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qlala · 2 months ago

Note

Whump prompt requests?? :o Pretty please can I request Barry gets kidnapped and Len finds him tied up? (Do want: muzzle/gag, handcuffs. Don't want: pet p!ay, established relationship)

i think this is the only prompt i've ever gotten with a detailed list of wants and don't wants, and you know what? i love clear instructions

the devil you know (coldflash, 5.6k, rated M)*

(*note: this fic makes implied reference to threats of SA/noncon, but none occur)

When Iris West tracked Len down three days into the Flash’s latest disappearance, Len sent her on her way with a shrug. He didn’t know or particularly care where Barry was, and he privately doubted Iris’s insistence that Barry wouldn’t have gone off anywhere without telling his team first.

Still, he made an idle mental note to follow up if another week passed without any sign of him. Making that promise out loud might’ve gone a long way in wiping away some of the bitter disappointment out of Iris’s eyes as she left, but Len had a reputation to protect.

Besides, Barry had a bad habit of popping up in Len’s life at the most inconvenient time possible. Ten days without the Flash interfering in any heists or Len’s attempts to follow the hockey playoffs undisturbed? He wasn’t that lucky.

Four days later, a meta-snatcher tossed someone down onto the ground in front of Len's chair in handcuffs, a black hood, and very little else, and Len's first thought was that being right all the time was exhausting.

Narrow hips and shoulders, a lean and powerful body (although, underfed as he looked at the moment, that balance tipped closer to just lean), long legs folding under him as he settled uncomfortably—if prettily—onto his knees before sitting back on his heels.

The concrete floor couldn’t have been comfortable. Len had put together the de facto throne room they were in precisely for meetings like this. It sat at the heart of a creaking warehouse abandoned at the edge of the docks, largely off the CCPD’s radar given the overwhelming impression that it was going to slide into the river with the slightest gust of wind. (Len encouraged that impression at every opportunity; he liked to post Mardon up on the roof to howl a few well-timed gusts of wind through the corroded metal walls during particularly lucrative negotiations. It made people antsy, and antsy people made worse deals.)

He’d emptied the place of everyone except for himself and Mick for the evening’s entertainment, though. Call it a hunch; meta-snatching had largely dried up in the past couple of years. Most of the meta-humans with both valuable powers and common sense had already aligned themselves with one big player in Central City or the other—never mind that the distinction felt increasingly like choosing sides for a scrimmage. What mattered was that neither the Rogues nor Team Flash took kindly to their allies getting grabbed off the street, and meta-snatchers had learned quickly and painfully that they were better off finding safer professions.

Of course, it helped that most meta-humans had also developed a healthy fear of the few meta-snatchers still bold enough or desperate enough to stay in the game. Len had taken that night’s meeting for the same reason that trophy hunters set traps on the edge of their own camps; the bolder the animal, the bigger the teeth.

When the meta-snatcher pulled the black hood off with a flourish, Barry didn’t even have the good grace to look chagrined.

“My, my,” Len drawled, settling back into his chair with a slow smirk. “What big teeth you have.”

It was too perfect to resist; he’d had the line ready even before he’d seen the muzzle, and he hadn’t landed on the top of Central’s food chain by ignoring chances landing in his lap like that.

It was stark black leather, something Len would’ve expected to find in a very particular kind of club and not a meta-snatchers toolkit. He wondered idly if they’d had to improvise; a week of Barry Allen bitching his ear off, he sure as hell would’ve reached for the nearest gag, too.

And it did seem to be functioning as a gag. It was well made from a single piece of leather, the breathing vents cut into the sides clearly designed not to allow enough give for the wearer to actually open their jaw. It fit snugly over Barry’s mouth and nose, looped securely over his ears, and came together in a heavy buckle on the back of his head. With the way it just skimmed the line of Barry’s high cheekbones, it was nearly a perfect inverse of the Flash’s usual mask.

It was a better look than the cowl. Shame Barry would probably drop him in Iron Heights for suggesting that he take inspiration from the meta-snatcher’s fashion choice.

Based on the flatly unimpressed look Barry was leveling him over the mask, Len was going to have to put that one on the back burner for a while.

A quiet snort from Len’s right pulled his attention momentarily to Mick. Barry was lucky Mick hadn’t boomed a laugh the second the hood had come off; the plausible deniability that he and Len didn’t know who the Flash was under the mask was wearing thin enough as it was.

Mick leaned against the side of Len’s chair and rumbled, too quiet to carry, “And it ain’t even your birthday.”

The meta-snatcher cleared his throat self-importantly and Len flicked him a glare as he pulled his smirk under control. He was some distant relative of the Santinis, which made it all the more idiotic that he’d been poaching metas on turf that Len had chased the rest of his family off of years ago. Len had disregarded his first name as soon as he’d heard it; he didn’t plan on needing it.

“He bite?” Len asked, pushing himself lazily out of the chair.

Santini tucked the hood into his back pocket, clearly sensing a sale, and backed up a few steps in the universal invitation to inspect the wares.

“Nah,” he said, conversational now that Len was showing interest. "I muzzle anything with a meta gene. That’s from experience. I caught one once, she could literally talk someone's ear off. And I mean literally. It would shrivel up and just..." He mimed a splat.

Barry’s dark shock of hair was sticking up wildly around the straps of the muzzle, and Len could see a purple bruise blooming just over the edge of the leather at one temple. However they’d gotten the thing on him, he’d put up a fight.

A hell of a fight, Len corrected himself, as he got close enough to get a proper look at Barry in the dim light. There were more bruises mottling his skin further down, and they weren’t showing any signs of healing. Len couldn’t see what kind of cuffs were holding Barry’s arms behind his back, but he would’ve put money on power dampeners.

"Meta gene, hm?” Len reached out and trailed his fingers through the air a scant inch above Barry’s mussed hair, just to feel the novel lack of static humming around him. "What can it do?"

The glare Barry shot him at the word "it" looked awfully annoyed for someone who was supposed to be in fear for his life, and Len raised an imperious eyebrow back.

“Tests can’t really tell you that,” Santini said, patronizing enough that Len cut him a warning look. He put his hands up, an easy surrender. “...as you know,” he tacked on, mollifying. “I’ll tell you, though. He burnt through the first two pairs of cuffs we put on him. Whatever it is, he’s packing heat.”

Len snorted. There were understatements, and there were understatements. The man had hooked a great white shark and thought he was selling an unusually bitey tuna.

It gave Len exactly the information he’d needed to know, though. He hadn’t really thought Barry’s identity had been compromised, not with the way Santini had shown up alone, unarmed, and without several other bidders in tow.

He expected some kind of cheek from Barry, a tilted head that said “I told you so,” muzzle or not. Maybe even Barry pushing to his feet once Len got close enough, overly confident that Len would uncuff him and the game would be up.

But Barry only tipped his head back to hold Len’s gaze as he sauntered toward him, and he didn’t stir from where he was kneeling.

Len ignored the clear attempt at eye contact and began pacing a wide circle around him, appraising. It left Barry with the option to either twist to follow him or give up, and Len had to tamp down a smirk at the churlish way Barry snorted under the muzzle as he swung his head around to face forward again.

Up close, though, Len’s amusement began to evaporate. Barry didn’t look like he could stand.

Power dampener cuffs were clamped tight around his narrow wrists, as expected. Homemade, but not shoddily so—Santini was an ambitious amateur. Bruises spanned the range from purple-black to fading yellow-green, the Flash’s missing week accounted for.

Even with their more recent, less murder-y history, he expected Barry to have enough of a survival instinct to tense when Len passed behind him, some kind of instinctual response to having his back to someone who had once made it his life’s mission to kill him.

Instead, as soon as Len’s path put him between Barry and Santini, Barry relaxed.

Len’s feet stilled without permission from his brain. He waited for the trick, but none came. The longer he watched, the slower Barry’s too-sharp shoulder blades rose and fell, breath evening out, chin sinking by degrees towards his chest, like he’d finally allowed a week’s worth of exhaustion to catch up to him at once.

Like he finally thought he was safe.

Something dangerously close to alarm spiked through Len’s chest at the thought, and it took everything in him to repress the instinct to rear back a step.

He shoved the panic down instead, held it under until it drowned, and got ahold of himself. The annoyance that bloomed in the aftermath, on the other hand, was welcome.

Barry and his stupid, endless, goddamn faith that Len was a good man. He’d always trusted him too much. But up until now, Len had had the plausible deniability that it was only because Barry was counting on his powers in the event that Len did betray him.

Now, he was faced with the unfortunate reality that things were far worse than he’d let himself believe. It was his fault, really. Barry trusted too easily; it was an immutable part of who he was. Len had watched people wriggle close enough to Barry to sink their knives in his back too many times to count. None of it made a difference, not in the long term.

But usually, Barry seemed to limit himself to second chances, even if he did give them out too freely. There were plenty of people in Iron Heights—hell, in the ground—who had used that second chance to take another stab at him, only to find that Barry’s patience had hard limits.

Len, on the other hand, had let himself become something unacceptable. An exception. From the moment he’d failed to shoot Barry with his father’s thumb on the trigger that could’ve killed Lisa, he’d become a permanent lesser of two evils. Len didn’t even know what chance he was on, but he had passed second long ago.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, people said. That was Len: Barry’s devil of choice, every time. Len had enjoyed it for a while, no sense in lying to himself about that. He liked the snarls of annoyance when he turned the cold gun on Barry’s other problems, let it stroke his ego that Barry had chosen him over them.

But he’d let it go too far. Because Barry, it seemed, had forgotten a crucial part of what that saying meant. He’d forgotten Len didn’t play on the side of the angels.

Lucky for him, Len was going to enjoy reminding him.

Len forced himself to move again. His gaze lingered on the bruises as he finished circling Barry, despite his best efforts. The worst of it was centered on Barry’s left shoulder, where a hazy ring of deep purple suggested a dislocated—and subsequently relocated—shoulder. He also had a nasty bruise ricocheting over several ribs, and Len watched him breathe for a careful moment. A slow, measured inhale, then a slight hitch and quick, almost involuntary exhale; at least one of them was broken.

Len’s carefully curated annoyance was already simmering rapidly and unacceptably toward anger when he caught sight of the marks wrapped around Barry’s upper arm. He’d missed them at first glance, easily lost next to the darker mottling from the dislocated shoulder. But the shape of it was unmistakable: four parallel lines around the strong curve of his bicep—a handprint.

Someone else’s handprint.

Len caught the thought by the throat before it made him round on Santini. He shoved the thought, snapping and hissing, back into the possessive corner of his mind it had escaped from, and barred the door after it.

Barry’s surrender had knocked something off-kilter in Len’s brain, sent boxes he’d kept carefully bolted shut spilling open with the impact. Barry may have been his problem, but that was the only “his” that he was.

And Barry was only his problem because he’d got himself caught by a two-bit amateur with some jerry-rigged tech. A few bruises were the least he deserved; the only reason he was alive was because that two-bit amateur had dumped him at Len’s feet and not someone else’s.

Still, a nasty thought was churning in the back of Len’s mind, and he had to put both hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for the cold gun. He wanted an honest answer out of Santini, not whatever he thought Len wanted to hear. The truth mattered; he needed to know how many pieces the man would be leaving the warehouse in.

“Looks a little worse for wear,” Len drawled, forcing his tone light and sardonic. “Got a discount for damaged goods?”

“Aw, fuck off,” Santini lobbed back, oblivious and good natured. “So he got a little banged up in transit. I told you, he didn’t like the cuffs. He dislocated his own shoulder trying to get out of ‘em. Not my fault. Hell, I put it back in for you.”

“Not what I was talking about.” Len slid a pointed glance down Barry’s body—miles of freckled skin, very little else—then looked back at Santini. He didn’t lift an eyebrow; he didn’t have to.

“Oh, the underwear?” Santini scoffed. “I deal in weapons, Cold, not skin. Too messy. Kid’s got every stitch of clothing and virtue he had when I found him, swear on my mother. Besides, he’s not my type.”

The generous two-handed gesture Santini made in front of his own chest didn’t impress Len, but it was crude enough that he took him at his word. He’d suspected as much, regarding the clothes. Barry may have been stupid enough to get himself caught by a meta-snatcher, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get caught and stay in the Flash suit. Whatever trap he’d stumbled into, he’d must’ve had time to throw the suit into some dark corner. No wonder his team hadn’t been able to track him down.

That unpleasant matter behind them, Len rolled his shoulders back, settling in for another slow circle around Barry. The business portion of the evening was wrapping up, at least as far as he was concerned. He had the information he needed from Santini, and all that was left was to remind Barry that if the meta-snatcher was the frying pan, he was the fire.

If his first perusal had been business, the second was… well. Call it an advance on the clean-up fee he was going to charge Barry for handling Mr. Virtue over there.

Barry lifted his head as Len started to circle again, tilted it slightly in unspoken question. The muzzle was inspired, Len would give Santini that. Barry had sure as hell never held his tongue for so long in Len’s presence of his own volition.

Len could hear the list of complaints he’d be in for once he took it off: thanks for leaving the cuffs on for so long, those were comfortable—you know, they sell this new technology nowadays, it’s called an area rug—probably with a dig about his age, while he was at it.

Len banished the thoughts and the grin that was threatening. Christ, maybe Barry was right. He was getting soft if he was laughing at just the idea of Barry crabbing at him.

He reached for his earlier determination, instead. He tilted his head with a collector’s eye as he tightened the circle, close enough to touch.

Barry really did have freckles everywhere, more than Leonard had imagined in the occasional privacy of his own thoughts. Constellations of them between the colorful galaxies of bruises painted over his leanly-muscled shoulders, his chest, stomach, carelessly parted thighs. There was even a pair of them right on the dimples of his lower back, where Len’s thumbs would’ve fit like the space had been made for them.

It was a tempting thought. Pressing his own claim into Barry’s body, maybe covering up that hand-shaped bruise with one of his own. He was the one playing big bad wolf now, after all. And with both of them dressed for the part: Len, with the fur collar of the parka brushing his jaw, and Barry in those little red shorts. They left absolutely nothing to Len’s imagination, a delicious payoff to years of idle wonderings about what the Flash wore under that suit.

Something of the thought must’ve shown on Len’s face, because Barry looked decidedly less patient when Len caught his eye again. He glanced pointedly back behind himself, then back up again, as if Len weren’t perfectly aware that he wanted the power dampener off.

Barry wasn’t the only impatient one. Santini clapped once, businesslike, and began walking closer. “You just window shopping today, or—?”

Len cut him off with a look, winning him back silence and space as Santini course-corrected with a gracious “after you” gesture and ceded ground again.

A week in a cage clearly hadn’t been enough to break Barry’s pride, let alone his spirit. The muzzle was probably the only thing that had kept the meta-snatchers from realizing who he was. Barry would’ve snarked their ears off no matter what they did to him; he’d taken too many hits to be afraid of a little pain. And even with how stupid Santini was, the bared teeth and complete contempt would’ve added up to Central’s apex predator eventually.

The thought was a butane lighter to the sparks of arousal in Len’s veins. It was unfortunate that he wouldn’t be able to take the muzzle off while Santini was still breathing down their necks. He would’ve liked to see the fear in his eyes when he realized the enormity of the mistake he’d made. Delivering the Flash bound and gagged to the one man in the city who had something of a gentleman’s agreement with him…

Len hummed, a little wistful, as he reminded himself that said gentleman’s agreement precluded him from hauling Barry up to sit in his chair and slitting Santini’s throat at his feet.

But he let the idea of it linger, knew that it would darken his eyes as he skimmed another lingering look down Barry’s body.

And there, finally—a hint of wariness in Barry’s eyes when Len bothered dragging his gaze up from the dark hair that trailed temptingly down Barry’s lower stomach and disappeared under his waistband. Beginning to remember, maybe, that Len didn’t work for free.

Len pushed his advantage while he had Barry off-balance. He drew his hands from his pockets, slowly, casually, and held them up at Barry’s eye level. He was wearing gloves, as he always did when conducting business. No point in keeping the cold gun strapped to his thigh if he wasn’t going to be ready to use it. The gloves were a helpful and very visible reminder of that.

When he was sure he still had Barry’s attention—and he did, something unreadable passing across Barry’s eyes as they darted between Len’s hands—Len turned one hand toward himself, brought the other to its fingertips, and then slowly, one finger at a time, began teasing the glove off.

Barry tracked the movement with his eyes without prompting, giving Len a quickly-dismissed impulse to reward him. A quizzical furrow formed between his brows, and he stole a single glance up and risked a quick, faint tilt of his head to one side. Confused, yes, but not combative. The difference between “What are you doing?” and “What the hell are you doing?”

It was Len’s turn to feel an annoyed burn of impatience. Barry was on his knees in front of a convicted killer, bound and gagged and stripped to his skin, and Barry still thought this was all part of a plan. Len had killed three men in front of Barry—and counting. The only plan he had now was finding out how far that stupid, blind trust could bend until it broke.

Len finished drawing the glove off slowly, and in the quiet of the room, nothing but the distant sounds of the river rolling past outside, he was certain Barry heard the rasp of leather over skin.

Barry’s attention fractured as Len watched. His gaze flicked up from the glove for a single, distracted glance at Len’s eyes. Just below the line where the muzzle dug into the underside of Barry’s jaw, his throat bobbed on a swallow.

Good, Len thought. Nervous was the first step toward suspicious, and suspicious might just keep Barry alive.

Len looked away with easy disinterest, settling his attention to Barry’s unbruised shoulder. Barry sat up straighter as Len reached out with the glove in his hand, a hitch in his breath visible in the stuttering rise of his bare chest.

When Len laid the glove out on the bare, unmarked skin there, Barry twitched like Len had stuck him with a knife.

Almost getting it, Len mused. Ignoring the urgent, searching flicker of green eyes in his direction, Len reached out with his newly bare hand and rested the tip of one finger just under the corner of Barry’s jaw.

The black leather there was butter soft and warm from Barry’s skin. Just as slowly as he’d pulled off the glove, Len stroked the finger up the line of Barry’s jaw, following the sharp edge of it through the muzzle. Only then did he slide his gaze back to Barry’s to watch the emotions dart through those pale eyes. Confusion, yes, then surprise, with another sharp inhale. And then, with the first flush of healthy color to Barry’s face since he’d been dragged in, understanding.

Yahtzee, Len thought with a smirk.

He didn’t give Barry a chance to pull away. He caught him with two fingers under the edge of the muzzle, hard, knuckles snug against his windpipe, and jerked his chin up.

Barry jolted with the movement, full-body, back arching to accommodate the sudden, demanding angle of his neck, the glove tumbling to the ground. Eyes wide, he made a sound behind the muzzle that might’ve been Len’s name if he’d been able to open his mouth enough to say it.

Somewhere behind Barry, Santini started to object, but he shut himself up before Len had to look his way again. Likely Mick had warned him off, a pointed hand on the heat gun’s handle, or the man had just remembered who he was dealing with.

Len held Barry there at attention, letting him hang off the hook of his fingers. Heady wasn’t a strong enough word for it. It was a level of control he hadn’t imagined even back before Barry became Barry, when the Flash was a problem to be solved and not a single facet of a more fascinating, infuriating whole. The hero of Central City helpless at his feet, stripped of that golden cloak of lightning he wore everywhere like armor…

And still not fighting Len an inch.

Barry’s chest heaved, breath coming quick and shallow, that broken rib apparently the furthest thing from his mind. When Len met Barry’s gaze, his own eyes narrowing in frustration, Barry’s were stunned and breathless. But still, no fear there.

Agitated, Len crooked his fingers tighter, forcing Barry’s chin up another inch. Barry’s lashes fluttered—maybe feeling that rib now, after all—and Len watched the muscles in his thighs flex as he nearly forced him up onto his knees.

Fight back.

Barry didn’t so much as twist in his grip, eyes half shut. With Len’s fingers hooked under the edge of the mask, he could feel the heat of Barry’s breaths, nearly panting now. His face and throat were stained pink, exertion clearly catching up to him, and Len wondered if the mask was starting to cut off air after all.

He loosened his grip and allowed Barry to relax back onto his heels. Barry’s breathing stayed ragged anyway, blush touching the top of his chest as Len frowned at the unreadable expression in his eyes, gone round and almost glassy.

When Len slipped his fingers free of the mask, Barry didn’t move an inch, head tipped back where Len had left it.

Len’s patience snapped, curling his gloved hand into a fist at his side. He could’ve snapped Barry’s neck in less than a second, bared to him like that, all fragile skin and sharp tendons. It would’ve been easy as breathing, and there would’ve been nothing that Barry’s powers or his little team could’ve done about it.

Len took a sharp step forward, closing the rest of the distance between them. It brought the front of his hips nearly flush with the muzzle, his boots between Barry’s knees, which were falling open a little further with every uneven breath.

It was—too much, frustration at the completely unearned trust, frustration that Barry had been reckless enough to get himself caught, both tangling confused with frustration at Barry. That even stripped and submissive on his knees in front of Len, offering him his throat, he was still the one goddamn thing Len wanted and couldn’t have.

Len should have conceded that his self-restraint was clinging on by a thread. He should have taken a step back, drawled something droll and amusing, and ended the night with his sanity intact.

Instead, Len curved a hand around either side of Barry’s neck and stroked them upwards slowly, deliberately.

How many ways could someone kill you just like this, Barry?

Barry’s throat worked under his hands and he shivered, hard, even as he tipped his head back further, giving Len more room to take advantage of. Barry made another, fainter noise behind the muzzle, half-swallowed as his throat bobbed.

One point to Len. Even Barry couldn’t miss the threat of Len’s fingertips pressed against the fragile bones of his neck.

Len lifted them to the edge of Barry’s jaw, followed the line of the straps around his ears, and then reached forward to trace the leather up until his fingers met at the buckle on the back of his head.

The movement brought the parka up on either side of Barry’s head, caging him in, hopefully adding to the claustrophobia of having Len so completely in his space. Len hooked a finger under the loop of leather where it passed through the buckle. He paused there, poised to pull it tighter, and was about to close his hand around the strap and tug when Barry did the one thing he wasn’t counting on.

He gave in.

All of the last remaining fight went out of those narrow shoulders at once, nearly unbalancing Len where he’d been bracing his wrists on the steady line of them.

Instead of using the opportunity to duck away—point made, Snart, let me out of this thing—Barry only swayed deeper into the circle of Len’s arms. Before Len could jerk backwards, half-certain that Barry was finally passing out—Barry brushed closer and rested his forehead against Len’s lower stomach.

