#and sorry that i can't read every fic out there i have more things to do
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breadvidence · 2 days ago
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Using this space to reply to both @blatherby and @fluentisonus!
@blatherby: right right right, "The time has come to journey on/And from this day he must be gone"—and I do think you're correct that standard fanon is he's going into this encounter with the intent to leave, though I suppose I don't know how much by percentage Valvert fic is actually based on the musical vs the Brick, and for the former it's not a misreading per se. I'm thrown, in any case! Really having to recalibrate my sense of the level of his self-harm and suicidality (which still sits at "very nonzero", but slightly lower than "dialed up to eleven", I guess—I think that the line "He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail" signals that he wouldn't have been able to sustain himself on this course regardless of Marius' part in things).
@fluentisonus said in tags:
#yes!!!! this was something i was thinking abt a lot when i just got here on this last read#& i think contributed to my being more frustrated with/upset by marius this time around than before#i think the other line here is that really stood out to me is 5.8.2:#''He came every day because he had not the strength to take Marius’ words otherwise than literally''#<- which to me does Not speak to someone who is planning to stop visiting.#or at least to actually go through with not visiting#he's in fact willfully taking marius at his literal word re visiting rather than what i think he knows derp down marius would prefer#like he gave marius incomplete reasons & scared him badly (his (jvj's) fault!) but the m jean stuff is i think just intended as a layer of#separation to visiting & that last horrible wrench is all marius. & while not quite unexpected it's not what he (ivj) would have done#naturally if given the choice. in fact as we see it's incredibly hard to prevent himself from going#anyways really good post!#les mis#i think another thing though is that he asks marius to visit when he's quite literally at the door. like. he knows he can't bear#to not have this one thing. like he says all that & asks marius if he should see her again; takes his 'cold' no; gets to the door; & then#closes the door again & turns around to beg to see her <- tbc this is not a disagreement with your point that he always intends to visit#cosette just that both in-book & out of book it's easy to mistake bc it being at the end there makes it almost Seem like an afterthought#rather than i think one of the most genuinely earnest parts of his confession because to him he's been building up to something#he's not convinced he deserves & is asking against his better judgement#But i think this doesn't look good particularly to marius#it looks like he's backtracking on what he's set up#& marius gives in in the moment but it's one of the things he specifically regrets caving to in the next chapter#& i think is frustrated jvj couldn't fully follow through so he decides to force the issue#if that makes sense#hmm also (<- sorry op to come back & add more tags hours later) speaking of the m jean/vouvoyer thing i think you can very much read that#as being not a step towards a final separation but rather a way (to his mind) he can safely & perhaps even more honestly (?) Continue to#visit cosette. he can still see her without being connected to her in sn incriminating way . like you say#<- ofc this is not at all how it comes across to cosette
Yes!!! The level of my "jesus, you murdered that man" feelings towards Marius definitely dialed up a notch by reading the scene through this lens. As I said in responding above: re-reading further, I think it's a misjudgment on Valjean's part—that he can survive on black bread, but not on so little of Cosette—but I do wonder if, in the long run, as she once convinced him to have a fire and better food for her sake, whether she would've rekindled their bond and said to hell with this to the M. Jean and vouvoyer and cellar. Like, she's caught up in a new marriage, in learning what it means to love openly and fuck a man and live in the world, but I like to think given a few more months to settle into things she would've come back around to her papa—because she might not need him like she did when she was alone in the woods, but there's more in love than needing.
Which sidetracks me from "what did Jean Valjean mean to do?" to "what did Jean Valjean actually do?", and in the context of Cosette's happiness—it's always fraught! always makes me holler. Poor old man, and poor child.
I've dithered over making this post because I will feel incredibly silly if everyone else got this on the first go-through rather than the—Lord alone knows how many times I've read this particular scene, actually—but there I was, me and "The Seventh Circle and the Eighth Heaven"—as you do, for idle and entertainment, and I reach
If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood.
And realized that despite the character stating his reason right there in the text I have misunderstood badly. I took Valjean's intent with this confession and in his behavior afterwards to be separation from Cosette, that his desired outcome is to die alone, that he struggles against his love of her to reach that solitude, but it's—not. He says earlier that it's not, as well.
Stay, the unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly solid. All life falls in ruin around one; one resists. Had I been able to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are diligences in the Rue Bouloy; you are happy; I am going. I have tried to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore my heart with it.
The thread—to Cosette. He can't separate himself. He would not have to make this confession if he could simply leave her. Therefore he has to confess to Marius for two reasons, as I see it: (1) a big dramatic compulsion to honesty about his symbolic status as one who cannot live in the family of men, sure, but (2) like, real literally, he cannot live in the house. Valjean is practical, he makes arrangements, he's smart, his confession draws from the saint but I think it's also the thief, and what does the thief need? A co-conspirator. Both morally and practically he's averse to living at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and with both Cosette and her "master" Marius pushing him to move in, he'd have to move totally away, as he's certainly not going to give in—but now he's got Marius' backing to allow him to stay at the Rue de l'Homme-Armé, and he can exist in the in-between space he's always occupied, there in the back courtyard of Cosette's life.
I always wondered at Valjean's vacillation—that he says "To-day, Cosette passes out of my life; our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for her.", then begs Marius for the right to visit her. But he didn't change his intent at all; he was always keen to visit, to live on the crumbs that scatter from the table. He simply can't pull up a chair.
Marius' passive-aggressive attack on that thread, the destruction of Valjean's heart, Valjean is complicit in accepting that, yes. But he did not come into this parlor looking for that outcome.
🤦‍♂️
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girlscience · 5 months ago
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I hate getting into something that has a canon(ish) sapphic couple, but I only end up caring about one of the two women 😭😭😭
#warrior nun? only cared about beatrice couldn't really get behind ava much#the locked tomb? INSANE for gideon. harrow is like cool I guess (I feel like I should like her more than I do idk)#and now dungeon meshi. I knoowwwww I'm going to love falin. 10 episodes in and I already find her relatable and awesome and so cool and sexy#AND SHE BECOMES A DRAGON LIKE FUCK MAN (she's still dead atm but soon soooooon)#marcille on the other hand?? I mean she's fine... but I'm not really drawn to her (I like namari a lot more tbh)#and the thing is I know part of it is the feminization of all three of them#I am not attracted to femininity pretty much ever (outside of a super sexed up version in which case gugh)#and ava and marcielle both have a very bubbly personality type that has never really drawn me in ever#they can have cool stories and I can enjoy them in that. but I have no desire to seek them out outside of that#and harrow... honestly I think it might be the way fandom sees her that makes me not care much about her?#also my feelings about the series as a whole by the end of nona probably don't help#BUT I definitely think a big part for all three is the femininity. none of their counterparts that I DO love are overly fem#(and HONESTLY I don't think harrow should be either and the fact hardly no one actually makes her butch the way I see her pisses me off)#((she CANONICALLY hated her long hair!!!!!!!!! stop giving her anything more than a buzz cut I'm going to attack you!!!!!!))#also. marcielle has green eyes and I'm sorry but I just can't 😭#I need every single character ever in existence to only ever have brown/black or gold/yellow eyes#stop with the blue and the green 😭 please#ANYWAY POINT BEING: I hate that this happens to me because I end up not getting obsessed with the ship#and mostly only getting into the single character but then I don't want to read fic about just one person#so I try out the ship stuff and shocker no one writes the other character in a way I like so I don't read it#and then I feel bad cause all my ships and main characters I'm obsessed over are men#and then I complain all the fandom favs and mcs in stories are men#but like I'm contributing to the problem!!!! but like I'm not attracted to hannibal but I like his personality#I'm not attracted to optimus but I love how fucked up his whole deal with megatron is#I DO love both luffy and zoro even though I'm not really attracted to either of them#the lotr/hobbit ships.... eh I love the world and I love dwarves and I will do anything for them so the characters don't matter much lol#AND THATS THE ISSUE 😭 the worlds of warrior nun and tlt and most of what i've seen of dungeon meshi don't really entrance me much#so I don't get into the ships for that. and I'm not attracted to both people in the ship. and I can't relate/project on both in the ship#and sometimes I find one character type less likable/annoying so that makes me not want to engage
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daz4i · 2 years ago
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if i may complain for a bit about something that doesn't actually matter and can be easily avoided. god i hate fics that baby-fy chuuya
#yeah yeah i know just don't read them w/e. there's no tags to avoid these unfortunately 😐#it kinda feels like a fanon of fanon. it's so far removed from his canon self even if some core elements are there.#why write him like a 15 y/o even as an adult. and the thing is. even when he was 15 in canon he wasn't this childish. c'mon.#a lot of the most popular skk fics have him characterized like this and man I'm tired. look how they massacred my boy.#ok complaining session over. i feel like i sound kinda mean. sorry abt that.#it doesn't actually matter that much just a bit frustrating when it keeps happening when you're already a couple hundred words into a fic#edit: i lied I'm not done complaining i gotta turn this into a rant bc ppl misunderstanding my favorite character online is a crime.#childish was the wrong word for me to use ig it's more like. innocent.#girl. bestie. he has been part of criminal organizations quite literally since he remembers himself.#he is not some sweet uwu baby who's a bit of a tsundere or w/e. he's got genuine reasons to be angry yknow. he's been through shit#and he's not innocent? he's in the fucking mafia lol we literally see him kill like 20 people in 5 minutes at 15 y/o.#he's not naive either???? he may not be dazai levels of smart but he's still capable of figuring things out himself????#like he did figure out rimbaud's thing by himself. he's not stupid or slow. he wouldn't be a mafia executive otherwise.#and that's also the reason he can't be naive like... he is in constant danger after all#and idk watering down all this^ for aus is boring and turning him into practically an oc but it's even worse in canonverse#or literally any au where he suffers the same amount as he does in canon. bc then what's your excuse for watering him down.#it feels like forcing him into this very clear cut mold you see in every media when he is literally. not that.#no one in bsd is honestly that's part of its charm imo. they all subvert your expectations of their character archetypes#i think this is why it's making me so angry bc it doesn't feel like just misunderstanding the character but also the whole story. in a way.#am i going too far? perhaps. i dunno. i do feel less Dirty after letting out this frustration tho.#complaining session is now officially over okay. yes. sorry. i don't mean to offend anyone sorry if i sound mean at any point.
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aperrywilliams · 6 months ago
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That Wasn't Fake (Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader)
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Author Masterlist
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Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader.
Request: Can you write a Spencer fic where the reader is kind of quiet and shy when she begins working at the BAU, and Spencer has a crush on her, and then they have a case, and she has to like to seduce the unsub lowkey and everyone kind of like...how is she going to do this shes not very outgoing but when she does shes really good at it, and everyone is surprised and impressed.
Summary:  You're shy and reserved. Spencer has a crush on you, and unbeknown to him, you have a crush on him. Maybe the cat can get out of the bag when you have to step aside of your comfort zone to catch an elusive unsub.
Word Count: 4.2k (no self control here)
Warnings: Words like 'fuck' and 'bitch'. A rant about self-doubt. Typical CM stuff: unsubs, killings, etc.
A/N: Another request I loved! It should have been a little shorter, but I'm having a hard time getting to the point these days. Please keep sending requests!
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Spencer knows it is inappropriate, but he can't help it. You're coworkers, and that itself sets a boundary, so he shouldn't be thinking of trespassing.
But the crush he has on you seems to grow every day.
He doesn't know if it is your beautiful smile, the kindness you show in everything you do, or the enthusiasm you put into every task you are committed to. Since the moment he saw you pass the bullpen glass doors, Spencer knew he was damned.
From that moment, Spencer knew he wanted to know you and learn everything about you. About what you liked, what you hated, and what your fears and dreams were. Everything.
But not much after that revelation in his mind, he understood it wasn't going to be easy to get to you.
You were extremely shy and reserved.
In fact, your first interaction - when Emily introduced you both - consisted of a wave of your hand and a timid 'nice to meet you.'
He thought as time went by, you would loosen and become less bashful and quiet. And in part, he was right. As the months passed, you began to feel more comfortable within the team. You laughed at Luke's jokes, you commented on Rossi's stories, and you could even - when the stars aligned - crack a joke yourself to Tara or Matt.
But beyond that, no one knew much about your life outside of the BAU, unlike JJ, who always talks about her kids and her husband, or Matt, who talks about his kids, too. Or Tara, who recounts her failed dates. Or the same Luke who always shows photos of Roxy.
You, on the other hand, seemed to be an enigma. But Spencer Reid loved decoding enigmas.
At first, he turned his interest in you out of mere scientific curiosity. However, internally, he knew it wasn't just that.
It started with small random questions about the times you worked together: Is this coffee okay? What was the last book you read? Do you think we should buy some donuts for the team?
If you were honest, it picked your interest why, from all people, Dr. Spencer Reid was so adamant in making conversation with you.
From what you knew and from what the team said, Spencer was not a person very interested in things other than work or books. But suddenly, out of nowhere, he asked you what the last movie you saw was or something like that.
You always answered his questions; however, you would have liked to be much more talkative and engage in longer conversations, but your nature stopped you.
'What if I don't have anything more interesting for him to say?'
'Does he just talk to me because he feels sorry for me?'
And that was the big issue: you have never had problems with the way you live your life. You're pretty satisfied with what you do in your job and out of it, too. But you have always thought you are too 'simple' to entertain people's interest.
And to be honest, being surrounded by people with so much experience and big things happening in their lives still intimidates you a bit. So, you usually refrain from talking too much about yourself or anything for that matter.
But with Spencer, things are a bit different. He's always checking on you but respects your boundaries. He has learned that sometimes you just don't want to talk, and he doesn't push.
Despite his interest beyond the professional, Spencer would never do anything to make you uncomfortable. Being able to share time with you will have to be enough for him.
In a way, he has become your protector. He is your backup during interrogations or in situations where you can feel awkward, like the times when some police officers tried to flirt with you and got too close. Sure, you know how to turn them down, but sometimes guys don't get the memo and keep pushing. You're too shy to yell or be aggressive about it.
The team also understands the way you are, and they know it does not make you any less professional. However, they have always been careful not to take you too much out of your comfort zone.
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A whole two weeks and five murders later, the team is stuck trying to catch an unsub who has preferences for killing women after club nights. The profile says he is not interested in just any woman but in those between 25-30 years old who like to flirt with several men in the clubs. But it is not just any type of flirting; it is the type that is initiated and dominated by them. In short, he likes to kill women who are the opposite of submissive. He sees them as predators on a hunting ground.
Another finding in victimology is that the women he kills, in addition to having a specific age range, have very similar physical characteristics. And similar to you.
All his victims have your build, eye color, hair color, and height. It gets to be creepy to a certain point. And it's something difficult to ignore.
Bouncing information and possible strategies, the team agrees they need to be proactive to get him to show up before another killing happens.
"Okay, what options do we have?" Emily asks.
"The witnesses haven't gotten us anywhere," Luke complains.
"Although we've narrowed down his hunting grounds," Rossi shrugs.
"Yeah, we know the clubs where he likes to hunt," JJ backs Rossi.
"But although the profile, we have yet to learn about what to look for there. I mean, we know what the unsub wants, but not how he looks like." This time, it's Tara who speaks.
You've rarely seen Emily bite her tongue when she wants to say something, but it's clear that she has something on her mind, and she doesn't know how to put it, or maybe the problem is something else. You look at her out of the corner of your eye, and she looks back at you; what do those eyes say? They look like they're even apologetic.
It's a fraction of the time before she comes back to behave like herself.
"We need to lurk him. It's the only way," she says. And everyone's eyes - yours included - are on her immediately.
"Lurk him?" Matt repeats.
"Yes. And all we know who should be the one going undercover to do that," Emily adds, looking at you this time.
That's it—the elephant in the room.
Of course, you're the ideal candidate. Well, you're perfect in the physical aspect because if we talk about the victim's personality and yours...
There's silence in the room, and you can feel like the team's eyes are all on you.
Do they expect you to say no? To refuse? From your perspective, it's not a question; it's more like the option you all have to catch the guy.
"It's true (Y/N) would be the closest to the unsub type, but there are a lot of things to take into account," Matt says. And you know perfectly well what's behind his words, even if he doesn't say it directly.
And that's okay; it's perfectly plausible they have their doubts. It is not enough to look like the victims for the operation to work.
But if there is one thing you are sure of, it's that you will always give your all to your job, even if that means becoming a completely different person.
"I can do it," you mumbled so quietly that if the AC weren't in the lower setting, people wouldn't have heard you.
"But (Y/N), you know about this guy. It's dangerous," Matt points, a frown on his face.
"Not to mention he likes rough interactions," Luke adds.
"You don't have to do it if you feel uncomfortable." This time, it is JJ who voices her opinion. And you know, that's the closest reason to the team's main concern.
And the fact you can blow up the entire plan.
Spencer stays in silence. Internally he's freaking out thinking of you having to lurk on the unsub, but he knows you are a professional. And he feels a kind of deja vu.
When he was younger, the team would have said the same about him doing something like that. Spencer knows what it's like when people baby you, making you feel insecure. Sure, he hasn't had to worry about that anymore. Spencer is almost forty, and no one would dare to tell him he can't do something. Not after all the things he has been through.
"JJ is right, Bella. You don't have to do it. We can think of another way," Rossi backs JJ.
That's when Spencer notices the slight frown on your face. It's invisible to everyone but him. He knows it's there.
You stay collected, even when everyone on the team has something to say about how bad the idea of you going undercover to lurk the unsub is.
Emily is who stops everyone's rant.
"Guys, hey. If (Y/N) is telling us she can do it, we're going to do it. Of course, we'll be there to back up her and catch this unsub."
And this is how the discussion is settled.
Emily sends everyone out with a task to prepare for the night. Today is Friday, and the unsub will surely be stalking some new victim. The chances are high.
When it's just you and Spencer in the room, he still looks at you in silence.
"Do you also think I'll not be able to pull off this mission and I'm going to ruin everything?"
You downcast your gaze, exhaling deeply.
"No. I don't think that," Spencer clarifies, and you raise your gaze to meet his eyes. "You are more than capable, (Y/N). The team is worried because you'll be out of your comfort zone in a dangerous situation."
"The team? Not you?" You narrow your eyes to him.
You try not to sound accusatory, but if you're as scared as everyone, you also are fed up with the other's doubts.
Spencer closes the distance between you both but doesn't invade your personal space.
"Of course, I'm worried too! I don't want anything bad to happen to you. But I trust you and your judgment."
Your heart does flip-flops, and you're not sure if it's because Spencer is worried or because, despite that, he trusts you—or both.
"You do?" You ask, not so convinced.
Spencer nods and smiles at you.
"And we'll be there when you catch the guy."
If that is the reassurance you need, you don't mention it. Instead, you grin at Spencer as a promise you'll do your job just how you are supposed to.
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You insist on getting ready in your hotel room. The only assistant you ask for is Emily. She was the one who trusted you first in this, so you'll take every piece of advice she can give you before this night starts.
Everyone has a role in the plan.
Rossi will be the chauffeur who will drive you to the club.
Luke and Spencer would be in the club, mingling with the patrons. JJ, Matt, and Emily would be in the van monitoring the whole situation with cameras and earpieces. Rossi would keep his facade as a driver so he could be at one of the entrances. Tara would be at the club, too, eyeing nothing suspicious going on in the bar because there is a chance the unsub is getting help from the bartender.
When you are in front of the mirror applying the last touch of makeup, Emily is looking at you with a stare you can't decipher.
"What?" you ask, and Emily chuckles.
