He smiles at you, who’s also naked, dangerous and so, so lustful.

You smile and look at him with begging, doe eyes, before mumbling a small thank you— you remembered right before your first “lesson” started, Jack said that consent is sexy, and so is being talkative inside the bedroom. No humming, no nodding; just using your words and, if things got too much, saying “stop” would work just fine.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do tonight, sweetheart,” Jack started, shamelessly jerking off his dick in front of you. “You’re gonna come three times. Once on my tongue, once in my fingers and, finally, once on my cock. Are we clear?”

You whimpered, before whispering a faint “Yes.”

“Very well, baby,” his cocky accent crawled out of his mouth, accentuating the last word. “On the bed, hands and knees," Jack instructed, his voice dripping with dominance.

You scrambled onto the bed, positioning yourself on all fours, your heart pounding with anticipation. You felt vulnerable yet incredibly aroused, your pussy probably leaking against the sheets.

Even with the dim lighting, Jack could probably see how red— everywhere really; your ears, your cheeks, your nose, your knees— and how needy you are. Your pussy was practically dripping, drenched. Jack looked like he wished he could eat you out until you turned into sand in his hands.

And to him, you’re a fucking vision. Face sweaty and anxious, and he could probably tell how much you wanted to move or just do anything, but you were being good and letting Jack dictate what was best for you and oh.

Jack stepped closer to your pliant body on the gigantic bed and caressed it, his fingers tracing a path on your skin; while all you could do was just squirm in place.

“You’re just like a doll,” Jack said, softly but loud enough to make you fucking moan. “So pliant and needy. So easy to play with, even easier to break.”

“Jack.” You whispered, lips wet and shiny.

“You like that, don’t you? Knowing that I can do whatever I want with you, with your body— I’ll mark you up, and then everyone will know how good you are for me and what you let me do with you.”

You shivered under Jack’s touch. He decided to be kind and move his fingers a little bit further down, until he was touching your clenching hole. He heard you hold your breath and he chuckled, finding it cute.

He leaned down on the bed, placing his knees on the floor, and kissing your thighs gently— he slowly made his way to your dripping pussy, his tongue licking all the way from your folds to your hole, making you moan loudly. It had been brief, just a light touch, but your knees got weak just the same.

“Hold yourself tight, baby.” Jack ordered, before diving completely into your hole.

And he ate well. He ate you out like a starved man who hadn’t eat in days as he licked and fucked you with his tongue, leaving you trashing under him— you weren’t even in all fours anymore, your knees had given up a minute or two after Jack inserted his tongue inside you. He was sloppy and messy, his spit practically dripping out his mouth.

“Jack, mhhmm, J-Jack, please.” You whispered, and it’d only encourage him to sink further, deeper inside you.

His hands were holding you roughly, and you knew it would look fucking amazing to see his handprints on your ass later. Oh, you’d ascend.

“‘m gonna… Jack, please, can I—”

“Come for me, pretty,” He said, getting his tongue out of you for just a moment, before diving completely again. You were trashing and whimpering, your eyes were in the back of your head, your mouth was open and there was so much wetness in your lips and. “Come for me like the good girl you are, baby. Come on, make me proud.”

“‘M gonna make you proud, I’m—” You were just a step away from actually yelling, with how loud you were sounding. But then. “Jack, oh.”

Jack stepped away, looking at the mess he’d made: you were flushed, sweaty, your hands holding the sheets for dear life, your hair stuck to your forehead. Your lips were red and wet, saliva running down your chin and your eyes were closed, eyebrows furrowed. Your pussy throbbed between the sheets and your thighs were covered with your cum.

“Baby,” Jack breathed. “You did so well, sweetheart. Look at you, coming like a good girl. Aren’t you my good girl?”

“Y-yes, Jack, yes.” You stated, a small smile on your face, eyes still closed.

“How are you, pretty?”

“Fine. So fucking fine.”

“Good.”