For the space of two heartbeats, Len’s mind went perfectly blank. And then he realized, with a level of disbelief so incredulous that he could feel it bleeding against his will into respect, what Barry had just done.

He’d called Len’s bluff.

No suit, no speed, no backup, bound and gagged and as powerless as Len ever could have hoped to have him, and Barry had called his goddamn bluff.

Chips down, cards on the table, there was nothing else to do—Len took a step back.

Cold air rushed back between their bodies. Even with that dampener keeping his powers in check, Barry must’ve been a hundred degrees, and Len’s jaw ached against the loss of his heat instantly.

Barry fell back onto his heels, and Len didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. He hooked a finger through one of the ear loops, forcing the last shreds of anger into the movement, and jerked his head back up.

For the first time all night, Barry didn’t jolt to meet his gaze. Instead, he let three full seconds tick past before he lifted his eyes, as if looking up had been his idea all along. Hair disheveled, pupils nearly swallowing the thin green ring of his irises—

Barry smirked at him.

It was unmistakable, muzzle be damned, eyes narrowing in such viciously smug satisfaction that Len was torn between shoving him away or dragging him into a dark corner.

Len tightened his grip in the edge of the muzzle, on the brink of deciding, when a low whistle cut through the room.

“Well, shit. You really have got a way with ‘em, huh?”

Santini’s voice was an unwelcome reminder of the unfinished business Len had to attend to, and he dragged his gaze away from Barry only after a dark look, promising him that he’d deal with him next.

“Or maybe just with this one in particular,” Santini continued, grinning like he and Len had agreed on something. “Funny thing—he finally stopped burning through those cuffs when he overheard me tell my crew I was considering Cold as a buyer.”

Len slid his gaze back to Barry. Barry, who was looking anywhere but Len, apparently deeply interested in hearing anything Santini had to say for the first time since he’d dragged him through Len’s doors. Barry, who was still breathing hard and blushing to his roots. Barry, who was trying to draw his knees together even with Len still standing in between them.

“Did he, now?” Len asked.

The question wasn’t aimed at Santini, but he answered anyway.

“Mmm-hmm.” He rocked back on his heels, inclined his head to Len in a pantomime of tipping a hat. “You got a reputation for looking after yours, after all. He must’ve thought you’d have some use for him or another.” He flashed a salacious grin; his objections to the ‘skin game’ clearly ended where his sales instincts began. “I figured maybe the feeling was mutual, and you’d appreciate first dibs on the sale.”

Lips pulling into a sharp, predatory smirk, Len lifted the toe of one boot and planted it on the inside of Barry’s thigh. “I’m considering it.”

Len pushed Barry’s legs apart with ease. Barry’s color deepened, and he jerked his head like he had any chance in hell of jarring Len’s hand loose from the strap of the muzzle now. Len clicked his tongue in a light, mocking reprimand, and Barry flashed him a glare for it, even as he stopped twisting under his grip.

He didn’t fight it when Len drew his head to one side, far enough to give him an unimpeded view down the front of his body. The blush stretched halfway down his chest, past nipples that were hard and peaked like Len had just spent an hour teasing them with his tongue. He didn’t need to nudge Barry’s thighs wider to see the thick, heavy outline of his cock straining at the front of the red shorts, but he did it anyway, and was rewarded when it twitched at the demanding press of his boot.

“I’ll take him,” Len drawled, and Barry’s hips hitched forward as Len guided his legs apart another inch, pulling the thin material taut over his groin.

Across the room, Santini laughed. “I haven’t even told you how much.”

“Not paying.” Len didn’t bother looking up; Barry had lifted his gaze to him again, and Len was going to need a more compelling reason than a low level Santini to look away from the impatient heat in his eyes. “Mick?”

Mick strode past them without a glance. Santini took one stumbling step backwards, then did the first smart thing he’d done all day: turned heel and ran.

Something in Len’s smirk made Barry blink, brow furrowing. He said something behind the muzzle, chin lifting in a way he probably thought was authoritative, and came across entirely the opposite on his knees.

Len had heard the words “No killing” come out of that mouth enough times to recognize it from cadence alone, but he tugged Barry up by the muzzle instead, until he got the message and stumbled to his feet.

“Didn’t catch that,” Len drawled.

Barry looked ready to argue, as if he weren’t half-wrecked already, skin flushed, hair wild. But he did a distracted double-take when Len shrugged out of his coat, and his gaze went dark and intent as it slid down the dark clothes he was wearing underneath, shouts behind him forgotten.

“You can fill me in later,” Len said, turning away. He shucked his belt as he sauntered toward his chair, let the buckle ring when he dropped it to the concrete.

Barry was still standing indecisively in the middle of the room when Len settled into the chair with a comfortable sprawl, legs spread, boots wide. His gaze caught on the thick press of Len’s cock, hard against his jeans, and Len flashed his teeth at him in something too sharp to be a smile.

“Got somewhere to be, bolt cutters are in the workshop.” Len indicated a door to the side with a tip of his head, even as he moved his hand to the front of his jeans. “If not...”

He rubbed his thumb over the button of his jeans, enjoying the pressure against his cock—one slow circle, another. The third time, he slid the button free.

And Barry came willingly.

#ao3 link up soon <3 #thank you for giving me the challenge of writing barry as both a clever hero and a complete brat without speaking a single line of dialogue #it was genuinely extremely fun #coldflash #my fics #barry allen #leonard snart #please god tell me immediately if this line break stops working i don't want to inflict a 5.6k unskippable post on anyone

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wildsupernova · 5 months ago

Text

summer, sun, and a smoking engine.

summary: when your car breaks down on the side of the road in Hawkins, Indiana, you don’t have many options other than try walking and find help. Thankfully, Steve Harrington is here to help.

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

warnings: strong language, no use of y/n, little bit of mechanic eddie thrown in there (not really a warning but i have nowhere else to put this)

a/n: hello! this fic is a bit self indulgent, i guess you would call it. my love life has been quite terrible pretty much all my life, and i’m the kind of person who can’t help dreaming about a movie cliche type meet cute, so i wanted to write this fic to help quell my insatiable desire for a rom com romance. this is part one of what will probably be a three part series, so i hope you enjoy! :)

if you’d like to make a request, my inbox is always open. i also have my prompts list linked below so you request one of those as well.

part 2 (coming soon) | masterlist | prompts list

Stranded on the side of the road in Hawkins, Indiana was not the way you wanted to start your summer vacation.

You should be in Indianapolis by now, lounging by the pool at your best friend’s house, raiding her parent’s liquor cabinet and getting drunk off your asses until you can’t remember anything the next morning. Not here, pounding against the steering wheel of your shitty rustbucket of a car wishing you’d actually remembered to do what your dad told you and take it to a mechanic before you made the trip. The horn honked as you slammed your forehead into it, but it was quickly swallowed up by endless fields on either side of you.

The universe had a sick sense of humor when it came to you in particular, and it seemed the jokes never ended. Some vengeful god or cosmic plan had singled you out as the sole outlet for their aggression; just a girl with a particularly unremarkable life, desperate to escape the world just for a few weeks and forget about her ridiculously non-existent love life and only slightly above average academic career.

Lately, your life has felt like one big joke. Everyday seemed to be the exact same mind numbing routine; wake up late, rush to make it to your 9 am lecture that left you falling asleep halfway through, eat the same shitty college cafeteria lunch you always did, spend three hours cramming for a test you know you’ll fail anyway, and go to bed at 2 am just to wake up and do it all over again the next day. You watched everyone else around you do something with their lives, whether they were partying all night or getting married. Everyone seemed to be having ten times more fun than you, and you were starting to think that you were just destined for a lonely, less than exceptional life.

By the time you hit 20 with no long term relationships ever (none that really meant anything, anyway), you’d begun to think it was all futile. Maybe you were destined to be alone forever, maybe you just weren’t looking in the right places, maybe it just wasn’t the right time, but whatever the reason, it had you banging your head against the wall every time your roommate gushed about how sweet and sexually adept her boyfriend was.

That’s why it really shouldn’t have surprised you that today of all days would be the one where you end up stranded in a town you’d never heard of until you saw the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign a few miles ago.

You’d seen a few cars coming this direction before your car had broken down, so you knew there had to be some sort of civilization not far from here. You’d considered standing by your car and waiting in the hopes that someone would stop to help you, but the sun was already beginning to set and it didn’t really seem like the safest idea to be alone in your car at sundown, especially in some place you didn’t know. That’s what pushed you towards what you were doing now, walking down the long stretch of road and hoping that you’d find someone who could help you not too far down it.

Somehow, it seemed to feel hotter now that the sun was beginning to set, blistering heat causing sweat to begin forming on your skin almost the minute you stepped out of your car. You’d chosen the wrong day to wear a sundress and sandals, the arches of your feet burning more and more the longer you walked. You swatted at probably thousands of mosquitos that began to swarm you as you walked, and by the time you finally saw the signs of the city, you could feel your hair sticking to your forehead from the thick coating of sweat collecting there.

The sun was about halfway set by the time you reached the parking lot of the small strip mall, and when you looked at the watch on your wrist it blinked dimly at half past 5. Every store was closed already except for one, a small Family Video store with a single maroon BMW parked outside the door. Finding it the only option you had other than to keep walking, and hoping the AC inside would be working, you pushed your way through the door and hoped someone inside would let you use the phone. And the bathroom.

“I’m telling you, Robin, I’m hopeless.” Steve struggled to hold the stack of tapes in his hand, almost sending all of them tumbling to the floor when he tripped over a bump in the carpet.

“You’re not hopeless, you’re just looking in the wrong places.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“Maybe stop looking for the type of girl you had in high school? You’ve matured, so start looking for something new.”

“That's the problem, I don’t even know what my type is.” He placed the stack of tapes on the counter, picking up a few that fell over. Robin came to stand next to him, taking the tape off the top of the stack and starting to rewind it.

“I don’t know what to tell you, figure it out. Who knows? Maybe your dream girl will come walking right through that door any minute.”

The universe has one sick sense of comedic timing, doesn’t it?

Steve opened his mouth to offer up a rebuttal but was cut off by the chime of the bell above the door, hinges squeaking at it flung open then shut rather harshly. He turned towards the door and prepared to give his stupid, fake customer service greeting, but was cut short when he saw who it was that had just come through the door.

He had never seen anyone like you. Hair a mess as if your hands had been running through it for hours, covered in sweat and rocking back and forth on your heels to stop your feet from hurting, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything more beautiful. Wearing a black sundress covered in white daisies and flat brown sandals, you looked like something out of a rom com cliche, damsel in distress stumbling into his life at just the right time. You looked around the store almost frantically and visibly irritated, but the second you laid your eyes on Steve on the other side of the counter you breathed a sigh of relief.

He had to snap himself out of whatever trance you put him in when you started walking towards him.

“Hey, do you guys have a phone I can use? My car broke down like a mile from here and I really need to call a mechanic.”

“Uh, yeah, there’s a phone in the back you can use.” A stray strand of hair fell into Steve’s face as he physically shook himself back into reality. “My friend’s a mechanic, I can give you the number to his shop if you want.”

“That would be perfect, thank you.” The relieved laugh you let out made his face heat up a bit, and he quickly grabbed a piece of paper to scribble the number to Eddie’s garage down on. He ripped it off and handed it to you, nodding towards the door reading ‘Employees Only’.

“Phone’s back there, take all the time you need.”

“Thank you so much,” Your eyes flitted down to the name tag on his vest, flashing him a soft grin. “Steve.”

Once you disappeared into the back room, Steve leaned forward against the counter. Robin let out a whistle and hopped up to sit on the counter next to him, kicking her feet back and forth.

“Man, I was kidding when I said she’d walk through the door any minute, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that starstruck by a girl you just met.”

“She’s probably just…passing through town. Who knows if I’ll ever see her again after this.” Steve popped the tape out of the machine and put another one in, trying to occupy himself with anything other than thinking about you.

“So? When has that ever stopped you before?”

“I don’t know, Robin. It’ll probably end in disaster just like every other time.”

“I don’t care. If you don’t take your shot with this girl, I might just kill you.”

Almost on cue, the door to the back room swung open again, a visible shift in your demeanor than when you’d walked in. You looked far less tense, and Steve found it hard to keep his eyes off of you.

“You are truly a life saver. With any luck, I’ll be out of here and back on the road before sundown.”

“It’s no problem, really.” Steve turned his head away to hide the blush on his cheeks. He gave Robin a look as she silently pushed him to keep the conversation going, eventually holding his hands up in surrender. “My shift’s almost over so I can, uh, give you a ride back to your car, if you want. I’d hate for you to have to walk all the way back in this heat. Plus it's almost dark, I wouldn't want a girl like you wandering around out there alone.”

Steve pressed his lips together tightly when he realized what he’d said, but the smile on your face let him relax.

“I’d like that, thank you.” You rocked back and forth on your heels while you waited for Steve to gather his things, dress swishing back and forth against your thighs. You laughed a little to yourself while he scrambled frantically, muttering something to himself while he flushed red up to his ears. You flashed him a sweet smile when he finally had all his things, following him out the door and into the beemer you’d seen parked outside when you first arrived.

Steve was handsome, there was absolutely no denying that. Sunkissed skin that was likely the result of hours of relaxing by the pool, fluffy brown hair you couldn’t help but want to run your hands through and the kindest brown eyes you’d ever seen. You were sure that at one time in his life he was a heartbreaker with all those good looks and boyish charm, but the way he got flustered just talking to you made you believe that he had put those days long past him.

He seemed almost nervous sitting in the car with you, doing his best to keep his eyes on the road while stealing a few quick glances at you. He adjusted himself in the seat and cleared his throat, trying to break the tension in the air.

“So, uh, what brings you to Hawkins?”

“Just passing through on my way to visit a friend in Indianapolis.” You smoothed down the skirt of your dress to find something to do with your hands. “Was hoping I’d get there by nightfall but, unfortunate turn of events I suppose.”

“Where are you from?”

“Out of state.” You kept it vague, still not quite sure if you could totally trust him. “I go to school in Indiana though.”

A few seconds later, your car finally came into view, seemingly in much worse shape than you left it. White smoke now billowed from underneath the hood, and you leaned yourself against the dash to try to get a better look from inside the car.

“No, no no no.” As soon as Steve made a U-turn and parked his car behind yours, you opened the door and ran over, running a hand through your hair in a panic.

“I’m sure it's not…that bad.” Steve tilted his head as he came up next to you, scrunching his face as he looked at the smoke continuing to spill from your engine. “Yeah, I don’t think it's supposed to do that.”

“Yeah, no shit.” You let out a groan before collapsing to the curb, head in your hands. “I should have listened to my dad when he told me to get it checked. Now who knows how long it’ll be before I can get back on the road.”

“Look, Eddie’s good at what he does.” Steve sat down next to you, nudging his shoulder into yours to offer some comfort. “He’ll have her back up and running in no time.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll take a miracle to fix all the problems with this piece of shit.”

Steve’s small chuckle was drowned out by the rumble of an engine, raising your head to see a tow truck traveling down the road towards you and your still smoking car. The red, hand painted detailing stood out against the black body of the truck, and as it got closer, you could hear the rumble of metal music blaring out of the open truck window. The driver, who you had yet to catch a glimpse of, backed the truck until the winch was close to the front of your car, the truck letting out one last puff of smoke through the exhaust as the engine shut off.

“Always picking up strays, aren’t you Harrington?” The driver called out at Steve as he opened the truck’s door, a soft thud sound following after as he hopped out of the truck. Steve rolled his eyes.

“I’m helping someone whose car broke down.”

“Mhmm. Bet you wouldn’t be helpin’ em if they weren’t so pretty though.” The man that had stepped out of the truck was the last person you’d expect to run a mechanic’s garage. Long, curly black hair down to his shoulders, arms covered in mismatched tattoos, and a cocky smirk on his face while he chewed on a toothpick. He looked to be only a few years older than yourself, and while you could tell that his disposition was likely off putting to most people he met, you found it oddly…comforting. Better a charming metalhead than a greasy bald guy drenched in sweat, you supposed.

“You gonna get her car down to the garage or what?” Steve put his hands on his hips, earning a laugh from the other man.

“Lemme assess the damage man. I gotta see what I’m working with.” He walked to the front of the car, playfully shoeing Steve away from it while he popped the hood. As soon as he did, smoke puffed out from around the engine, causing him to cough and wave it out of his face. He let out a whistle, leaning over the car to get a better look at the engine. “Good news, probably just a busted radiator hose. Easy and cheap fix, no biggie. Bad news? I won’t be able to fix it til’ the morning.”

“What?” You stood up from where you sat on the curb, leaning against the car. “I’m supposed to be in Indianapolis tonight. What am I gonna do?”

“Well, I’m sure ole Stevie over here can help you figure something out, can’t you Harrington?” He clasped his hand on Steve’s shoulder and gave him a rather rough shake. Steve sent him a glare before turning back to you, trying to offer up a sympathetic smile.

“There’s a motel a few minutes into town. Nobody ever stays there, so there should be room. I can give you a ride over, if you want.”

You took a second to take in your surroundings. Here you were, stranded on the side of the road in an unfamiliar small town, with a car that had no chance of working until morning and no way to tell your friend you wouldn’t make it to her house tonight. Your only other option was to start hitchhiking, so staying in a dead end motel sounded good right about now.

“I guess I don’t really have many other options.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, Eddie’ll take good care of her.” Eddie winked at you playfully, bringing a small smile to your face. “And Stevie here will take good care of you.”

“Eddie, come on man.” Steve hid his face in embarrassment while Eddie snickered, clapping him on the back when he went to hook up the winch. You hide the redness in your own cheeks behind your hands.

“Sorry man, couldn’t help it.” Once the winch was hooked up and the front wheels of the car were off the ground, Eddie hopped back into the truck, leaning out the window to call down to you before he left. “I’ll get to work on her first thing in the morning, promise. She’ll be good as new before you know it.”

He flashed you another smile before starting up the truck again, driving back towards town while you stood there watching your car get dragged along behind him.

“Sorry about Eddie. He can be…alot, sometimes.” Steve leaned on the hood of his car, crossing his arms over his chest. You shrugged.

“S’okay. He reminds me a lot of a few of my friends back home, actually.” Steve chuckled a bit and nodded towards his car.

“Well, you’ll be able to handle him better than me then. Come on, I’ll take you over to the motel.” You climbed back into the passenger seat of Steve’s car, sending him a quick thank you before he drove off.

The sun was almost fully behind the horizon when you finally pulled into the parking lot of the ‘Stop Inn Motel’, a small, two story collection of motel rooms with a main office smack dab in the middle of it. There were only a few other cars in the parking lot, and the flashing neon ‘vacancy’ sign above your head almost made your head hurt in the dimming light.

The girl behind the counter only looked up from her magazine after you rung the bell, rolling her eyes as she stood from her chair.

“It’s $10 a night for a single, $15 for a double.”

“Just a single for the night, please.” You went to reach into your wallet for cash but Steve stopped you, handing over his own $10 bill to the desk attendant. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You’ve already had a shitty enough day. It’s 10 bucks, no big deal.” Your shoulders relaxed at the soft smile on Steve’s face, kind eyes softening when he saw the way your mood rose a little. The girl behind the counter dangled a set of keys in front of you, which you took quickly.

“Checkout at 2 tomorrow. Stay after check out and it's a $5 fee per hour unless you pay for another night.” You gave her a nod and a thank you, which she ignored before heading back to her chair from before and flipping through her magazine again.

Steve helped carry your bags from his trunk up to your room, standing outside while he passed you your bags over the threshold. You thanked him one more time before going to close the door, but he cleared his throat nervously to stop you.

“Hey, uhm, you’re probably starving after everything today and I thought maybe I could…show you the best places to eat around town while you’re here?” The nervous wringing of his hand had your heart swelling in your chest. You were usually the one nervous around guys like Steve, and you simply couldn’t find it in yourself to turn down his offer. You’d always wanted to take more chances. Why not this one?

“I’d like that.” He raised his head as if he’d expected you to say no, smile curling his lips upwards. “Just give me an hour to get changed. I’m, like, drenched in sweat and dirt right now.”

“Yeah, yeah of course. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Good. See you then.”

You watched Steve all the way back to his car, closing the door behind you once he got out of your view. You leaned against it for a moment and took a deep breath in, then frantically began opening your luggage to find something to wear.

Hey, maybe your piece of shit car was good for something after all.

⊲Part 2, coming soon⊳

#steve harrington #stranger things #fanfic #steve harrington angst #steve x reader #stranger things angst #women writers #stranger things fluff #fluff #short fanfic #meet cute #romantic #short series #eddie munson #mechanic eddie munson

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cutiecorner · 1 year ago

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Boats

Ficlet • Regressor! Bruce, caregiver! Alfred

@todayimfour said: "This is probably more of a doodle promt than writing but I feel like Bruce would have a blast with those lil bath toys that are the stacking boats"

In LOVE with this prompt!!! It can be a doodle AND a fic :3c enjoy!

“Bruce, poppet, don’t you think it’s time for a bath?”

Bruce stewed in his chair in front of the bat-computer. There was no doubt about it, he was kind of filthy. After a long mission in Gotham’s sewers to look for Killer Croc’s latest hide out, he went directly for the computer to catalog his findings. Not the best plan, but the one he decided to pursue in the moment. That moment was four hours ago, and he still hadn’t showered. Alfred had exhausted all of his avenues to get Bruce up and clean, but none had pulled him away from the computer. Except his last resort. Bruce was well aware that Alfred doesn’t call him pet names for just any reason. ‘Master Bruce’ was enough affection for the both of them, direct sweetness was a little much for daily happenings. Things had gotten particularly serious, Bruce thought, for Alfred to “poppet” him. He considered the possibility of going along with it, but he simply had too much work to do. He grunted to communicate as much. Alfred frowned, but was quickly hit with an idea.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to save my special surprise for another night then.”

Bruce was being baited, he could tell, but… a surprise was kind of like a mystery. Bruce loved mysteries. He just couldn’t resist.

“... what kind of surprise?”

Alfred smiled, “I guess you’ll have to come with me to find out.”

Bruce let out a long sigh, hating to be pulled from his work, but he had to admit - he kind of wanted to get clean. Not to mention, a pleasant surprise never hurt anyone. Once he was up from the chair, he pulled down his cowl to release his messy hair. Alfred reached for his hand, taking it to Bruce’s shock. This was serious business.