"Please, don't take this in a bad way, but I never thought I would live the day of seeing you using clothing like this. And Jesus, you look so hot!"
Your cheeks redens.
"It's a little bit odd coming from my boss, don't you think?" you muse, smoothing the fabric of your dress.
"Point taken," Emily raises her hands in defense. "Although I know someone who is going to run out of breath after seeing you."
You let out a scoff. It's not a surprise for you. The BAU girls - boss included - have been trying to set you up with Spencer since forever. You don't entertain the idea only because you don't think it's possible and not because you don't like the concept.
"Come on, don't say that. You are not helping to my nerves."
"Sorry, I'll shut up. We should go, though," Emily says, checking her watch.
One of the SUVs drives you to the van parking point. You needed to review the operation details.
At the back of the van - or commander point - JJ, Luke, Tara, Rossi, Matt, and Spencer see you come up with Emily.
For the best US profilers, they're not doing a good job hiding that they are gawking at you. Surely, no one imagined seeing you in such a revealing outfit. Outfit that, without a doubt, suits you extremely well, highlighting all your body attributes.
Spencer feels like he died and was resurrected after seeing you.
"Okay, guys, we need to check the details again," Emily announces.
The plan is in motion, and everyone is in position.
As expected, you arrive with Rossi at the club, who opens the door for you and helps you descend from the car. Rossi gives you a reassuring smile before letting you go.
Like a switch, you are no longer the shy SSA (Y/L/N). Now you are the woman who is going to take what she wants and attract the unsub attention doing that.
Your walk is determined, and your eyes send out flames of confidence to those who look at you. The music is very loud, something that would usually bother you, but not now. This needs to feel like your environment. That's how you like it, you tell yourself.
Almost instantly, you start to attract the looks of men who are eager for a woman like you.
You exude determination, and you don't go unnoticed.
Walking into the club, you make brief eye contact with Luke, who is on the dance floor. You see Spencer perched in a booth, nursing a beer.
At the same time, Tara is stationed at the bar.
"Remember (Y/N); the unsub expects the woman to approach men. The flirt needs to come from you," Emily reminds you by the earpiece hidden in one of the earrings you're wearing.
"Show time," you mumble to yourself.
You walk seductively to the dance floor, where a young man is dancing with a blonde. You approach and whisper something in his ear. That makes the boy completely lose interest in the blonde and start dancing with you. You smile and cling to the man's body, who wastes no time and takes your hips as if they were his possessions.
That dance certainly has nothing innocent about it. You continue whispering things in the boy's ear, and he looks more and more excited. Once you consider it a reasonable amount of time to have attracted attention, you leave the boy alone and head to the bar. Just a few meters away from Tara, a suspicious man is staring at you. You see him out of the corner of your eye as you order a drink. When the bartender passes it to you, you make subtle eye contact with Tara, who nods, indicating that the drink is clean.
You look next to you and see another man not so subtly looking at you. You know the unsub's profile, and you can't be intimidated or dominated by another man. You are the one who calls the shots. Otherwise, this will not work.
Before the man makes his attempt to seduce you, you turn to him, and with a penetrating look and disdainful voice, you stop him.
"Sorry, honey. Don't waste your time. You're not my type," and with that, you leave to move to the opposite side of the club. The guy huffs, and you're almost sure hearing him call you 'bitch' under his breath.
JJ, who's following the cameras inside the club, sees someone who looks suspect.
"Hey, this guy has been peeking at (Y/N) the entire time, and look, he clenched his fists when (Y/N) turned down that guy at the bar."
Emily confirms JJ's observation before giving you the next instructions.
"(Y/N), you're doing great. We have a possible target. So we need to raise the bet."
You know exactly what Emily means. You both had talked about the strategy to follow, having more details about what you should do than the rest of the team.
Matt and JJ look confused at each other but say nothing.
Your next step is to find another dude to seduce before delivering the coup de grace.
Luke and Spencer keep an eye on you. And while Luke is pleasantly surprised by your audacity, Spencer can't help but feel his stomach tighten. He tells himself it's because he is afraid something bad could happen to you, but inside of him, it's that and the fact of seeing you flirt with other men.
Just like you did with the guy on the dance floor, you attract the attention of another man; this time, you take his hand and pull him to the dance floor.
JJ and Matt's jaws drop to the floor. If Tara, Luke, and Spencer could do the same without giving themselves away, they would have done it, too.
As if it were your second nature, you laugh and move to the music. The man seems to enjoy the moment so much that he takes a bold step by leaning in to kiss you. You let him get closer until his lips are almost on yours. But before touching each other, you pull back with a malicious smile.
"Naughty boy. I'm who says if you can kiss or no," you pout, faking disappointment. Dizzed, the guy cocks his head and sees you walk away.
Matt chirps now. "It's him. Look boss," he tells Prentiss, pointing to the same guy JJ saw before.
There is no longer any doubt that it is him. Now you just have to catch him red-handed.
"(Y/N), we got him. It's time for the last play," Emily tells you.
With Emily's instruction, you go to the bar for another drink before heading over to where Spencer is sitting.
He tries to play it off, but he has no idea why you're approaching him.
"Is this seat taken, handsome?" You ask, with your drink in hand.
"N- no. Please," Spencer gestures to the booth on his front, but you opt to perch to his side. Spencer thinks he never has been this close to you. He looks at your eyes, and it's like you are a totally different person. It's a little bit contradictory for him, to be honest. He already likes you just as you are, but this version of you? It's driving him insane.
Some resemblance of your true self looks with a kind of curiosity the nervousness on Spencer. You don't think much about it; you assume he's playing the nervous guy who is baffled by you.
The thing is, Spencer isn't playing. He's definitely baffled by you.
"Are you okay?" You ask him, masking your question with a seductive smile.
"Yeah. Are - are you?" Spencer stutters a bit—something that is perfect for the plan but embarrassing for him.
You get closer to him to speak in his ear.
"This was Emily's idea," you tell him before kissing his ear and gently biting his lobe.
Spencer's breath hitches in his throat, and he thinks he's going to pass out any second. You're not doing it better: your heart is also pumping hard from the adrenaline. Of course, you had imagined something like that with Spencer, but only in your erotic dreams. You wouldn't dare do this on any given day.
You keep teasing Spencer, who, despite the nervousness, tries to play along. If this is the closest he will ever have you, he wants to engrave this in his memory.
"Just a little push, (Y/N). We almost have him," Emily instructs by the earpiece.
You swallow as subtly as possible as you wrap your arm around Spencer's neck, pulling him closer to you.
It's only a second between that action and the fact that you're kissing Spencer like it's your last meal.
Spencer doesn't know how to respond, and you were counting on that; it was enough time for the unsub to notice that you were the one who chose her last prey.
When Spencer is about to reciprocate the kiss, you murmur a 'sorry' into his lips and quickly pull away, giving him a disdainful look—which you hope he understands is fake—before getting up and walking toward the back exit door.
As expected, the unsub follows you towards the back door, and while your back is turned, he believes he has the advantage to attack you. What he doesn't know is that Matt and Luke are ready to lunge at him the moment he tries to touch you.
Everything that happens after is too fast.
The unsub is detained and taken to a patrol car while the team gathers around you, congratulating you on the successful operation. They all apologize to you for their previous apprehensions. You tell them that you understand and that there is no need to apologize. And it's like the switch has been flipped again since you came out of the femme fatale role.
But something is wrong. Spencer is not in the group. You see him a little further away, near the exit door of the club. Emily notices the looks between you both, and she sends the team on different tasks to close the case, leaving you and Spencer there.
There's something in his eyes that you can't decipher. You think it's resentment for using him without warning him what you were going to do.
You shyly approach him.
"It's me again," you tell him, pulling a face. You don't know what to say to make the situation better. Spencer nods.
"Yeah. You did it great, by the way," he compliments you. But it doesn't feel good like Spencer's compliments usually do.
"Look, about the kiss back there-" you start. He needs an explanation as a bare minimum.
"I know. It was fake," Spencer cuts you off.
Those words shouldn't hurt you as they do now. But isn't that the most reasonable thing to believe? The you in the club weren't you, so all you did inside was pretend.
Everything except that kiss.
If it's true you couldn't enjoy it the way you would have liked, you will never forget his lips on yours.
A tense silence takes over the moment. This is not okay.
You can't afford to lie to one of the most important people in your life, even if telling the truth takes you out of your comfort zone.
What the hell! Tonight has already been a total of 180 from a usual day for you.
"It wasn't," you mumble, and you see his eyes flicking to yours in a second.
"What?" Spencer asks, narrowing his eyes at you.
"Everything was fake, but not the kiss," you say with a stadied voice this time.
Spencer's heart races again. If you say you didn't fake it, then what he felt on your part at that moment was real?
"It wasn't fake?" He asks for clarification. You nod.
A smirk forms on Spencer's lips, seeing your cheeks redden.
There you are. The girl he had fallen for in the past two years.
"Well, you know that I am a man of science, right?" he tells you, and you frown because you have no idea where this is going.
"I know," you say with some hesitation.
"And as a man of science, I need evidence of things, you know?"
Now, you are the one who smirks at him.
"Evidence, huh?"
"Yep," he says, emphasizing the 'p' and swaying his body on his feet. You hum.
"I believe I can provide the necessary evidence if you need them," you concede, and Spencer's eyes sparkle with excitement.
Now, he is the one who reaches out and cups your cheeks. Your breathing quickens, but that doesn't stop you from standing on your tiptoes and connecting your lips with his.
This time, there is no unsub, no curious eyes are looking at you, there is no rush, there is no femme fatale role, and above all, this is not fake; it's as real as the fact that your heart beats for him, and his for you.
------------------ 
Spencer Reid's Taglist: @dreatine @nomajdetective @jayyeahthatsme @rosalinasam2 @averyhotchner @lovelyxtom @princessmiaelicia @pastelbabygirl19 @reidsbookclub @alexxavicry @gspenc @spencerreidisbae123 @calmspencer @pauline5525mgg @anamiad00msday @milivanili99 @laylasbunbunny @leahblackk @miaxx03 @missabsey @taintedstranger @khxna @hiireadstuff @pleasantwitchgarden @dysphoricsanity @levi-of-starz @themoonchildwhofell @silver138 @lovelybaka @shinytinywhispers 
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ugh-yoongi · 2 months ago
Text
ex-conomics | csc
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you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.
⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3
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You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.
“Um—”
You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”
“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”
Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.
TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)
You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.
That, however, was two years ago.
“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”
Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”
“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”
You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”
Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”
The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”
You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”
“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”
“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.
But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”
You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.
You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.
You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.
You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.
You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.
You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.
You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.
So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.
“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”
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For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.
A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.
But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.
Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.
You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.
Your stomach plummets to the floor.
You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.
“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.
Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.
The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.
“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”
Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”
She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”
“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”
She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”
You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”
“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”
Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”
Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.
You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”
“And continued wearing it?”
She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”
Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.
So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”
“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”
“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”
Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”
You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.
Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.
“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”
The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.
“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”
She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:
doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄
You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”
“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”
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You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.
You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.
And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.
But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.
They never do.
And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.
“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
This time it is an accusation.
Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.
You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.
Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.
Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.
You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.
“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”
You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.
“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”
But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.
“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”
And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.
You cannot go there again.
So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”
Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.
You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.
Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”
He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.
But you did, so it stings all the same.
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As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.
You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.
Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.
Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.
He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.
Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”
“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”
“Depends. How long do you have?”
“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”
Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”
“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”
You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”
He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”
“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”
You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”
“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”
Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.
And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.
Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.
“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”
He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”
“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.
You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.
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You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.
He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—
“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”
“At this university?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”
Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.
“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”
You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.
So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.
Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.
But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.
You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.
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Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.
The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.
“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”
He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.
“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”
“Oh—yeah, right.”
You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.
You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.
I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.
Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.
But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.
So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.
“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”
“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”
You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”
She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.
The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.
“Not bad, actually.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”
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Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.
“Can I help you?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”
You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”
He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”
You blink. “No, you didn’t.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”
What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.
“They want to know about his girlfriend.”
“His what?”
What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.
But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.
You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.
Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.
“What’s wrong?”
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.
What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”
“Oh. Are you okay?”
You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”
Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”
“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”
“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”
“Seungcheol,” you correct.
He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.
They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.
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Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?
Seungcheol shared a location with you
You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.
You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.
Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.
Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.
“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”
“Oh. How’s he doing?”
Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”
“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”
You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.
“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”
You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”
Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.
The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.
He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…
It’s the familiarity, you realize.
You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.
“That’s not what I’m say—”
“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”
“Right—not good enough, like I said.”
“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”
“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”
You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.
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So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.
The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.
Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.
Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.
Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.
“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.
Also fruitless.
You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.
And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.
But it isn’t, and you’re not.
“If you’re not going to listen, then—”
“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.
Perhaps he never did.
“What are we discussing, then?”
Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”
You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”
It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.
“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”
He nods.
“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”
The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.
So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.
Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.
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Kaori invites you to a party.
Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.
After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.
So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.
At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.
You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.
You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.
You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.
You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.
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Seungcheol finds you in your office.
It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.
You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.
So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.
“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”
He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”
“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”
You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.
So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.
But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.
Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.
Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.
“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.
You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.
Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.
Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Again.
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Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.
She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.
Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.
And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”
Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”
“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”
She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”
“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”
“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”
You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”
“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”
A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.
Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.
You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.
Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?
Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.
Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?
Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.
You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.
L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.
You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.
So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.
She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.
“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”
“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”
Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”
You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.
And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”
She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”
“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”
“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”
You do.
Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.
It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.
You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.
You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.
The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.
There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.
You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.
(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)
One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.
Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.
Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.
You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.
“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”
Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”
Cut to black.
The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…
I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…
You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.
I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?
I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.
So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…
I’m sorry.
I love you.
You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.
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The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.
“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”
On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”
“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”
She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”
“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”
After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.
The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.
Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.
You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…
And start recording.
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He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.
There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?
He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…
Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?
It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—
And then there it was.
All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—
Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.
I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.
I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.
Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.
Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.
You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.
Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.
I love you, too.
—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.
Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.
There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.
He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”
“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.
There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.
Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.
Somehow you taste the same.
Somehow you taste like redemption.
You taste like home.
Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.
When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—
And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.
“I always will.”
(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)
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if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭
i would love to hear your thoughts! <3
3K notes · View notes
witchywcmans · 5 months ago
Text
FORBIDDEN FRUIT. | LAIOS TOUDEN
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synopsis ━━ laios can't seem to get enough after he first tastes you. but the lines in your friendship are beginning to blur. it's only when your party happens upon your ex-lover in the dungeon that laios realizes what he should've communicated all along. (laios x f!reader.)
content warnings ━━ cunnilingus, praise, size kink, jealousy, classic missionary, unprotected sex, creampie, mutual pining/confession, laios and reader are not good with communication (but they work it out v well), laios is self concious but reader is so kind to him !!, monster facts as dirty talk. nsfw (minors + ageless blogs dni).
word count ━━ 4.8k
song inspiration ━━ awkward, sza / cherry, lana del rey / hunger, florence + the machine
author's note ━━ TECHNICALLY, this could be a part 2 to please, eat, so I'm just going to link as a part 2. you don't have to read please, eat before this, but if you like laios then obvi you should read it anyway!! I'm SO SORRY it took me so long to post another laios x reader 😭 I was trying to finish the manga before I wrote something else dungeon meshi-related, but life gets the way. oh well. also, this might be controversial, but in this fic I’m refuting the “laios is a virgin” allegations. SUE ME. I simply don’t believe he’s been adventuring so long and hasn’t been with anyone, that is crazzzy to me !! but that's just me 🤗 we all have our fave headcanons! my goal when I finish the manga is to write something for laios at the end of the story hehe. I hope you guys enjoy part 2! this one-shot is dedicated to @satoogojos 🫶
🪽 part i: PLEASE, EAT. / part ii: FORBIDDEN FRUIT. / part iii: TOO SWEET.
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Catching feelings for your friend was truly a fickle thing. But you guessed it was bound to happen with what you and Laios were doing behind everyone’s back. Each night, after your party tucked themselves in their bedrolls, Laios would so delicately lace your arm through his and you two would find a private area … before he completely buried his face between your thighs.
He was fixated on the way you tasted, the way he could get you to cum so easily on his tongue. You were the only dessert he wanted after every dinner. Some nights, he would have you writhing from overstimulation, but he just wanted more of you – so much more.
It was a little confusing, though, how he didn’t ask for anything in return. Laios seemed to grind against the cold, dungeon floor as his tongue lapped at your essence, sometimes cumming in his pants and moaning between your legs. Or he would politely excuse himself after he was done, taking care of himself as you cleaned yourself up. You didn’t quite understand it, and maybe neither did he. You both were just too awkward to broach the subject.
The incident with the sea serpent had changed your friendship forever. Not only did Laios save you from becoming one, but the intimacy you both now shared seemed to open you up more. You found yourself divulging more secrets to him, leaning on him when you needed someone, even being more impartial to Senshi’s monster meals. And you liked the way he smiled, how he looked at you. You liked how fearless he was. You liked how protective he was over the party, especially you. You … really liked him. Far more than a crush. In fact, you wished you could go back in time and just have a crush. But your feelings for him became deeper as you crept lower and lower into the dungeon together. Your goal was still to come out of this dungeon alive, but now … you hoped that you would make it out alive together.
What a foolish girl you had become.
You tried to remain focused on the path ahead of you, but you were clearly lost in thought today. The party had reached floor 6, which meant you were closer and closer to the deepest part of the dungeon and hopefully rescuing Laios’ sister, Falin. The last thing you expected to see on floor 6 were other adventurers, let alone your ex.
You were hesitant to call him an ex, since you two had never really been anything but a warm body in each other’s beds while living on the surface. But when your bodies collided and your eyes met his, you realized why you had taken a liking to him in the first place. He had been a butcher’s son, handy with an axe, and you had liked his big, strong hands. You almost fell right into him from the slippery dungeon floor, but those strong hands seemed to catch you like you were made of air. “It’s you,” he chuckled, setting you up straight and tucking a stray hair behind your ear. “Look at you … feels like it was just yesterday when we were on the surface, huh?”
Marcille looked like she didn’t want anything to do with your ex and his party, but Senshi was very kind to offer them food, if they needed it. Chilchuck seemed neutral, and Laios … you still couldn’t read Laios as easily as the rest of the party. He watched your ex like a hawk, standing behind you as if to protect you. Your ex’s hands were big, sure, but Laios was tall, his shoulders wide and intimidating even without the armor. Laios narrowed his eyes slightly whenever he saw your ex’s gaze roam over you, like he was undressing you with his eyes. And you weren’t sure if you caught it – it only lasted a second – but did Laios clench his hands into fists?
There wasn’t enough time in the world to dwell on it. Especially when you had ghosts seemingly pulling you into another area of the dungeon and waking up on a dirt path, a beautiful golden castle mounted ahead of you. Your party was initially confused, walking into the village and seeing monsters living harmoniously with humans. After becoming acquainted with the village, you and your friends were offered a warm, delicious meal with Yaad, the lord of the Golden Country. After Yaad explained the history of this village, you all were each given rooms to rest in for the night. The beds were small and cold, but far better than a bedroll.
You were used to Laios initiating with you every night, but by the time everyone went to sleep, he still didn’t call upon you. So you stood from your bed, adjusting the nightgown given to you, and walked across the hall to where Laios’ room was. You knocked on his door, and you heard the slip of a sword into a sheath behind the thin wood. He had been inspecting Kensuke for some reason, probably mulling over Yaad’s words. When he opened the door, he was dressed in loose pants and a linen shirt, droplets running down his neck. He must’ve just bathed. You couldn’t stop yourself from digging your nails into your palm.