He didn’t give time for you to recover, not really, manhandling you further up the bed. You whimpered but complied, too tired to do anything else; besides, you would do whatever Jack asked you to— too cock drunk to think of anything else. You simply wanted Jack to be satisfied, proud.

Without another word, Jack got up and captured your lips in a slow, ardent kiss. Your mouths moved together gently at first, then more urgently as he deepened the kiss. You melted into the touch, your hands coming up to grip Jack’s shoulders. You moaned softly as you tasted yourself on Jack’s tongue.

He pulled away momentarily, a thread of saliva connecting your lips. "Keep making those sounds and I swear to God, Sarah, you’re not leaving this bedroom today," he breathed, before claiming your mouth once more, kissing you hard, his hand tightening on your waist.

You whimpered into the kiss, your body thrumming with desire. You wanted more, needed more. Breaking the kiss, Jack trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and down your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin with his teeth. You tilted your head back, giving Jack better access, your hands moving up to thread through his silky hair.

Sucking and biting his way down your neck, Jack left a trail of wet, purpled marks, marking you as his. You squirmed under the sensation, a keening whine escaping your throat. "Jack... please," you begged, not sure exactly what you were asking for, but knowing you needed something.

Jack stepped away for a moment, touching your pussy with cold, firm fingers, spreading your slick all over it.

"Shh, I've got you," Jack murmured, continuing his onslaught on your skin.

Jack said nothing as he inserted one finger inside your hotness, a fuck leaving his lips because, fuck, you were tight. He rubbed your clit, side to side, until it mixed with the remains of his saliva, getting it all wet and messy. He inserts another one, making you clench around his index and middle finger.

“You need to relax for me, baby,” Jack whispered, voice gentle once again.

“I’m, I’m— ah,” You moan, voice raspy and soft.

“Come on, pretty.”

You try your hardest— and you hope Jack can tell— and relax, making it easier for both of you. Jack fucks his two fingers inside you, curling them and searching for the thing that’ll have you whimpering under him like a slut.

He finds it after a second or two, making your body move up and up, trying to get away from Jack’s touch and he understands— you had told him it’d been a while (years) since you had sex for the last time and you had just came pretty hard so it was pretty easy for you to get overwhelmed.

Jack wouldn’t have any of it though. “Take it, pretty. If you fucking move again you’re going to take care of yourself alone because I won’t tolerate any fucking brats,” he breathed, watching as you gripped the sheets harder and— tears coming out of your eyes.

“No, no, Jack, please—” you begged and moaned at the same time because, fuck. Jack had just inserted his third finger in you and fuckfuckfuck. “‘m good. I promise. I-I’m good, y-you said it, I’m good, I’ll come, just— Christ, I’m gonna.”

It’s too early for you to be orgasming again, you’re both are aware of it, but; you’re coming and shouting and trashing, your cum coming out of you like you’re fucking squirting. Jack takes his fingers out of you, wiping them in the dark sheets, just to take a good look at you.

“Baby,” Jack whispered, knowing that you were probably deep inside subspace and everything could be too much. “Can you give me one more? Mhm?”

“I-I can’t.”

“How are you feeling, doll?”

“Good,” you whispered, like you were telling Jack a secret.

“Then you can, and you will,” you could hear the smile in his voice, even though you couldn’t see; you had his eyes closed once again. He manhandled you again, arranging you on the bed so your head was laying against the fluffy pillows and your back was on the bed. “You’ll give me one more, baby, and then you can rest. How does that sound, hmm?”

You nodded and just when Jack was about to remind you about your little rule, you opened your eyes and stared so deeply into Jack’s that he forgot about everything for a second. Jack knew he should always get a verbal answer and that he was probably being irresponsible but you seemed to be speaking with him with just a stare and Jack was weak, so, so weak that he just mirrored your action and nodded too.

He lined the tip of his cock with your hole, pushing forward and moaning because even with preparation you were still tight and squeezing his dick and fuck. He sank deeper and deeper until his crotch touched your bottom making you both moan at the same time. Tears were falling from your eyes and your lips were opened, sinful sounds making their way out.