Alfred led Bruce to the bathroom, and Bruce quickly took off his dirty suit to deposit in the laundry basket. He was starting to realize that he really did feel icky. Icky? He thought, surprised at his internal choice of words. Was he…

“I’ll start the water, dear, you go potty”

Bruce pouted. He did not go potty, he was far too big for potty. He ruminated on his big-ness as he did what Alfred told him anyway. After all, he would never outgrow taking orders from Alfred. Alfie knew everything.

“All done?” Alfred asked.

Bruce nodded in response, taking a seat in the bathtub. Alfred ran the showerhead over him to get the worst of the grime off, then started to fill the tub. Bruce always felt awkward waiting for the water to fill up, but was soon distracted by the bubbles forming. Alfie put some bubble bath in, it smelled nice too. He took a deep breath, taking in the lavender scent. He felt relaxed, fuzzy…

“I suppose it’s time for your surprise, hm?”

A bath surprise? Strange… Bruce wondered. What could be a surprise for the bath?

Before he could ponder, Bruce was presented with a pack of brightly colored boat toys.

“A bath toy? Don’t you think I’m a little old?” Bruce whined.

“Oh, never.”

Alfred set a few of the boats in the now-full tub.

“Look, they can float, and you can fill them up with water, they even stack,” Alfred grinned.

Hrn, Bruce responded, not wanting to give in to a baby toy. He scrubbed at his hair as he tried to ignore the floaties… but they were so pretty. He bet they could go pretty fast if he pushed them. He thought about the splashy water and the ripples… No! He thought, Don’t get distracted. One of the boats floated over to him. He flicked it away. It did go pretty far! He found himself smiling. He grabbed another boat, skipping it across the water. Now he was laughing. Soon, he was playing. He filled the boats up with water till they sank, he raced them, he sorted them.

“Alfie, look how many boats! They’re all stacked up and they still go!”

“Oh wow,” Alfred chuckled.

Bruce continued to play as Alfred finished washing him.

“Alright, pumpkin, you’re all done.”

“No!” Bruce cried, “my boats…”

Alfred smiled.

“I promise you can play with your boats tomorrow, love.”

“You promise?”

“I swear,” Alfred smiled.

#agere #fandom agere #agere fandom #dc agere #batman agere #dadfred & babybat #agere fanfiction #agere fanfic

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ach-sss-no · 9 months ago

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I've been tagged by @pazithigallifreya ! There's no one I can think of offhand to tag so just do it if you want to

1 How many works do you have on AO3? Aaahhh, well, the official number appears to be 5. I have some scattered orphans out there somewhere.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 262,523. Officially. If you were to track down everything I've orphaned it might go up a bit.

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Good sir, I only have written five fanfictions, so I'll just stick to the top one

Schrodinger's Hobbit

Ah yes, the one that was posted on a regular schedule and has characters people care about in the tags, giving readers a ghost of a chance to discover it and give it a 'well it's about gollum but I'm desperate for pippin' click

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

In theory, yes. In practice, if I don't reply to a comment as soon as I see it, I sometimes forget to go back and reply because I've tricked myself into thinking I already have. Because I usually reply right away, you see.

Fortunately I do eventually see the comment as unreplied to in my inbox and circle back to it.

However, sometimes if there's no question posed and a simple 'thank you' doesn't seem to apply I honestly can't think of an answer and will just appreciate the person in silence.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Uh, well, there's... oh, there's this one that's orphaned somewhere on AO3! it ends with Gollum learning how to eat people

I think I also wrote something once where it ended on a guy going 'oh no I am going to go insane just like my mother' but I don't know if it still exists anywhere.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Maybe Schrodinger's Hobbit? It ends with Aragorn saying 'Gollum isn't going to jail and we're just going to keep him' which is a happy ending from one point of view (Gollum's)

I usually just stop writing stories at the point where they stop being interesting.

7. Do you write crossovers?

The answer is no except for the time I did a crossover webcomic between two games no one cares about.

The first really ambitious fanfiction project I did was some kind of three way crossover with tons of canon/oc shipping and it was so bad.

Also there's a thing on my account that's technically a crossover but it's between Disney properties, which are already just one big lump.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

There's a TVTropes page out there with people railing about how bad my ambitious fanfiction project with tons of canon/oc shipping was. I am not going to find it for you.

In terms of comments, no, except for the one time I wrote a shipfic in a particularly eccentric fandom. People got bad about that. Oddly enough the people who liked the ship were the ones that got mad. Failed step one.

I've never gotten hate on AO3. (Not yet! 👀) Only the wild west of fanfiction.net and TVtropes.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do not.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. I don't monitor for that, though.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've had some people get permission from me to do translations, but they never told me if they posted anything.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Ahhhh I used to years and years ago. I think one co-written thing is still floating about somewhere on ff.net.

I wouldn't be opposed to trying it again one day if I met someone with a compatible writing style and the circumstances were right, but it's not something I'm seeking out.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I guess I'm not really that into shipping. Sometimes a ship will catch my interest enough to produce content but there are none I currently find interesting enough to claim as a favorite.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

If I haven't finished it by now, I don't want to ;)

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don't feel well-equipped to judge my own work, so I will go off of what other people have said about me, which is always a great method for determining your self-concept.

A bunch of different people have said independently of each other that I'm good at characterization and dialog, so it's probably at least partially true.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oh I don't know how to write a plot.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

There are so many different ways that could be done that this question feels too general to answer.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Lilo & Stitch. Almost 20 years ago now! The Internet has changed a LOT since then.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I'd like to try writing original fiction- wait, come back! Come back!

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh, now, that's hardly fair. You expect me to READ these things?

#long post #ramble

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somewhat-insane · 1 year ago

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Shadows of the Beach: Chapter One

(Here's the masterpost.)

Remnants of His Past

Pairing: Ao Lie/Sun Wukong/Macaque

Rating: Teen and up Audiences (for mild language)

Tags: Playful Banter, Flashbacks, Teasing, Awkwardness, Slow Burn, Background Freenoodles

A/N: This is my first time posting any of my fics on Tumblr so the formatting may be a bit off, feel free to read it on Ao3 instead if that makes you more comfortable ;3.

Summary:

As if the entire situation with Azure Lion hadn't been world-shattering (quite literally) enough, Wukong gains information that sends him spiraling.

What is one to do when it turns out your best friend/kind of homoerotic lover didn't actually die and now you have to introduce him to your ex-best friend/other kind of homoerotic lover?

Visits to Pigsy's noodles had recently become relatively routine for Sun Wukong.

It was good eating, that he already knew ever since Pigsy took over the shop, but before he had always just had them delivered (Tang, he remembered, had briefly done the deliveries for Pigsy in turn for free noodles, which explained why Pigsy had yet to kick the “freeloader” out, that and, at some point along the line, they had gotten “married” (it wasn’t really a wedding at all, not legally anyway, but they considered eachother married and that was enough for them)… which Wukong, having known them in their past lives was… very conflicted about.) He could just make noodles with his powers but there was something nostalgic about the taste and smell of Pigsy’s noodles that reminded Wukong of deep laughter around the campfire and calloused, hard-working hands that meant well despite their owner’s arrogance and aggression.

Even before he and MK had officially met (or before MK had learned Wukong had been watching him which, okay, now that he mentioned it, it did sound kind of creepy,) Wukong would order and set the address as some random abandoned house or temple where he would utilize his 72 transformations to retrieve it.

Or, alternatively, he would send a clone out into the city to pick it up, but that was riskier as his clones had something of a habit of getting hit by cars and mortals weren’t exactly used to having the person they hit with their car poof into magical smoke. Perhaps he should’ve expected embodiments of his centuries-old magic might not be entirely “up to date” with modern-day civilization, especially back when he was hiding out like a hermit.

Comparatively, when he had it delivered, after having figured out how phones worked, the hardest part was always hiding his tail. Which normally wasn’t that much of an issue but…

Look, it wasn’t his fault he got so excited at the idea of food! It probably made it worse that the cooking really did remind him of when Zhu Bajie had finally gotten the hang of it. A little more modern though but not to the point of the frozen mass-produced meat that the rest of the city used. No, Pigsy still made all of his meals by hand, the difference coming from the more modernized techniques people had learned to use to draw out the flavor more. In some cases, outside of Pigsy’s Noodles, what people do to enhance their food was borderline poisonous to the human body but if Wukong had learned anything over the years it was that humans valued very little more than money. They’re not the only species that eat what is essentially poison to them. Like, koalas for instance. None of that affected him though, not being a particularly big fan of cooked food (with the exception of Pigsy’s noodles), as he was a monkey, and he was immortal, so he didn’t really care.

He had started actually going into the shop after the scroll incident, partially because he was growing closer to the crew, and–even if the memories still made him fidgety around them–he had started seeing them as their own people and not the friends he used to be acquainted with. Beyond that, his time in the scroll had kicked up some old feelings inside of him that he didn’t exactly want to face on his own. Not that he would talk about his feelings or anything–that wasn’t exactly his style–but his thoughts weren’t as loud when he surrounded himself with small talk and idle banter which came surprisingly easy when it came to the crew. It allowed him to fall into the familiar pattern of ignoring festering problems until they blew up in his face.

Perhaps that’s why he tended to turn everything into a joke or a game, it made it easier to ignore everything.

Eh, he wasn’t going to think too much about it right now.

As he flew over the water on his cloud, he reminded himself that, this time, as he was headed to the small hole-in-the-wall establishment, he was not coming for noodles and banter.

Roughly half an hour earlier, MK had relayed a message to him via telepathic communication (he didn’t get a nosebleed this time! … though he did stub his toe while distracted.) Apparently, the nerd- er, Tang (he had promised himself he would start actually calling them by their names… no matter how much inner turmoil it caused him) had a theory he wanted Wukong’s opinion on… or something like that, admittedly MK’s explanation was rather vague which was… out of character for the boy who had seemingly picked up his father’s tendency to ramble.

Again, Wukong decided not to think too much about it.

Having to talk to Tang about theories and the like was something he was used to as Tang had jumped at the opportunity to gain more insight into the Journey to the West through Wukong’s own experiences but this seemed… different. Something in the way MK seemed more… hesitant made him uneasy.

This unease was only heightened when he dispelled his Nimbus and landed in front of the building, only to walk in and see the entire group (Pigsy, Tang, MK, Mei, Sandy, and even Mo) there waiting expectantly for him.

Now, he knew it wasn’t exactly uncommon for them to be there all at once since they seemed to all have been friends long before Wukong became a present being in their dynamic, and group meet-ups had become a semi-regular occurrence for the crew after the scroll incident; they all tried to find times when everyone was free and would hang out over a movie or a barbeque, talking and laughing and digging up old wounds because Sandy’s soft smile reminds Wukong of the way Sha Wujing would encourage them all, Pigsy’s laugh is a bit too similar to Zhu Bajie’s - a hearty sound Wukong would never forget for the joy it stirred inside of him - and Tang seemed to have Tripitaka’s tendency to fidget when nervous, but it wasn’t exactly common either.

All eyes turned to him making Wukong shift uncomfortably with the attention as he chuckled nervously, “Uh, heh, is this an intervention or something?”

Idly he was reminded of the scolding looks he would get from the Jade Emperor or Guanyin when he had done something bad, but he also recognized the looks as something more akin to what he received from his master, a pitying look. A concerned look.

…

Was this an intervention!?

MK, being the absolutely amazing person he is, offered a soft–if not slightly pitying–smile in response to his mentor’s joke but the expression didn’t reach his eyes, and his brows were furrowed slightly, almost as if in thought.

After a moment, his strained smile falls away and he averts his eyes to a random spot on the ground, idly fiddling with his keychain, the soft jingle it brought being the only noise throughout the room.

Wukong’s smile also falls in response to the absence of MK’s and he sits down at the counter with a rare serious expression on his face.

“Alright, what’s the bad news? We got another big bad headed our way?” he asks, tail flicking anxiously as he studies everyone’s expressions, trying to gauge what could be happening.

The group shared an apprehensive look before Tang sighed, opening and closing his mouth as if at a loss for words–or afraid to speak the ones he did have–before he nervously slid a scroll toward Wukong. Wukong raised a brow, unfurling the scroll and letting his eyes skim over the contents.

Contrary to popular belief, he could read, he wrote a letter and made that game to teach MK about the importance of setting up a counter attack instead of just using brute force, but now, he was almost convinced otherwise.

His brows furrowed as he looked over it again and again, not believing what he saw on the page.

Finally, he resigns himself to the reality he was being exposed to and his jaw clenches as he looks over at the others with stern, searching eyes, each of them waiting with bated breath for his reaction, which luckily wasn’t as immediately explosive as they expected.

Immediantely being the key word there.

Wukong thought he was done.

He thought he was done with his buried feelings about his past being dug up and shoved in his face like his old laundry when Macaque finds it on the ground. (As much as he enjoyed being on speaking terms with Macaque again, he could’ve lived without the other constantly berating his slobish lifestyle.)

As soon as he confirmed what he was reading with the others, he had burst out of the shop (quite literally as he had broke a hole through the wall,) and headed back toward Flower Fruit Mountain.

Logically, Wukong knew the peace he had found amongst MK and the others wouldn’t last forever and he would have to continue facing his inner turmoils just like MK and Sandy had been helping him to and how life had been pushing him to. Being immortal and all, things were bound to resurface sooner or later, but for crying out loud life could’ve at least given him a month without a mental breakdown!

The fly back to Flower Fruit Mountain was the same as it always had been, though a large chunk of the mountain, along with his hut and most of his treasure heap, had been taken out during the battle with Azure. While inconvenient, the situation wasn’t something Wukong couldn’t adapt to, a small cabin now sat on the beach of the island, just beyond the treeline, as a testament to that.

For the second time that day, Wukong found himself dispelling his cloud and landing, this time on sand, stumbling a bit amidst his urgency. When the sand that had been kicked up from his landing settled and he regained his balance, he prepared to dart into the cabin but paused, seeing a figure near his hut, shadow magic dancing around them as they instructed two others seemingly born of the shadows to do… something. Wukong couldn’t really tell from here.

The being was clearly aware of Wukong’s presence as three of his six ears were angled towards him, presumably listening to what he was doing but too preoccupied to give him their entire attention just yet.

“Macaque?” Wukong called, hesitantly moving towards him, catching the attention of the two shadow creatures, who Wukong vaguely remembered as Rumble and Savage, “what are you doing here-”

Wukong is interrupted by a sigh from Macaque, who still hasn’t turned around to look at him, making Rumble and Savage chuckle to each other before being shut up, presumably with a glare from Macaque who finally turns around to face Wukong with a forced smirk, “putting the finishing touches your cabin like I agreed I would. Or have you already forgotten? I’m not surprised, you’ve never really been able to fit much up there,” Macaque then turns his head towards Rumble and Savage who seem amused at the interaction, “a moment of silence, please, for this poor fool’s intelligence.”

Rumble and Savage chuckle once again and this time, Macaque allows it, looking at Wukong with that stupid smug face he makes when he believes he’s getting under Wukong’s skin. And he is, because he knows exactly how.

But he doesn’t have time for that right now. So instead of making a snarky remark in turn, he takes a deep breath in through his nose, the voice of his master echoing through his head as he urges himself to calm down.

“No violence, Monkey.”

“Anger will not serve you.”

“Caution, Wukong, listen to what is being said.”

That last one… wasn’t his master.

The memory of Ao Lie’s voice urging him to wait and listen before striking gave birth to a fresh wave of urgency in Wukong’s soul, but he paused to remember the context of his words…

“We have no reason to trust that flea-ridden pest!” Zhu Bajie’s gruff voice had rang out around the campsite, grating on Wukong’s already frayed nerves, “one should trust not the being who needs to be kept on a leash!”

Wukong’s eye twitched in irritation as the only nerve left that seemed to be tying him to his sanity was struck and he grit his teeth, finally dropping down from the tree he had been hiding in, “that ‘leash’ is the very reason one should trust me you overgrown hog!”

“Zhu Bajie, Sun Wukong-” their master had tried to intervene, only to easily be talked over by the more boisterous pig.

“My words weren’t directed toward you, runt,” the pig spat toward Wukong.

“Your words are unfounded, swine,” Wukong grit out with clenched fists, willing himself not to attack, the only thing detering him being the threat of the golden fillet. His “leash” as the swine so distastefully called it.

A hand on his shoulder made Wukong jolt slightly, turning his searing gaze toward the person next to him, expecting to see Sha Wujing, only to falter when instead he saw Ao Lie, the white horse dragon he hadn’t yet become well acquainted with.

“Caution, Wukong, listen to what is being said. I do not believe you are hearing the words for all they are,” he spoke, voice gentle and melodic, a nice change from the gruff sound of the pig, “I should suggest patience.”

The words confused Wukong and he frowned, “what do you imply?”

“Perhaps do not listen to what the swine says, but why he says it.”

Wukong’s frown only deepened, “I know why he says it-”

“No, my friend, you think you know why he says such things. You take his aggression at surface level, but I find aggression is rarely mere aggression,” Ao Lie pauses, adding with a playful smirk, “unless the aggressor is an immortal stone monkey with no regard for those outside of his kingdom.”

Sun Wukong’s first instinct is to quip back defensively in response to that last part, but as the first part registers he pauses, and he wrinkles his nose in confusion and distaste, “you speak words of a fool, aggression is nothing but.”

“He is afraid, my friend. And I find I can’t blame him, your legacy proceeds you,” Ao Lie hums, “perhaps the real fool would be one who so easily trusts a man known for his lack of empathy towards anyone but himself.”

A smirk finds its way onto Wukong’s lips, “so you call yourself a fool?”

“One finds it bold to assume I trust you,” Ao Lie replies easily, unaffected by Wukong’s words.

The monkey watched with wide, curious eyes as Ao Lie moved to sit with their master, easily starting up idle chatter.

With a frown, Wukong’s gaze trailed over to the swine who was being calmed down by Sha Wujing. The monkey’s brow furrowing in thought.

Trust… it’s been a long time since he’s had to, or wanted to for that matter, earn trust. He usually just scared people into submission. He hasn’t needed to work for trust since…

Since, well, him…

Wukong let out his breath.

Listen… what else was being said, what was Wukong not hearing?

Macaque shouldn’t be afraid… he couldn’t be.

What were his exact words before he defaulted to mockery?

“putting the finishing touches your cabin like I agreed I would. Or have you already forgotten?”

Of course he hadn’t forgotten! When your ex-best friend agrees to help build you a temporary cabin it’s not exactly something that just slips your mind. Did Macaque…

Did Macaque really believe he was that unimportant to him?

“I didn’t forget,” Wukong finally said, trying to keep his tone as even as possible to not come off as defensive, the response making Macaque raise a brow, obviously not what he expected, “I was going to ask, what are you doing here alone? Wasn’t Sandy supposed to help you finish up?”

Macaque looks taken aback for a moment, even Rumble and Savage’s expressions fall. After a moment, Macaque pulls himself from his shock with a scoff and looks away, crossing his arms, “he said one of his cats got sick and he’s busy taking care of it.”

Wukong makes a small, “oh” noise and is about to consider going to check on the big guy (he’s been helping Wukong and Macaque a lot when it comes to the “not killing each other” stuff) but then he remembers what he was doing in the first place, “oh, right!”

“Huh?” Before Macaque can even ask what Wukong’s talking about, the golden furred monkey had darted into the cabin, leaving nothing but kicked up sand in his wake. Macaque coughs and waves it out of his face, grimacing as he takes note of how much got in his fur.

“Damn you Wukong…” Macaque growls, turning to Rumble and Savage, “you two finish up here, I’ll go make sure he’s not doing anything stupid.”

The two shadow beings give him a mock salute and Macaque levels them with a knowing glare, “and don’t break anything.”

They nod nervously, sighing in relief once Macaque disappears into a shadow to follow Wukong. Silently, they look at each other, mischievous grins growing across their faces as they agreed that they were, indeed, going to break something.

Macaque uses Wukong’s shadow to follow him into the spare room where the remnants of the treasure hoard were stored. Most of it was stuff that couldn’t be destroyed, but there were some nick-nacks here and there that, despite all odds, survived with minimal damage. There was a monkey cop figure that had its face melted off that Wukong insisted on keeping though. Macaque still regularly had nightmares of that thing coming alive to murder him.

Wukong sifts throught the piles, panic obvious in the way he moves, seemingly searching for something.

Brows furrowing in confusion and possibly slight concern, Macaque emerges from the shadows and crosses his arms, “what’s gotten into you, Wukong?”

Said monkey’s ear twitches but he doesn’t respond immediately, diving into another pile. Macaque is about to say something again before Wukong pops back out, tail flicking in irritation, seemingly not being able to find what he was looking for. With a sigh, Wukong looks up at Macaque, eyes stern but glimmering with concern, “Ao Lie might be alive.” Macaque has to take a second to digest this information, eyes going wide, “... w h a t.”

next>>

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recurring-polynya · 2 years ago

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Fanfic Round-up 2022

Well. I survived 2022. Sometimes that's all you can say.

It was my worst writing year on record, by far. I posted 199,638 works this year, which sounds pretty good, but a huge chunk of that was written in 2021. A more honest estimate puts me at 113k or possibly even more like 103k. :/

Anyway, so what did I do?

Well, I spent the first part of the year posting What We Do with Our Hearts, which is the aforementioned big chunk of workcount I did in 2021. Overall, I feel like it was well-received, especially for being a story about a guy's not-great relationship with his grandfather. It never got a whole lot of kudos compared to hits, which is perplexing to me-- I don't know if started it and didn't like it, or people just forgot or what. I got lots and lots of comments on it, tho, so I know that the people who liked it really liked it, and that's all that really matters.

I also did a couple of short stories for Rukia's birthday, which you can find in chapters 2-4 of my anthology fic, Squad Six is Jerks, vol III. The first is about Rukia and Ichigo trying to talk about their love lives like the idiots they are, and the second two are continuations of some of my more popular AUs, the transcendentally stupid Rukia and Renji join Squad 11 much to the dismay of Byakuya's blood pressure AU, and a modern AU where Renji is a tattoo artist and Rukia is his high-powered businesswoman client (more about this later).

a jackrabbit underneath isn't a very happy one. I always thought there was an extra dimension of Awful to that Academy-training-trip-gone-nightmare story, in the sense that Rukia and Renji say some unkind things to one another shortly before Renji departs, and I wanted to poke around at that bruise.

ohhhhhhhhh, I wanted to badly to finish a little in love this year, and I worked on it a bunch and didn't feel particularly good about it and gave. I did write one single interlude chapter, which was about Rukia coming to live with the Kuchiki, except in this AU, her sister is there, dying. I sure was a ray of sunshine in the early part of this year!