“Can I come in?” You asked in a hushed voice, and he moved out of the way for you to step inside.
His room looked exactly like yours, but the sheets were ruffled from lack of sleep. Laios walked around you and sat on the edge of the bed, leaving you more confused than ever. You played with your hands as you stared at him, contemplating. “Is something wrong, Laios?” You inquired, stepping closer to him. “You’ve been acting weird even before we got here.”
His brow furrowed for a moment. “How do you figure?”
“Well, you …” Your tongue clicked. “You didn’t come to find me after everyone went to bed.”
He seemed to concede, shoulders dipping at your answer. Shifting on the mattress, he propped himself up against his pillows and moved Kensuke to lean against the wall. His silence was even more perplexing. This had to be the longest time Laios went without talking. He was a blabbermouth.
“I don’t understand,” you continued, walking over and sitting on the end of his bed. “Are you … are you angry with me?”
“No, no,” Laios was quick to reply, “I’m not angry with you. I’m just …”
You raised a brow, eager to hear his answer.
“That man you recognized. On floor 6,” he finally said, his fists clenching again at the memory. “I didn’t … I didn’t like the way he looked at you. And his tone. It was disrespectful to you. Unless I’m reading this all wrong.”
You were taken aback by his honesty. So he had been bothered by your ex. “Oh,” you replied, “well … me and him, we do have history, Laios. But it’s in the past.”
“I could tell.” He was picking at his nails now, any excuse not to meet your eyes. “Everyone has a life before the dungeon. It’s not about the past. I just … I didn’t like him. Or how he looked at you like … like he still wanted you. Or something.”
“Or something,” you repeated, nodding your head. A slow smile crept onto your lips at the realization. “Laios, are you jealous?”
His head jolted up, his eyes glued to his hands, searching for something unknown. Realization washed over his face, as if he hadn’t even considered this possibility. “Oh, gods,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “This whole day I’ve been trying to reconcile with what I’m feeling and I knew I wasn’t mad at you – maybe just mad at the circumstances – and none of it made sense, but now …” He finally met your eyes, a chuckle slipping past his lips. “I was just jealous. How did I not realize?”
“Maybe because we didn’t talk about it,” you offered in a low voice, reaching out and lacing your fingers with his. A jolt of electricity ran through your fingertips and all the way up your arm. You wished you could hide your reaction, but it was clear as day, making Laios shift in his spot. “Laios, we should talk –”
“You’re not leaving the party, are you?” His grip on your fingers went tight, and he didn’t even realize it.
“No,” you laughed, scooting closer and running your free hand over his face. His cheeks flushed instantly when you touched him. “I think … we should talk about what’s happening between us.”
Laios’ gaze went narrow as he processed your words. “Oh,” he said blankly, and then his eyes went wide. “Oh.”
“I just … because we’ve been doing this every night … it’s hard not to feel …” You sighed, unable to get the words right. But he seemed to understand, quick-witted as ever, squeezing your hand in encouragement. And then he smiled at you, all dopey and kind, and your heart began to pound. “I can’t help but think that the lines are being blurred between us. My feelings for you are … much deeper than what they were initially. And if you don’t feel the same way, that’s okay. I needed you to know. I’m sorry if this hurts … whatever our relationship is.”
He was still smiling, his other hand gripping your waist, pulling you even closer. “Well, I think –”
“And now I can’t help but wonder if maybe – just maybe – you feel the same way,” you started rambling, terrified to know how he was going to reply. “Because why would you feel jealous if you didn’t … I shouldn’t make assumptions. But I still wondered. And I can’t stop talking. Again, I don’t want this to ruin anything and I’m sorry if it does. My ex doesn’t mean anything to me anymore and he won’t ever again –”
Out of nowhere, Laios used his upper body strength to flip you onto your back, pinning you to the bed. Now your cheeks were flushed, completely caught off guard by the action. He sat in between your legs, his fingers just brushing over your waist, as he said, “I do. Feel the same. I feel like I’m the one who could’ve ruined this because I didn’t realize it sooner.”
You gave him a sad smile, reaching up to cup his chin. “You couldn’t ruin anything.”
He leaned into your palm when your hand moved to his cheek, humming under his breath. He then leaned down, his body just barely pressing against yours, as if he craved your body heat. Like a moth to a flame.
“Can we not talk about your ex ever again?” He muttered, his hands running up and down your sides. “Because when I saw him today, all I could think about was …” He stopped himself abruptly.
“What?” Your curiosity peaked.
“I’m going to sound like a jealous brute,” he sighed dramatically, nose brushing against yours as his hands moved higher, thumbs grazing over the underside of your breasts. The material of your nightgown was so thin that your peaked nipples were already visible. “I just … couldn’t stop thinking about all the times I’ve tasted you that he hasn’t. I wondered if he knew exactly how you liked it, which places made those funny sounds come out of your mouth. And then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and all I wanted this whole day was to get you alone.”
You shuddered when his thumb brushed over one of your taut nipples, making your heel run down the back of his leg. His words alone made tingles run down your spine, but the second his hands were on you, you were properly soaked. The both of you lay there for a moment: him on top of you, nuzzling your nose, rolling his fingers over your nipples through your nightgown, eliciting breath hitches from your lips.
It was so slow, so patient, so good, but had you wanting more. And you couldn’t stop the words coming out when you blurted, “I want to have sex.”
He paused, opening his eyes for a moment, making sure he heard you properly.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you said quickly, feeling awkward. But why were you so shy all of a sudden? It’s not like he didn’t have his tongue deep inside your pussy every night. Maybe it was because there was a question still lying underneath the surface. “Why ... why don’t you want me to help you finish after you eat me out? Sometimes you just … walk away to take care of yourself.”
Laios’ face went bright red, and then he buried his face in your neck. “I’m so embarrassed.”
Your hand pushed back his cropped, blonde hair, trying to soothe his racing heart. “Why are you embarrassed?”
“Because it’s … it’s big,” he sighed and lifted his head. “There. I said it. It’s just big. And the last person who saw it made me feel super self-conscious about it.”
You couldn’t help but snort. “You’re embarrassed because you have a big dick?”
His pretty golden eyes were serious, but it looked like he wanted to laugh with you. “Please, don’t make it sound trivial.”
“It’s not trivial, it’s just …” You went to cup both his cheeks. The way he looked at you was unlike anything you ever experienced. You wondered why it took you so long to realize he felt the same. “I would never make you feel self-conscious about anything. I like everything about you, Laios.”
Your words had him melting, leaning back down into you and kissing you slowly. It was only when his tongue slipped into your mouth that his hand snaked down between your legs, just cupping your soaked entrance, the one thing he loved to eat more cheesecake. Realizing that you weren’t wearing any underwear had him reeling. “Gods …” He moaned into the kiss, his fingers simply running down your soaked folds.
As his lips broke away from yours, you asked in a tone as sweet as barometz, “Do you want to have sex, Laios?”
“Yes,” he replied, voice desperate. “Yes, please.”
Your hands went to the hem of his loose, linen shirt, breaking your kiss again to lift it over his head. For the first time, you were able to see what he looked like underneath all the armor. His shoulders were wide-set, his torso soft while also being oddly defined. Most tall-men your party encountered thought Laios was on the slender side, not believing how strong he was. But once your eyes beheld his biceps, you knew how wrong they all were. He was built and muscular and – gods, you could admire him for hours.
Laios stopped your hands from going any further, a pleading look in his eyes. He pushed your nightgown up and bunched it at the waist. “Can I taste you first?”
You nodded quickly, already intoxicated by the way he kissed you, the way he smiled at you, all eager and excited to bury his face in your pussy. It didn’t take him long; he was lightning fast, moving down your body and lifting your legs on his shoulders so he could eat you out easier. His tongue dove into your folds immediately, and he groaned at the first taste. You were acutely more aware every night that he could do this for hours, just lapping at you lazily, bringing you to orgasm over and over again. No monster compared to the way you tasted.
His nose bumped your clit as he tongued your leaking hole, practically whimpering at every drop of your wetness that reached his mouth. Large, calloused hands wrapped around your thighs, making sure they didn’t close and digging into your flesh. Your own hands fisted into the sheets, your ass lifted off the bed, but you could still grind your hips against his face. Soft whines left your lips, nothing compared to the groans Laios was making as he ate you like he didn’t have a three-course meal just an hour ago. You almost wondered if you should tell him to quiet down, afraid of the others hearing, but you were too lost in the pleasure to care.
It was clear to you the closer you got to reaching your peak that Laios wasn’t keen on stopping. And as much as you truly wanted to cum all over his tongue, you thought it was important that you both have this new experience together. It took you a few seconds to finally gather the courage to say something, his tongue feeling too good as he swirled it around your sensitive clit. “Laios,” you called, and then a little louder, “Laios.”
He lifted his head, your juices dripping down his chin. A primal urge made him want to dive back into you, but he controlled himself. His tongue licked at your essence around his mouth, and you shuddered at the sight.
“I want you inside me,” you whispered. “Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered hoarsely, placing your legs so delicately back on the bed, as if they were made of glass. “Of course.” He so desperately wanted to taste you again, but he was even more excited for this, to finally feel something other than his hand wrapped around his cock. You were the first person he ever tasted, but it had been quite a while since he was truly intimate with someone, to slide into someone and feel them clench around him.
As you tugged off your nightgown, Laios began to work at the ties of his pants. But his hands stopped as they came undone, glancing up at you with hesitation. You looked so pretty sitting in the middle of his bed, waiting for him, naked and vulnerable. He felt silly for feeling so self-conscious, especially when you were so beautiful like this.
“Laios,” you cooed, caressing his arm, “there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And if you don’t want to, then we can stop.”
He almost choked on a laugh. “Trust me,” he replied, “I want to.”
After another beat of stalling, Laios finally stepped out of his bottoms and blushed pink from ear to ear. His cock was … well, it certainly was big. You sympathized with him; if anyone told you something about your body during sex, you would focus on that forever. But there was nothing for him to be embarrassed about. Truthfully, most males would kill to have what he did. His cock was thick and long, a few veins trailing down the shaft, curving up at his pretty red tip that was dripping with precum. You got even more wet just from staring at it, wondering what he would finally feel like inside of you. 
Your mouth opened to say something, anything to make him feel better, but he was already talking: “I need a distraction so I don’t think about you staring at it.” He crawled back onto the bed and between your thighs, immediately pressing his lips to yours. You could taste yourself still on his mouth, and your arms wound around his shoulders instantly. His teeth tugged at your bottom lip, and he asked, “Can I just … ramble about monster facts for a minute?”
You blinked, not expecting that. Laios released your lower lip and sighed, clearly still nervous. “It’ll help me get over this feeling. I swear. Or if you want to stop this, we can. I’ll … I’ll understand –”
“Laios,” you huffed, your mouth pulling back into a sweet smile, “I want you to do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”
“Oh, thank the gods,” he muttered, nuzzling his face back into your neck, placing sloppy kisses. “Did you know that … that harpies almost exclusively have the head of a female human and it is unknown if male harpies exist?”
His voice was muffled against your neck, but you could tell he was desperate and aching. You felt his hard length against your stomach, smearing precum on the exposed skin. “Really?” You breathed out, trying to engage with him but completely failing when he licked a stripe up your neck. A moan escaped your lips.
“There’s also … there’s, uh …” He was struggling to talk now, grasping his cock and giving it a few quick pumps before teasing the head against your dripping wet folds. Your legs instinctively opened wider for him, hoping to whatever gods were out there that you could take his cock. “There also exists a seabird variant of harpies called … called, Sirens. Their wings and  … their – their tail look like a seagull’s.”
You could hardly breathe as you asked, “What else, Laios?”
He began to push inside you slowly, letting you adjust with each inch. “Okay, okay … uh … bicorns … bicorns hate – oh, fuck.” Just the feeling of your tight warmth wrapped around his cock had him biting into your shoulder, like you were the forbidden fruit. He could hardly string together a word, could hardly think, as he sank deeper and deeper into you, his whole body shaking. “Bicorns hate … hate virtue. They prefer – shit – immorality. It is believed that … doing all seven deadly sins will … will allow an individual to approach a bicorn – fuck. Fuck. It feels –”
When he was finally buried to the hilt, all he could do was breathe into your neck. You whined, locking your legs around his waist. The stretch was unbelievable; your walls gripped him like a vice. But it was even better than you could’ve imagined. If you had thought originally that the night would go this way, you would’ve at least brushed your hair. Laios didn’t care though, inhaling the flowery scent as he nosed your pretty strands. You couldn’t even comprehend – whether it be from the stretch of his thick cock inside you or the overwhelming amount of butterflies in your stomach – how you were so lucky to have found him.
Not to mention, you felt even luckier that this wasn’t happening on a cold dungeon floor.
With one hand carding into his hair, you chuckled under your breath, “Had enough of reciting monster facts?”
“Mmhmm …” He groaned, unable to form a sentence. You finally felt him pull back before pushing into you in one fast, deep thrust, making you shiver. Your body was hardly used to feeling this full, but you wanted him so badly that it was humiliating, a pink blush tinting your nose. “You feel so good,” he muttered.
You pulled on his hair, and his head lifted from your neck. His lips were swollen from kissing you. Yours probably looked the same. But that didn’t matter right now as he held your gaze and began thrusting into you a little faster. His eyes were the color of melted gold, flecked with amber and brown, and you felt like you could stare into them forever while he fucked you. Laios lifted one of your legs higher on his waist, but his other hand stayed around your middle, keeping you nestled against him.
“Laios,” you whimpered, feeling him nudge your clit with each roll of his hips. Despite his desperation, his pace was tender and relaxed, making sure you were adjusting to his size. He knew he was big – clearly, it was something he’d been self-conscious about for a while – but the way you were looking at him right now … he’d never felt more at ease, more special. This was all he ever wanted: to be close to someone like this, to find intimacy with someone he had true feelings for. All the other times had been stepping stones, leading to this moment with you, where your warmth enveloped him so nicely and your gaze made him want to cum on the spot.
His hips began to move a little faster, pushing even deeper inside you, as his mouth swallowed your moans in a hungry kiss. Face going hot, you trembled, and his cock pulsed inside you with each pass. Your nails dragged down his shoulder blades, leaving marks for him to examine later, like a predator with its prey. Goosebumps raised on his skin, feeling himself get closer … and closer … and closer. If you kept digging your nails into him like that, he’d surely lose his grasp on reality. But you just felt so good, so warm, and he craved you. Craved you like you were his last meal.
“Laios,” you croaked out when his lips broke from yours, “Laios, are you close?”
He could hardly say anything else but, “Mm …” 
You thought you could get there by now from his tongue teasing you earlier, but you needed a little more friction. Bumping against your clit wasn’t enough. “Okay, okay,” you rambled, reaching down between your legs to touch yourself. “Just hold off for another minute. I’ll get there.”
Laios opened his eyes, realizing what you were doing, immediately envious of your own hand. “No, let me,” he murmured, voice like honey, and found your clit easily. “Then I can taste you on my fingers after.” His excitement made you laugh, which brought a smile to his own lips.
He shifted a little, pulling back so only his tip rested inside you, and fucked back into you at a different angle, one that brushed against your special spot. The stimulation of both your clit and g-spot had your back arching, whimpers slipping out of your lips like a chant.
“Is … this … better?” He asked, panting after each word.
Your voice was strained when you answered, “Y—Yes.”
His balls slapped against the underside of your ass, and he knew how close he was, but all he cared about at this moment was cumming together. He needed to see that look on your face when you reached your peak. He only got to see it a few times, when he lifted his eyes while tasting you, watching the way your lips parted and sweat ran down your forehead.
His fingers rubbed tight circles on your aching clit – knowing exactly what you liked – and you were close. So, so close already. Laios had a way of touching you that felt inquisitive, yet effortless. Like he wanted to learn which spots made you moan the loudest, while also already knowing without even touching you. You grew to like him not just because of his dopey grin, his protectiveness, or his positivity, but also for the way he was willing to learn with you, the way he needed you. And right now, he needed you to cum more than anything.
Tension coiled in your lower abdomen, making you gasp out, “Laios – fuck – Laios, I’m gonna –”
“I know, I know,” he rasped. His pace was nearing on brutal, his whole body shaking as he held off his release for you. “Together. We’ll – together.”
And then, your muscles tighten. You clenched around his cock, and it only took one more thrust against your g-spot to have you falling apart underneath him. You put a hand over your mouth as you cried out, careful of the rest of the party hearing. Your eyes rolled back, his fingers stroking your clit through it, and it all just felt too, too good. Your orgasm went on forever, wave after wave of pleasure crashing over you. As your walls spasmed around his cock, he groaned low, finally spilling into you. His hips stuttered. His mouth gasped for air against your lips, as he felt a ripple of relief from emptying himself inside you. He bit into your shoulder again to muffle his own noises. Your pussy convulsed, milking every last drop, and you were pretty sure you saw stars.
Once the aftershocks hit you both, he slumped against you, breathing in the scent of your hair again. Your fingers traced small circles onto his back muscles, your chest rising and falling with the fast beat of your heart. When his cock went soft inside you, his fingers finally left your clit and he brought them to his mouth. Your eyes were half-lidded as you watched him wrap his lips around his fingers and suck the juices off, moaning at the taste. He looked like an intricate painting; you couldn’t help but admire the sight.
His fingers left his mouth with a wet pop, and he whispered in a voice so soft you almost didn’t hear him, “You just taste so, so good.”
Laios kissed you again, slow and full of affection. You didn’t even care that he was still inside you; you could stay like this forever, pressed into his warm skin. Gods, you liked him so much that you immediately whimpered as his tongue slid into your mouth, and when he shuddered at your fingers on his back … you couldn’t believe you once questioned if he returned your feelings. You had both been so oblivious.
His mouth moved away from yours and he cupped your cheek. He took a moment to memorize the dusting of red across your face, the way your eyes hardly opened after sex, and then said, “Are you hungry? I think we both need a snack. It’s been a long night already.”
You giggled. “You had me at hungry.”
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mickyschumacher · 4 months ago
Note
Im not sure if your request are open but if they are- a fic with Lando based off the song lose control by Teddy swims. Angst and smut, the whole works😩
But if your request are not open and you see this I hope you have an amazing day/night 🫶
(also I absolutely love your writing. Binge read majority of them the first day I got tumblr and I’m obsessed)
𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋  .ೃ࿐
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𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: you and lando had ended things on a good note... or so you thought. you didn't expect to find him at your front door begging for a second chance. or in which lando doesn't know when to give up.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ (minor dni), mentions of magui (not a fan of what she's done but this is fiction), angst, jealousy, cheesy confessions, unprotected sex (pretty please use protection), teasing, slight-public roleplay? breast play, eating out, fingering, oral sex, p in v, cumming inside, mentions of crashing, technically infidelity on lando's part, poor humour, fluff, and poor proofreading.
𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: ex-fwb!lando norris x fem!reader, special appearances: magui corceiro and joão felix.
𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 9k+
𝐀/𝐍: first of all so sorry for taking this up so late! my bad... but it's done! in time for my 2k special! yes that's right, there are two thousands of you little buggers reading my work! i'm ever so grateful, especially because i'm the most inconsistent person i know! thank you for putting up with me, for reading my work, and for your cute little comments. they all make me very happy in such a tough time i've been going through. sending you my ever grateful love from the bottom of my heart ♡︎ p.s it's my 100th post shocker!
𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓
⋆  •°.  ��  .°•  ⋆
"I miss you."