“Fuck,” Jack moaned, resting his forehead on your shoulder. “You’re taking me so well, princess. You were made for me, weren’t you?”

“Ngh—” your eyes were full of tears and you felt his dick twitch inside you. God, he needed to fuck the shit out of you before you exploded.

“I’m gonna fuck you now, baby, okay?” He warned, even though you were like a putty in his arms and he knew it was going to be hard for you to be verbal at that moment; you would need to discuss ways of communicating when you couldn’t properly speak but for now, you’d just try your hardest and hope for the best.

If there is a next time… right?

He put his arms behind yours, locking you up and he then really fucked you. His pace was fast and his thrusts were strong and accurate, hitting your sweet spot every time. You had tears all over your face, saliva all over your mouth and chin, looking like the cheapest fucking whore Jack could ever find. Whining to the point of making Jack’s own head dizzy.

“Ah, ngh, mmgh,” was all you would say, hands almost yanking all of Jack’s hair but he didn’t mind, no, of course not— not when you sounded like a bitch in heat, moans so sweet and delicious that felt like the syrup he liked to add to his breakfast pancakes sometimes. “T-too much, too— mmhmm.”

“Take it, sweetheart,” Jack was thrusting you like your lives depended on it. “Take it like the perfect fucking doll you are, baby, come on, pretty.”

You actually screamed when you came for the third time, almost no cum coming out at all, but your clit felt more sensitive than ever, it was too much and Jack was still hitting your spot like a maniac and Christ—

“You came all over yourself, yeah? Good—” a thrust. “Fucking—” another. “Girl—” another.

Jack kept chasing after his own release and when he felt like he couldn’t hold it anymore, he left your inside just to cum on your tummy. You were fully crying now, sobbing quietly.

Jack looked at you, fondly, feeling his heart beating faster than it ever did. He knew you needed him but he couldn’t leave you dirty, so he lifted himself briefly, just enough to reach his shirt on the nightstand, which he used to wipe the cum, sweat and saliva on your— now— fucked body.

“Shh, baby, I’m here,” Jack whispered, not wanting to overwhelm you even more. He laid down beside you, wrapping your body gently in his arms and laying your head on his chest, covering you both completely with the duvet— that thankfully hadn’t gotten dirty nor wet. “I got you, sweetheart.”

“Was I g-good?” You whispered after a while, voice small and hoarse. Jack chuckled, combing his fingers through your locks.

“Yeah, baby,” he whispered back, placing a gentle kiss on the younger’s forehead, making you lean in closer. “So fucking good.”

You heard a soft hum and it made you smile. There, with your head on his chest, and the warmth of his body close to his, you realised something: you were utterly fucked because you liked Jack Hughes so fucking much.

You started all of this because you wanted to date Zack, and prove to yourself that you can please him in bed, like any other girl.

But in fact, you don’t want to do that anymore.

Phase four of getting Zack to like you. Phase one of getting Jack to like you…?

[nosyrobin]

|| WHEN UNCLE!READER GETS SICK AND THE BATBOYS HEAR ABOUT IT ||

Coughing, sneezing, raspy voice, achy body. Oh dear, you got a cold. Shaking like a damn leaf on a windy day, you called your brother. Bruce immediately picks up the phone, you knew he was in the bat cave. Hearing the bat-computer keys and talking. You could only roll your eyes as you talked to him. “Can’t make it. I’m sick” you said. He responded it with a “sick? Stay home. I’ll send Alfred to make you some soup Y/N.” You could only nod before coughing a storm up. If you could see your brother now, he would be frowning with concern.

“It’s not….deadly is it?” “What?! Bruce, no. It’s a cold. Yknow how I get.” You said closing your eyes about to hang up and rest. Bruce only sighed for the other side of the phone. “Alright.” “And Bruce.” “Yeah?” “DONT let the boys know I’m sick. Yknow how they get when I’m sick…” sadly they found out. You didn’t know how or when. But of course you knew who found out first.