I should back up actually, because that's not exactly true. I spent a lot of the spring on a sequential art project, my Soul Society Tattoo Artist AU, which wasn't exactly fanfic, but it took up some of the same space in my brain. There's a tattoo artist-related subplot in What We Do with Our Hearts, and I think I was looking back at it and realized that I had missed a prime opportunity to do a Tattoo Artist AU that took place in-universe, in the sense that it's all still in Soul Society, but thru a series of Hisana-related twists, Rukia and Renji never met in Inuzuri, Renji never made it to Shin'ou, and becomes a tattoo artist, instead. I mean, there is a fanfic part, two entirely separate fanfic parts, actually, none of which I actually posted. It was probably the most fun thing I worked on this year, and I hope to pick it back up again eventually.

I guess I did some short stories, too, this year? I wrote a little present for @fluffnflightillustrations that takes place in her Princess-Knight AU. I did a prompts even around May, where I got people to suggest "What if?" scenarios. You can find them in my what if requests tag, or they are collected in Chapters 6-13 of Squad Six is Jerks, vol III.

Okay, now we're back up to the summer where I failed to finish a little in love. I eventually gave up, because it just wasn't happening, and I picked up that Modern Tattoo Artist AU again, and tooled into an actual story, this could be permanent, you know. It is complete, I finished it up right before Christmas. I've always wanted to write a romcom, and now I can say I have done it. It's a pretty cute story, I guess, and I would probably like it more if someone else had written it. I'm not sure if it's because it's a modern AU, which I like to read but feel weird about writing, or if it's because I wrote it in an as-I-went format instead of writing the whole thing out, but I got almost zero sense of satisfaction after finishing it, which was...frustrating. I'm glad other people liked it, at least-- statistically, it's one of my most popular fanfics by nearly every measure. Figures.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I wrote wherever is your heart, i call home, a porno about the joys of married people late night shower sex.

Edit, b/c I forgot: I also wrote a couple of short stories as part of the Bleach Returns! event in October, to celebrate the return of the anime! There was the Renji's Bad Tea: the Origin Story, and Happy Squad 10 Day, To Those Who Celebrate.

What an incredibly strange year!

I've spent the last two weeks or so in an absolute rage about how much I hate my own writing and how disappointed I am in myself, but, jeez, writing all that out, it feels like more than it was. I dunno. My resolution from last year was to have more fun writing and...I dunno. I feel like some of that was fun, but there was also a lot of making myself miserable, and then hardly having anything to show for it.

Anyway, I've decided that 2023 is not going to be a writing year. That's not to say I'm not going to do any writing, but I'm gonna put myself under any pressure, and if I don't write anything... well...¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe I've written enough. Mostly I just want get back to some of my projects that I've been neglecting. I really want to pick up the next part of Heart is a Muscle again, and I'm feeling a little kinder about what I managed to write of a little in love last summer. Finishing either of them would be amazing, but I'd honestly be happy to just make a little more progress. Anyway, every year doesn't have to be a writing year. I'm hoping to have an art year and a houseplant year and my-volunteer-job year and maybe do some redecorating in my house year. If some writing falls out as a byproduct, that's great, but if not, that's fine, too.

#my writing #year-end roundups

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cleverthylacine · 7 months ago

Note

Femslash is not as common as slash or het, but I think a lot of people are uncomfortable writing the stuff they like to write about female characters.

When it comes to slash, especially, we put those boys in shitiations of the highest order. Hurt with or without comfort, angst, mourning, injuries, exploration of tragic backstories (canonical or inferred) and just all kinds of pain and oppression. Being mean to your blorbos is just a huge thing, particularly since so many people love sad little meow meow war criminals who kinda deserve it a little. I love Megatron so much but I am mean to him sometimes.

I worldbuild and like to tell big stories with many characters, pairings, and kinds of pairings.

The major f/f ship in my current magnum opus is Nickel/Lyzack and while there is some suffering in it, they are adorable disaster lesbians with teal paint jobs and both are deeply uncomfortable with some of the stuff going around them but nothing really terrible ever happens directly to them. Lyzack and Nickel both lose people they care about, and things they care about, and get yelled at some, and Lyzack has to fight, and Nickel gets to spend much more time than she'd like reading about atrocities so that she can figure out how to cure someone who ran afoul of the person who did the atrocities... but neither of them is directly in danger of dying except for situations where everyone is, like a big space battle in which a lot of people, none of whom were Nickel or Lyzack, and most of whom were NPCs, did in fact get killed.

And they are so cute. Their scenes are often a break from the massive amounts of blatant and fridge horror that are part and parcel of everything that is based on Transformers IDW 2005 (and other TF universes as well).

I don't want to hurt them. I'm pretty sure my readers don't want me to hurt them.

Most people in fandom would love to see femslash but a lot of them like to write angst and instant karma and whump and darkfic and backstabby intrigue. And I don't think most people are actually willing to write women treating each other like that, and I doubt they think people want to read it. Maybe they do, IDK. But there sure are a lot of requests out there for sapphic slice of life, aren't there?

We want to see the ladies being happy, because we live in a world that is very hard on people who have uteruses and/or aren't cis men, a world where women and other femme-identified people (or people who are assigned femme identities whether they want them or not) get treated like garbage. Whereas you're allowed to do terrible things to bad boys, whether we're talking Stanley Pines and Dr House levels of bad, or Magneto and Megatron levels of bad.

Anyhow, I think it is hard for people in fandom to write about terrible things happening to women and a lot of women, a lot of female identified or formerly female assigned people, a lot of people who can get pregnant, do not want to read that (because they ask for slice of life) and that even those who are willing to read that are little bit scared to write it.

And maybe there's just a touch of radfem in those instincts.

On the other hand--I'm definitely not a radfem, but I've taken a lot of shit from dudes and from anti-feminist women, and any time I see a lady get taken captive or in chains in media I am praying I won't have to see her get raped even if they fade to black--the one rape scene in my current epic is m/m and they're not human, it's a forced spark merge.

IDK, this is just a theory, please don't bombard me with gotchas about "this one fic where--" because I know it might not be true. I wanna hear what you (collective) think about it though, and if you are seeing the same trends I see.

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/746553097204203521/the-fandom-hates-women-response-to-lack-of-ff

The "fandom hates women" part of it comes from the fact that fandom as an entity just doesn't watch the kind of media that draws femslash, even if it ticks all of the boxes of things those very same people say they like. There are so many times I've watched a show that I've seen mega-popular Tumblr posts wishing existed, and then the fandom is so, so small comparatively and often in general. There have been superheroes, vampire/supernatural shows, fantasy shows, movies, books, the list goes on, that feel like they were generated out of Tumblr's desires for ideal fandom media, and everyone knows they're never going to attract anywhere near the same attention for fandom and fanworks because the common denominator just tends to be that if there isn't a full ensemble of attractive men to ship either with each other or with the women, fandom's not interested.

So it's not about prioritizing women in that sense, it's about people witnessing hypocrisy over and over again the second a show doesn't have a mostly-male ensemble. The people who are in these fandoms are frustrated that good faith attempts to get people interested are met with every excuse in the book that all eventually boils down to "I don't like watching stuff with women in it as much as I like watching stuff with men in it." And if that's how people feel about it... sometimes the conclusions are going to turn into the more uncharitable take of "fandom hates women."

Maybe, but whenever I see a "fandom hates women" reblog of my stuff, one or two reblogs further down the chain I get an overt TERF. I just had to go block several people today, in fact.

The first person to reblog with a comment like that is usually subtle, but their friends and friends of friends are not. The rhetoric that very quickly starts is the fandom equivalent of that "All the butches are becoming trans men! We're losing lesbians!" stuff.

Here's the thing: I've been in ten billion fandoms that were so awesome and fit fandom's supposed tastes to a T and yet no amount of promoting them could get anyone to try the canon. This goes for canons that are all men or all white men or all majority ethnicity men or whatever else.

The default state of media is to not engender a big fic fandom.

I agree that the rare outliers mostly follow certain patterns, but we extrapolate too far when we say that a lack of those patterns is why a fandom is small.

A fandom is small because that's the near-universal default.

Yes, a small slice of fandom consists of guilt-ridden queer fujoshi who say they want more f/f but don't make much of a move to make that happen. I tend to run into that a lot because of my own tastes and having friends who share those tastes.

Far more of fandom is people talking generally about how representation matters without saying they would personally join these fandoms if they existed.

Neither group is large enough to be the real reason some woman-heavy canon fails to take off to HP levels.

The real reason is not hypocrisy but the fact that most things don't take off like that. Most things without massive, massive audiences especially don't take off like that. And the very few things that do are flukes and don't actually predict that another similar thing will take off in the future.

Go to AO3's tag search. Search for all canonical fandom tags. Sort by uses and descending order.

Right now, I get 64,390 tags.

The first page, 50 tags, goes from HP with 497,845 works to the Thor movies with 59,266 works. By page 6, we're below 10 thousand works.

By the end of page 10, we're down to Labyrinth with 3,906.

Somewhere in the top 500 AO3 fandom tags (many of which are just franchise metatags for each other), we go all the way from megafandoms to medium size and down to relatively modest ones.

That's not a lot of room for a big f/f-heavy fandom given the trends in mainstream media and that mainstream media is where most really big fandoms come from.

I also notice that you're conflating a lack of desire to watch something that's primarily about women with a lack of desire to watch something that includes women.

There are tons of fans who want something more like The Mummy with a leading man and leading woman they love.

Granted, that's not me and that's not a lot of my fujoshi/slasher audience, but it's extraordinarily common. I know plenty of people who don't like canons that are only dudes, but since they also don't like canons that are only ladies and they don't ship f/f, this gets spun into "fandom hates women".

Let me be clear:

Conflating "lesbians" and "women" is a radfem position.

#fandom and its discontents #that whole femslash argument

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emmaelix · 2 years ago

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MHA S/O Funeral Short Stories

I'm feeling angsty tonight. And productive, look at me go. Two fics in one night!

I DO NOT OWN MHA THE ANIME OR THE MANGA. NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS ARE MINE EXCEPT FOR Y/N.

Y/n: Your Name. Y/L/N: Your Last Name Y/H/C: Your Hair Color. Y/E/C: Your Eye Color. Y/S/C: Your Skin Color

Boyos: Shoto, Shiggy, Denki, Dabi, and Bakugo

TW: DEATH

Tea Kettle: AKA Shoto Todoroki

Shoto stood crying over your dead body as they lowered it into the ground, the mahogany casket his last view of you. He had managed to somewhat hold it together until they had begun singing.

Your mother and father approached Shoto with Fuyumi and Natsuo close behind. Endeavor had been barred from the funeral, and Rei decided not to come because of how you had died.

The headline of the news article said more than words could. "Missing Pro Hero's Charred Remains Found This Morning Behind Dumpster in Hosu."

Dust Master 3000: AKA Tomura Shigaraki

Tomura watched in silent agony as Dabi incinerated your ashes. He had killed you, there was no doubt about that. It had happened the day before when Tomura was particularly vicious towards his video games.

He had been angry and didn't realize he'd hugged you with five ungloved fingers until it was too late. Flashbacks from his sister, dog, grandparents, and mother all disintegrating before him became as close as his body, un-escapable.

He didn't want to cry. But as twelve different Twices all zipped around, looking for things to burn with what was left of you, he felt tears welling up.

It was his fault, all over again.

Glorified Phone Charger: AKA Denki Kaminari

Aizawa had told Denki the story of Shirikumo. He'd never thought, however, he'd be watching your funeral for the same reason.

It had started as the typical emergency call. Which had quickly turned deadly. Four casualties, including you. Denki had been on his knees, begging Aizawa to tell him one of the only people he truly loved wasn't actually dead.

"Please, Mr. Aizawa! Tell me Y/n's alright! They're sleeping, right? They can't be dead, I still need them! Please, I can't live without Y/n, they have to be alright."

At least Aizawa hadn't lied.

Burn, Baby, Burn: AKA Dabi AKA Touya Todoroki

No one in the league had dared smile, laugh, or even breathe in Dabi's presence. Not after what had happened earlier that day.

They were testing out Nomus when it happened. Endeavor had come rushing forward, yelling about might, power, and other goody-goody things.

He'd burned you. Badly. So badly, in fact, that had you survived you would've been worse off than Dabi himself. Dabi had most likely physically and mentally ruined his rat bastard of a father, but you had lied there too long, bleeding out.

Toga had taken the last of your blood so they could enact revenge on Endeavor when Dabi was ready.

But Dabi would never forget your last words.

"I love you, Touya."

Lord Explosion Murder Most Foul: AKA Katsuki Bakugo

Bakugo's kitchen was filled with food and his eyes with tears. You and he had had a fight. A big one, the kind that made you take off your ring and throw it at Bakugo, screaming as you left, "Keep it, Bakugo! I don't need it anymore!'

Well, that was true. In your haste to leave you hadn't noticed oncoming traffic. You'd been hit head-on by a semi, ending your life on the pavement. Bakugo had heard the commotion and ran outside, only to see you lifeless on the ground.

"All my fault," He kept muttering as he cradled you in his arms. He slipped your ring on one last time, and gingerly close your eyes.

Tell me in the comments if you want a part two.

#angst #death #bakugo x reader #denki x reader #shoto x reader #shigaraki x reader #dabi x reader

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jaehyunfirstlove · 4 years ago

Text

You decide you’re ready to have a baby. The catch? You’re not seeing anyone at the moment. Enter your best friend, Jeong Jaehyun. Will he be the answer to your dilemma?

Pairing: best friend!Jaehyun x f.reader

Genre: best friends to fwb to lovers, fluff, angst, smut (18+ only)

Warnings: mentions of infertility, pregnancy and childbirth, sperm donors, IVF (in vitro fertilization), fertility drugs, mood swings, fingering, unprotected sex, cum play, nipple play, breeding kink, oral sex (f.receiving), dirty talk, pregnant sex, rough sex

Word count: 10.6k

Taglist: @jaehyunnie77 @mrg-jjh @keeach (send me a message if you want to be tagged in future fics)

A/N: this was only meant to be a short fic but it morphed into this monstrosity. I tried to tag for everything but if I missed anything please let me know. Inspired by the fact that Jaehyun wanted to be a teen dad (but they are not teens in this story, just thought I’d make that clear :) Also please excuse my unimaginative name for the baby, I’m terrible at coming up with names lol

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional so please excuse any inconsistencies.

“So what have you got planned for today?” your best friend, Jaehyun, asked you as he took a sip of his coffee, shielding his eyes from the sun’s rays coming through the window of the cafe.

It was your weekly Saturday brunch, at which Jaehyun would show up, nine times out of ten, hungover, wearing dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, a black t-shirt and sweats. There was never a deviation from this outfit, even on the times when he came not hungover.

“Oh not much, just an appointment at the fertility clinic this afternoon.”

Jaehyun paused, as you took a sip of your latte. You couldn’t see the look in his eyes through the sunglasses but his fork had stopped midway to his mouth. It hovered in the air, scrambled eggs sliding off of it and plopping onto the plate below.

“The where?” he asked, tipping his head to look at you above the top of his sunglasses.

“Fertility clinic. Looking into getting a sperm donor.”

The matter-of-fact way you were saying everything seemed to shock him, his fork still not moving towards his mouth or back onto the plate.

“Excuse me, a sperm donor?”

You put your coffee cup down, and sighed. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked, I told you before I wanted to have a baby.”

“I thought you were joking!”

“Well I wasn’t!” you don’t know why you were being so indignant, maybe because all you’d heard from everyone around you, from your parents to your doctor to the lady that sold you pretzels from a street cart, was negative. You shouldn’t have a baby without a partner, was the main point of contention, but how was that going to happen if you weren’t seeing anyone, and hadn’t had a serious relationship in almost a year.

“But a sperm donor, Y/N?” he asked, after mulling over what you just said.

“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?” you countered. You were so sick of everyone around you criticizing your plan.

“I don’t know, what if he’s like, a serial killer or something?”

“They do psychiatric assessments on everyone who donates.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an undiagnosed illness-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Jaehyun!” you’d had it, letting out an exasperated huff, “Do you have a better idea? Do you want to be my sperm donor?”

You weren’t at all serious, you were just mainly upset and unfortunately, taking it out on him, but he actually sat back in his chair, eyebrows raised, as if he were contemplating it.

“Anyway, forget it. I don’t need your approval. I just hoped that you’d support me, of all people.” You couldn’t help but pout. He was your best friend and he’d stuck with you when no one else had. You may have said you didn’t need his approval but deep down you wanted him to be on your side.

He leaned forward, took his sunglasses off and looked you in the eye. “Of course I support you,” he said sincerely. “If this is what you want, then I’m with you one hundred percent of the way.”

You smiled, your heart feeling lighter, and just as you took a sip of your latte he said the one thing that would complicate your life forever.

“But I get to be that sperm donor.”

You spluttered, almost choking on your latte. “I wasn’t being at all serious, Jaehyun,” you chuckled nervously, but one look at his face and you could see he was being completely serious.

“I just don’t like the idea of some stranger being the father of your child,” he said quietly, looking down at his plate of food while he said it, “might as well be me, right?” He looked up at you hopefully.

You didn’t know what to say. This was your best friend, the one you’d grown up with, the one you’d catch tadpoles with, the one you’d drag to the playground with you, the one you told all your innermost secrets to. The one who knew you best. Didn’t it make sense then, that he would be the one to share this with you, in the end? You looked at his face; open, sincere, beautiful. You knew he was attractive, with the trail of broken hearts he’d leave in his wake, but you hadn’t really looked at him in that way before. Suddenly he was a new person to you, and now you didn’t know how to feel.

“Jaehyun, I-” you rubbed your hands together nervously, still unsure of what to say, “it’s a big thing, you know? This will change the rest of your life.”

He nodded, but there was no trace of hesitation in his actions. In fact, he looked as sure as anything. “Yeah that’s a given. But I’ve thought about it and I’m ready.”

“Jaehyun, you’ve literally thought about it for, like, the few minutes we’ve been sitting here.”

He smiled, “Actually I’ve thought about it for a long time.”

“About being a sperm donor?”

He laughed. “No, not specifically a sperm donor. But it’s a start,” he shrugged. “So what do I have to do?”

---

Jaehyun accompanied you to the appointment at the fertility clinic, where they outlined the plan and what was required of the two of you. It didn’t sound too bad, but you did find that having Jaehyun there to support you was really helpful. Every time the doctor explained something that made you nervous you would look over at him and he would smile confidently at you, sometimes squeezing your hand if you looked particularly concerned.

It was the fertility drugs they gave you, that threw your world into chaos. They had warned you of the side effects but you didn’t think it would be this bad. Your mood swung back and forth like a pendulum, one moment you were happy, the next you were crying into your cereal. You were irritable more than you had ever been in your life, and constantly snapped at every little thing. Not to mention that your breasts were sore and you had nausea, making you feel like you were pregnant already. You felt bad for Jaehyun when he was around for your mood swings and irritable moments, but he handled it much better than you thought he would. He’d give you your space when you needed it, but also sit by your side when you didn’t want to be alone. You found yourself thinking about how he would be as a father, but then you would remember that he was just the sperm donor.

One day, when he was sitting beside you on the couch, rubbing your back after you’d cried over your coffee order being wrong, you ended up asking him how much he wanted to be involved.

“We didn’t talk about the ‘after’,” you said, still sniffling. He stopped rubbing your back and looked at you.

“What do you want the ‘after’ to look like?” He asked, his tone level and gentle.

You had visions of Jaehyun rocking the baby to sleep, of Jaehyun seeing the baby walk for the first time, of Jaehyun teaching your child how to ride a bike, piano lessons, soccer games, first day of school. The perfect family. Except he wasn’t your husband, he wasn’t even your boyfriend. You didn’t know what to ask of him.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. He went back to rubbing your back.

“I’ll be as involved as you want me to be,” he said softly, “my only request is that I get to be a part of their life.”

That sounded fair, you thought. This was certainly going to be more complicated than getting a stranger as a sperm donor.

---

You went through several cycles of IVF, but none had been successful and you were losing hope. Not to mention the fertility drugs were really taking a toll on you, and the doctor had recommended taking a break. You were devastated, seeing it as the end of your dream, no matter how much the doctor reassured you that it wasn’t.

“There has to be another solution,” you pleaded at one appointment. Jaehyun hadn’t accompanied you and you felt yourself falling apart without his presence.

“Well, of course there’s the surefire way,” the doctor shrugged.

“What’s that? I’ll do anything!” you were hopeful once again at the doctor’s words.

“Regular sexual intercourse.”

Of course, you thought bitterly. You couldn’t help but think this was society punishing you for doing this without a husband. Undeterred, you resolved to discuss it with Jaehyun.

---

The look on Jaehyun’s face when you broached the subject was one you had never seen on him before. It was a mixture of shock, terror, resignation, and… something else, almost like acceptance, as if this were the natural course of things.

You resolved not to make it weird, it was just sex after all, and you would get a baby out of it, and that was the most important thing. However, your palms still got sweaty at the thought of it, your heart racing imagining him naked. You’d gone swimming with him plenty of times, went on beach outings often, and you realized you’d always avert your eyes from his bare chest. You figured you were just doing it to be polite, but you had no trouble looking at other men’s chests (you were only human, after all). You shook your head of your thoughts, while waiting patiently for him to agree or disagree to your request.

“I know it’s weird,” you began, when he still hadn’t said anything, “but I promise it won’t change anything in our relationship.” You needed him to agree, and at this point you would say anything to convince him. He looked at you thoughtfully, before he nodded.

“Okay, I’m in.”

---

You’d been keeping track of your cycle and had the days you were ovulating marked on your calendar, which you had shared with Jaehyun. It was agreed that he would come to your place after work, where you would have sex in the hopes of making a baby.

The first night you were nervous, pacing your room as you waited for him to come over. When the doorbell rang you literally jumped out of your skin. When you opened the door you were relieved to see that he was nervous too, although he tried his best to hide it. He joked around with you, trying to keep the mood light, and you had to admit you appreciated it. But when you got to the bedroom, you both went quiet. Jaehyun stood at one end of the room and you stood at the other, the bed looming between you.

“Do you want me to turn around while you get undressed?” he asked awkwardly, and you realized you hadn’t thought through the details.