Lando's voice was always like this. Slightly croaky and brittle yet warm and full of need. For you it was a sort of drug. It always pulled you in, it blurred the line between wrong and right, and you always came back for more. And when it was paired with those brown tinged blue eyes of his and all the freckles on his face, you were a goner.
"Lando," you sighed, leaning on your door frame. It was one in the morning. You were asleep but ever so gracefully woken up to the consistent ring of your doorbell. You rubbed your face with an exhaustion not familiar to your slumber but familiar to the antics of Lando himself. The words fell from your lips in an eased flow. "You can't be here. You don't miss me. You need to leave."
You tried to avoid his pained eyes but everywhere you looked, you met them in some shape or form.
"But I do miss you. I miss everything about you. Your smile, your lips, your body, your laugh, fuck, everything."
You blinked slowly, wondering how you had got here. How is it that the decisions and choice you made in life lead to Lando Norris pleading at your front door at one in the morning?
Ah...
There was an answer to that.
As the story goes, around a year ago, you were with Lando. 'With' was a loose term. It was supposed to be friends with benefits. You had been for almost a year by that point. Naturally, the only rule to being friends with benefits was to not fall in love with each other. And as natural as that rule was, there was a common saying: 'Rules are meant to be broken.'
You and Lando both realised it. But it terrified you the most. You weren't cut out for this. Things were already hard enough as it was sneaking around.
Travelling on the private jets, facing the media and the public, having to watch Lando race every weekend and pray for him wellbeing... it wasn't exactly your cup of tea. It was exactly why you were friends with benefits in the first place.
So you ended it. Lando wasn't happy about it but he respected it.
That was the end of your story.
Or so you thought.
"Lan, you're in a relationship. For fuck's sake, please can you consider her at least?"
Lando ran a hand through his dark mop of curls, sighing while holding back the eye roll at the mention of his intricately created PR relationship. He knew you were right. You often were. But you weren't understanding him. He didn't think you ever could, no matter how much he tried to explain it to you.
You and him... you were made for each other. He knew it from the bottom of his heart. You were perfect. Together, you were perfect. There was no one like you. And for him, there was no one else. Not ever. No matter who he dated or who he was with, he'd be damned if there was someone else other than you.
Lando's tongue poked his cheek, eyes firmly on you. "Are you coming this Sunday? In the evening?"
This race weekend was the Silverstone circuit and in the same day, afterwards, was a dinner party with the drivers, families, and friends. In other words, it was a recipe for disaster.
"I don't think I should..." you trailed off, internally wincing when you knew deep down you should've just said you weren't coming rather than being open to it. When it came to the blue-eyed boy in front of you, any assertiveness you ever had was thrown out the window.
Lando reached to grab your hands, fingers automatically rubbing smooth circles into your skin. "Please come," he pleaded, "if not for me, come for mum and dad, hmm? They miss having you around."
You pressed your lips together, eyes falling onto the floor as you began to chew your lip. "Lando, I can't come. It doesn't look good... for the both of–"
"She won't be there."
Your eyes flickered up to Lando, widening slightly at his words.
With an eager sharpe intake of air, he doubled down on his response. "If that's why you're saying no, she won't be there."
You tilted your head, giving him an almost dry look. "You know that's not even half of the reason." A sigh fell from your lips. "Go home, Lando. You've got practice tomorrow. You need sleep."
Lando's eyes softened. You always kept track of those small things for him, scolding him for not going to sleep early or not taking care of himself. It was like old times all over again. His grip around your hands tightened. "I will," He promised, "but tell me you're coming on Sunday. Please."
You cursed at yourself. It was that same voice. That one with so much need and desperation. It was as if a voice gained the ability to have puppy eyes.
Reluctantly, you nodded slowly. "Fine... I'll come," you relented.
A smile finally sprawled across Lando's face, hands moving to quickly bring you into a hug. His arms felt comfortable, bringing an ease you hadn't felt in over a year. "Thank you."
Your eyes widened when you felt a quick kiss on your cheek, still lingering after Lando parted. He grinned, taking a few steps back from you. "I'll see you Sunday. "
━━━━━━━━━━━
The Sunday jitters were real. You couldn't ever truly imagine how anyone of the drivers felt on race day but you imagined it to be something like this.
The way your heart was thumping, one would think you have an odd case of arrhythmia. You were working up a sweat masked by the anxious sprays of perfume you had lathered on and all you were doing was standing.
You hadn't watched the race in person because that was equally as idiotic as going to a brunch where the person you love and his family was despite him having a girlfriend. And you didn't want to be twice as idiotic. In the end, Lando had gotten a well-earned P3 at his home race, despite the mistakes of his team.
You were happy for him. But it didn't rule out the fact you were in a serious dilemma of awkwardness as you dawdled outside of the venue. Your fingers twirled around the fabric of your dress.
You shouldn't of worn it. It was Lando's favourite. You knew that.
Hell, you shouldn't be here.
You should go home.
It wasn't too late.
Your name abruptly sprung into the air. "Is that you?"
Well shit.
You took a slow turn on your feet, a sheepish smile automatically working its way onto your face. "Mr and Mrs Norris!" you greeted.
An amused huff fell from Lando's mother's mouth. "Please! You know you can call by our names!"
Somewhere in the back of your head, you could feel your mother's voice nagging you at the very thought of calling them by their names.
Cisca smiled, bringing you into a warm hug. "God, we've miss you!" Pulling away after a few seconds, she took another few to observe you. "You've become more beautiful since we last saw you, isn't that right, Adam?"
Lando's father chuckled. "Not more than you though," he teased only to get a playful elbow from his wife. He turned to you and grinned, reminding you exactly where Lando's came from. "The girls will be so happy to see you, sweetie. Oliver too."
You laughed gently, thanking them. Your mouth felt dry. Usually you knew what to say to them. But it had been so long, you weren't sure what to say. Whether it was right or wrong. How much Lando had even said...
"Lando was telling us how you've been busy studying, is that right? You've been doing your master's?" His father queried.
Speak of the devil...
You nodded slowly. "Yes. It's research based so it's quite, uh, time consuming. So I just wanted to put a year dedicated to it. That's why I haven't been around as much."
Both of his parents nodded in understanding. His mother pouted, "While it's been sad without you, I'm very proud of you. A bachelors is no easy feat let alone a master's!"
Your heart constricted while her soft eyes met yours. His mother was always like this. Talking you... treating you as if you were her daughter. You never understood it. You'd only known each other for a couple of years including the period were you and Lando were with each other.
You asked her a month before you had ended it with Lando how she knew you so well. Her response... you could've never forgotten it even if you willed it. '"A mother knows everything. What's good and bad for their children. You know it as mother's intuition. When I look at you, I just know."'
"'Know what?'" You remembered asking.
"How important you are to Lando."
And that was when you realised you were completely and utterly in love with him.
"If you two are done talking, we should finally go inside," Lando's father continued to tease.
You sucked in a sharp breath as you walked with his parents inside the venue.
It was definitely too late.
━━━━━━━━━━━
To be honest, Lando had seen many beautiful things in life. Life, if you looked at it carefully, perhaps on a slight angle, was beautiful. And besides, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But the sight of you walking into the venue, arm linked with his own mother and you chatting with his father was forever etched into his brain.
He could've sworn his heart was leaping out of his chest. Everything about what he was seeing was perfect. Your smile, the atmosphere, the sun shining down on you, the sound of your laugh, your hair, the wind, the dress... God, he could go on and on.
"Lando! Look who we met outside!" His mother cheered making him grin.
"Well, well, well," Lando smiled, giving his mother a kiss on the cheek before hugging his father. He stepped back, blue eyes fixated on you. He stretched out his arms, waiting for a hug making you sigh and his parents laugh softly.
You took a step forward, reaching your hands to wrap around his back while Lando's own hands fell to your waist and brought you close. His classic Tom Ford perfume lingered around you as he whispered in your ear. "You came."
"I promised," you responded softly, pulling back only for him to tighten his grip on you. You suppressed an eye roll. "Congrats on P3. You did well."
Lando perked up at the mention of his race and finally pulled back. "You watched?"
"I–" Your voice was interrupted by another familiar Brit.
"Is that who I think it is?" Alex queried with his usual wide grin.
Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. "Depends... is it the most prettiest girl? After Lily, of course."
Alex chuckled. "Is there any other answer?"
You pretended to ponder. "Nope! That's the one." You both laughed as you gave each other a hug.
"Where have you been? I needed someone to give me company on the tracks. It's been so lonely," He complained dramatically.
And without realising it, you were back to meeting everyone you hadn't seen in a long time. Weirdly enough, you missed this. Talking to everyone, joking around, just spending time with them... it gave you some sort of peace.
"Okay! Oscar, you're time's up," Lando announced, standing at the table you, Oscar and his girlfriend, Lily, were seated at.
Oscar gaped at his teammate. "But we only just met her!"
Lando gave a sickly sweet smile. "Aw... tough. Now scram!"
You shook your head as you watched the couple leave the table. "You are the worst," you said, leaning on your arm while Lando took a seat next to you.
"I haven't seen you in so long! Sue me for wanting to spend time with you," Lando shrugged in his defence, blue eyes trained on you.
You blinked, averting your eyes to the rest of the party. "I going to get some champagne," you murmured, standing up to go the table full of various spirits and juices.
You cursed silently as you caught Lando following after you from your peripheral. Arriving to the table, your fingers danced around, looking for the right glass of bubbles.
"You're ignoring me," Lando stated, hot breath skimming past your ear as he stood inches away from you.
You kept your eyes on the alcohol, letting a small laugh fall from your lips. "Gee, has anyone ever told you that you're a smart cookie, Lando"?
Lando pursed his lips. "I miss you."
You sighed at the familiar words, fingers wrapping around a glass of what you were pretty sure was Dom Perignon leisurely being given. "Lando... stop it. I came here because you wanted me to, okay? Just forget about whatever it is you're thinking about."
You sucked in a sharp breath when you felt Lando's hand travel to yours, fingers just hanging on to each other. You hated how his touch made you feel so... so tingly. As if you were having your first crush.
"So that's why you wore this dress? To tell me to stop? Because I wanted you here?" He laughed softly, playing with your fingers. He shook his head. "I can't even imagine what you'd do if I told you every single thought running through my head right now."
Your eyes widened. You shakily put back the glass of champagne.
"Lan–" Your voice cut off upon the feeling of his fingers trailing at the back of your neck. You gulped while Lando's voice continued to linger.
"How much of a mistake do you think this really is? Wearing my favourite dress? Don't think I haven't seen that necklace on you. Let's turn that pendant around and show everyone who's name is on it, hmm?"
Your eyes widened. Shit. You had completely forgotten about the necklace. You had spent all your time using it on the front side that you had forgotten about his initial's engraved on the back.
Lando's tongue trailed over his bottom lip, head tilting to the side. "Sweetheart, I'm torn. You have no idea how gorgeous you look. But you have no idea how much I would give... what I would do to take you home right now. That dress would be off and my fingers would be on you. Fuck, just imagining it, I–"
"Lando!"
You and Lando both furrowed your brows, chests heaving breathlessly. You definitely didn't say his name nor did you sound like that. Turning your head slightly, the view made you take wide steps back from Lando.
Lando mended his brows even more, only smoothing them when he saw what you had seen. "B-Baby!" The endearment failed to come out of his mouth smoothly, making you wince.
You watched Lando hug the blonde girl in front of you. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Brazil?" He asked, only just covering up his sheer curiosity.
"I was but I wanted to surprise you... so surprise!"
A surprise... yes it was.
You blinked as the blonde turned to you, extended her hand, and introduced herself. Awkwardly, you returned the kind gesture because ultimately she had done nothing wrong to you.
You introduced yourself as Lando's old friend because it was the safest bet. And it was the truth... to some degree.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" Lando asked his girlfriend as a queasy feeling began to form in your stomach. You think you can hear her respond, settling for a glass. You weren't sure. Your ears were tuning in and out of this noise. Out of your peripheral you see the driver turn to you. "Did you still want your champagne?"
You let out a low exhale and gave the both of them a tight smile. "It's okay. I was just leaving."
The smile on Lando's face dropped. "W-What? Already?"
You nodded curtly. "Lots of things to do."
Lando narrowed his eyes. "Like what? It's barely seven... the day's almost over..."
Your eyes widened, feeling startled as an awkward laugh fell from his girlfriend's lips. "Lan, the girl said she has things to do. Stop grilling her. Sorry... must be the post-race adrenaline or something. It's a shame you can't stick around though. See you around?"
You gave a small smile, slightly irritated at how genuine and sweet she was. You actually wished there was something about her to hate. "Yeah," You agreed softly, "See you around."
━━━━━━━━━━━
About thirty minutes had passed since you left the dinner party, much to everyone's dismay.
You were exhausted.
You only just had the energy to take off your heels and put aside your purse before you fell onto your bed. Sighing, you stared at the ceiling. What even was life anymore?
You couldn't believe yourself. You were so angry and pissed off at Lando and you were jealous of his girlfriend.
There wasn't any rocket science to it. You were still very much in love with Lando. You shouldn't be but you were.
Your mother once told you that love wasn't black and white. It was the blurred line between: it was grey. It was never as simple as being in love or not. You fall in love and fall out of it and just as you did, you would fall once again but with someone else entirely. And sometimes it compelled idiotic things like infidelity or rebounds.
Love was also seasonal. It changed all the time and sometimes you enjoyed it and sometimes it made you suffer. It was entirely demanding. It drove people crazy. It was overwhelming and yet so lonely.
Point in case: love sucked.
And you and Lando had not escaped from it.
You weren't sure if you ever could.
But you had to. It was the right thing to do. Maintaining boundaries was the right way to go.
You blew some air up to your face, pushing the hair out of your face. Nodding to yourself, you told yourself you were getting over Lando.
You sat straight at the sound of your doorbell ringing throughout your house. Begrudgingly you walked towards the door, a hundred percent sure it was your neighbour a floor down. She was a sweet, quiet old lady who fit the 'crazy cat lady' persona a bit too well. Often, she came to you asking if you had seen a cat of hers but the worst part was that all of her cats were the tabby orange type. How she could tell the difference was beyond you, no more than how exactly the cats were using elevators and opening fire exits to get to your floor.
Without thinking too much, you opened the door to greet the lady but all the words you had ever known fell to the air upon seeing Lando.
"Lando," you took a calm deep breath, "Please tell me I'm hallucinating or that you're not actually in front of my door right now."
"I can't do that," Lando said, eyes burning with something a bit too familiar.
Wordlessly, you begun closing the door. But the jutted foot of Lando's quickly intercepted the act. "Please," Lando pleaded, coming into your apartment.
You let out a distressed sigh as you hear the door close. "Lando, you can't be here. You're supposed to be at a dinner party. With your friends... family, with your girlfriend, oh my God, with your freaking girlfriend, Lando."
"But you're the only one on my mind," Lando breathed, watching you walk around your house. His arm reached out to your waist, stopping your endless rounds of circles. He could feel you take a sharp intake of air, standing still at his touch. Holding you close, his lips lingered near your ear while his warmth enveloped you.
"I think I'm going crazy," he murmured. "You're in my dreams. Even when I look at her, I see your face. You're fucking everywhere, sweetheart."
You pursued your lips together. "Why do you have to make things so difficult?" you asked quietly, not to Lando in particular but to the silence of your house.
"Then tell me... that you don't want me here. That you don't feel the same way. Tell me... tell me you don't love me. Then I'll leave. I promise."
"I–" you paused, turning your body to him. You could feel his eyes searching your face but you couldn't even lift your head up. "I don't love you."
A lengthy silence ensued and it spoke volumes.
Finally, a soft chuckle from Lando's lips broke the silence. "You can't even look me in the eye and tell me that."
You threw your head back with an exhausted sigh, giving up. Your hands began to flail about. "What more do you want from me, Lando? Why can't you just leave me, us, alone?"
Lando's hand travelled to your jaw, pulling you in a mere inch away from his face. His grip was soft and warm, lulling you. "I can't leave you alone... I can't ever leave you alone. You don't get it," a cry of frustration fell from his lips while his eyes watered, "You were made for me and I was made for you. You... you are all I ever think about. I can't breathe without you. I exist for you. I am so fucking in love with you, it scares me. And i-if you tell me you love me, I'll break up with her right now."
Your eyes burned with an all but familiar salty liquid. "Lando... I can't."
Lando clenched his jaw. His voice was so quiet, a crack away from breaking entirely. "Why? Why can't you just admit that you're in love with me?"
"Because I'm terrified!"
You feel Lando's hand fall from your jaw while his brows furrowed, asking you what you were talking about. Your cheeks were flushed with heat while your fingers dug rested on your hips, digging into your flesh. You took in a shaky breath.
"I can't do this life, Lan. I can't be away from you all the time and travel with you all the time. I'm not another girl on your arm for the media. And I really can't watch you race. Every time I watch you race... I, " you blew air into your cheeks, "I watch with a sick stomach. Every spin, every crash... I always just think.. God, if something happened to you. If I love you..."
Lando fell silent. For the first time in a long time, he had nothing to say to you. All he had were the fresh tears quietly leaking out of his eyes. He blinked rapidly, using his arm to wipe off the rest of his silent sobbing. Stepping forward, with the soft pad of his thumb, he collected the tears you hadn't realised were falling.
Lando cleared his throat, breathing in while he rested his hand on your cheek, rubbing soft circles into your skin. "Ever since I met you, before I even realised I was in love with you, I've spent every race thinking about you. You're my first thought when those lights go off and the last when that flag waves. You don't know it but you are the only thing that makes me feel truly safe. And I would fight the world if it meant that you could openly love me back."
A singular tear made it's way down your face, seeping into the pores of your skin as Lando pressed a long kiss on your cheek before quietly leaving towards the door. Before entirely leaving, he stopped in his tracks. "I'm not giving up on us. I told you before. I could never leave you."
━━━━━━━━━━━
It had been a month since you and Lando had talked... whatever that was out.
The promise he had made before leaving your house that day was one he was persistent in pursuing. You knew Lando. He was stubborn. Often, what he wanted, he got.
You tried to avoid him. But the good morning and good night messages you received every day despite his ever-changing time zones still reached you. You spent the first three days ignoring them but the guilt with each passing day got heavier.
In a way, it felt like you were restarting your friendship. Taking things slow. Except the odd times that reminded you it was anything but. In particular Lando's 'drunk on horniness' messages or the sudden love confessions that popped out of thin air.
Things were... steadyish.
It was the only reason you had accepted Carlos' extended invitation to join him and the other's at a nightclub. You couldn't lie. Of course, Lando was at the forefront of your brain when you accepted. A part of you was curious.
How was he holding up?
Whether he was still with his girlfriend...
Were his plans on not giving up on you limited to his consistent texts?
But alas, as life usually worked, things did not go the way you planned.
While most of the drivers steered clear of the alcohol aside from their podiums, a practice Lando often took somewhat seriously, he was seriously considering breaking at the sight of you. More specifically, the sight of you and João Felix, the famed five-star FIFA player, mingling.
Lando who wasn't starving for any spirits was ready to down a few shots. But instead, he was completely sober, not a lick of alcohol in him, watching João, the ex-boyfriend of his own girlfriend chat you up.
Lando couldn't exactly blame the athlete. He would've done the same thing: the fixated eyes as you talked, the ear-to-ear smile when you laughed, the seamless checking out when you turned to take a sip of your drink or talk to someone nearby because Lando was a hundred percent sure you were the most gorgeous person in the room.
But he could blame João's pettiness. Lando had his ex and now he was going after you. In way, he rated it. But Lando knew you too well.