Tim found out first, first because you didn’t show to the manor on the daily time you always do. Tim notice Alfred picking up your favorite soup you eat when sick when you use to live here at the manor when he was Robin. Tim frowned, you’re sick. You’re sick, alone, withering away in bed. What kind of nephew would he be if his dear uncle is not with company. So with that, he grabbed some doctor gloves, a face mask, hand sanitizer and Lysol. He was prepared. When Alfred went away to secure the packed soup, Tim took the packed up soup and ran out the door to drive to your house.

Jason surprisingly was the second to find out. He lives with you, like a roommate kinda of thing? So why in the world would he be second? Because he was too busy bleeding out in the manor after a fight and he had to stay in the same manor over night before you had gotten sick. Jason had seen Tim run out the door when he came down the stairs. Narrowing his eyes in suspicion as he also sen that the packed soup was the kind of soup you ate only if you were sick or terribly hungry. But since he knew you weren’t in the manor, he went with the former and immediately dressed up to go see his sick uncle.

Damian, he always knows when something is going on. But he definitely knows when something is going on when he sees his two brothers leave the manor. “Uncle’s sick Titus. Drake has his favorite soup and Todd has his favorite book. Pathetic, they forgot uncle’s heated up blanket.” Damian says with a smirk. Certainly holding it as Titus barks at his owner. “Guess we will pay my uncle a visit, I’ll see you later.” The brown skinned boy said as he pats his beloved dog. Leaving the manor with a shortcut to your house.

Dick was last, and was mad knowing that no one informed him that you were sick! Like cmon, he’s the first Robin and he had more of a bond with you when he was little! So how could his brothers leave him in the dust like that! He immediately got off work and speeded over to your house. He got some of your snacks, a “get well soon” card. And just some flowers, it was perfect. Perfect for the “favorite” nephew of course.

Tim was first at your door and entered using a copy of your spare key, then Jason shoulder rushed Tim like a football player, Damian was going through your window, and dick…dick just stood there watching his little brothers cause havoc. The soup was saved by Damian sliding to catch it, Tim almost had a heart attack as Jason just glares at all the brothers in his “home.”

Damian smirks, ready to get the “best nephew” award by handing you the soup you desire when sick. That was before Jason picked him like a stray cat. “What the hell you’re doing here demon?” “I’m just doing what needs to be done. Helping uncle.” Damian says with a glare. Dick takes Damian out of Jason’s bear grip and then helps Tim up. “Well, arguing isn’t going to help. Let’s just see how unc is doing guys.” All the boys nod in agreement, going inside your room. Tim still looks like a doctor so he was the last one in.

You were surprised, very surprised to see all four of your brother’s kids and your nephews at your house smiling as if they didn’t just break in. You heard them, but you thought you were just hallucinating. Damian gave you the still hot and ready soup on your night stand and your blanket. He wanted to get on your bed and lay with you, but you shook your head no. Not wanting to get him sick. Jason just sat down in a chair you have in your room, watching you closely like a hawk in case something happens. Tim was taking your temperature, asking you about the medicine you have taken. Basically a worried baby worried for his poor “old” uncle. Dick just lays the basket of things he bought for you. Smirking as he made a comment about how he is obviously the “favorite” nephew. That made everyone mad, cue to loud arguing and Damian ready to jump his brother.

As much as the boys loved you, they acted as if you were on your death bed. Which made you kinda mad, but at least they care for you a lot. But the constant arguing was not helping you as headaches started to attack. You coughed loudly as you felt your eyes droop more. You hated being sick, but you mostly hated your peace being ruined.

“Out! Out now!” You yelled with a raspy voice, all the boys stop. Frowning before leaving, except for Jason who stood there with crossed arms. “I live here unc…” you glare before throwing a box of tissues at your buffed up nephew who didn’t seem phased at all. “Not as of now mister, you stay at the manor or whatever you go until I get better.” Jason stayed silent before leaving. Not before putting a bottled up medicine by your bed, with a small note that says “get better.”