“Um, yeah, sure,” you replied, and when he turned around you hastily undressed and jumped under the covers. “Done,” you advised, and he turned around. He didn’t make a move though, just looking at you pointedly, until you realized and turned your head away. Once he was done undressing you felt him lift the covers and get into the bed with you, and you couldn’t stop your heart from hammering in your chest.

“Y/N,” he said softly, because you still hadn’t turned back to him. “Can I touch you?”

You bit your lip, still not looking his way, and nodded. His touch made you jolt, even though his hand was warm, the electricity you felt made all your nerve endings feel like they were on fire.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his hand moving tentatively across your stomach. You nodded but you realized you were panting already, and he had barely touched you. “Tell me if I do anything you don’t like,” he suddenly whispered in your ear, and then he was kissing your neck.

You weren’t prepared for the intimacy, you had really only thought about the intercourse part. You hadn’t prepared yourself for the kissing, and the touching, and how he was so good at making you feel good. You felt like you weren’t supposed to enjoy it, that it was supposed to be “just sex” because you were friends and you weren’t doing this because you loved each other, you were only doing it to have a baby. But the more he touched you, the more he kissed you, the more you fell under his spell. You felt like you should tell him to stop, to just get on with it, but you knew he was doing it to get you nice and wet and therefore more comfortable to take him.

His kisses started to move along your jaw, towards your lips, and when he was finally there, his lips on yours, you felt a panic bubble up in your chest. It was too intimate, too much for someone who wasn’t yours. You pulled away, and he looked at you in surprise.

“No kissing on the lips,” you managed to say, maybe that would be enough to keep it less intimate, you told yourself. He nodded without saying a word, his hand coming up to your breast.

“Is it okay if I touch you here?” he asked, his eyes on yours. You thought for a moment and decided it was okay, and when you nodded he cupped your breast tentatively, all the while watching you for your reaction. When you didn’t pull away he squeezed gently, rubbing your nipple with his thumb.

You pressed your lips together, trying to suppress a moan, because everything he was doing was making you feel so good. He kept watching your reaction, and when he was satisfied that you were reacting favorably he got bolder, his hand slipping down between your legs.

You yelped when he touched you there, your legs involuntarily closing and trapping his hand. He froze, looking at you with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” you apologized, flushing with embarrassment, “reflex reaction.”

“It’s okay,” he said softly, as you slowly opened up your legs again. He moved his hand slowly, gently, just rubbing the inside of your thigh. “You can relax, Y/N, I promise I won’t hurt you.” His words were soft, his tone gentle, and it did wonders to calm and soothe you.

You nodded, giving him the go-ahead, and he reached tentatively with his finger, just lightly touching your folds. The electricity you felt when he first touched you came back with a vengeance, and you almost melted right into the bed. Your reaction encouraged him though, and he pressed his finger further in, rubbing your wetness around. When he was satisfied with the state of your arousal he got into position between your legs, placing the tip of his cock at your entrance. He paused, looking you in the eye, gently stroking your cheek.

“Ready?” he asked gently, “I’ll go slow.”

You nodded vigorously, to be honest the anticipation was killing you and you were very much aroused, wanting him to just get on with it. When he pushed into you though, you realized you should really be careful what you wished for. The feeling of him stretching you was almost too much, every inch he pushed in agonizingly slow amplifying your arousal to a dizzying degree. By the time he was seated all the way inside you you were panting, almost out of breath already.

“Okay?” he asked, through gritted teeth. You could tell he was holding back for dear life, but he purposely went achingly slow to make sure you were comfortable.

“Yes,” you said, having adjusted to his size, “you can move now.” Your pussy clenched involuntarily around him and he hissed.

“Don’t do that, Y/N,” he groaned, “I won’t last.”

“Sorry,” you said sheepishly, and as if to get you back he snapped his hips, making you cry out.

“Fuck!” you screamed, and that definitely encouraged him, and he set a pace, fucking you into the mattress. You felt your toes curl, a familiar knot building in your stomach. Once again, you thought, you felt like you shouldn’t be enjoying it as much as you were, it was more important for him to come inside you. “Come on, baby, come for me,” you whispered in his ear, hoping the dirty talk would encourage him.

“Almost there,” he grunted, and as much as you tried not to enjoy it, the way he was drilling into you felt too good. You bit your lip and grasped at the sheets, trying to keep your orgasm down, but he took it as a sign that you were about to come. He reached between you and thumbed your clit, and at that moment your orgasm exploded out of you without warning. He groaned as you clenched around him, finally spilling his seed inside you. You were dizzy, mind hazy from your orgasm, but you were content at the feeling of his cum inside you. He started to pull out, then stopped.

“Oh,” he said, and you looked up at him to see why he was saying that.

“What is it?” you asked.

“It’s leaking out of you,” he pointed down between your legs. You panicked.

“Well you’re not supposed to pull out right away!” you wrung your hands frantically, “push it back in!”

He looked at you incredulously, before looking down at his already softening cock, realizing it was useless at that point. So he just used his fingers, gathering up the cum that had leaked down and pushing it back into your pussy. You bit your lip again, because the more he pushed in, the more aroused you became, surprised that you weren’t oversensitive at this point. He must’ve noticed your reaction because he didn’t stop, pushing in further and further, in and out, faster and faster, until you were coming again, pussy pulsing around his fingers.

You took a deep breath to regulate your breathing, while he pulled his fingers out of you and sat back.

“Are you okay?” he asked, when you still lay there, unmoving.

“Yes,” you responded, staring up at the ceiling.

“Well, I guess I’ll get going,” he said awkwardly, when you didn’t say anything else.

You nodded, still staring up at the ceiling. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here.” He dressed without saying anything more and left the room.

---

He came over again the next night, and you repeated the same awkward scene from the night before. This continued for a few cycles, with no success, and again you were losing hope.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with me,” you said dejectedly one day. Jaehyun looked over at you, concern etched on his face.

“The doctor said you were fine,” he replied, attempting to soothe you.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with you then,” you huffed, but Jaehyun just shook his head.

“Y/N, they put us through a bunch of tests and said we’re both fine,” he put a hand on your knee to reassure you.

“Then why isn’t it working?” you lamented, on the verge of tears.

“Do you want my opinion?” he asked hesitantly. You looked up at him in surprise.

“Yeah, of course,” you replied, curious as to what he had to say.

“Well, I’ve been reading those links the doctor sent, and it said stress is a big factor,” he stated carefully, “I think you just need to relax, and let it happen.”

You were floored. On the one hand you were touched that he had actually read the links the doctor had sent (you had been too impatient to bother), on the other hand, what exactly did he mean by ‘letting it happen’?

“Let’s do things differently next time, what do you think?” he had a twinkle in his eye that was starting to alarm you.

“What do you have in mind?” you asked suspiciously.

“You’ll see.” He smiled, much too widely for your liking.

---

The next time came around and you were more nervous than you were the first night, and if this was his idea of making it more relaxed he was already failing miserably. When he showed up at your door though, you almost didn’t recognize him.

Instead of a t-shirt and sweats, he was wearing a crisp white button-down and jeans that sat sexily on his hips. Instead of his hair flat and falling in his face he had it pulled back, with just a few strands falling over his forehead. He also smelled incredible, a musky scent that forever trapped you in his hold, and made you want him in every way he would let you.

He smiled at you, but not in the way a friend smiles at a friend, and when he leaned in to give you a kiss on the cheek you almost passed out from the warmth of his lips and the intoxicating scent emanating from his skin. He walked past you to the bedroom, leaving you standing there with your mouth open and your underwear dampening.

When you finally collected yourself, you went upstairs to hear the bath running. You walked into the bathroom to see him drawing a bath, candles surrounding the tub, flower petals in the water, and the most luscious smelling bath bomb marinating in it.

“Jaehyun, what-”

“Shh,” he put a finger to your lips, and even that act was so sensual you had to squeeze your legs together, “let me take care of you.” He reached down and turned off the water. “Get undressed and get in the bath, and I’ll come back and help you get relaxed.” He left the room and you did what he said, calling him back in once you were in the bath and the cloudy bubbly water reached the tops of your breasts.

He had such a calm and serene look on his face that it almost threw you off, but then he was taking your puff and squeezing body wash on it.

“May I?” he asked, and when you nodded he gently took your arm and ran the puff along it. He did the same with the other arm, and that simple act, along with the warmth of the bath water, did wonders to soothe you. You felt like you were floating, with the calming scents of the bath bomb, and his gentle touch. He started to run the puff along your neck and you bent your head back and sighed. Soon enough he was dipping below the surface of the water, running the puff between your breasts, and you sighed even deeper as he got lower, past your stomach, and lower still. The puff was forgotten, and now it was just his hand, reaching down between your legs. It all felt so good, you spread your legs even wider, wanting more.

“How does it feel?” he whispered, so close to your ear you shuddered.

“So good,” you couldn’t help but moan, and then his hand was there, cupping your pussy.

“I want to make you feel good, Y/N,” he purred, his voice like honey, “will you let me make you feel good?”

“Yes,” the word came out on a long exhale, as he plunged a finger between your folds, and you couldn’t help but fall apart. He fingered you until you came, water splashing all around you as you writhed in pleasure. When you were done he picked you up out of the bath, not caring that his clothes were getting wet, and carried you to the bed. You couldn’t care that you were probably soaking the bed, because his lips were on your neck, hot and urgent, leaving marks that you’d have trouble concealing the next day.

You pulled at his shirt, wanting it off already, and he obliged, throwing the damp fabric to a corner of the room. You rubbed your hands all over his chest, feeling the firm muscle there, then down to his abs. He groaned against your neck when you undid his belt and slipped your hand over his hardened cock.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he hissed, when you wrapped your hand around it and pumped.

“Don’t come yet,” you whispered, taking your hand away, opting instead to pull the rest of his jeans and boxers off. You wrapped your legs around him, encouraging him to enter you, but he pulled back slightly.

“Slow down,” he breathed, and you could feel him smiling against your neck, “this isn’t a race, Y/N,” he continued kissing down the column of your neck, down to your chest, “relax, and let me make you feel good.”

You finally relented, relaxing as he’d ordered, letting yourself melt into the mattress as he sucked on your skin. Your body was on fire, both from the heat of the bath you just had as well as the way his lips were ruining you. When he got down to your lower stomach you realized where he was headed, and instead of fighting the pleasure you were feeling you simply gave in. As soon as his wet tongue collided with your wet folds you let go, moaning wantonly at the feeling. Every sound you made spurred him on, every jerk and jolt of your body gave him the impetus to push you to the height of pleasure, until you were yanking at his hair and convulsing around his tongue.

“That was fucking hot, Y/N,” he almost growled, wiping at his chin as he moved to hover above you, “I almost came.”

“Don’t,” you panted, trying to catch your breath, “you need to come inside me.”

“You want it? Want my cum inside you, fill you up,” his voice was deep, intense, a tone you’d never heard from him, and certainly words you’d never heard from him, but it certainly was doing the job and making you very aroused.

“Oh god,” you exclaimed, unaware that dirty talk was something you liked. Your previous boyfriends hadn’t been this filthy, but you found you loved it.

“I’m gonna fuck you hard, and you’re gonna take all of my cum,” he continued, voice raspy, breath hot in your ear, “I’m gonna knock you the fuck up, and watch your belly grow with my baby.”

“Jaehyun!” you cried out, losing yourself completely. You grabbed a hold of his neck and pulled him down, and for a split second you saw his eyes grow wide as you smashed your lips against his, your no-kissing rule forgotten. He kissed you with the same passion and intensity that he ate you out with, and you wondered why you had ever put that no-kissing rule into place if he could make you feel like that with his lips. You moaned when his tongue entered your mouth, just as he slid his cock inside you.

This time you didn’t hold back, allowing yourself to feel everything. The way his cock slid in and out of you, the way the tip kept hitting that spot so deep inside you. The way his tongue moved in your mouth, the way his hands rubbed up and down your body, sometimes squeezing your breasts and flicking your nipples. Your hands roamed over his back, feeling his muscles move, and when you felt your orgasm start to build you dragged your nails against his skin.

“Fuck, Y/N, I’m gonna come,” he broke from the kiss to drop his head down to your chest, his thrusts getting harder but more erratic.

“Oh god, do it,” you panted, your orgasm about to burst out of you, “fill me up, baby, I want your cum so bad.”

That was enough to send him over the edge, and he pulled you flush against him as he came inside you, the particularly forceful thrusts triggering your own orgasm and making you clench around him. He let out a loud groan as you milked him, fingernails digging into his back.

When you were both done you held him against you, not wanting to let him go. He obliged, just holding you, his face tucked against your neck. You could feel his hot breath against your skin and that, along with his arms around you and his weight on top of you was all oddly comforting.

“I’m gonna pull out,” he finally said, when he had gone soft inside you. You sighed but nodded, and once he had pulled out you clamped your legs together, trying to keep as much of his cum inside you as you could.

He dressed quietly and you watched him, heart stuttering in your chest, your mind reeling. You had promised him that the sex wouldn’t change anything in your relationship, but you couldn’t believe how wrong you were. You wanted to reach for him, wanted him to stay, but you held back.

“Thanks for that,” you said quietly, and he turned to you and smiled.

“You’re welcome,” he said sincerely, “I’ll do anything for you,” and he brought his hand up and cupped your cheek, his eyes soft as he looked at you, “you’re my best friend.”

You smiled at him, but inside your heart was breaking. How could you ever think you could do this and keep your friendship as it was?

---

A few weeks later you were late, and although you tried not to get your hopes up you couldn’t help but think this was it. You waited to take the pregnancy test, wanting Jaehyun to be there no matter the outcome.

“What is it? What’s wrong? You said it’s an emergency.” He looked so concerned when he came over, and you almost felt bad for not saying what it was about right away.

“I’m late, Jaehyun,” you announced nervously.

“Where do you have to be?”

“No, I mean my period! I haven’t gotten my period yet!”

He paused, the pieces finally falling into place, and his face suddenly lit up. “Oh shit!” He covered his mouth with his hand as he looked at you with wide eyes.

“Come with me, I’m gonna take a pregnancy test.” You led him upstairs where he waited outside the bathroom door while you took the test. You placed the stick on the counter and opened the door to let him in.

“Well? What does it say?” he asked, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“It’s gonna take a few minutes,” you answered nervously, “I can’t look, tell me what it says.” You turned away, so anxious you thought you would pass out.

“One line, so far,” he stated, and you tried to stay calm but your heart was beating out of your chest.

“Hold my hand,” you reached behind you and he took your hand in his, squeezing to comfort you. He was silent for a while, and you couldn’t take it anymore. “Well? What does it say now?”

“I see…” he started to say, and you so desperately wanted to turn around but you were too scared.

“What?! Just say it!”

He pulled you to him, turning you around and lifting the stick up to your eye level. “Two lines.”

You blinked a few times, wanting to make sure you were seeing it right, but every time you opened your eyes there were two solid lines. You were pregnant.

“Oh my god,” you whispered, both of your hands going up to cover your mouth. Jaehyun whooped in celebration, jumping up and down with glee. You saw the genuine happiness in his face and so many emotions ran through you that the only thing you could do was burst into tears.

“Aw, Y/N, don’t cry!” he laughed, gathering you into his arms, thinking you were just crying from happiness. But it was so much more complicated than that. You were getting what you wanted, a baby, but you hadn’t prepared yourself for all the complications of having a baby with your best friend, who you may have developed feelings for.

---

The first trimester was hell. You were throwing up every morning, and feeling nausea for the rest of the day. You had an aversion to most food, even hating the smell of certain things, like meat. The only things you could keep down were bread and noodles, and you wondered how the baby could grow when that was all that you ate. But at every appointment the doctor reassured you that the baby was doing well and developing at a good rate. Jaehyun insisted on going with you to your first ultrasound and as much as you wanted him to, you also dreaded it.

When the fuzzy form of your baby showed up on the screen for the first time you felt a surge of happiness overcome you, tears springing to your eyes at the sight of the tiny figure on the screen. You heard Jaehyun inhale sharply and turned to look at him. The awe in his face was so endearing it made the tears run down your cheeks, and seeing your reaction he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you in for a hug.

“That’s our baby,” he whispered, his voice almost breaking, and you cried harder.

“Congratulations!” the technician said, patting you both on the shoulder. You felt like you should correct her, tell her that although the baby was technically yours and Jaehyun’s, you weren’t together and wouldn’t be raising the baby as such. But how do you explain that to a complete stranger? You looked over at Jaehyun, who was smiling from ear to ear, shaking the technician’s hand and making no move to explain the situation.

Later, as you were getting ready to leave the clinic, you saw the technician hand over a copy of the ultrasound picture to Jaehyun. He took it happily in his hands, as if it were the most precious thing in the world. As he walked towards you he slipped it into the plastic window spot in his wallet, where your drivers’ license should be, but his now housed a blurry black and white photo of your baby.

“Hey, wanna get something to eat to celebrate?” he asked, slinging an arm around you as you both left the clinic.

You shook your head. As much as you wanted to spend time with him, you found it hurt more than it helped. Once the baby was born you’d have to deal with him being around more often, so it was better to save up your strength for that.

“I’m actually really tired, I just want to go home and rest,” you answered without looking up at him, “besides, I’m still off most foods.”

“Oh, okay, makes sense.” He said, removing his arm from around your shoulder and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He didn’t sound upset or offended, but when you looked at him out of the corner of your eye you saw a flash of emotion cross his face, almost like hurt or disappointment. You felt bad, knowing you had been avoiding him, even giving up your weekly brunches, but you felt it was better this way.

“Listen, I’ll let you know when the next ultrasound is, okay? You can come with me again.” You wanted just to wipe the look of disappointment off his face, and luckily it worked.

“Yeah, that would be great! Thanks so much, Y/N,” he leaned down and hugged you, and it was the closest he’d been to you since the last time you’d had sex to make the baby. You held him close, committing the feel of him and the scent of him to memory, before you pulled away and walked towards your car.

---

If the first trimester had been hell, the second trimester was heaven. Miraculously the nausea disappeared, and you found yourself actually craving food. You felt more energized and less tired, and slept so much better. Your belly was starting to grow, and you actually had to start shopping for maternity clothes. Your mood was so much better, but what really came back with a vengeance was your libido. During the first trimester you couldn’t even think about sex, but now, it was all you could think about.

Usually your vibrator would do the trick, but there were always moments where you’d think about Jaehyun, think about how good he could make you feel. Sometimes just thinking about him fucking you was enough to get you off, but when you really thought about him, about the feeling of his cock parting your folds, or the feeling of his strong hips pounding into you, his face sweaty and his scent overpowering the air between you, nothing was better than the real thing.

Which is how you found yourself one night, holding your phone and dialing his number without hesitation.

“Hey, what’s up,” he answered, his voice sounding distant. You realized you hadn’t spoken to or seen him in weeks, and instantly you felt terrible.

“Um, actually nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t wake me,” you could hear him shuffling around, like he had been lying down and started to sit up, “is something wrong, Y/N?”

He always saw right through you, you could hear the concern is his voice, and there was no turning back now.

“Could you come over? I think I need some… company.” You didn’t know if you could just ask for sex over the phone, and was it really only sex that you wanted? Or did you just want him there, with you.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, I can come over,” you heard more shuffling, like he was getting dressed, “are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’ll be better when you’re here.” You answered truthfully.

When he showed up at your door you couldn’t stop yourself from pulling him towards you and hugging him tightly. He didn’t protest, just held you and rubbed your back gently.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” he asked softly against your hair.

“I miss you,” you admitted, voice muffled against his chest because you were too ashamed to look at him.

“I’m around, you know,” he chuckled, “you’re the one who cancelled our brunches.”

You pulled back and forced yourself to make eye contact with him. “No, Jaehyun, I miss you.” You touched his chest when you said it, giving him a look laden with meaning. He understood right away, his eyebrows rising slightly. You took him by the hand and pulled him inside, leading him upstairs and to your bedroom. He let himself be led, but once you were behind closed doors he suddenly took you into his arms and kissed you. The kiss wasn’t subtle, or gentle, it was intense and forceful, his intent surely to rile you up. It definitely worked, because you could feel wetness pooling in your panties as he stuck his tongue down your throat.

“You want my cock again,” he growled, breaking from the kiss to suck a line down your throat. You gasped at his aggressiveness, but you had to admit it really turned you on.

“Yes,” you breathed out, as he stripped you of your clothes and pushed you towards the bed. You fumbled at his clothes, trying to get them off but you found your limbs were weak from the way he was handling you. He took over, stripping off the rest of his clothes, his cock springing forward when he pulled his boxers down. You admired it for only a second before he turned you around, pushing you onto your hands and knees on the bed.

“You like my cock, don’t you, you like me fucking into your little pussy,” he spoke so low, his chest flush against your back so you could feel the reverberation of his voice.

You didn’t have a chance to answer, because he rammed his cock into you, a scream tearing from your throat as he went as deep as he could.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he groaned, his hands gripping your hips as he started to pound into you. You weren’t sure how pregnant sex would feel, since so many things were changing in your body, but you weren’t prepared for what you got. It felt like your entire body was on fire, pleasure coursing through every part of you. He hit places inside you that you’d never felt before, and all of it was like nothing you’d ever experienced.

“Jae,” you panted, “Jae, oh my god!” your orgasm was coming on, super fast and beyond your control.

“You’re gonna come already, baby? Alright, come on, come all over my cock,” he reached down, and although it was a little awkward because of your belly, he managed to get to your clit and rub it with the pad of his thumb.

Your vision went white when your orgasm hit, your fingers and toes going numb as your pussy clenched around his cock. You could barely hold yourself up, your upper body falling to the bed as you convulsed around him. He kept going, fucking you through it, and when you stilled he pulled out and lay you on your back. He gave you a moment to catch your breath, before he entered you again. You cried out at the oversensitivity, but he went slowly, and soon enough you started to feel pleasure again.

“I can keep going,” he said, as he fucked into you at a slow but deliberate pace, “you want more, don’t you?”

You nodded vigorously, already feeling another orgasm building. He propped himself up then, and pounded into you, the bed shaking from his harsh thrusts. You gripped and pulled at the sheets, unable to contain the needy whines and moans coming up out of your mouth. You forced your eyes open to see him hovering over you, a look of intense concentration on his face, his brow sweaty, hair falling into his eyes. When he saw you looking at him his concentration faltered, and he bent his head down for a kiss. You were expecting a kiss to match the intensity with which he was fucking you, but instead it was soft, gentle, lingering. You felt something in it, something above and beyond what he was doing to you, something that carried you where you most wanted to be but didn’t dare go. The orgasm you had then was different, not just purely physical, not just filled with lust, but something more elevated, more emotional.