You were not interested in the player at all. The tight smiles, the absentminded nods, the readiness to jump into a conversation with literally anyone else... you were practically inviting Lando for a talk.
You could feel yourself freeze at the sight of Lando and his girlfriend walk over to the both of you. The air, all of a sudden, felt thick, fogging up your brain. You weren't quite sure what to say. This odd intertwining history between the four of you was nauseating.
"João," Lando greeted with a fake cheer. Magui, his girlfriend, gave a tight smile that bordered on pissed off – you knew the look all too well.
The football player gave a loose grin, shaking Lando's hand. "Lando... Magui," he sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh! Have you guys met yet?" He asked, brown eyes moving to you as he introduced you to the couple.
The three of you blinked at the dry sarcasm underpinning João's voice. You let a small laugh fall past your lips. "We have, actually. I'm Lando's old friend and Magui and I met not so long ago."
Lando gave you a pointed look. "You are way too down to earth. She's a special old friend," he corrected, grinning at João.
You pursed your lips awkwardly as the two Portugueses raised their eyes brows. You raised your hand to rub the nape of your neck nervously. "Uh, well, no... just old friend will do. Always the funny one, huh, Lando?" You murmured with a forced laugh.
To be honest, as the silence began to build, you were surprised to even hear Magui's voice. "I'm sorry..." she started, arm darting out to grab João's hand, making you widen your eyes, "João, we need to talk."
You incredulously watched Magui drag away the Portuguese before turning to Lando. You pondered over her words. "She still–"
"Likes him? Yup!" Lando said, popping the 'p' as he shoved his hands in his pockets.
"It's weird how similar she and I are. Lonely... and both head over heels for our exes." Lando tilted his head, eyes examining you carefully while you took a deep breath. "Can't say the same for João though," he clicked his tongue.
The comment made you raise a brow. Lando softly laughed at your confused expression. "Sweetheart... it is my worst luck that you are the most gorgeous woman to exist. João had eyes for you. From the moment you were talking till the moment we stepped in."
You folded your arms, a small grin teetering on your face at the irritated expression on his face. "So you were watching me... obsessed much?" You humoured out of pure amusement.
Lando poked his cheek with his tongue, taking a step towards you, hands still shoved into this pockets of his pants. "Oh you have no idea."
You pressed your lips together.
There were an infinite amount of things that were unhealthy. Rewatching your comfort shows five times too many, the double digits on your screen-time, a high sugar intake (although your tastebuds said otherwise)...
But for you, it usually ended up being Lando. The various facets of Lando often left you undone. And a clean-shaven Lando, stalking towards you in the loosest long sleeve polo shirt, folded at the arms and half unbuttoned so the necklace you brought him and bracelets he wore glittered under the club lights was just another one of many undoings.
"Lando..." you murmured, taking a step back, eyes darting to your surroundings. "What are you doing?"
"I haven't told you how good you look today, have I? Because you have no idea how fucking hot you look," Lando responded, ignoring your question as he took another step forward.
You swallowed your saliva at the recognisable look swirling in those blue orbs of his. Like he was going to ravage you.
"Lando," you hissed, putting a hand to his chest to maintain some distance. You breathed shakily, trying to think straight. "Have some self-control!"
"Oh sweetheart, you know as much as I do." You widened your eyes as Lando used your hand to pull you closer, merely inches away from his face. His voice, despite it's softness, is drowned in a husk that runs down your spine. His warm breath pricked the surface your skin. "When it comes to you, I have no control."
Never in your life had your throat felt so dry. You burned at his words and his touch made your stomach churn. "But..." you furrowed your brows, trying to remember what you wanted to say. "But Magui? João?" You managed to get out.
As the strobes of light glimmered across Lando, you managed to capture him closing his eyes after being trained on your lips for so long, as though he was trying to hold himself back, swimming up to the surface for some sort of consciousness.
His forehead fell to yours as he pondered those three words. "I told you..." Lando said, hands travelling up your neck to hold your face, relishing the heat your flushed state brought. "I exist for you."
In essence: fuck Magui and fuck João.
━━━━━━━━━━━
"You're kidding me," Lando flatly said, evilly eyeing the 'Out of Order' sign on your elevator.
"I'm also totally kidding that my room's on the fifth floor," You laughed softly, sarcasm underlying your voice.
Lando turned to you with a blank stare. You two had both managed to get out of the nightclub as discreetly as you could (which included the most obvious winks from Carlos and Fewtrell). While both of your patience was wearing thin, in the nature of an F1 driver, Lando was losing it ten times faster.
Lando had been waiting what felt like forever to be with you, for you to green-light him. That time he spent without you felt torturous as though he was being punished for being in love. And now that he had you, he was going to make up for lost time.
The only hitch in his plan was an elevator under maintenance and five flights of stairs.
Lando raised a brow at the anything but innocent smile tugging on your lips. He sucked in a sharp breath. "I do not like that look on your face."
You suppressed an eye roll, knowing damn well those twinkling eyes were saying something else. Slowly, you walked towards the fire exit with Lando following after you cautiously. Popping your head into the room, you looked up and the numerous staircases trailing up the building.
A quiet laugh slipped past Lando's mouth. "What are you doing?" He asked as you took your heels off and placed them on the floor.
You turned to him, resting your hand the railing of the staircase while the other found your hip. "My dear Lando," you tsked, "you didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"
You smiled at the furrowed brows he sported. "They say you should work hard to get what you want. Who knows..." you shrugged, "Maybe you'll find my panties on the third floor."
As the cogs finally clicked in place, Lando sunk his teeth into his lips. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, raking his eyes over you. "And if someone catches us?"
You jutted your bottom lip, pretending to ponder his question. "Guess you'll have to be fast then. Aren't you an athlete or something?" You teased, grinning ear-to-ear now.
"You are going to be the death of me." Lando gave you a pointed look, throwing his heading back soon after receiving a cheeky wink from your side.
The British driver watched carefully as you started to make your way up the flight of stairs. Smiling to himself while shaking his head, he grabbed your heels with his two fingers and climbed up after you.
Lando was amused and excited at the same time, seeing you occasionally turn to him with a knowing glint in your eyes. He knew himself that things were currently tame: finding your heels, purse, and jacket in his hands.
He felt dazed upon catching a glimpse of the lace underneath your dress, tight around your ample flesh, his own pants beginning to constrict.
"Not just yet, Lan." Your voice piped up in the silence. Lando fluttered his eyes open, seeing you turn back to him again. He questionably hummed in response, gathering himself once again.
"What are you going to do now?" You queried with feigned innocence, eyes flickering to your bra dangling in your hand. "Whoops!"
Lando sucked in a sharp breath, watching your bra fall to the floor before shamelessly moving his eyes to your chest, eyes bulging at the now uncontrolled cleavage spilling from your dress. His fingers clenched around all of your items while he swallowed the saliva building up in his mouth.
The sudden urge to increase his pace up the stairs made you widen your eyes with a fire-like anticipation, matching his action. As Lando grabbed your bra from the floor, he could only imagine what was coming as you arrived to the third floor.
But surprisingly enough, Lando had caught up to you, intentional on your part he was sure. He eyed your body as you sat on a stair, leg crossed over another, letting your dress ride up your thighs.
"Looking for something?" You queried, catching his attention.
"Nothing." Lando winced at the poor and croaky lie escaping his lips.
You grinned, gliding your tongue over your lip. You stood up, hand clenching around the soft and wet fabric in your hands. You could hear Lando's breath hitch as you used your free hand to trail up his leg, only millimetres away from the bulge in his pants.
Lando's eyes focused on you as you met his gaze. He felt your lips graze his own, naturally making him lean in for more but your finger pressing down stopped him, instead pulling his free hand open.
Lando closed his eyes upon the feel of the soft textured fabric in his rough palm. "Please tell me that's what I think it is."
He knew what it was. But he wanted to hear it from your lips.
You moved your lips to his ear. "What do you want to hear? That your holding my panties? Or that they're soaked?"
Lando's eyes snapped open, dropping your items to his side. His hand travelled up your neck, holding your face to jerk it towards him. You could feel his hot breath swarm your vicinity. His thumb trailed over your lips, head leaning in.
You gave him a small smile, pulling away. "We still have two whole floors, Lando. Patience is a virtue."
Lando blinked blankly at the light tap of your fingers on his cheek. He watched you leave once again. Knowing that you had no underwear unknowingly awoke something deeply sinister within him.
You were a siren. Luring him in by doing so little and yet, the most. He was sure of it.
Lando took in a deep breath, closing his eyes once again. He was also sure that the next thing about to come off was the last thing you had on: your dress. And he wasn't confident he could handle it at all. His cock felt impossibly tight against his pants, aching in such a way that begged for release.
"You're missing the show, baby."
Lando looked at you, gathering your items and slowly walking up the stairs, watching you carefully take the straps off your shoulders, emphasising 'L' on your necklace. His tongue rested at the corner of his mouth, preventing them from tugging upwards when you realised you had to deal with the zipper of your dress.
"Need some help?" Lando asked, catching up to you once again.
You pouted at his amused expression. "Lan... I had a thing going," You whined. You had used a damn string and paperclip to pull the zip up earlier this evening. And now? Now you had a lover who drove a papaya-coloured car for a living with a shit-eating grin.
"How about," Lando started, moving your panties to his other hand to wrap an arm around your waist, bringing you closer to him, "I help you get out of this dress and you stop being a little minx so I can fuck the tease out of you, hmm?"
Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip, feeling Lando's bulge push up against your ass. Your skin pricked with a wave of heat that you hadn't felt in a long time. You hear Lando hum in your ear, waiting for a response as he nestled his chin into your collarbone, fingers grazing up and down your body.
"Fine, fine," you relented, turning to grab Lando by the hand before you hurried up the last flight of stairs.
"I thought you said patience was a virtue!" Lando huffed, smiling at your pace.
You rolled your eyes. "You're one to speak."
Lando chuckled softly, trailing after you with the same eagerness sparking within him.
━━━━━━━━━━━
You peeked your head into your empty hallway, hand still around Lando's. There were four flats on your floor. Two of which were empty thanks to the cost of living crisis and the other, your neighbour, who was often out of town.
In other words, you were free to be as loud as you want.
With as much humbleness and reserve you could manage, you tamely walked down your hallway, hearing Lando mumble something about how your hallway belonged in a horror movie.
"Gee... that's so sexy, Lan. Keep going," you dryly encouraged, turning to grab the keys in your purse.
Lando jutted out his hand, letting your keys dangle from his fingers in front of your face. "I'm just saying," he said defensively with the corner of his mouth tugging upwards in amusement.
You shook your head, failing to suppress your grin as you shoved the key into the door, waiting to hear the obscene click. Opening the door, you smiled timidly at the state of your flat. "Well... this is my humble-ish abode... that you've seen a bit too much recently," you teased.
Lando laughed softly, following after you, hands still full. "What are you on about? I love your flat. It's so... you."
You turned to Lando with a raised brow, watching him put down all the trinkets you had left him on the shelf near the door. "Is that a diss I hear?"
The driver rolled his eyes, walking towards you with a knowing glint to his eyes. His arms stretched out, travelling to your waist before pulling you in. You could feel his breath graze past your skin as he held your gaze. Lando's voice was a mere whisper in your ears. "I mean I love you... so I love your cute little flat."
"Oh," you lamely said before blinking back to reality. "I mean not 'oh' like 'oh,' I mean like 'oh... I love you too?" You questioned, slowly dying on the inside at your stupidity.
Lando grinned at your pained expression. "Nice save," he murmured against your lips. "Now... where were we?"
"Hmm?" You idly queried, unable to take your eyes off of his lips. "Uh," you cleared your throat, "something about fucking the tease out of me?"
"Ah, yes," Lando agreed, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. "You have been pretty awful today. First walking in with João..." He clicked his tongue, finger trailing the underside of the strap of your dress before pulling it down your shoulder. "Then this dress, fuck."
You let out a shaky breath, feeling his fingers skim past your neck as he walked around you to meet the zip you had been battling all day. Lando's mouth met the side of your ear while he pressed the cold metal of your zip down and against your back.
"And now your little theatrics. It's not very nice of you, sweetheart. I've waited so long... you're on my mind every second of every day. I think about you so much, I don't think it's healthy. But..."
Lando stopped himself, lips brushing against your burning skin.
"But?" You repeated, turning your body to face him.
"But... I don't care," He finished with a small nonchalant shrug and a balance of softness and cockiness drowning his voice.
You didn't waste a second, moving your hands to Lando's neck, pushing yourself forward as you pressed your lips to his.
You could feel his hands immediately wrap around your waist. Your skin pricked with a familiar burn, warming at the touch of Lando's fingers skimming your bare skin.
Even though a fire was whirling within you, your body still had managed to create waves and waves of goosebumps as the hairs on your skin stood straight. You could feel Lando's tongue dart out, nudging your mouth to open a bit more to explore every crevice.
A mix of a grunt and high-pitched moan slipped past Lando's lips making your thighs clench at the tingling rippling through your core. You were positively going to combust.
Lando was equally sure he was going to lose it. He had waited so long to feel your lips and the sheer happiness he felt right now... it couldn't even compare to his imagination. To feel his teeth graze your lips while his one hand roamed your bare back, ever slowly inching towards your ass... the other tangled in your soft hair... he was almost afraid to admit he daydreamed of this.
His pants, fuck, they were tight before but this was something else entirely. He was in a some sort of twisted pain as your hands moved from his neck and crept up the hem of his shirt, brushing his taut torso, remembering exactly where all his little moles were.
"Shit..." Lando sighed out, holding you tighter against him. His lips moved along your bare shoulder, meeting the nape of your neck to attack it with purple written love letters. "Get on the bed, baby," he managed to get out, half-focusing on the honey-drenched moans falling from your lips while he waddled you towards the bed.
You sat back on the mattress breathlessly, chest heaving up and down as you watched Lando eye you down with a lust-driven softness. A gentle smile sprawled across your face, making him gulp cautiously. Coyly, you stood up, barely a few centimetres away from him as you peeled off your dress as slowly as you good.
You could hear Lando's breath hitch before he sucked in a sharp intake of air, eyes fixed on your breasts. They looked lonely... as if they were waiting for his touch. His tongue rested on the side of his mouth, tilting his head while your dress skimmed past your thighs and off your legs.
Lando's head fell back. "Fuck... you are going to be death of me." He shook his head, inching back towards you.
The small laugh that had fallen from your lips made him smile. He watched as your fingers pinched the edge of his shirt, lifting it up at the same rate of his arms flying up. Removing his shirt, your hands danced towards his shorts but Lando's hand caught your wrist.
You flickered your eyes to Lando, eyebrows raised at the pained look on his face. "If I let you do it, I swear to God, I might cum right here."
Your eyes slightly widened at his words, mouth all of a sudden feeling dry. You raised your hands in defence, watching him try to take off his pants in amusement.
"Don't think I don't see that smug smile on your face, sweetheart," He murmured, blue eyes averting to you. A smug smile of his own formed on his face as his arms caged you in, your knees bucking at the feel of the mattress or Lando – you couldn't tell.
Lando's head dipped into the valley of your breasts, hot breath letting goosebumps litter your bare skin. "I missed these sweet tits of yours," he murmured, watching his own hand skim past your pebbled nipple, ears perking at the quiet gasp coming from your mouth.
You could feel the ghost of Lando's smile against your skin before his hand stretched to fondle the soft mound of tissue while his tongue wrapped around the other, circling the hard nipple with his warm saliva.
You let out a small sigh, hand immediately travelling to the mop of brown curls Lando sported as you revelled in his touch. You could tell what he was doing. Making up for lost time. Ensuring you knew how much he missed you by spending the uttermost time and care with your breasts alone.
His thumb and tongue moved in synchronised circles, paying attention to each nipple, savouring the way your body arched into his touch and the small sighs and whimpers of admission dancing into his ears.
Detaching his tongue from your nipple, Lando looked at the sight of the ample flesh of your tits filling his hands. Fuck... it drove him insane.
Your body quivered as Lando's lips trailed down the valley of your breasts, a line of purples following right after his wet kisses. "Lando," you hissed, "People are going to know."
A huff of amusement crawled from his throat. "I know."
Lando watched you roll your eyes while he came down to pussy. His hands glided across your thighs, gripping your plump skin as a wave of tingles bubbled within your core.
Planting a small kiss on the side of your thigh, he flickered his blue eyes to you. "Think I still need to get that brat out of you," he murmured before gently pulling at your labia.
He watched your folds clench around nothing as his hot breath grazed the surface of your pussy. Lando smiled knowingly. "You are simply drenched for me, sweetheart."
You sucked in a sharp breath, feeling his finger slide down your slick folds, going up to ever so slightly to gather your arousal and graze the sensitive bundle of nerves near the top. A gasp left your mouth, making him grin.
You feel his fingers move away from your heat, skimming your thighs while hearing the hitched breaths fall from Lando's mouth as if he was the one affected. You could see his eyes travel across your body, wondering where to start. He wanted everywhere.
His mop of curls on his head dipped down, warm lips pressed up against the valley of your breasts to your stomach. And as he reached your navel, he could hear your shallow breaths, the ghost of his smile tickling your skin.
Heat prickled every inch of your body and yet a shiver of what could only be explained as some sort of electric current ran through you. You felt a tap on your thigh, bringing you back to reality.
"Don't lose me now, baby," Lando murmured softly, hands gripping your hips to yank your body closer to him.
Before you could breathe, before you could imagine the mere consequences of the way Lando's breath felt against your core, his mouth dived down into your folds.
Your mouth fell open as your head found comfort in the mattress. His tongue grazed over your clit with a tantalisingly slow pace, letting your legs tremor in his grasp. You could feel his lips curve, smirk practically dripping off his face.
You opened your mouth, preparing a witty comeback only for a string of moans to come out as Lando traversed deeper into your burning core, taking on every crevice and fold.
A groan escaped Lando's lips, pulling away for a brief second. "I missed how good you taste, so fucking sweet," he sighed out, delirious.
Your toes curled at his words, hands reaching for his head as he returned back to your pussy, Lando's own hands moving to your inner thighs to expose you entirely to him. His tongue had found your clit once again, unleashing his torturous attack.
"Oh God," you cried out, hips bucking themselves further into his tongue as the signs of your upcoming climax approached. You didn't think you could last any longer, especially not when Lando slipped two fingers inside you, making you clench around around him.
"Fucking hell," Lando rasped against your clit, speeding up his pace. His fingers move in and out of you rapidly, tongue flat against your clit as you trembled in his hands.
The dazed look in your eyes, the sunken teeth, the clenching of your walls...
Lando eagerly pulled you closer if possible, hoisting a leg over his shoulder, sending an entirely different realm of pleasure across your body.
"Lando!" You sobbed, hands tightening their grip on his hair.
He moaned, maintaining his pace. "Come, baby. All for me, come on. Show me how good I make you feel."
You felt undone at his words, body convulsing as the big waves of your orgasm hit you hard. Your walls clenched and pulsed around his fingers.
Lando couldn't tell whether his heart was fluttering or whether his cock was throbbing, probably both, but he had once committed this ruined sight of you to his memory not too long ago, and God, he had been dying to see it again.
The strain in Lando's voice was impossible to miss. So was his aching cock standing straight against his stomach. "I need you... so bad," he murmured, pussy-drenched lips against your ear.
You couldn't help but shudder at his words. Only minutes had passed since your orgasm but fuck, you needed him as much as he needed you.
With a series of nods, you beckoned him over, bringing your lips to his for a brief minute. Your hands trailed over his chest, grazing the back of his neck before finding their place on his upper back.