He broke the kiss to grunt loudly as he came, spilling more of his seed inside you. When he was done he pulled out, and sat at the edge of the bed.

“Y/N,” he said, and you don’t know why he sounded so defeated. You sat up, preparing yourself for what he was going to say.

“Jaehyun,” you reached for him but thought better of it, your hand dropping into your lap.

“I can’t keep doing this with you,” he said, his voice quiet but determined, “it’s fucking me up and I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Your heart sank. He was pulling out of your life, and it was all your fault for doing this to him. “I’m so sorry, Jaehyun.”

He got dressed hurriedly, without looking back at you, and before he opened the door to leave he turned back.

“You need to decide for yourself what you want me to be,” he still didn’t look at you, opting to look at the floor instead, “I’ll always be here for you, but I need to know where I stand.”

The door closing behind him echoed in the room, the absence of him already settling into your heart.

---

You went through the rest of the second trimester on your own, too ashamed and heartbroken to see Jaehyun, and too confused to sort out your feelings. He’d text you once in a while to ask you how you were doing, how you were feeling, but there was no talk beyond the pregnancy. He didn’t come to any more of your doctor’s appointments, nor did you ever invite him to any more in the first place. The third trimester hit even worse than the first, your belly was now so big it was almost uncomfortable to do anything, you now had constant heartburn, and you were going to the bathroom every ten minutes because of the weight on your bladder.

About a month before your due date, you were making dinner in the kitchen when you felt an uncomfortable tightening in your abdomen. You clutched your stomach, gripping the counter in alarm and wondering what you should do. The feeling came and went, but returned after a few minutes. Concerned, you called your doctor, who advised you to come in to the hospital just to get checked out. As you were getting ready you got a text from Jaehyun, asking how you were doing.

Jaehyun: hey just doing my check-in

JH: how is it going today

Me: well it’s probably nothing but

Me: just going to the hospital to get checked out

JH: wait what

JH: let me take you

Me: i should be ok

JH: Y/N pls let me take you

Me: ok

JH: thank you i’ll be right there

You sighed, wishing you had never told him and made him worry. Luckily you didn’t have to wait long since he lived nearby, and soon enough he was pulling up to your house. You didn’t bother to wait for him to come to the door, coming out as soon as you saw his car. You were locking the front door when the uncomfortable feeling came back, making you double over, clutching your stomach.

“Y/N!” you heard Jaehyun yell behind you, and soon enough his arms were cradling you as you crouched over. “What happened? What’s going on?”

His voice sounded frantic, terrified, and when you looked up in his eyes he looked so scared that it made your chest ache.

You smiled weakly, trying to placate him, “Don’t worry, it’s probably just false labor,” you patted him on the arm and soon enough the feeling went away. “My doctor just wants me to come in and get checked out, just in case.”

He nodded, but didn’t look reassured at all, creases of worry still lining his face. He also didn’t let you go, holding onto your arm as you walked to the car. At the hospital he didn’t leave your side, until the doctor came to do your examination.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said hesitantly, but you could tell he didn’t want to leave at all, eyes looking longingly back at you as he left the room.

After the doctor examined you and reassured you that it really was just false labor, you were cleared to leave and found Jaehyun in the hall, pacing. Once he saw you he ran up to you, searching your face with frantic eyes.

“Well? What happened?” he’d taken your hands in his, and his palms felt cold and clammy.

“It was nothing, just false labor, the doctor told me to go home and rest.” You reassured him, squeezing his hands and smiling softly at him. He let out a long breath, collapsing into a nearby chair.

“Oh my god, Y/N, I almost died!” he passed the back of his hand over his eyes dramatically, and you suppressed a giggle at his overdramatic show.

“Don’t laugh!” he sat up and looked at you incredulously, “I lost ten years of my life just now!”

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” you pressed your lips together trying not to smile. He broke into a wide grin then, pleased with himself that he had managed to lighten your mood with his sense of humor.

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

---

The drive from the hospital had been quiet, both of you realizing that there was still this huge wall between you, and neither of you were brave enough to breach it. He walked you to your door in continued silence, and once you reached your doorstep he turned around to walk back to his car.

“Jaehyun,” you called, unable to stand it anymore, “do you wanna come in and talk?”

He turned around, a mixture of hope, fear, and resignation on his face, and nodded.

The time apart had made you realize how much you missed him, and seeing him again had made you realize how much you still wanted him to be a part of your life. You were hoping to salvage something of your relationship, but you were fully aware that you could never go back to what it had been.

You sat him down on the sofa and took a deep breath.

“Jaehyun,” you began, getting more and more nervous as you went on, “I know I made things weird, even though I promised I wouldn’t,” he opened his mouth to say something but you stopped him, determined to get out what you wanted to say. “I was so focused on having a baby that I didn’t think about what involving you would mean, and what it would do to our friendship. I think I was just naive, I didn’t think anything would change, and I was so wrong.”

He sat across from you, and even though he was just inches away it felt like he was miles away, like an unfathomable chasm had opened up between you. Then he looked up at you, hesitant, but determined.

“Y/N, we can’t go back and change things anymore. What’s happened has happened.” He tilted his head to regard you, taking a deep breath before moving on, “so I just need to know one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Do you want me to be a part of your life?”

“Yes. Always.” You answered truthfully, without a doubt in your mind. He smiled, but there was still something behind his eyes.

“Hey, do you remember that pact we made in eighth grade?” He suddenly asked, his eyes twinkling.

“The marriage one?” you scanned your eighth grade memories and that was the only pact you could think of.

“Yeah, the one where we said if neither of us are married by the time we’re thirty, we’ll marry each other?”

“Yes, I remember.” It was during PE class, when you and Jaehyun were sitting in the field while everyone else was running around chasing soccer balls. You don’t remember how the subject came up, but soon enough you were doing pinky swears and Jaehyun was fashioning rings out of blades of grass for you and him to wear. You both had a good laugh over it, and never thought about it again until this moment.

“So what if we didn’t wait?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if we didn’t wait until we’re thirty, what if we just did it now? I mean, we’re having a baby together already.”

“Jaehyun, are you proposing right now?” you said it as a joke, even chuckling to yourself, you weren’t taking the whole thing seriously at all, except Jaehyun wasn’t laughing.

“I mean, I don’t have a ring, but…” he looked around the room, and seeing your spider plant on a nearby table he picked a leaf off and rolled it around itself, making a ring out of it, and slipped it on your finger. You were speechless.

“Jaehyun, you’re serious.” You managed to say after the thoughts stopped running through your brain. You hadn’t really thought about marriage, none of the guys you’d dated had ever made you think about it. You knew you wanted kids, but marriage was something you figured you couldn’t achieve, never having found the right guy. Yet here he was all along, Jeong Jaehyun, your best friend, someone who knew you inside and out. A dawning realization hit you then, that maybe none of your relationships ever worked out because you kept comparing them to Jaehyun, and no one ever held up. You were in love with your best friend, and you didn’t even know it.

“Well?” he asked, with raised eyebrows and hopeful eyes. You stared at the leaf ring on your finger, turning it around and around, your heart and mind finally finding peace in your realization. You looked up at him, cupping his face, and he looked like he was bracing himself for a possibly negative response.

“Yes.” You answered, smiling brightly at him, and it took him a moment to realize you weren’t turning him down. His face broke out into a wide grin, his dimples as deep as ever, his eyes shiny. He pulled you in for a hug, but your belly made it somewhat awkward.

“Oh my god, Y/N, you’re huge!” he looked down at your belly in awe.

“Jaehyun what the fuck!” you smacked him on the arm, slightly offended.

“No, I meant I was too busy being worried about you that I never noticed how big your belly had gotten.” He reached out his hand tentatively. “Can I touch?”

“Of course,” you said, happy that you could share this with him. You took his hand and placed it on your belly.

“Can you feel the baby move?” He asked, eyes growing wide when his hand landed on your stomach.

“Sometimes, mostly when I’m lying still though.” You let him rub his hand over your stomach, endeared at how awestruck he was, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ as he moved his hand around. He suddenly leaned forward, his face getting very close to your belly.

“Hey little one,” he called softly, and your heart clenched at the sight of him talking to the baby in your belly, “I’m your dad.”

Suddenly you felt a jolt in your ribs, as the baby stretched and kicked inside you.

“Oh my god, Y/N! Did you feel that?” Jaehyun clapped excitedly.

“Damn right I felt it,” you groaned, patting your stomach, “keep it down in there, kicking mama in the ribs really hurts!”

Jaehyun burst out laughing, gathering you in his arms and hugging you tightly. “That was adorable!” he exclaimed, and your heart felt warm as you wrapped your arms around him.

---

You decided to just do a small backyard ceremony for your wedding, neither of you fond of big parties that meant even bigger expenses. Jaehyun moved into your house since he had been rooming with a friend, and once all of his things had been moved in and installed, you were left alone with each other once again.

You don’t know why, but your first night as a married couple felt like the first night you’d had sex, awkward as hell. Once again you stood on either side of the bed, unsure as to what to do.

“Bed?” he finally asked after you’d both stood there for too long.

“Bed,” you answered, and you both got in at the same time. You couldn’t help but laugh at your awkwardness, and that certainly broke the tension. You turned to your side, the only way you could get comfortable with how big your belly was, and he slotted his body behind you, wrapping an arm around you and resting his hand on your belly. You sighed contentedly, loving the feeling of being in his arms.

“This is nice,” he whispered, but his breath against your ear made you shiver, and suddenly contentment wasn’t the only thing you were feeling. Not to mention his hand that was on your belly had moved to your hip, fingers tracing wide circles over the fabric of your sleep shorts.

“Jaehyun,” you didn’t mean to, but his name came out in a moan, and his hand stopped its circuit, the faintest bit of pressure being applied to your hip.

“Y/N?” he questioned, but you were taking his hand and moving it up to your breasts. Once he cupped them you moaned again. “Holy shit, Y/N, your boobs are huge!”

“Jaehyun!” you reprimanded him, but he apologized quickly.

“Sorry, sorry, I just-” he cupped and squeezed, feeling the weight of them, “wow,” was all he could say.

“Well they won’t be this big for too long, so you better take advantage of them now,” you encouraged, and he did, tweaking your nipples until you were moaning into your pillow.

“Tell me if I do anything that hurts, or makes you feel uncomfortable, okay?” he whispered into your ear, before he started to plant wet kisses along your neck and shoulder. Your mind went hazy at the feeling of his lips on your skin, and soon he slipped a hand down, past the waistband of your shorts.

You inhaled sharply when his fingers found you wet, when he gathered some of your arousal to rub it around your clit. You moaned loudly when he made circles around your bud, pressing your face further into your pillow.

“Don’t do that, baby, I wanna hear you,” he pulled the covers off and pushed your pillow away, helping you take off your shirt and the rest of your clothes so you were fully exposed to him. He looked at you, lust and hunger clouding his eyes. “Fuck, you look so gorgeous knocked up with my baby.”

Your pussy clenched at his words and you pulled at his own clothes to get him to take them off. “Come here and fuck me, husband.”

Your words ignited something in him, and he bent down, throwing one of your legs over his shoulder and pushing into you. You cried out, not caring anymore how loud you were being, the feeling of his cock inside you throwing you into the heights of pleasure. Once you started though, you couldn’t stop, moans and whimpers and whines tumbling out of your lips as he pumped his cock inside you.

“You like it, don’t you?” he growled, “you like my cock so much you let me knock you up.”

You moaned even louder at his words, your orgasm starting to build in the pit of your stomach. “Yes, god, yes!”

“You want my cum, baby? Look at where it got you, huh? You let me come inside you and now you’re knocked up.” His voice was raspy, deep, and it cut right to your core.

“Fuck, Jaehyun! I’m gonna come!” you warned him, grasping at the sheets as your orgasm hit you, your pussy pulsing around his cock. It didn’t take much longer for him to come, one last thrust that took your breath away, and he spilled his seed into you.

“Are you okay?” he asked, brushing aside a strand of hair that had fallen into your face, “did it hurt at all?”

“No, not at all, it felt good,” you smiled at him, wanting to alleviate his concern. He looked relieved, before he bent down and kissed the swell of your stomach.

“Sorry, baby,” he said sheepishly, addressing the baby, and you could only laugh, rubbing a hand through his hair as he smiled up at you.

---

The next day Jaehyun had left for work, and you were almost out the door yourself when you felt something gush between your legs. You figured you knew what it was and, resolved to stay calm, you quickly called Jaehyun.

“Babe, what is it?” he answered on the first ring.

“I think my water broke.”

“Okay, stay calm, I’m on my way back.”

It didn’t take long for him to come back since he’d just left, and you drove to the hospital all the while holding tightly to his hand. The contractions started then, not too bad at first but as time went on the pain was hard to bear. By the time you reached the hospital you were grimacing in pain and Jaehyun was yelling for someone to come and help you.

You labored for hours, Jaehyun never leaving your side, giving you strength even when you felt like you had no more to give. You wondered how you could have ever done this without him, without his unwavering support, his cheerful but calm demeanor raising you up when you felt like giving in. Soon enough you had a healthy baby in your hands, a boy that an ecstatic Jaehyun had already dubbed his ‘mini me’.

---

If you had known what the first few weeks with a newborn would have been like you would have seriously rethought having a baby in the first place. You were exhausted more than you had ever been in your life, catching sleep for only those precious moments when the baby would sleep. Your breasts were sore from breastfeeding, and if you never saw another poopy diaper in your life it would be too soon. What made it all worth it, was the look of pure innocence in your baby’s eyes, and the way your husband would stare at him like he was the most precious person in the world.

One night you were woken again by the baby’s cries, and trudging to his room you were surprised to see Jaehyun already there.

“Sorry to wake you,” he whispered, “I was changing him and he lost his binky.” You stood in the doorway and watched as your husband expertly handled your son, swaddling him in his blankets and making sure the pacifier was situated in his mouth. “Go back to bed, I got this.”

Jaehyun had done many things during your time together that you considered sexy, but this was probably the sexiest thing he had ever done. You walked back to your bedroom, mentally reminding yourself to reward him when you were more awake.

You lay in bed though, unable to fall back asleep. Your mind was racing, anxieties resurfacing at that dark and quiet time of night. Jaehyun eventually came back, sliding into the bed and spooning you, his arm coming to wrap around your waist.

“Jae?” you whispered, hoping he hadn’t fallen back asleep right away.

“Hm? I thought you were asleep.” He sounded tired, tightening his arm around you.

“Is this the life you wanted?” you asked him, rubbing his arm that was wrapped around you.

“Absolutely.” He answered, without hesitation.

“No, I’m serious.”

“So am I. Why wouldn’t you think I was being serious?” he suddenly propped himself up on his elbow so he could see your face.

“Because you had a life before this, and now it’s just-” you waved your hand in the air, “me and the baby.”

“Just you and the baby? Y/N, you and Yuno are the most important things in my life right now.” He pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. “Yeah I had Friday night drinks and Sunday basketball games, and that was fun and all, but you two are my family now.”

“Don’t you miss it?”

“If I did I’d just go and do it? So no, I don’t miss it right now. Maybe eventually? But that doesn’t mean I’d love you and Yuno less.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d told you he loved you, but you knew you’d never get tired of hearing it. You’d been surprised when he’d told you he’d been in love with you for a while, not daring to say anything about it for fear of ruining your friendship. When you’d told him that you wanted to have a baby he knew that there was no one else in the world that he wanted to bear his children except you, and he was relieved when you accepted his offer of being a sperm donor. He had been prepared to be just that, but the sex threw everything into chaos, including his feelings for you and his resolve to keep your relationship as just friends. He felt himself falling even deeper for you, but his heart couldn’t handle the push and pull he was feeling from you. He never wanted to pull out of your life, and he spent more time staring at his phone waiting for you to call or text than he dared to admit. Bringing up the marriage pact had been a gamble, and he was terrified that you’d say no, but when you said yes, he could barely contain his happiness.

“Listen,” he said, taking your hand in his, “this life is more than I could have ever asked for.”

“Really?” you asked, turning to look at him, “With me?”

“Baby, it’s always been you.”

#jaehyun imagines #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun smut #nct imagines #nct smut

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sflow-er · 2 years ago

Note

Hi Sflow! Hope your having a good writing day :)

May I ask you 14, 30 and 39? (If you don't like or don't feel comfortable with any of these feel free to skip/ignore them).

Thank you!

Hi!! <3 I am, thank you. Lost a bit of time on a couple of unexpected things but most of it has been productive. And these are really interesting questions, thank you so much for the ask! :)

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

Honestly? Anything too dark (e.g. abusive relationships), or even just super explicit smut. I generally steer clear of such content, but I might make an exception for a writer who I know is really excellent and/or a close friend. There's also other stuff I don't particularly enjoy, such as love triangles and cheating, so those can sometimes fall into this category too.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

God yeah. I think everyone who's read 'Other people's secrets' or seen me rambling about it here knows all the stuff about asexuality was extremely personal to me and putting it out there was therefore well out of my comfort zone. It profoundly changed my writing, as I'm no longer afraid of writing about it (or other personal stuff), and I will probably keep doing that in some form.

But I'm sure you'd like to learn something new that was out of my comfort zone to even write, so... I can also reveal that I once wrote kind of graphic smut. I was 18/19 and it felt like the story I was writing needed it and the readers probably expected it - so I went ahead and wrote some, basically just emulating stories I'd seen and read. At the time, I still thought the parts I felt disconnected from would make sense to me one day, and in a way, writing it was fine. It really did fit the story, and the feedback was extremely positive. But I also knew I never wanted to do it again, so all my stories since then have either faded to black or just not included sex at all.

Right now, I'm at a place where I'm open to including sex in some form if the story demands it, but I don't think I'll ever write anything even remotely explicit again.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

Wow, what an interesting question! Maybe my compulsive planning, research and obsession with detail. It's partly inspired by my work as a translator, but I'd say part of it has definitely been affected by authors I've read. I'm sure there are many, but only two come to mind right now.

One of them was an author I don't want to name because she's an awful, toxic, dangerous person. She doesn't deserve the credit, but her ability to hide hints about future events in the series in the early books really impressed me when I was young (it seemed to demonstrate some serious planning). I must stress that I had no idea what she was like, and I was completely blind to all the problematic aspects of the books at the time. I'm sorry to even allude to her now.

On a more positive note, I'd say Don Rosa has also been a pretty big influence! Not sure if you know him, but he's a now-retired comic book artist whose history/adventure stories are some of the most meticulously researched and detailed I've ever enjoyed in any medium. Through that realism, he manages to create levels of suspense, drama, and sometimes even emotional tension that are simply incredible (for example, I get goosebumps just thinking about this one scene set in a burning saloon). This is all particularly impressive because Rosa's protagonist is none other than (a young version of) Disney's Scrooge McDuck! So in a way he's actually a pretty good idol for fanfic writers, haha.

Thank you so, so much for the ask! I hope you're having a lovely night. <3

Ask list for reference.

#ask #scatteredpiecesofme #ask game #fic writing

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sevlgi · 4 years ago

Text

what we want

requested: yes x2

group: blackpink

pairing: jennie x fem!reader

genre: angst, fluff

contents: idol!jennie, idol!reader, pr relationship

warnings: none

synopsis: Jennie’s lost herself somewhere along the way of achieving her dream. Behind that tough, cruel mask of hers, she doesn’t know what she wants, and maybe uncovering the mask you wear is what will help her realize it.

a/n: this is so much heavier than either of you guys asked for asalknasdfkj... but i wrote my longest fic yet in less than 2 days!!!! i think that’s an achievement :D

word count: 6k

Kim Jennie did not have a good reputation, and she didn’t really give a shit about it.

At least, that’s what everyone thought. That’s what everyone knew, with the numerous articles a week about South Korea’s resident fuckgirl, with Dispatch’s 20 cameramen hired just to follow Jennie. She was careless, she was cold, and she care what anyone else said about her.

What no one cared about was Jennie’s reasoning. Because while the first time sneaking out to a club and losing herself in fruit-flavored shots and skimming touches was simply for the fun of it, it was the aftereffect that made her keep going. Because with the articles of Kim Jennie’s newest scandal, Blackpink’s album sales shot through the roof, YG’s stocks completely flipped around, and Jennie herself decided it was worth it. It didn’t matter if her members looked at her a little differently, like they didn’t recognize her, or if she was the only one constantly excluded from appreciation tweets on Twitter. If acting out would help promote them more than her agency ever did, she could do it.

And she did. For almost a year, Jennie became Kpop’s most well-known idol, for better or for worse. For almost a year, Blackpink’s sales were unmatched by any group or artist around the world and Jennie couldn’t read her Instagram comments without wanting to throw up.

It took a year for YGE to finally do something, and by then, Jennie wasn’t sure she particularly cared anymore.

“Jennie.”

“Youngshik.” Her voice was scarily steady and her face just as calm; Jennie knew that the her from ten years ago, the teenager who was accepted into the company under Youngshik’s watch, wouldn’t be able to recognize her as she sat before the man with crossed arms and a blank expression. But as he stared at her with disappointment glazing his eyes, Jennie lifted her chin higher, almost daring him to speak.

When he did, he sounded almost cautious of his words. “Jennie, I know you. This isn’t like you at all, you can’t carry on like this.”

“What do you know about me?” She had to keep herself from wincing at her own tone, sharp enough to draw blood. “Huh? You haven’t cared about me for the past year, haven’t cared about us. And who the fuck said I can’t carry on? I’m doing just fine.”

Youngshik shook his head. “Please. Ch-- your members know. I know. All you may see right now is the attention you’re gaining, the fleeting ecstasy you get every night, but you aren’t doing yourself any favors right now.”

As much as she hated it, Youngshik’s words cut deep. She wanted to scream out that she was doing this for her members, for the company, and that it didn’t matter what her reputation was like, but Jennie schooled herself into the person everyone believed and knew her to be. “I’m the only thing keeping you afloat right now. You’re wasting them-- Chaeng, Lisa, Jisoo. They keep practicing but you waste them. I’m only doing what you won’t,” Jennie defended herself, anger seeping into her voice at the thought of her members.

“Jennie. MNet has threatened to drop you from the next season of Queendom.” The man’s voice was quiet but deadly, and Jennie couldn’t seem to open her mouth at the thought of her members’ practice being wasted because of her. Youngshik took that as a sign to continue, “I realize that what you’re doing is increasing sales, but netizens hate you right now. You know that, don’t you? We’re trying to help.”

“Oh yeah? How’re you going to help?” Jennie sighed. “Lock me up in your dungeon again?”

“Quite the opposite,” he answered, leaning forward. “We’re going to keep you in check. The only thing that Dispatch likes more than clubbing scandals is leaked couples, and that’s what we’re going to give them.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back. “And how is that going to keep me in check? Dispatch already knows I like girls, giving me a well-behaved boyfriend isn’t going to be believable.’

Just as the words left her mouth, a knock sounded on the frosted glass pane in Youngshik’s office door, and the man stood. “You’ll see once you meet her.”

Her?

Jennie didn’t turn even when she heard the door open, or when Youngshik murmured, “Junho, thank you for coming.”

“Of course. This is her?”

“This is her. Jennie?”

She finally turned, face impassive, but Jennie couldn’t stop her eyes from widening when she saw the person standing in the doorway. You-- she recognized you, specifically the polite smile you wore on your face as you offered a handshake. She remembered hearing you be praised for your constant professionalism, your sterling reputation, and your bubbly personality. “Hi, I’m Y/N. I’m a big fan of yours.”

“Jennie Kim, but I’m assuming you already knew that,” she said by way of greeting. You nearly winced at her flat tone, but the mask remained on and you gingerly took the empty seat just by her. “So. Am I the only one in the dark here?”

“Not anymore,” Junho smiled. Unlike Youngshik, he looked pleasant, a smile crinkling at the side of his eyes, but Jennie disliked him nonetheless. “The two of you know by now that you’re being set up in a fake relationship. Jennie, YGE’s main concern with you is your reputation. You club, you drink, you... sleep with people.”

She simply nodded, waiting for the point. Youngshik jumped in, “Y/N, on the other hand, has a stellar reputation. Never has had a scandal in her career, except when she publicly came out, and even that had a good reception.”

“How nice,” Jennie deadpanned.

Junho sighed, folding his hands in his lap. “Miss Kim. Despite your shortcomings and the methods that you achieved such fame, you are nonetheless the most well known female idol in the world. From this relationship, you’ll gain stability as well as a cover, a perfectly sweet girlfriend who’ll lighten your image up. And Y/N will receive more attention by your side, exactly what we want for her and her group. Is that clear?”

Jennie wished she could say no-- after all, you obviously weren’t going to-- but she also knew that the two men were right. She could profit, achieve exactly what she was trying to do, but with less damage done to Blackpink’s image. And as much as she wished she could rebel, she found herself sighing through tightened lips. “Clear. I agree.”

“You didn’t exactly have a choice.” Still, Youngshik slid a contract and a pen across the table, and Jennie signed in the blank without a second glance. “Good. Though we realize that this relationship is fake, we want you to at least pretend to be in love, so get to know each other. It’ll be a while.”

“Great,” you sighed. Jennie was slightly surprised by the hint of sarcasm in your voice, but she lost interest when you assumed a polite smile yet again. “How do we do that?”

Junho exchanged a glance with Youngshik but answered by himself, “If it was me, I’d start with a coffee.”

“Can I order something for you?”

“I’m good.”

Your smile was tight, and Jennie wondered how many snide comments she could make before you snapped. But apparently, one wasn’t enough, as you tugged your mask up. “Okay. I’ll get something for you when you feel like it, just wait for me in that booth.”

Without something to argue about, Jennie could only obey, sliding into the booth furthest away from any people. She sighed, staring at the ceiling; she hated that you were being pushed into the contract to save her, and she hated even more that she was purposefully being so difficult for you to deal with. But the truth was that Jennie couldn’t let you keep her in check, couldn’t let you get under her skin or change her from the way that she had been for years. No matter what YGE said, she was succeeding, and she wasn’t having the worst time in the world while she did.

“Uh. I got you a green juice, I hope you don’t mind.”

Jennie stared at you as you slid the bottle over the table to her, removing your mask just to flash her an annoyingly sweet smile. “I didn’t ask for it.”

You shrugged, “Oh, I know. But I read somewhere that you liked green juices, and I didn’t feel right letting you- letting my girlfriend go without a drink.”

“Don’t call me that.” Jennie cleared her throat when she realized how cruel she sounded, and rephrased it softer. “Don’t.”

“Okay. I understand,” you mumbled, clasping your hands over the iced Americano you held. “So. When did we start dating?” When Jennie frowned in confusion, you clarified, “We’re supposed to have a believable, synced story, right? To seem more real?”

The other girl bit her lip but nodded in agreement. “You’re right. Would two months be enough?”

Jennie wanted to tell you to stop pursing your lips when you thought, wanted to make you stop looking so approachable and sweet when you were sitting across from the most-hated idol in Korea. But she shut herself up, if only not to offend someone who she’d be spending a lot of time with. “I think so. We could say that we met at the Gayo Daejeon, since that was three months ago. I asked for your number,” you hummed and pulled out a notepad. “And a month after becoming friends, you asked me on a date.”

“Why did I ask you on a date?” Jennie asked, eyebrows raised.

“I asked for your number, let’s keep it fair,” you answered with a slight chuckle. “Okay. What would you want to do on a date?”

She considered the question, tapping her nails against the table. “The Han River? Lots of people go in masks, so it’s possible for us to have gone without anyone seeing us. There’s food, nice scenery, we could take pictures--”

“You’re a real romantic, Kim Jennie,” you smiled, pen scratching against the paper of your notepad. “Okay. And we don’t live with each other, since you have a dorm... one of us has to be caught on the route between to make it believable.”

“I don’t think we have to.” Jennie crossed her arms, not moving even when you turned your notepad so she could see. “We just need to be seen in public together a couple times, hold hands once. Dispatch will eat it up.”

You sighed softly and tucked the notebook away. “Okay. At-- at least add me on Kakao. So we can communicate and stuff.”

She stood, tugging her jacket on and her hat down to hide her eyes. “Don’t have Kakao. Have a nice day, Y/N Y/L/N.”

And just like that, with a jingle of the front door’s bell, she was gone, and you could only stare at the untouched bottle of juice across from you or the glass door swinging closed.

Jennie liked practicing with her members. Of course she did-- there was no one she loved more than those 3 girls, and spending time with them was always exactly what she needed. And practice reminded her of better, simpler times: learning a new choreo with Lisa for the next evaluation, practicing English with Chaeng, or asking Jisoo for help with vocals. There were memories in the scratches on the floorboards of the practice rooms, and Jennie liked feeling them every time she stepped inside.

But besides that, it was a secure place. No Dispatch, no cameras, and certainly no PR stunt girlfriends. It was supposed to be her happy place, her home away from the dorm, and the last resort for time alone.

Of course, you had to change that.

“Jennie, Y/N’s here to see you.”

At the sound of her manager’s voice, Jennie’s ankle twisted and she fell to the ground, still panting from dancing. Jisoo bent down to help her up, Chaeyoung and Lisa stopping their practices too. “What?”

He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head towards the hallway outside. “Your ‘girlfriend’. She’s here to see you.”

Lisa gasped at that, her head whipping towards Jennie. “Jennie unnie! You have a girlfriend? Since when?”

Jennie winced and waved Jisoo off before walking towards the door. “I... I’ll explain later. Don’t worry about it, keep practicing. I’ll catch up.”

As soon as she stepped outside, she found you standing there, your smile so wide, as if she hadn’t been so cold to you since the beginning. “Hi, Jennie.”

“Why’re you here?”

You barely faltered at the tone of her voice, holding out one of two bubble teas towards her. “I brought you boba, I thought you might need a rest from practicing. And don’t worry, Dispatch got the pictures they needed, I ‘forgot’ to put on a mask when I got out of the car just outside the building.”

Jennie sighed, but she accepted the offered cup anyway. She was thirsty; all she could hope was that you wouldn’t take it as a sign to keep coming to see her. “And? I thought we agreed that we only needed to be seen in public when our companies schedule it.”

“Well, I’m not just here for the PR,” you frowned. “You’re obviously opposed to actually dating me, or even from becoming friends with me, but it’ll be miserable if we’re both mean to each other. Let’s at least be civil, okay?”

Why? she wanted to ask. How? How can you be so positive even when faced with me? She pursed her lips, taking a sip of the drink. Somehow, you’d gotten her favorite flavor just right, and maybe the sugar rushing in her blood was what prompted her to say, “Civil. Sure. Thank you for the boba, Y/N.”

“Of course!” you grinned. You startled Jennie when you went to take your flannel off, even more so when you reached out to give it to her. “Here, take this.”

“Um. Why?”

Sighing jokingly, you pressed it into her hand. “Next time, you’re coming to see me. If you wear this while you’re caught on film, it’ll raise a lot of suspicions. Exactly what we want, right?”

Jennie nodded at that, closing her fist around the fabric. “Right. So, are you... planning to watch us practice?”

“Oh, no,” you shook your head, waving your hands. “No, I’ll probably just hang around. Unless you want me to?”

Some tiny, annoying section in the back of her mind wanted to say ‘yes’, but Jennie could hear Chaeyoung laughing in the practice room, and the thought of introducing you to her members wasn’t exactly appealing. “No. That’s okay. Thank you for stopping by,” she attempted a smile. Thankfully, you just bowed and waved goodbye again before turning around the corner, and Jennie relaxed with a sigh.

But your smile lingered in her mind. The first time she saw you, she thought it was genuine-- maybe you were just that polite, just that professional, even with how impossible it was. But talking to you on her own, she saw too many false grins, too much effort being put into keeping that likeable, fun personality up.

Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who was lying, but that fact did nothing but scare her more.

“So. Are we gonna talk about Y/N?”

Jennie sighed, keeping her eyes on the road. “No.”

“Really? Because you didn’t exactly look happy after talking to the person who’s supposed to be your girlfriend.”

The rapper raised her eyebrows even though Jisoo couldn’t see it over the phone. “Well, she isn’t exactly my real girlfriend.”

In the background, Chaeyoung asked, “What? Then why did our manager say she was?”

“It’s a PR stunt,” Jennie said bluntly. Her manager sighed in the front seat but didn’t speak. “That’s it. Y/N has a good reputation, I don’t. I’m in the biggest girl group in the world, she isn’t. We’re benefiting from each other.”

Lisa groaned into the phone, her voice tinny over speaker. “Is that seriously it? I only heard you guys talking, but she’s trying so hard, and you’re shutting her down. It could be good for you, unnie.”

Jennie pinched her nosebridge and pleaded, “Can we please not talk about this? I’m just doing this-- it’s a PR stunt. Nothing else to it. I gotta go anyway.” She ended the call before anyone could say something, leaning back and pressing her hands to her eyes.

“I don’t understand why you’re so opposed to this, Jennie.”

“Please. Shut up,” Jennie groaned, reaching for the flannel on her lap as the car lurched a stop. The smell of perfume swept over her as she tugged the clothing on, leaving her mask off but donning the sunglasses that she’d been paid to wear. “Thank you for driving me, I’ll see you in half an hour.”

Her manager called out, “One hour. Try to have fun, okay?”

It wasn’t like Jennie couldn’t hear the click of cameras following her as she buzzed herself into the apartment building, couldn’t see the flashes half-hidden in the surrounding bushes. But she schooled her expression and let herself into the building, engulfed in silence once again for the 7 minutes before she reached your apartment door.

“Hi, Jennie,” you greeted when you opened the door. It was disarming to see that perfectly crafted, perfectly kind expression, but Jennie followed you inside anyway. To be honest, the way you decorated your apartment was almost a perfect reflection of the you that you presented-- sweet, comfortable, but a completely blank slate that could be arranged easily. No pictures decorated the walls, just like how your easy smile never left your face, and the only things on your expensive glass shelves were awards and your own albums. But you smiled, “The flannel looks good on you.”

“Thanks. You can have it back,” Jennie mumbled, peeling it off and draping it over one of the acrylic chairs that tastefully decorated your living room. “It’s a nice place. You’re lucky to live alone.”

You hummed, clearing a pile of papers off the couch so that she could sit. “Sure, I guess. It’s a lot lonelier than the dorm, but it is nice to have all the space to myself.”

“Right.” She sat obediently and accepted the petite cup of coffee that you pushed towards her. “So, what are we supposed to do for an hour?”

“I thought we could watch Netflix and grab some takeout,” you chuckled embarrassedly, reaching for the remote. “I can’t really cook, but I’ll pay for anything you want to order.”

Jennie should’ve asked for pizza, jajangmyeon, something inexpensive but universally enjoyable. But the more she looked at you, the more she realized that for all your effort, nothing she did could possibly break you. Making dinnner for you once, even becoming friends with you and pulling away again, wouldn’t change anything when everything she saw of you was... false. So she stood, made her way to the kitchen, and opened to the fridge. “I can cook. What have you got?”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” you protested and followed her over. “I’m serious, I can pay for anything you want.”

The rapper ignored you and frowned at a tub of kimchi. “How does kimchi jigae sound? You’ve got close to nothing in here.”

You were silent for a moment, but sighed and moved to open your cupboards. “Kimchi jigae sounds great. You’re going to be carrying this dinner, I hope you know.”

“That’s no problem,” Jennie chuckled, turning to you slightly. “By the way, have you got any soju?”

“I thought you’d have a better alcohol tolerance.”

“Why?” Jennie groaned, head clutched in her hands. The steam from the cup of coffee that she convinced Chaeyoung to buy for her was absolutely going to melt her makeup, but under the LED lights of the waiting room, she wasn’t sure she cared.

Lisa sighed and patted her shoulder softly as she passed by. “I mean, wasn’t there a month where you went to a different club every night? It’d be weird if you did that completely sober.”

Jennie frowned; she wished she could tell Lisa that she actually spent every night of that month huddled in the corner with a mocktail, hoping to the heavens that Dispatch didn’t burst their way inside and find her hiding. But she shook it off and replied flippantly, “Drinking a lot doesn’t increase everyone’s tolerance, believe it or not. Maybe Y/N just had really strong soju.”

Before the dancer could respond, Jisoo opened the door and popped her head inside. “Hey, guys, they’re ready for us to start filming. And, Jen-- you have a visitor.”

“Who?” she groaned in answer, struggling to her feet and wincing as she removed her sunglasses.

Her question was answered as she reached the stage, finding a familiar face among the camera directors. “Y/N?” she squinted.

“Hey, Jennie!” you shouted with your hands cupped around your mouth. The smile on your face was a little wider than usual, poked into your cheeks differently. It was pretty, Jennie realized, and more genuine. “Good luck!”

Before she could ask what you were doing, huddling with the cameramen while she prepared to film her first Queendom stage, she was called up on stage. But for once, Jennie could feel a smile tugging at her lips as she got into formation, a smile that she hadn’t been able to pull off for a while.

You startled her by cheering her name just before filming began, and inciting laughter from the crew. Some warm flower blossomed in her chest as Jennie spoke her first line, her voice more steady than it had ever been during practice.

As soon as she finished the first attempt at the group shot, Jennie bent down at the edge of the stage and beckoned you forward. “Hey. What’re you doing here?”

“I’m cheering you on, of course.” Jennie found a banner with her name on it in your hands as you approached, the tip of your nose cold from the air-con in the studio. “You did great.”

“Thanks,” she chuckled softly, feeling the banner between her fingertips. “Where’d you even get this?”

You shrugged, “Bought it. I had to make an account and all, so you better be feeling more energized.”

“I am.” Jennie herself was surprised at how true the statement was; for some reason, seeing your dyed hair in the crowd of cameras was like a shot of pure adrenaline, just more intense and gratifying. She smiled, “I am. It’s really nice of you to come, Y/N.”

“Of course,” you said, waving the banner around with a grin creasing in the corners of your eyes. “We’re girlfriends, after all. And I’m your friend.” At the call of a director, though, you stepped back. “I should let you film.”

“Y/N?” Jennie called after you. When you turned to face her again, Jennie allowed her customary gummy smile to take over her face as she said softly, “You can call me Jen. All my friends do.”

You were too far away for her to hear your answer, but the excited little jump you made as you walked back to your spot kept the grin on Jennie’s face as she stood again. She missed the relieved glances her members exchanged behind her back, but she could feel a new kind of energy coursing through her as the director started his countdown again. And-- she kind of liked it.

You hated the popular belief that idols who presented the sweetest, kindest version of themselves to the internet got absolutely no hate. Fans, family, managers-- they all believed that never letting your smile slip and never having a single scandal would protect an idol completely. When you were deciding on your persona for your debut, you thought the same, and so you forced yourself into the happy, positive personality that the world knew.

However, for all your effort, for all the things you had to endure with that same smile on your face, people hated you. They called you fake, tried their best to get under your skin just so they could see you fall. But it was too late to fight back, because that wouldn’t become the kind, sweet Y/N. It was too late to ask for help, and it was too late to let yourself cry.

When you met Jennie, you were determined to keep her on the outside of that precious mask you could never remove. After all, what would she understand? She did what she wanted to, didn’t care what people said about her, and she was strong. Jennie was as strong as you wished you could be, and you were sure that she would never understand. But the more that you saw her and the more that you talked to her, the more you understood that you were one and the same. That tough, carefree version of Jennie was what protected her, just like your perfectly engineered smile.

The first time you saw Jennie laugh, you knew that you were in deep. She didn’t know a single thing about you, but she was letting her walls down and letting you in-- or at least, the you she knew. But you liked her smile so much that you wanted to keep it there, at any cost. And maybe it meant sacrificing yourself.

“Are you ready?”

“For what? Walking through the street, undisguised enough that Dispatch will recognize us but no one else will?” At your pout, Jennie stopped her grumbling and laughed softly, still adjusting her scarf in the car mirror. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

A beat of silence passed as she grabbed your hand and led you out of the parking garage and onto Garosu-gil. “Hey. Y/N, I want to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“I... I’m glad it’s you.” Jennie squeezed your hand, her skin slightly cold with the wind blowing softly around the two of you. “I’m glad you’re the one I’m doing this with.”

You wished that she wouldn’t say that. You wished she’d feel anything else towards you-- contempt, hatred, even, despite everything you’d gone through just to become civil. But you squeezed back, flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Me too. You know, it’d be a lot worse if they set me up with a guy.”

“Why would they?” Jennie frowned in answer. “You came out on your own.”

“Unlike you, I didn’t prove it. You know Korea, you aren’t gay until you prove you are,” you sighed, scuffing your shoes against the cobblestones. “They wanted to set me up with a guy at first, but they decided that accepting YG’s offer for me to date you would be more beneficial.”

The other girl paused, and you didn’t quite dare to look up. “Oh. So you didn’t choose to help me, did you?”

You shook your head quietly, expecting Jennie to react badly. But she huffed out a breath and pushed your arm softly. “That’s okay. We’re friends, anyway, and it was hard for you to get us here already. I appreciate you, you know.”

Opening your mouth to respond, you noticed yet another camera flash, just between two buildings ahead of you. “What?” Jennie asked, following your gaze.

“I-- Don’t hate me for this, okay?” you whispered, stopping in the middle of the road. Before she could say anything, you placed your hands lightly on her jaw, pulling Jennie towards you; before your lips actually met, though, you gave her a second to pull away. Instead, she leaned forward just the slightest bit, barely enough to connect.

You didn’t quite dare to move, but Jennie’s hands rested on your waist and pulled you into her, just enough that your lips slotted together. You could barely hear the clicks of the camera, the warmth of the girl that you were kissing completely clouding your brain.

Before anything else happened, you released your grip and stepped away, lips suddenly cold. “I think that’s enough,” you whispered, linking your hands again and lowering your head.

Jennie laughed breathlessly and continued to stroll along when you prompted her to. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Um. Sorry?”

She only giggled harder at that, shoving you slightly. “What are you even sorry for? You’re a good kisser, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you groaned, heat rising to your ears as you shoved her back. “How do you even say that with a straight face?”

“Hey, I had to listen to Lisa say ‘bitch I’m a star but not Patrick’, I think I can handle this,” Jennie joked. Despite all your effort not to, you found yourself staring at her smile again, losing yourself and any other worries bothering you in it, and her, once again.

Jennie frowned at her phone-- or actually, at the blankness of her texting history with you. After the little PR stunt at Garosu-gil, you hadn’t contacted her once, and she didn’t dare to surprise you at your apartment or properly ask you what was going on.

“Haven’t you heard the saying that a watched kettle never boils?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a pot,” Jennie replied listlessly, still staring at her screen. “But I have heard it, yes. I’m just hoping the universe proves it false.”

Chaeyoung sighed and hugged her older member from behind, swaying back and forth. “Why don’t you just message her? Or go see her? Our manager won’t say anything about it if you just say it’s for PR.”

“It is,” Jennie frowned, turning to her member. The Australian girl raised an eyebrow, and Jennie bit her lip. “Okay. Maybe it isn’t.”

“It definitely isn’t,” Chaeyoung rolled her eyes. “I saw those kiss pics, you know. And no one kisses like that if it’s ‘just PR’. You like each other, unnie, and it’s time to face it.”

Jennie swatted Chaeyoung’s arm. “That’s so cheesy, shut up. But... do you really think I like her?”

“That’s a question for you to answer,” the younger girl pointed out. “But I’ve known you for close to a decade. If I’m right about this, and I’m sure I am, everything’s about to change for you.”

“Ugh, cheesy again,” Jennie groaned, but she stood hesitantly nonetheless. “But... I guess I’ll give it a shot.”

On her way down the stairs, the rapper dialed her manager on her phone and held it up to her ear while she waited for the dial tone to fade. “You’re driving me to Y/N’s house,” she said by way of greeting. “And it’s not just for PR.”

She was sure that no car ride had ever gone slower; Jennie fidgeted the entire way, cursing every bus that blocked her way and scowling as the sun began to set behind a set of buildings in the distance. The more she thought about it, the more definite it was-- she liked you, more than she thought she could like a person. And while that fact would’ve scared her, should’ve scared her, it didn’t. Because it was you, and nothing about you could scare her anymore.

Somehow, the process of buzzing herself in at the building’s front, taking the same elevator up to the 67th floor, and hurrying her way down blue-carpeted hallways had become familiar. Jennie knocked persistently on the door of your apartment and called out, “Hey, Y/N, let me in. It’s Jennie.”

It took a while for anything to happen, and Jennie was almost backing away by the time that the door finally cracked open. For once, the smile on your face was missing, replaced by a guarded, harsher expression than the other girl was used to seeing. “Jen. What’s up?”