A low sigh blew from Lando's lips, his eyes trailed to where your hips met before coming back up to meet yours. For a moment, he allowed himself to revel in your touch before holding your gaze firmly. He called your name. "I love you. So fucking much. You're all I want... forever."
His confession made you warm all over. You could feel your eyes water slightly. With a tight smile, you brought your hand to caress his cheek, feeling him lean into your touch. "I love you too."
Those words were music to his ears. Without a second to waste, his hips moved, cock thrusting into you so deeply that you can't help but let out a small cry of pleasure, hand covering your mouth.
Lando wanted to fold. Right there and then. You felt so good around him. As though heaven had found him. But all he could do is moan your name, feeling you tightly clench around his cock.
His eyes flitted to your face when he heard your muffled moans. His arms stretched out to keep your hands away from your mouth and on his back. "Let me hear you, baby. Yell my name. Tell me how good you feel."
Your body jolted as his thrusts became deeper and somehow, you felt like you were only becoming more aroused. Your skin felt sticky, riddled with sweat as your slickness coated your thighs.
Lando groaned at the sight. You were making a mess of him, dripping all over his cock as your eyes became lost in a haze. His hand reached out, jutting your chin to make sure you were looking at him. "Keep looking at me. Look at what you do to me."
Lando's grip on your waist tightened, pulling you over so you straddled his cock, riding him into a new oblivion.
And you did look. You watched him fuck into you with a speed and depth you had missed so dearly. You watched him memorise you as though he was afraid to forget you. You watched him make love to you.
Your second orgasm began to build up as the obscene sounds of your skin slapping against one another filled the room. Your body shook at the feel of Lando's thumb against your clit, rubbing you as he entirely ruined you.
"Lando, I–" you mewled, unable to get the words out.
"I know," Lando responded, holding the same level of restrain and pleasure as his own climax built up. "Cum," he almost cried out, "please."
You could barely keep your eyes open as the tight coil in your stomach snapped. You trembled in his grasp, cumming all over his cock, hips almost unstoppable as they chased those waves.
The tight clench your orgasm brought around his cock sent him over. Lando fingers sunk into your skin. "Fuck, where, tell me where," he begged, impossibly close.
You quivered, still in the remaining moments of your orgasm. "Inside," you panted, "please, Lan." There's nothing more that I want than your cum."
Lando rasped, hips stilling at your words as his cum spilled into you, filling you in all the the right places. His grip on you loosened as he slowly pulled out of you.
You shivered at his fixated gaze of your mixed cum seeping out of your pussy. Lando fell into the bed, closing his eyes, muttering things under his breath to restrain himself. You held in your laughter as he left the bed, almost painfully, to grab a wet towel from the bathroom to clean you up.
You kissed his cheek gently, thanking him as he finished cleaning all the witness dripping your thighs. Putting aside the towel, you pulled the duvet over you and Lando, nestling up to his warm body.
You could feel the softness of your mattress and duvet conform around your body while Lando rested beside you, taking you in. You mended your brows at the sudden silence. "Penny for your thoughts?" You queried, poking his cheek before rubbing his face with the pad of your thumb.
Lando leaned into your touch, warm blue eyes grazing over your face. "I missed you," he murmured, pressing a kiss onto the side of your hand. "Every day without you felt miserable and now... I can't believe you're actually in front of me. "
Your eyes softened. "I'm here," you reassured, "forever."
© 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐘𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑
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honeyhotteoks · 1 year ago
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always only you (c.sc)
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summary: the date was terrible, awful even, but you just can't call your brother to pick you up. you have to call his best friend instead.
note: hi um....... i'm back and a seventeen stan now????? don't worry, i'm still working on ateez fic, but s.coups has taken hold of my brain and i needed to get this one out there so..... pls enjoy
warnings: non idol!seungcheol, fem!reader, older brother mingyu, seungcheol is mingyus bff, reader is called a sl*t in a mean way by her shitty date, v protective cheol, reckless driving, unprotected sex (wrap it up dont be like them), reader is curvy and descriptors like full, thick, etc. are used throughout, makeouts, grinding, cheol is obsessed with pussy, i mean fr he's a bonafide wap enjoyer, an oral aficionado of the wettest kind, anyways there's oral sex f receiving, hand stuff, rough fingering, rough but passionate sex, use of baby and princess, creampies b/c lbr he's gotta, anyways they're obsessed with each other
pairings: s.coups x reader
genre: smut and more smut, childhood friends to lovers
word count: 14.2K
It was a bad date. 
Not the worst date you’ve ever had, granted, but still pretty up there in terms of terrible. He left an hour ago, the minute you interrupted his monologue to tell him that you were pretty sure things weren’t going to work out. You’ve never had someone leave in the middle of a date before, but then again, you’ve never actually told someone the date was bad in the middle either. 
Not being able to find the right guy is starting to feel embarrassing. It’s been years since your last relationship and months since you even had a second date. Naively, you had had such a good feeling about tonight and having to be proven wrong at breakneck speed before you even got your entrees feels like some kind of poetic karma for something you must have done. You just wish for once you had kept your mouth shut, but your good feeling had been infectious and your excitement about the date bubbled up out of you to your friends and your coworkers. 
You just wish you never told Mingyu. 
I have a really good feeling about him. That’s what you told your brother on the phone a few hours ago. We’ve been talking for a few weeks, I think you’ll really like him.
Stupid. 
You should have known he was on the rebound from the suspiciously large gap in photos on his Instagram. You should have known he was just trying to sleep with you from the minute he commented on your dress, from the way he touched your shoulder for too long for the first hug. You should have known on top of all of that that he would be boring from his joking non-answer when you asked about his most recent read. Sometimes it takes all of those things wrapped up tightly together and shoved directly in your face from across a dining room table to know for sure. 
You just wish you never said a word to Mingyu. You don’t want to see that look in his eyes when you tell him he wasn’t the right guy. His eyes always go soft, mouth downturned, and it kills you every time because he means it when he says - You’ll find the right guy soon, anyone would be crazy to not love you. 
Tonight you really don’t want pity, you don’t think you can handle it. 
“Are you ready for the check?” The server’s voice snaps you right out of your thoughts and you look up at his sympathetic smile. 
“Sorry,” You manage, “yes,”
“No rush,” He lies, immediately producing the leather billfold and sliding it across the tablecloth. 
The floor doesn’t start to drop out from beneath you until you open it, despite having to sit here and eat your pasta alone. This place is expensive, more expensive than you thought. 
Your eyes run through the bill. Four cocktails, two appetizers, two entrees, one slice of cherry cheesecake. The bills your date left on the table just barely covers three cocktails. You can’t afford this. The prices here were probably nothing for your date given how much he talked about his extremely smart investing strategies, but not for you. 
You do fast math, panic math. 
After paying the bill you’ll have 9,600 won in your debit account. You get paid tomorrow so it’s not the scariest number you’ve ever seen in your account, but it’s definitely not enough for a taxi home. 
Your stomach churns. 
You pay the bill quickly, quietly, the server’s hovering presence by your shoulder enough to tell you there is in fact a considerable rush. Your card is returned to you in moments, and he places a brown paper bag in front of you, “There’s an extra slice of cheesecake in there for you,” he says, “I’m sorry about your date.”
He’s gone before you can say thank you. 
You suppose you can’t really sit inside anymore if you’ve paid the bill and you’re holding a to-go bag, so you step out into the chilly night air. It’s been raining lately, but barely. It’s been cloudy more than anything, and yet here you are walking outside into the cold night air and a late autumn storm of icy rain. 
Your date was a special kind of bastard for leaving you stranded a half hour from your apartment in a storm like this. 
The comments he made about you, about your dress and the way it fits flick through your mind and your jaw draws tightly shut. If you had had the wherewithal in that moment to slap him or toss a glass of water in his face you would have, but instead you sat frozen with your stomach in knots. 
It takes you one flash of rage to scroll through your phone and delete the three dating apps installed, and then you open up your contacts and scroll for your brother’s name. He doesn’t live too far from here, and you know he’s probably out with some of his friends, but if you’re lucky maybe he’s close by. Your finger hovers over Mingyu’s contact, but you can't quite make the call. 
You’re twenty-six, you should be grown up enough to get home by yourself after a bad date and not have to call him to rescue you. Embarrassment floods you, the idea of admitting you can’t afford the taxi tonight just sinks into your bones. You love your brother so much, but the idea of seeing him look at you the way he sometimes does and then slip money into your purse for you to find at home makes you want to cry. You’d call him and you’d tell him you’re returning it and he’d play dumb - What money, y/n? I didn’t put that there, maybe it’s like when you find 50,000 won in your old jeans?
No, you can’t call him. You can’t go over to his lovely little apartment with his absolutely lovely fiance and cry about the sorry state of your romantic life. Nothing about that will make you feel better in this moment, absolutely nothing. 
You scroll away from his contact and you think about anyone else you could call, but there’s only one person who keeps coming to mind. There’s no way he’ll pick up, not when he sees your number on his phone, not after the way you’ve treated him for the past year, but his apartment really isn’t that far from here and if he doesn’t hate your guts you know he’ll at least give you a ride. 
The rain picks up, pelting you hard enough that you have to duck back under the measly lip of the restaurants roof for what cover it provides, and you don’t realize you’re well and truly crying until your cheeks feel warm and wet and you can’t get a full breath, but here you are. Stranded alone, broke, and loveless in an apparently ill fitting dress, and there’s only one person’s voice you want to hear even if it’s just his stupid voicemail box. 
Tears hiccup out of you as you dial, cold fingers shaking as you try to press the numbers you’ve had memorized by heart since you were thirteen and got your first cell phone. 
The phone rings twice before he answers, “Hey, you,” 
The easy sound of his voice makes your tears come faster. Your breath hitches in your chest, “Cheol?”
“y/n?” His voice shifts, “Are you crying?”
“I’m,” You hiccup again, “I’m sorry,”
“Hey,” He tries again, “y/n, is that you?” 
“I messed up,” Your head is starting to throb and you press your eyes closed, leaning back against the cold wall of the restaurant and hiding as much of your body under the overhang of the roof as possible, “I’m sorry to call,”
“That’s okay,” Seungcheol says, his voice sounding strained, “what happened, princess?” 
He hasn’t called you that in years, not since you were fifteen and carrying a torch for him. Not since you made Mingyu tell him to stop. 
“C-can you come get me?” You wish you could just stop crying.
“Tell me where you are,” He answers immediately, and despite the rain you hear the sound of his car keys. 
You give him the name of the restaurant, the closest cross streets, all blubbered out between fat tears and rain drops. 
“That’s…” He sounds distant suddenly and then his voice reconnects, “twenty minutes, okay? I’ll be there in twenty minutes, princess, just take a deep breath,” 
You drag in a shaky breath, “Cheol,” you scrub the tears from under your eyes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call,” 
“Me,” He says, his car starting up in the background, “you always call me if you need me,” 
You haven’t seen him in almost a year, barely talked to him outside of sending reactions to each other's Instagram stories, but he’s coming. 
The way you fell away from him was gradual at first, and then an intentional self preservationist wall. Mingyu had introduced his best friend to a girl, and despite your high school crush being supposedly dead and buried, you weren’t prepared for what Choi Seungcheol in love would look like. You started being busier and busier until his calls went unanswered and then eventually his calls just stopped altogether. Mingyu told you later that the relationship didn’t last, but the damage was done and in the end it was just easier not to reach out first. 
You can’t believe he picked up the phone and you can’t believe the first thing he heard from you in a year was hysterical crying. Taking a set of deep, steadying breaths you wipe away the wetness from your cheeks. Your date had hurt your feelings, but you only let it last for a minute. You wouldn’t let a man with such a fragile ego get into your head, and besides, you’ve always liked this dress. 
Seungcheol makes it to you in fifteen minutes flat. He’s broken at least six traffic laws to get to you, including running a solidly red, redlight, but he really doesn’t care. 
He’s seen you cry before, plenty of times. When you skinned your knee at seven or that time he and Mingyu played a prank when you were eleven, tricking you into thinking you were home alone on Halloween night. He’s seen you cry at movies and at videos of puppies and the sound of moving music, and he remembers your eyes full of glassy tears watching Mingyu graduate college. He remembers the sound of it when your grandmother died when you were nineteen, the way your shoulders shook and your breath wheezed as you hid your face tightly in your brother's chest while he looked on feeling so, so helpless. 
Seungcheol remembers all of it, but he’s never heard you sound like you did tonight.  
Mingyu had said you had a date. Earlier in Seungcheol’s night at a bar not far from his apartment, his best friend mentioned it off hand. Mingyu said it like an afterthought as he answered one of your texts. Seungcheol tried not to notice the way his hand tightened on his beer can, enough to make the aluminum crack inwards on itself where his thumb dug into the cool metal. He tried not to think too much about what that meant, just like he’s been trying not to think too much about you at all lately. 
Now his mind is racing, threading the pieces together as the wet road whips by. The threadiness of your voice turns synonymous with panic in his mind and now all he can think about is how he’ll find you when he gets there. He goes over the facts he knows while he stops behind a small block of traffic, his knuckles white as he grips the wheel. 
A date, a bad date, a date you needed a ride away from. The kind of date you couldn’t tell your brother about, when he knows that Mingyu is always your first call. As the traffic disperses he presses the gas pedal and weaves around the slower cars, images flickering in his mind’s eye. A faceless man looking at you, making you uncomfortable, pressing into your space. His mind loops on the image of an unwanted kiss, of pushy hands finding their way under your blouse. 
By the time he’s skidding into the parking lot of the restaurant his hands are shaking and he’s ready to kill. 
When he sees you, wet and shivering on the sidewalk, he nearly falls out of the car trying to get to you. He leaves the key in the ignition, the door flung wide open with warmth pouring out into the chilly night air. 
He looks flustered, rumpled like he was having a quiet night in. Heavy gray sweatpants that hang just right on his hips and an oversized white shirt. He’s wearing socks and slides and the second you see him it dawns on you that when you called him you must have sounded hysterical because he didn’t even try to dress for the icy weather. 
“You look terrible,” You clap a hand over your lips to stop yourself from laughing, and you can’t believe that’s the first thing you manage to say to him after a year. You hate yourself for having no filter, no off switch, no ability to just be normal and say thank you for coming all this way. 
His expression runs from panic to confusion in a split second, “What?” 
“Fuck,” You laugh, shaking your head, “no, sorry, you look good, but it’s raining like hell, get in the car,” 
He blinks, “y/n,” 
“Come on,” You duck out from beneath the measly roof overhang and dart towards the passenger side door, “it’s freezing, I’ll explain in the car,” 
Your dress is wet, but not soaked through, so you hope you won’t do any damage to his seats as you slide into the warmth of his car and shut the door. It takes him at least thirty seconds to follow you, but through his confusion at your reaction you bet he finally registers the cold wetness of his socks and it snaps him back to reality. 
He leaves the car in park and turns his body to you. 
You owe him an explanation, especially given the way you cried on the phone to him twenty minutes ago, but all you can think right now is that it’s really, really nice to see his face again. His hair has gotten longer, shaggier and curled a little at the neck and it might just be the fit of his shirt, but he looks broader. It’s only been a year, but he looks so much more like a man now. All you can manage is, “Hey, Cheol,” 
“Hey,” He answers, shifting himself further in the seat so that he’s almost twisted up sideways, one leg tucked up to accommodate the position. 
The front of his shirt is damp with rain and clinging a bit to his chest and you look down. You really do not need to be having these kinds of thoughts about him again, it’s only been a minute, ninety seconds at the most.  
“y/n,” He says, his voice slow and soft, “what happened?” 
Shame floods you, heating your cheeks red. 
He stretches a hand across the center console, but he stops halfway, his fingers closing into a loose fist, “You know you can tell me anything, right?” 
“I know,” 
“I won’t tell Gyu,” He offers quietly, “just tell me what happened, and I promise, I’ll take care of it.” 
Oh. 
Your head snaps up at his serious tone, “Nothing happened, I’m fine,” 
He looks more confused than before if that’s even possible, and you can practically see him working out his next words. 
“Cheol,” You shake your head, “I’m serious, I’m completely fine, I just needed a ride,” 
“You were crying,” He says, not a question but a fact. 
“I know,” You sigh. 
“You were crying like something happened,” He draws his arm back and runs a hand through his damp hair, “and you called me?” 
“I know,” You repeat, “it was a bad date, but that’s all it was. He ditched me without a ride though and I just,” 
Seungcheol’s lips close at your words as he waits for you to finish. 
“The thought of calling Mingyu and telling him about this just,” You clear your throat to push back a little bubble of emotion, “yeah, I couldn’t do that,” 
“Oh,” His voice drops, and Seungcheol shifts in his seat, throwing the car into drive, “got it.” 
“No, Cheol,” You shake your head, “that’s not what I meant,” 
“It’s fine,” He peels out of the parking lot, “I’ll drive you home.”
He’s angry, pissed at you in that way he gets pissed. Tightened jaw, heavy sighs, his knee bouncing in irritation. If you give it five minutes he’ll tell you what’s bothering him, he’ll say it in a fast rush like he’s more disappointed than mad. You have to let him come to you when he’s like this, no amount of trying to explain will fix it, so you wait. 
The drive is silent, and you fight the urge to jump in with directions when he approaches each light and turn. He knows where your apartment is, he helped you move in four years ago when you graduated college. Mingyu and his friends lifting box after box and telling you to just relax and let the professionals handle it. You smile at the memory. 
He stays quiet until he turns off the major road and down the side streets that will take you to your apartment, but finally he says, “You can’t just call me like that and expect me to drop everything when you have a bad date,” 
“Were you busy?” You didn’t think so judging by the state of his clothes, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. He could have had friends over, maybe a girl. You wonder idly if he’s seeing someone. 
“That’s not the point,” He glances at you, “and you know it.” 
“I’m sorry,” You tell him, and you mean it, “I really didn’t know who to call, and I just,” 
“What, y/n?” He pushes a little. 
“I just don’t want to tell Mingyu about the date,” You confess, “and I didn’t mean to call you and be such a mess, the date really was bad and I was feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t have enough money to get home,” 
“What?” He swivels his head to the side for a moment and then refocuses on the road. 
“I would have called a taxi,” You explain, “but my fucking date left and didn’t pay after we ordered all this food and it was more than I was planning for,” 
“He didn’t pay?” He sounds disgusted and you smile. 
“No,” You tell him, “but in fairness, I did tell him in the middle of the date it wasn’t going to work out,” 
He laughs sharply, and you know he’s still irritated but at least he’s listening, “That bad?” 
“Yeah,” You sigh, “but it is what it is,” 
He glances over to you again, “So he walked out?” 
“Basically,” You nod, “he said what he needed to say, dropped twenty-thousand won on the table like that was going to cover anything and walked out. At least now I know he was an asshole, I’m not missing out on anything,” 
“What did he say to you?” His voice pops up an octave. 
You’d really rather not tell him, you’d be fine burying the comment he made deep down inside never to be unpacked again. You shake your head, “It’s fine,” 
“It doesn’t seem fine,” He starts, but you smoothly cut back in. 
“I just didn’t want Gyu to feel bad for me I guess, he knew I was looking forward to the date, and having to call for a ride like this, I don’t know. I was embarrassed,” You explain. 
“I still don’t understand why you called me, though,” He admits, and you can still feel the tension in him even though the conversation has been ebbing and flowing, “I’m not your brother.” 
Irritation sparks in you at the comment, “I know you’re not,” you turn to him, “but we’re friends, aren’t we?” 
“Friends call each other,” He says simply, “don’t they?” 
You let his comment sit in the air between you for a moment, and then you sigh, “Yeah, they do. I’m sorry I disappeared on you like that,” 
“I tried calling,” He says softly, “but you were always busy,” 
“I know,” You breathe. 
He drives further, slower now and safer that you’re in the car, and you can see him thinking through your words. Finally he slides his hand across the center console with his palm turned up, offering you his hand, “y/n,” he says, “are you doing okay? With money, I mean, after what you said?” 
“I’m good,” You tell him, “it was just shitty timing,” 
“If you need anything,” He squeezes your hand as you slide your palm across his, “I’m here, we don’t have to say anything to,” 
 “I’m okay,” You assure him, “but thank you, seriously,” 
He nods, accepting your words, but then he asks something harder, “What did that guy say to you, y/n? I know you, you weren’t crying like that over not being able to get a taxi,” 
You sigh, leaning back in the passenger seat, “Can I ask you to let it go?” 
“You can ask,” He shrugs, “but so can I.” 
You sit quietly, looking at your entwined hands resting on your knee. His thumb strokes over your knuckles slowly. 
“Fine,” You murmur, “he said he didn’t want to date me anyways, he just came to sleep with me,” 
His hand tightens on yours. 
“And if I wasn’t going to fuck him,” You do your best to clean up some of the language he used when he got up from the table, “I shouldn’t have dressed like a slut,” 
You leave out the part that really cut deep, the part that made the more form fitting dress you chose go from sexy to something sour. 
“Give me this asshole’s name,” Seungcheol skids to a stop a little too harshly at the next traffic light and turns to you. 
“No,” You shake your head, “I’m fine now, it just stung,” 
His lips close in a tight line and then he sighs, “I’m so sorry someone said that to you,” 
“Don’t apologize, Cheol,” You squeeze his hand, “you didn’t say it.” 
“I know, but still,” He holds your gaze, “it was mean, and you deserve much better from a guy you’re seeing, and you don’t look like, or I mean, you aren’t a,” 
You smile as he stumbles over his words and someone behind him gently honks the horn enough to let him know the light has gone green. 
He jolts and refocuses on the road, clearing his throat, “What I’m trying to say is that you look nice, pretty. The dress is good, and you, um, you don’t look,” 
“Thank you,” You cut him off, trying to save him from swallowing his own tongue out of embarrassment, and you ignore the way your stomach flipped over on itself hearing Seungcheol call you pretty. 
“Yeah,” He swallows, slowing down to make the final turn onto your little block, “you know what I mean,” 
“Mhm,” You laugh, breaking down any lingering tension, “Cheol, are you a little disappointed you didn’t get to punch my date? Is that it?” 
“Shut up,” He sighs. 
“Aw,” You smile as he pulls into a space by your apartment, “You were worried about me?” 
He rolls his eyes as he kills the ignition, “You were hysterical,” he says, “what was I supposed to think?” 
“Don’t worry,” You smile as he throws open the driver’s side door, “I think it’s kind of sweet that you went all knight and shining armor on me,” 
His lip twitches, “Don’t make fun,” he says, “I thought something bad happened to you,” 
“Nothing bad happened to me,” You find yourself assuring him again even though he already knows this, and you twist the moment back to a joke as quickly as you can, “unless you count listening to a guy talk about his ex for twenty minutes,” 
He grimaces, “Ugh,” 
“Exactly,” 
“Actually, you know what,” He grins, “you’re right, that is a terrible date and you were right to call me,” 
He’s out of the car and crossing to your door and relief floods your chest. Just like that, you’re back to normal. 
Seungcheol pulls open your door to let you out and says, “Do you have a towel or something?” 
“You want to come up?” 
“If you don’t mind,”
“You just swooped in and saved my night, Coups, of course I don’t mind.” He smiles at the nickname, the one mostly used by his friend group and coined by Seungcheol himself during their short lived Soundcloud music career freshman year of college. The nickname stuck, but you and Mingyu knew him before and you’ve both always, always called him Seungcheol. 
He ducks his head, smiles, and follows you up the stairs and into your apartment just like old times. 
It’s a little strange seeing him like this after so much time has passed, but no matter what has happened in your life, even when your childhood little crush on him was making your nights sleepless, he’s always been there. He’s been a constant in your life since you could form memories, and when you really think about it, you’ve never not known Seungcheol. Suddenly seeing him in your living room feels right, and it makes you wonder why you couldn’t pick up the phone and say something real to him this past year.
“It looks good in here,” He offers, toeing off his slides in the entryway and stepping into your little living room, “it looks like you,” 
“Thanks,” You’re pretty sure the floor of your bedroom is still covered in clothes from earlier, but he’s not going to see that and you’re just glad you didn’t let that chaos spillover out here. 
“So,” He clears his throat lightly. 
“Towel,” You jump, “right, hold on,” 
You disappear down the hall and Seungcheol’s chest goes fluttering fast. He doesn’t need a towel, he doesn’t need anything except a pair of dry socks and his own bed, and he can’t figure out for the life of him why he gave into the little voice that told him to come upstairs. You’ve made it pretty clear over the past year or so that you’ve grown up, you’ve made your own group of friends outside of him and your brother and the guys. He doesn’t need to be here, you don’t need him anymore, you just needed a ride. 
But he’s missed you a little. A lot if he’s being honest with himself. Sometimes he finds himself asking Mingyu about you, hoping you might drop by while he’s at his best friend’s place. Your name on his phone screen earlier in the night had stopped his heart cold. He couldn’t imagine why you were calling and not just texting, and he picked up the phone so fast he thought he might have fucked it up and accidentally pressed end. He tried to sound casual, normal, but his heart was pounding. 
Standing in your living room he feels out of place, like a forgotten childhood relic unboxed in the middle of a new home. He doesn’t know which seat to sit in, he doesn’t have his spot on your couch here like he did at your old place. He doesn’t know where you keep your glasses or which remote would switch on the television. He doesn’t know which book you’ve been reading from the little stack on the table or the name of the place you’ve been working, and there’s a man’s jacket hanging on the wall in the hallway that he doesn’t recognize. He hopes it’s Mingyu’s. 
He doesn’t know why he’s here. He should leave. He should go. 
“Okay,” Your voice comes back, and he tears his eyes away from the little details of your life he doesn’t recognize to look back at you, “I’ve got a towel, socks, and I bet I have a sweatshirt of Gyu’s around here if you’re cold,” 
“I’m good,” He recovers, taking the dry items from your hands. 
Your fingers brush along his as you pass everything off and your stomach jumps. 
“Come in,” You wave him in, “I’ll make some coffee or something and then I need to change,” 
“You should get a warm shower,” He says abruptly, “you’ll catch a cold,” 
“I’m fine,” You shake your head, “I wasn’t out there for too long,” 
“I’ll make the coffee then, you need to get out of that wet dress,” He shoos you away and points to your kitchen, “I assume you have a normal coffee machine and not some fancy Italian thing?” 
“I think you’ll be fine,” You smile, “I’ll just be a second,” 
He nods, and you dart back down the hallway to your bedroom. 
It takes you three minutes to change into something comfortable and clean and then kick all of your scattered clothes into the closet and shut the door. You run a brush through your tangled hair from the rain, and you almost forget that your childhood crush is walking freely around your apartment, but then you hear his laugh and you melt into the wall behind you. You missed the sound of it so much, and if you don’t get a handle on this right now you’re going to go out there and make a fool of yourself. 
But then he laughs again. 
You smile as you come back out into the living room, leaving your good sense behind in the bathroom, “What’s so funny?” 
“I haven’t seen these in years,” He grins, and as you come around the corner you realize he’s looking at the photos you have framed and sitting in various spots on your bookshelf. 
“Oh,” You smile, seeing the one he’s holding and studying, “yeah,” 
“This one,” He tips the frame so you can see the picture, but you already know which one, Mingyu and Seungcheol in their first year of college stand in the center of the frame, Wonwoo, Jeonghan, Dokyeom, and Hoshi with their arms thrown around each other on either side. You are crouching in the center with Jeonghan’s little sister, both of you holding out a peace sign. 
“Isn’t this the night we went to that haunted theme park?” Seungcheol asks with a smile. 
“Yeah,” You take the photo back from him and look it over for a moment, “in Daegu,” 
He nods, “I remember,” 
“Yeah,” You place the photo back in it’s assigned spot and turn towards the kitchen, “I just remember you and DK scaring the living shit out of me,” 
“God,” He runs a hand through his hair, “we did, I felt so bad about that after,” 
“Mm,” You laugh. 
“Gyu reamed us out for it later,” He follows you into the kitchen and watches as you pour two cups of freshly brewed coffee. 
“He never told me that,” Your eyes perk up in surprise. 
“He said,” Seungcheol straightens himself up to his full height and lets his face go passive for his impression, “‘If you ever make my sister cry like that again, you’ll be sorry,’” 
“Sorry?” You laugh, “Mingyu wouldn’t know how to make someone sorry if his life depended on it,” 
“I don’t know,” He shrugs, relaxing his shoulders and reaching for his cup, “it seemed pretty clear he wasn’t fucking around, we took him seriously,” 
“Wow,” You lean against the counter, “that’s actually kind of sweet,” 
“He’s always been protective of you,” Seungcheol points out, “even now, he’ll talk about you and I can see it,” 
“I’m not a kid anymore, though,” You bristle a little. 
“He knows that,” Seungcheol shakes his head, “he just worries, you know, it’s his nature,” 
“Yeah,” You nod, taking a long sip of your coffee, “I know,” 
Seungcheol hovers, not finding a place to lean or to sit in the unfamiliar place, and finally he just asks the question that’s been on his mind for the past twenty minutes, “Is that why you didn’t call him? He worries too much?” 
“I guess a little,” You move past him and back into the living room, “come sit down, you’re making me nervous,” 
He blushes and every little emotion you’ve ever had for him comes thundering back in your chest. There are at least three places for him to sit that aren’t directly next to you on the couch, but he ignores every one of them and sits next to you, barely a foot away, and turns towards you so he can put all his focus on you. 
“So,” He prompts you, “come on, it’s just me,” 
Talking to him was always easy, always. Even in the throes of your infatuation you were able to hold a conversation with him, sometimes a long one out on the balcony of your parent’s house. It’s almost irritating how quickly that familiarity and comfort comes back. 
“I just feel like I’ve been really fucking this whole dating thing up,” You confess, “and Mingyu’s been… well you know him, he’s like the number one hype man for me making all my dreams come true, and being ten out of ten happy,” 
“Yeah,” He nods, but lets you continue. 
“But I just haven’t been able to make it work with anyone in a while,” You bite down the reason why in the back of your brain, “and every time I tell him about a bad date he just looks sadder and sadder for me,” 
“Mm,” He nods, sympathetic, “I know exactly what you mean.” 
“I’m so glad you picked up, honestly,” You glance down at the edge of your cup, “you’ve never treated me like that, and I just… I guess I needed a friend and not my brother tonight,” 
He hesitates, but then his hand comes to rest on your knee and he gives you a squeeze, “I get it,” he says, “but, honestly it seems like you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself,” 
“I know, but,” You sigh, your words dying out as you focus on his lingering hand on your knee. 
“What’s so important about getting a guy right now?” He asks, and you almost laugh at the absurdity of this man asking you that question. 
“Cheol,” You shift on the couch to reposition, pulling back your knee from his touch so you can face him and admit this without being dizzier than you are about his presence, “I don’t know, exactly, but… don’t you feel like living alone is kind of fucking lonely sometimes?”
His eyes flick over you and then he nods. 
The words keep coming as much as you don’t want them to now that you’ve started telling someone, telling him the truth of it and you grimace as you admit it, “The sick part is that I think it’s me. Tonight was the exception, he was a dick, but most of these guys are nice. They’re nice, they’re respectful, they seem to be interested in me, but none of them are what I want, none of them are,”  
You have to stop. You have to get off this topic and off this train before you say something really and truly stupid and burn this newly restored friendship down to ash. 
“Having high standards isn’t a bad thing,” He offers, “and Gyu sets the bar high for how you should treat a woman, I mean,” 
“You think I’m talking about Mingyu?” You laugh sharply. 
“He’s the best guy I know,” He starts to say and then the wheels start turning. 
It happens fast, your absolute lightning quick strike to the match, but your poor decision making usually goes something like this. It makes you mad at first, his constant reference to your perfect brother, but then it all makes sense. Seungcheol really has no idea how you feel about him, as a person or otherwise. It doesn’t enter his brain that the guy who set your standards for men so high might be him, even after he drove illegally fast on wet roads just to come get you because he heard you cry. Up until the last year of your life where you tried to install some distance, he was always there. He was always your first call, always your last call too, and you could never really see anyone else while he was towering right in front of you. He’s never let you down and he doesn’t even know it. 
“I can’t believe you,” The words slip out, and then you’re kissing him. 
He takes a sharp inhale of breath at the way you collapse onto him, holding yourself up with one hand on his chest and the other on his neck, and his mouth is so warm. You press the first kiss tentatively, and then the second a little more insistently, and then you realize he hasn’t moved an inch and isn’t kissing you back in the least. 
You fly backwards, your hand over your mouth, “Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” 
He clears his throat and shifts, shaking his head, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” 
“I can’t believe I just did that,” You blush scarlet, “I’m a mess, I’m so, so sorry, Cheol,” 
“Really,” He avoids your eyes, “it’s fine, it was an emotional night, and you just said it yourself, living alone is lonely. We’re good,” 
“I didn’t kiss you because I was sad,” You run a hand through your hair and slump back on the couch, “I kissed you because you were being a dumb ass,” 
“I feel like you’re insulting me a lot tonight considering I just drove across town for you,” He’s not angry, not really, but he doesn’t let you off so easily, he never has. 
“I kissed you because you’re the best guy I know,” You counter his words back, “and I’m sick of you always putting yourself down when-”
He yanks you forwards by your wrist, and this kiss is what you’ll count forever as the first one. He drags your body forwards as he leans back against the couch and kisses you hard, his tongue dipping past your lips this time, his breath mingling with yours. 
You shift for better purchase, your chest and his flush together, and you moan softly against his lips when his hand slips lower on your waist. 
He breaks the kiss, his forehead leaning against yours, “What the fuck are we doing?” 
“I think they call it making out,” You manage, your heart beating fast like a bird. 
“Jesus,” He shakes his head, “what are we doing?” 
“Cheol,” You start, but he kisses you again, hungrier and hotter as he pulls you in. 
You pant against his mouth, your brain exploding into little fireworks as his hands start to wander, and then he groans, “You feel so good,” 
This is going somewhere fast, and with your hands twisted in the fabric of his t-shirt you swing your leg over his hips and let him wrap his arms around you. 
“We should slow down,” You find yourself mumbling against his mouth, “but I don’t want to, I want you,” 
He nods against you, his hands squeezing your thighs where they rest on either side of him, “I want you too,” 
“We should talk more,” You manage as his kisses travel over your jaw. 
“Later?” He asks, his hands dragging you closer, “God, that dress,” 
“Yeah?” You’re breathless already. 
“If I knew you were going to kiss me I would have peeled it off you,” He pants. 
A moan gets caught in your throat, your hips jerking, nipples hardening against his chest as you throw yourself into another kiss. 
“God,” He shivers. 
“Cheol stay,” You can talk later, he’s absolutely right, and you beg him not to go between kisses, “please stay,” 
Logic starts to pump through him at the implications of that, so much more than kissing comes with staying for the night and he starts to shake his head, but at the way you’re touching him he can’t quite tear his hands away. 
“I should go home,” He murmurs against your mouth, fingers slipping underneath the hem of your t-shirt, “you’ve been drinking,” 
“I had two drinks,” You connect your lips with his again, tongue dipping into his mouth, “like three hours ago,” 
“Still,” He kisses you again despite his words, his hand now flat against the small of your back. 
“I’m not drunk,” You pull yourself closer using his shoulders, “if you don’t want to kiss me, don’t kiss me, but don’t use that as an excuse,” 
“I should go home,” He repeats, like saying it out loud might make his body follow his brain, but it doesn’t. All he does is tug you closer, your legs now fully splayed around his hips as he leans back against the couch and groans against your mouth. 
“I should,” He starts again, whispered thoughts against your lips, but you push back from his chest and break your mouths apart. 
“If you want to go so bad, go,” You pull your arms away from him, crossing them under your chest to hold yourself steady. Your nails press pinpricks into your palms. 
“This isn’t about what I want,” His eyes soften in that tender way you love, and his hand cups your waist, thumb brushing a line over the deep curve of your hip. 
“Why wouldn’t this be about what you want?” You press him, “Or about what I want?” 
“Mingyu is my best friend,” He says, his mouth drawn into a sullen line, “and I never want to do anything that betrays his trust or hurts him in any way,” 
“I’m not asking you to,” Your voice is small. 
“Just,” He sighs, his head tipping backwards against the cushions and his hands slipping to rest over your thighs, “tell me something, okay? Be honest,” 
“Okay,” 
“Do you want me because you’re lonely and I’m here,” He asks, his eyes locked to the ceiling, “or do you want me because you want me?” 
Your arms fall slack and you open your mouth to respond but he presses forwards. 
“Because if this is a one time thing to make us both feel better,” He shakes his head, “I can’t do that, I have to go home.” 
“Cheol,” You murmur, but he doesn’t lift his head. You reach for him, brushing a hand along his cheek and drawing his gaze back down from the ceiling to your face, “Seungcheol, look at me,” 
“Yeah,” He finally follows your gaze. 
“I love my brother, but this isn’t about him,” You tell him clearly, and you watch his lips part so he can cut in but you shake your head, “it isn’t. This is about us, and I’ve had a crush on you since I was fucking thirteen,” 
He blinks, a grin breaking across his face, “You have?” 
“Yeah,” You shuffle closer on his lap, “why do you think I disappeared? You started dating that girl and I just… it wasn’t my place to say anything, it’s not like you were mine, but,” 
He brushes the hair back from your cheek as he nods, “It hurts to see the person you want with someone else,” 
“Yeah,” 
“And you wanted me?” 
You nod, stroking his neck where your hand rests, “I just needed some space after that, I thought I could move on,” 
“I know the feeling,” He smiles, his thumb tender against your jaw, “believe me,” 
“I do,” You nod, “so believe me when I tell you I’ve wanted you for a long time and I don’t just want the one night,” 
He sits frozen, his eyes studying your expression, and then he’s moving. Seungcheol pulls you down to meet his mouth again, hands roughly threading into your hair and gripping your hip as he tugs your bodies flush together. He kisses like you hope he fucks, passionate and a little messy, like his need to be inside you and consumed by you is more important than any vanity. 
“God,” He groans against your mouth, “he’s going to kill me,” 
“Probably,” You huff a laugh against his lips, rolling your hips forwards to slot your bodies together tightly, and at the feeling of his hardening cock pressed against your sex you can’t help the breathy moan that slips out. 
He drops his hands to your hips, coaxing you into rolling them again as he presses upwards and you follow his guidance with ease. He curses softly and you roll your hips again, “Oh, fuck my fucking life,” he groans, kissing his way down your throat, “he’ll kill me, but you’re worth it,” 
“I better be,” You tease him, tugging gently on his hair as he licks a stripe along your throat. 
“Oh, you are,” He shifts back up to kiss your lips again, his mouth pillowy soft and hot against yours, “and I love Gyu, but,” 
“Seungcheol,” You push on his shoulders. 
His rarely used full name gets his attention and he leans back just enough to see your face, “What’s wrong?” 