“Uh,” she hesitated, “can I come in? I don’t think we can talk in the hallway.”

You looked like you wanted to say no, but with a pleading look from Jennie, you backed away and let the door swing open. Jennie shut it quietly, following you into the living room, where you stood with your arms crossed. “So. What can’t we talk about in the hallway?”

Jennie wanted to say outright the words that were beating in her throat, but the expression on your face alarmed her. You were like a stranger-- or, maybe, she realized that you had finally let your mask down. “I... Y/N, are you okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you responded. Suddenly, the roles were reversed; Jennie was the one reaching out for you, maybe even chasing after you, and you were somehow the one who was turning away.

“Okay,” Jennie said quietly. You were about to turn away, probably assuming that she was going to leave, but if Jennie had learned anything from you, it was that she couldn’t give up that easily if she wanted you to open up. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” you responded instantly. Your words only hurt more when you didn’t look up from the television, continuing, “I don’t want you, and I don’t want anything from you--”

“You don’t get to say that to me.” Anger was once again rushing through Jennie’s veins, though not the kind of anger she was used to experiencing. No, she wasn’t mad at your words in the slightest, or even offended-- she was simply pissed off about the fact that you were shutting her down, and she didn’t know why. “Not when you were the one who started this. Y/N, you wanted me once, you don’t get to go back on that without an explanation,” Jennie gritted her teeth, gripping your forearms in her hands.

You finally turned when she shook you lightly, your face blank. “What, I don’t get to shut myself down? You did it the entire time I was trying, giving my all so that you’d talk to me or even just be civil.”

Jennie pleaded, “You succeeded, didn’t you? You’re right that I was a total bitch when all you were trying to do was be nice and make this tolerable for the both of us, but you succeeded. Okay? You-- you’ve made your place in my heart, and I’m not even angry about it. I just... I just like you that much.”

A derisive scoff escaped your lips as you twisted your arms out of her reach, stepping away. “You like me? Jennie, you don’t even know me. This me, the smiles and boba and everything, it’s a facade.” You threw your hands up in the air, biting down on your lip before sighing out, “It’s fake. All of it.”

“I know it isn’t,” Jennie shook her head desperately. She searched your eyes, scanned the sea of the color she’d grown to love, for some semblance of the person she remembered kissing her. “Look, you kissed me. And I know it was for the cameras, but you can’t tell me that you felt nothing from it. Y/N, you’re a good liar, but you can’t lie to me, not about this.”

You were quiet at that, glancing down at the floor as if you had nothing to say. “I didn’t,” you finally answered, tone firm. “Maybe you did, but I--”

Unable to stop herself, Jennie rushed forward again and tugged you into another kiss, her hands scrunching into the hair splayed over your shoulders. She was almost afraid that you’d push her away, curse her and throw her out of your apartment, but she felt your lips moving against yours. She felt your hands splay on her back, and she felt tears slipping down your face.

When you finally did push her away, it was gentle, though you were rough when you wiped the tears off your face. Jennie wished you’d speak first, but she brought herself to speak. “If your smiles were fake, think of the real ones you brought to me. Even if my smiles were from your facade, that’s still a part of you. I know that though you weren’t trying to, you let me see the real you. And I’m willing to see the rest of you,” Jennie smiled, clasping your hands within hers. Sometime along the way, she’d started crying too, but the salt of those tears was almost honeyed on her lips. “If you want me to.”

“I do,” you sighed, accepting the kiss that Jennie pressed to your forehead with a teary smile. “I want nothing more than that, Jen. And-- I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she laughed, wiping the tears of your face so much gentler than you did. “I know what I want now. It’s you, and it has been you since you tried buying me a green juice in that damn coffee place. I like you, Y/N. So much.”

You tucked your face into the crook of her neck and snaked your arms around her waist again. “I like you too. More than I ever thought I could.”

And maybe, just maybe, you knew what you wanted too. Somehow, that mask you wore had long been tossed to the side. Somehow, each kiss pressed to your face by the girl you never knew you needed to find lingered on your skin like the touch of a miracle, and the smile on your face was finally, finally genuine like you had always wanted it to be.

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softboywriting · 4 years ago

Text

Little Moments | Billy Russo

Summary: Tension in familiarity leads to confessions after a terrifying event. [Billy Russo x Reader] [Violence] [Blood] [Gunshots] [Assistant!Reader] [Alternate Timeline - Castle family not mentioned/never happened] [Fluff]

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: This is my first Billy Russo fic, we’ll see where this goes yeah?

Just over a year ago you took a position as an assistant with Anvil. The job wasn't too bad, basically you took care of paying the bills for the facility, keeping inventory of supplies and equipment, scheduling appointments and keeping track of who was deployed where and why while keeping tabs on them and their duties while on deployment from Anvil. You had done work like this before, managing in a grocery store in your early twenties. It wasn't all that different, just instead of managing products you managed people. No the job was not difficult but your boss. Well. He was something else.

William "Billy" Russo was a force to be reckoned with. Intelligent, handsome, cunning. His smile could kill. His eyes...they were something all their own. To say Billy was attractive was an understatement. But attraction was only part of the problem. The other part is his sharp tongue, quick wit and dry sarcasm. A year of sharing an office with him had put you on edge. You never know what he would do next, what he would say next. Some days you wish you could fuck him right there in that expensive leather rolling chair behind his desk. Other's you want to rip his leg off and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. The two of you got close, going back and forth with playful banter almost daily. It's like you’re always on the edge of being something more, if one of you would just make the first move.

Things finally come to a head one day when you've got a particularly large workload on your plate and Billy has decided to go on one of his little rants about who knows what, you tune him out. He is always coming into the office and talking to himself. Maybe he is talking to you, but you rarely participate in the conversation. At first you thought he was on a call, using a headset or something, but no. He just talks, and he talks a lot.

"Can you shut up for five fucking minutes?" You snap, head pounding from eye strain. You've been at the computer for six hours now, and you're trying to transcribe a call from one of his units over in Turkey about a job. Billy's mindless chatter has gotten on your last nerve today.

Billy stops, falling silent somewhere near his desk. The room becomes thick, heavy with tension as you both remain silent. You've never snapped at him, not seriously. You've told him to go fuck himself but in a playful way. This was too real. Too loaded. He's your boss. Fuck.

You're not one to apologize when you're not actually sorry though. You remain silent, knowing he expects you to say something. He wants you to take back your words but you won't.

"How much work do you have left?"

Your eyes flick from the screen to him. He looks flushed. Angry? No. His eyes hold no malice. He looks aroused. No way. A cold sweat runs down your back. He must be livid. "I'm transcribing a call right now then I have to make copies of some invoices, order new foam guards for the weight benches and-"

"Finish the call. Then go home."

"Yes, sir."

Billy pushes off his desk and exits the room, leaving the door open behind him. You know that he isn't happy with your little outburst. You just don't know why he won't say as much. He looks turned on if you didn't know better. Or do you?

The rest of the call goes smoothly now you don't have to pause every few seconds to rewind and listen to it to make out exactly what the unit leader was saying over Billy's chatter. You wrap up and head out as you were told. On the way out you pass Billy with a few of his higher up employees.

"Good night, Mr. Russo." You say softly with a hand raised in a wave. You always call him by his last name around other people. It's not much of a gesture but you want to keep things calm and civil. He nods, face unreadable, and gives a little raise of his hand as well. More than you expected, and it puts you at ease that you might keep your job.

_____________________

"I'll have my assistant arrange the payment from you after the contract is finalized."

You stop by the door to the meeting room to listen in. The men in the room with Billy are potential clients, men who want private security for multiple locations. You had greeted them when they arrived and showed them to the meeting room. They rubbed you the wrong way. You met a lot of men and women in your year at Anvil, a lot of different people from different walks of life. None of them made you as uncomfortable as these men had. You step away from the door and go to the office. If Billy wants to get in bed with them then let him. That's not your call.

"Let me grab the paperwork from my assistant." You hear through the closed door and Billy steps in, closing it behind him. "Can you give me a new client contract?"

"Sure." You pull open the file drawer on your right and thumb through the papers. "They must be very promising work."

Billy leans on the side of the desk, quirking an eyebrow up at you. "What's got you so mouthy lately?"

You cut him a glare and he chuckles.

"You don't like them?"

"I'm not fond."

"Why?"

"They feel wrong." You extract a thick booklet of paper and hand it to Billy. "But let's not pretend you care what I think, Mr. Russo."

Billy rolls his eyes at the formalities. "You know damn well I value your input just like I do from any other person who works for me. Talk to me."

You sit up and lean back in your chair, eyes on his, your heart pounding. He's looking at you so attentively it's hard to focus. Those eyes, so soft and warm staring back at you. Fuck. He could make you spill the truth about everything without trying. "They give me a bad feeling. The second I greeted them they just...felt bad? I can't explain it."

"We work with a lot of morally gray people in our line of business, sweetheart." Billy leans back, hands spreading out on the desk. His hands, fuck they're nice. "But I will never ignore a gut instinct."

"So you won't sign the contract with them?"

"I'll do some more investigation before I do. Talk to a few friends in high places."

You nod and slide forward to sit at the computer, closer to him. What a mistake. You can smell his cologne, his heat is pouring into your knee beside his. It takes everything in you to keep your eyes forward on the computer. He reaches over and lays a hand on your shoulder, making your body flush with heat. Why did he have to touch you?

"Yes?" You ask, sparing a quick glance up at him. Mistake. He's staring down at you with those beautiful obsidian eyes. God they're so big and he's such a-

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For telling me. You've never come to me like this before about a client. I like it."

"Oh. Well it's your business so-"

Billy leans in close to your ear and you feel that cold sweat return from when you told him to shut up. This time it's not fear or panic, it's arousal? The closeness is getting to you, your head is swimming. "You're just as important to me as this company. Remember that."

You nod.

"Couldn't hear you."

"Y-yeah. Yes. I will."

He pushes off the desk and slides the papers he had been leaning against closer to you before he picks up the contract and smacks it against his hand a few times. "Will you set up a meeting with the Rodgers Estate for later?"

You grab a pen and scribble it in your planner. "Got it Mr. Russo."

"One more thing." He says and you look up. His hand is on the door handle. "Have a drink and relax? You're a little wound up lately. And drop the Mr. Russo shit, call me Billy when we're alone. You know that." He smiles and gives you a wink before slipping out the door to meet the clients in the hall.

A drink? You need a week off, a spa getaway and a new career. Billy Russo is driving you up a wall and he doesn't even see it. Or maybe he does. Shit.

_____________

A week later. Just before eight in the morning you're settled into your desk, ready to start going through some new shipment invoices when you hear a commotion downstairs. It isn't unusual for the trainees to get out of hand from time to time, fights break out, things get heated. You dismiss it and go about your work.

"Six new treadmills? What the hell are these people doing to them?" You sigh and type the invoice number for Sports Equipmentz LTD into your system. "Billy is gonna get an ear full for this one."

There is more comotion and you look at the closed door. Another fight? Billy doesn't stand for that kind of stuff on the training floor. He would have stopped it by now. Actually, no one should be in the facility except you and Billy this early. What the hell is that noise.

You push up from the desk and go to the window beside the door, peeking through the blinds. From what you can see nothing looks out of balance. Then you hear gunshots and your stomach churns, cold and sick. There is no live fire allowed in the facility. All firearm training is done off site.

"Fuck." You flip the lock on the door and look around for something to barricade the floor to ceiling window beside the door. There is nothing you can move alone. You flip off the light and head to your desk, grab your phone and dial Billy's number.

No answer. You sink down under the desk and pull the chair in close. Maybe if someone does get in they will think the office is empty and move on since the desk looks unused. You reach over and shut down the computer tower, then reach up and pull down all your paperwork to clear the desk.

Thumping from the bathroom on the other side of the office makes your heart pound. Someone is on the upper floor with you. A gunshot. Tears well up in your eyes. Why didn't you let Billy get you a conceal and carry? Why didn't you do that gun training six months ago? Because you're afraid of guns and you couldn't trust yourself not to hurt someone on accident. Fuck. Fuck!

The door handle jiggles. You cover your mouth and try dialing Billy again. The phone disconnects as soon as it rings once. Goes straight to a voicemail. You can't remember if he is with a client today. There are voices outside the door, then a gunshot so loud you know it's just on the other side. You close your eyes, press your face into your knees and try to imagine you are invisible.

The door opens, not with a kick, but unlocked and you can't breathe. You can't move. They're moving around the room. Billy's desk first. Papers are rustled, then the footsteps grow closer. You shrink yourself smaller, arms in pain from holding your knees so tight.

"If they took you, I swear to God I will-...there you are."

You look up and Billy is knelt down, arm on the desk as he looks at you. He's a fucking mess of what you can only assume is blood and God knows what. "Billy, oh god for fucks sake." You cry and he shoves the chair away to pull you out onto his lap.

Never have you clung to someone so hard in your entire life. You press your face into his neck, hand digging into his back harshly as you cry in relief.

His hand slides up your back and cradles your ribs on the left. "Hey, hey." He murmurs softly and you stop crying so hard. " What did I promise you when I hired you?"

"That I would be safe. That no matter what I would be safe and a-all I had to do was paperw-work."

"That's right." Billy pulls you back gently, tugging your shirt to guide you. He looks horrible, but none of it seems to be from his own injuries. "Aw, fuck. You're a mess now."

You look down at your shirt and it's got blood on it. "Oh god. Oh god wh-who..."

Billy shakes his head. "Don't think about it too much." He presses a kiss to your temple, hand on the back of your head. "Close your eyes, don't look at it."

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you later."

"I didn't know what to do."

"Hey, no, no shh. You were a good girl. You stayed quiet, stayed down and locked the door." He rubs your back and pats your side. "We're going to get out of here and I'll handle the situation from the apartment."

You nod and peek your eyes open for a second. "It's bad out there isn't it?"

"It's not pretty. I'll get you outside and we'll get out of here, don't worry."

"Okay."

_____________________

You had never been to Billy's place. Never had a reason to go. It's more industrial than you expected, modern industrial chic. Posh. Very expensive obviously, but that was Billy. Well dressed, well spoken. He looked the part to play the part.

He set you up in a large bathroom and gave you clothes, a shirt and a pair of pajama pants. They might fit alright, Billy is quite a bit slimmer than you are in the hips and thighs.

You look in the mirror and clench your jaw. Your peachy colored blouse is ruined, your sweater is fucked. Your face. God your face has someone else's blood on it. Across your cheek and nose where you had pressed your face into Billy's neck.

There is a pile of washcloths and you grab a few, soaking them and scrubbing at your skin. You pull your clothes off fervently, desperate to be clean of strange blood. The shower is large, open and ready to be used. So you do. You get in and turn the water on and sit on the floor, processing. It was all a blur. Everything happened so fast. Was it even real?

Some time passes and you see the door open. The water is getting lukewarm as it cascades over your skin. You don't even care if he sees you naked you're so out of your own head.

"I'm going to head to Anvil. The police have arrived to investigate the break in."

"Okay." You croak, not looking away from the wall opposite you.

"You can stay." Billy walks into the room and leans over the shower to turn the water off. He squats down beside you and offers you a towel from the warmer by the toilet. "Mind getting out of there for me?"

"Billy, what happened?" You look over at him and he looks...normal. He's in a blue sweater, dark jeans, boots. It's the most casual you've ever seen him. He's always been a suit man to you. Here he looks like a guy you'd meet at a bar and share a few beers with. The guy you'd take home and laugh about jokes with from stupid comedian on TV. It's strange, but warming.

He helps you up and wraps you in the fluffy gray towel. "Your feeling? About the clients I met with?"

"Yeah?"

"You were right." He slicks your hair back off of your face. "They got wind that I was looking further into why they wanted my employees. It was for a human trafficking operation. I don't do human trafficking, and I was going to decline the offer. Some snitch at the Rodgers Estate let it out that I was asking questions. I guess they thought they could clear their tracks by killing me."

"O-oh."

"Mmm. I didn't think they would do something in broad daylight but here we are. Amatures." Billy steps back and runs a hand over his hair. "I called the police, said that I got a notification that the building had been beached through an unauthorized entrance. It's not a lie. Technically they did. Thankfully I wasn't there."

You step out of the shower and grab the clothes he gave you from the counter. "But you were. You...you killed those men."

"No, I incapacitated them." He crosses his arms and pulls his lower lip between his teeth. "It was me and you or them. We were the only ones in that facility. I wasn't going to let them hurt you."

"H-how do you explain that?" You sit on the toilet and Billy leans on the doorframe. "What if-"

"That's my job sweetheart. You worry about yourself, here. I gotta go meet the cops." He pats the wood a few times and looks out into the hall. "Call me if you need anything. I promise I'll answer no matter what."

You nod.

"I'll be back later."

____________________

Hours pass and you become familiar with the apartment. It's huge, the penthouse of a very expensive building downtown. It has two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen and dining area, a living room, a balcony that wraps around and has a fire pit and a small private pool. It's more luxury than you could ever afford. Not that Anvil doesn't pay well, because it does. This is just far more than you could ever make.

In Billy's room there aren't any personal touches. It's clean, picture perfect even. Like at any moment someone could come and take photos to sell the place. There is a picture on his bedside table, the only thing that isn't straight from a design catalog. It's you and Billy with a few investors. Your first meeting he ever brought you to. How could you forget? He bought you the dress literally an hour before the meeting because yours ripped in the back. It was possibly the most embarrassing thing you've ever done in front of a boss. He didn't make you feel bad or anything, he simply asked your size, stopped at a shop on the way to the dinner and got you a dress. It was just that easy, that normal.

You set the photo down and lay back. Your eyes close and you imagine what Billy is like outside of work. Of course you've gotten a taste of that, all the banter and shared stories. Nothing too deep but enough to keep conversation going. You probably shared more than him, way more. It was like when you started talking to someone you couldn't stop. You just, information overload the poor person. Usually people get spooked away, or they tell you that they don't care or don't need to know. Not Billy. He just listened, gaze fixed on you while you talked. Maybe that's why you like him so much. He listened. He cared.

"Cozy?"

You roll over and open your eyes to find Billy in the doorway to his room. "You're back. I didn't hear you come in?"

"There is a bed in the other room y'know?" He chuckles as he goes to sit at the end of the bed and pull his boots off. "Or do you just like mine because it's bigger?"

"Oh yeah, yours is much bigger. Comfier too."

He hums. "Go through all my shit?"

"You know it."

"There's my girl." He looks back and he's smiling. "I was getting worried about you. You seemed pretty shaken up."

You sigh and shake your head. Of course Billy doesn't think about how you've never been in a dangerous situation short of falling from a tree when you were ten. To him gunfire and blood were in a day's work as an ex marine special operations. "I think I'd be more worried about you."

Billy turns and crawls up the bed, leaning with his head on his hand, elbow propping him up. "Why's that?"

"Been a while since you saw live action hasn't it? You're not worried about PTSD?"

"I've seen plenty of action since I got out. I know the risk I take running the company I do. It hasn't happened before now but it was bound to eventually."

"Right, yeah."

"Do I scare you?"

You shake your head. "No, not really. I know you've done things, seen things that I couldn't even imagine. It's part of who you are, who you were."

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that. It was them or us. You know that right?"

"Y-yeah. I know." You pick at the bedspread and he bumps his hand against your knee.

"You alright? I tried to keep you...away from it. I know you aren't like everyone else."

"I'm not ex military you mean." You feel your chest tighten. "I'm a civilian. I can't defend myself."

Billy sits up and lays a hand on your back. "Hey, hey."

"I shouldn't stay at Anvil. I should just go somewhere else. I can't do this, Billy, I'm scared what if this happened again?" Tears spill over and down your face. "I-I can't."

"I will never let anything happen to you." He turns your face to look at him. He's warm, his lips plush, eyes on yours. "You can work from home if you want. I'll stop by and bother you and make you tell me to shut up." He smiles a little as your lips turn up at the telling him to shut up part. "You like that?"

"I don't know, but I think you do."

Billy laughs softly, his smile wide. "Maybe I do. You noticed that?"

"Maybe." You wipe your eyes and he brushes a stray tear away with his thumb. "Why do you care so much? I'm just your assistant."

"Because I love you."

"W-what?" You hiccup as your breathing stops for a moment.

"You're like family. I trust you with everything, I tell you everything, you're my girl." Billy runs a hand through your hair. "I can't lose you."

"I don't-...I'm just-"

His lips press against yours and your eyes fall closed. It's an innocent kiss, soft and loving. "If I read this wrong all this time, you gotta tell me." He murmurs, head pressed to yours.

"No, you didn't. I just, you just caught me off guard."

"Yeah?" He smiles, nose scrunching up against yours. He places his fingers under your chin and tilts your head up to kiss you again briefly. "You're sure it's okay?"

You nod and he pulls back to kiss your temple, holding his nose to your hair and cradling the back of your head.

"Get some rest, I've got some calls to make." He climbs off the bed and heads for the door.

"Are you leaving?"

"No."

"Good."

He walks back quickly and kisses your cheek. "I mean it. Get some rest."

"I would if you'd just go already."

"Oh. You think you can just get rid of me?" He crawls back on the bed and you fall back as he straddles your hips. "You think you can boss me around huh?" He starts tickling your sides and you squeal, thrashing under his surprisingly strong hold.

"Stop! Stop! I yield!"

Billy stops and bends over, bracketing your head with his arms. "I knew you'd be fun to torment outside of that stuffy office."

"I hate tickling."

"Oh that's very obvious. I've made a mental note, highlighted it in yellow and everything." He bumps his nose against yours. "I'm gonna find everything that makes you tick."

You reach up and run a hand over his hair that's flopping forward from lack of product. "Expect to get as much as you give."

"Oh I do." His lips ghost over yours as he speaks. "I look forward to it."

You shove his head to the side and he flops over. "Don't you have calls to make?"

"Maybe."

"Go make your calls. I'm going to stink up your bed and rifle through your drawers more."

"I expect no less." He says, getting up and going to the door once more. "Let me know if you find anything you like, yeah?"

"Get out!"

He just cackles and you close your eyes. This is really happening. Funny how the world works in mysterious ways. You never thought you'd be the one to snatch Billy Russo off the market but here you are, and you're pretty damn proud of it.

The end

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Header image by delicate-venus

Thank you so much for reading, please reblog to support content creators. -A

#the punisher #billy russo #ben barnes #ben barnes characters #the punisher series #the punisher netflix #punisher fic #billy russo x reader #billy russo fic

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