“Can you please stop talking about my brother while you’re trying to fuck me?” You can hear the whine in your own voice, “I need you right now, we’ll deal with him later,” 
“Sorry, sorry,” He smiles, “of course, come here,” 
You melt into him as he gathers you closer, his warm, rough hands finding new expanses of skin to touch and it’s strange but delicious to know that there are still brand new things you can learn about a person even after knowing them all your life. He gets soft beneath you like butter when you touch his ears, audibly groans when you grind against him, and gets breathier every time you kiss his neck. He’s not afraid to make little noises in your ear, to curse when you do something right or softly beg you to do something again. 
With his mouth on yours and his hands exploring you, you’re just a shaky wet mess in his arms and he doesn’t even fully realize it yet, still so focused on studying your body with his lips, his tongue.
“Ch-Cheol,” You whine as his teeth nip at your pulsepoint, “baby,” 
His hands tighten, sliding to cup your backside through the thin fabric of your lounge pants, “Say that again,” 
“Baby?” 
He exhales hot air across your neck and chest, “God, I like that,” 
“You hate pet names,” You sigh, remembering how his nose always crinkled in an uncomfortable scrunch when he heard people getting too coupley. 
“No, I don’t,” His hand slides up, tucks under the waistband of your pants, and slides back down to feel your skin, “I hate cringey shit. You calling me ‘baby’ while you’re grinding on my dick isn’t cringey, it’s fucking hot,” 
“Ah,” You tug his hair just a little, rolling your hips again, “yeah? Like this?” 
His hips jolt up, pressing his cock against your clothed mound and he groans, “Say it,” he nips at your neck again and then pushes you backwards so that you’re sitting up straddling his lap, “and let me see you,” 
For a brief flickering second you feel shy, another stark moment of awareness that the man between your thighs is Mingyu’s best friend, but it flashes away the minute you see his smile. He’s looking up at you like you invented the sun and you think it just might make you dizzy enough to say yes to anything he could ever ask of you. 
“God,” His eyes rake over you, “you’re so fucking pretty,” 
Blush creeps up your chest, “Yeah, baby?” 
He swallows hard, his hands coasting up your arms and his eyes coming to rest on the heavy swell of your chest, “The prettiest.” His fingers tuck underneath the straps of your tank top and your bralette and he glances up to your face, “Can I see?” 
“Please,” You whisper. 
He moves slowly, peeling down the straps from each of your shoulders first, letting the thin fabric of your tank top droop down your arms until he’s left with just the stretchy elastic of your black bralette. His fingers trace your curves, the pad of his thumb ghosting over one of your hardening nipples until it pushes into a firm peak under the fabric. 
“Cheol, please,” If he doesn’t touch you soon you’re going to be a squirming mess. 
“Relax,” He toys with the strap, “we’ve got all night,” 
You gasp as he dips forwards, peeling the front of your top down entirely until your breasts spill out of the elastic fabric. His lips connect with your skin, tongue exploring intimate parts of you in ways you’ve never experienced quite like this with anyone else. 
“These,” He cups your full breasts in his hands, kissing along each swell, “are perfect, princess,” 
You shiver at that, whining in his grip as he traces his tongue down and ghosts it close to your nipple, but you smile and manage, “I really took you for an ass man,” 
“I’m an everything man where you’re concerned,” He flicks his tongue experimentally across the hardened bud and hums softly when you jolt in his arms, “so excuse me if I have to slow down and show my appreciation,” 
This crush is going to kill you, that’s the thought that gets instantly banished from your brain the second Seungcheol wraps his lips around one nipple while his fingers pinch the other, setting a steady pace of sucking and teasing that is sure to leave pleasured little bruises. 
“Oh,” You grip his shoulders, “oh, Jesus, Cheol,” 
“Feel good, baby?” He switches sides smoothly and sucks again. 
A jolt of pleasure rocks from your chest to your untouched clit and you rock down, trying desperately to press your aching center against anything for a little friction. 
“Yeah?” He prompts you gently. 
“So, so good,” You nod, rolling again, “but I need more, please,” 
He nods against your chest, pressing one more kiss to your breastbone before he says, “y/n, I don’t want to move too fast or anything, we’ll do whatever you want, but,” 
“But what?” You’re about a second from pushing his hand into your underwear yourself.
  “Can I eat you out?” 
Your stomach flips, “Oh, fuck yes,” 
You’re on your back practically the second you give him permission. He holds you tight to his chest as he pushes himself up off the couch and flips you around, dropping you back onto the cushions and tugging at your clothes. Normally you’d be a little self conscious, especially in the brighter light of your living room and not the dim strategic lightning of your bedroom, but Seungcheol keeps looking at every inch of your body like he’s starving for it, groaning in pleasure at every inch of you that gets revealed, and you’re starting to think he really does like everything about you. 
You help push off your pants with shaky hands, but let him loop his thumbs under the thin straps of your underwear and tug those free, a slick wet patch in the middle where you’ve been soaking through the cotton for the past half hour. You help him with your top, until finally you’re completely bare and he’s pushing you to lie back onto the extended length of the chaise while he falls to his knees before you. 
“Wow,” He breathes, his hands running along your thighs, “just… wow,” 
“Stop,” You can’t stop the blush now, and you fight the urge to reach for a blanket or cross your arms over yourself at his exacting gaze. 
“Nope,” He dips his hands to your inner thighs and pushes your legs apart little by little, “I’m going to enjoy every bit of this,” 
“Now you’re just trying to embarrass me,” You smile. 
His tongue darts out to wet hips lips and he shakes his head, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” 
Your stomach churns, flipping nervously as he looks at you so earnestly. 
“I’m serious,” He kisses your knee as he opens one of your legs wider, “I’ve thought about this a thousand times, but you’re so much better than my imagination,” 
“Cheol,” You whisper tightly. 
“Mm,” He sighs as he tips your hips back, maneuvering your legs wide and open now and shifting your hips to the very edge of the couch so he can tuck smoothly between your open legs, “I wonder if you taste as sweet as I imagined too,” 
Your fingers grip down on the cushions, your heart hammering in your chest. 
“Look at you,” He sighs pleasantly, his fingers ghosting along the edge of your lower lips, “is all this for me, baby?” 
“Uh-huh,” Your breath hitches as his finger just barely touches your seam. 
“You got this wet just from grinding on my lap?” He smiles, his teeth catching his thick bottom lip. 
“Cheol,” It’s all you can manage, you really didn’t know he was like this. 
His eyes soften up though at the sound of his name on your lips, and he kisses your thigh tenderly before looking back up to you, “Doing good? Okay?” 
“Mhm,” You’re fine, you are, except you think you might come the second he touches you and you’re a little terrified at just how intense he is from minute one.  
“y/n,” He squeezes you a little. 
“I’m good,” You breathe, “I promise,” 
“Okay,” He kisses your skin again and nods, “just relax, okay?” 
“I’m relaxed,” You answer too quickly and one of his eyebrows goes high. 
“Mhm,” He eases up on his knees a little to see your face better and smooths his hand from your leg to your hip to your stomach, “what’s going on?” 
“This is just a little surreal,” You admit, “isn’t it?” 
“Yeah,” He releases your legs and shifts up so he can lean over your body, catching your mouth again in a soft kiss, “it is, but do you trust me?” 
“Of course,” You kiss him back. 
“Then you should know,” He nuzzles your nose with his, “that all I want to do right now is make you come on my face until you can’t think, and after that if you still want to take this further we can, but baby, I really don’t care what we do tonight. I just want to be with you,”
Your mouth runs dry, and you can feel your core throbbing hard between your legs, your heart fluttering fast. 
“So, please, can I make you come?” He smiles, pressing another quick kiss to your lips, “I think you want me to,” 
“Yes,” The nervous knots in your stomach release, “please, Coups,” 
His nose scrunches as he laughs, kissing his way down your chest, “It’s Coups now?” 
“Cheol,” You whine, “you’re stalling,” 
“It’s called foreplay,” He licks a firm line between your breasts and moves lower, “have you not been getting fucked right, princess?” 
“F-fuck,” Your back arches as his lips travel down over your belly, eyes slipping closed, “Seungcheol,” 
He shakes his head, his hair brushing against your skin, “No more baby?” He makes a sulky noise with his tongue against the back of his teeth, “Come on princess, call me baby,” 
Your mind is spinning, and you gasp sharply as his fingers finally slide through your wet slit and land at the apex, pressing deliciously down over your throbbing clit, “Ch-Cheol, fuck, oh fuck, baby,” 
“There she is,” He groans, and as his fingers fall away and his lips take their place. He licks a deep stripe through your folds and groans, spreading your legs open wide with his hands anchored on the backs of your thighs, “You’re perfect,” 
You moan as he sucks the tender bud of your clit into his mouth. 
“I’m going to do this everyday,” He pants, licking another stripe, exploring every inch of your cunt with his tongue, “you’ll be my dessert every night,” 
“Ah,” Your head rocks back as pleasure lights up your spine, “baby,” 
“Mm,” He groans into your core, burying his face against you and alternating perfectly between sharp sucks and flicks of his tongue. 
You are moving fast, from nothing to desperate something in the span of a couple of hours, but honestly you’ve never felt safer and better and more held than this. His hands roam your body, seeking every soft place he can grab and squeeze and hold onto, and you just know the bruises on your hips will be worth it when he finally fucks you. 
“Come on,” He tips your hips back to get better access, wrapping his arms around your thick thighs, “don’t be shy,” 
“Oh, shit,” Your hand flies down to grip his hair and anchor your position as he manhandles you, your other hand gripping the cushions, “just like that,” 
He sucks harder and flicks the tip of his tongue against your bud again, quickening his pace and listening carefully for your sounds to know what you need. Looking down between your legs you can barely believe the sight, but there he is, Choi Seungcheol with his face glistening. His lips are puffy and red, his eyes hooded, and he grins when he sees you watching before nodding just a little and redoubling his efforts. 
Your legs are trembling now, the start of your orgasm building up through the base of your spine and flooding warmth into your belly, and if he wasn’t holding you so tightly you’re sure you’d snap. 
“Baby,” You whine, your voice sounding not quite your own as heat floods in your chest, “oh, God, please don’t stop,” 
He sucks hard, shifting to kiss your core and push the tender muscle of his tongue inside you, “I’ve got you,” he pants as he works his tongue faster, “I’ve got you,” 
He’s a mess, wet with slick across cheeks and sweat on his brow, and you think for a split second you might actually be in love with this man already, no one has ever, ever treated your body quite like this. As he shifts to tease your clit again, building the pleasure up and up higher, you grip down on his hair harder. 
“I’m,” You stammer out, your back arching and your mouth falling slack, “I’m gonna,”
He nods into you but doesn’t stop the pace of his tongue one bit. 
“I’m,” You gasp again, “coming, fuck, I’m coming,” 
It hits you all at once, punctuated with his sharp suck to your clit and your legs snap shut around his head, your body wrenching sideways as the wave takes you from conscious to that hazy middle space of pleasure. You can barely breathe, you can't even think, all you can do is feel pulse after pulse of pleasure. 
“Fuck,” He curses, and your brain connects enough to realize your legs are still snapped tightly shut around his ears but you can’t get your body to respond, “yeah, fuck, there you go,” 
Everything you are is trembling in his hands. 
“I could fucking die happy,” He says, shifting to nip your plush thigh with his teeth, his hands gripping down on your curves, “right here between your legs,” 
You make a sound, you think, and he chuckles against your skin. 
“Mm-mm,” He sighs pleasantly, his hands running from your thighs to your hips and down to cup your backside, “you’re fucking gorgeous, y/n, I love every fucking inch of you,” 
“Y-yeah?” Your eyes flutter open. 
“Mhm,” He flicks his tongue over your clit once more, eliciting a deep shudder from your hips before he says, “I can’t wait to fuck you,” 
Your legs start to relax, and you look down, “Then fuck me,”
“I want another first,” He shakes his head, “please, let me make you come again, sweetheart,” 
“Oh,” You shiver as he kisses your slit again, letting his tongue linger, “fuck,” 
He sighs, “This pussy,” 
“Cheol,” You blush hard. 
“I would do anything,” He smiles, flicking your clit again with his tongue, “for this perfect fucking pussy,” 
“Anything?” 
He goes still between your legs and then he nods, wetting his lips with his tongue, pressing a kiss to your quivering cunt, and looking up over your body to meet your eyes, “Anything.” 
“Will you come up here?” You reach for him, “Will you hold me?” 
He eases your legs down off his shoulders and shifts up, “Yeah, of course,” 
“Will you,” You nearly come again just at the sight of a sizeable wet spot on his sweats, and you tug at his shirt to try and silently communicate your need, “I want to touch you too,” 
“Mhm,” He stands up, shucking off his clothes as quickly as he can, and when he pushes down his boxer briefs your muscles clench. 
When you were younger, a teenager inexperienced with sex and boys, you imagined his cock. You saw the faint outline of it once through a pair of athletic shorts and you wondered what he might look like naked. You wondered if you would like his body. You wondered if he would like yours too. You can’t really remember what you imagined Seungcheol’s cock to look like, but you know this is better. It’s long, but not too long, like the guys who can’t fit it in all the way without smashing painfully into your cervix, but it’s thick. His cock is heavy, deserving of the word, and perfectly straight until the very end where it curls up towards his abdomen. 
You want him inside you so badly you could cry. 
“You okay?” He says as he slides up the couch next to you, your naked hip against his. 
“A little nervous,” You admit quietly, turning towards him on the cushions and drawing him closer with your hand on his shoulder. 
“Me too,” He says softly, maneuvering until one arm is wrapped around your back and your head is pillowed on his other, your chests flush against each other, his cock trapped between your stomachs. 
“God,” You shift closer to him, tangling your legs together, “you’re so hard,” 
He nods, sighing at the way your skin drags against his, “You’re making me insane,” 
“Good,” You smile, finding his lips with yours, tasting yourself on him and dipping your tongue into his mouth as you deepen the kiss.
He groans against you, and you snake a hand between your bodies to wrap around his aching cock. “Oh, fuck,” he curses as you pump your hand up and down his shaft, “easy, it’s been a while,” 
“Yeah?” You soften your grip a little, rolling your hand at the tip and feeling precum bead up and smear on your belly, “Saving yourself for me, baby?” 
He moans softly, his eyes rolling shut, “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” 
“Maybe,” You kiss the corner of his mouth and pump his cock a little harder. 
“L-let me touch you,” He pants, his hand pushing your hips back just enough so that he can fit a hand in between your thighs, “can I touch you?” 
It’s dizzying how much he begs to pleasure you, and you’re starting to think maybe this is part of what he needs, but you’re still new to each other’s bodies and learning and you suppose you’ll have time to figure all of this out. It’s not just a one night thing.
“Touch me,” You open your legs for him and he immediately slides his fingers down your slit to your aching entrance. 
“Don’t stop,” He urges you and you realize at the feeling of his fingers you stopped pumping your hand. 
You smile, kissing him again and finding a new pace with a stroke of your hand and a roll of your wrist, “You feel so good, baby,” 
“So do you,” He pants, and then he pushes two fingers inside your slick walls. 
You choke out a wine, pushing your hips forwards into his hand so he can go deeper. 
“God,” He holds you firm with his other hand, “you’re too tight,” 
“Too tight?” You huff, still working your hand over his cock, “never gotten that complaint before,” 
“Not a complaint, princess,” He teases, drawing his fingers out of your channel before thrusting back inside, “but I need to prep you a little, I don’t want to hurt you,” 
Your muscles clench down around his fingers. 
He laughs softly, “Oh, yeah, babygirl? You want me inside?” 
You nod, a whine trapped on your lips, “Cheol, please,” 
“Shh, shh,” He shifts, effectively sliding down the couch a little more while you slide up, and he rests his head on your shoulder and adjusts the angle of his arm so he can pump his fingers in and out of your channel at a steadier pace. He watches the way his fingers disappear inside you with rapt attention, cursing when he feels you grip down on him, “You want to come again?” 
“P-please,” You’re doing your best to keep working your hand, but at the way his fingers are curled inside you and pressing rhythmically against your sweet spot you think you’re about to see stars again. 
“Fuck, baby,” He sighs, “you’re so sexy,” 
All you can do is moan, grip down on his shoulder and let him have you. 
When he pushes in a third finger to stretch you, you gasp tightly at the sensation, the pleasure rocketing up your back and making your brain buzz. 
“Are you close?” He pumps his hand harder, finding your nearby nipple with his tongue and your body arches again. 
“Close,” You pant, your legs widening as you try to brace yourself, your hand falling away from his cock and gripping down on his thigh as the rolling wave of your orgasm starts to wash up over you. 
“Come for me,” He’s gripping you hard, like you belong to him and he wants only to please you, and his words combined with the way his hands lay on you leaves you coming apart at the seams. 
The sound of it is obscene, wet and filthy and pornagraphic and you’ve never in your life had sex with someone for the first time and had it be anything close to perfect. Your bodies want each other with such need. It's entirely outside your conscious brain, and you think if he can love your body like this then maybe he can love all the other parts of you, and you never want to let him go. 
Your orgasm hits you harder than the first, locking your body up in spasmodic elation, and he curls around you when you twist to make sure he works you through the crest of it, his hand only slowing down when the pulses of pleasure start to ease. 
When you come back to earth, you’re pressed face down onto the couch instead of up, your cheek against the cool fabric below you. Seungcheol is wrapped around your body like he’s glued to your back, and you feel his soft breath against your cheek and shoulder, his easy kisses on whatever part of you he can reach. His hand is still tucked underneath you and between your legs, cupping your cunt warmly and just holding you as you come down. 
“Cheol?” You murmur, your brain almost a little foggy at the heady feeling of two full body orgasms. 
“Hey, there you are,” He kisses you again, “feeling okay?” 
“Mm,” You nod, “so, so good,” 
He smiles, “Yeah? Did I get you?” 
You laugh against the cushions, shaking your head, “Babe, I just came so hard I blacked out,” your body stretches, pressing your core into the cup of his hand, “you definitely got me,” 
“Mm,” He rocks his hand and you sigh a little overstimulated sound, “should we stop here?” 
He doesn’t know, you realize it suddenly, he has no idea how badly you want him. He’s been so focused on your body, your pleasure, your wants, but you can see it now in the hesitation in voice that he still doesn’t know for sure if you want to be here with him or if you just wanted someone. 
He’s been touching you like it might be the only time, his only chance to have you and hold you in his arms. Didn’t he believe you when you said it wasn’t one night?
“Seungcheol,” You wriggle in his arms, “baby,” 
“What’s wrong?” He gives you the space to roll and you twist against him. 
You see his eyes when you turn, like he’s waiting for something and you curse yourself inside for not telling him like he was telling you. You smile, pushing his shoulder until he’s flat on his back, “What’s wrong is that you’re not inside me,” 
“O-oh,” He gasps as you hook a leg over his hips and straddle him, your body hovering over his prone cock. 
“Mhm,” You drop your body over him, your slick slit nestling directly over his cock, “but I’ve been so selfish,” 
He shakes his head to protest but you lay your fingers over his lips to stop him. 
“I want you, Cheol,” You drag your hips and find the head of his cock so you can dip and press it against your entrance, “so fucking much,” 
He’s breathing heavy against your hand, your eyes locked on eachother. 
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” You stay steady above him. 
He nods, just a little. 
“I’ve never wanted anybody like I want you,” You tell him, “never,” 
His lip quirks a little, a small smile as he presses a kiss to your fingers, “I’m all yours,” he whispers. 
You sink your hips back in one smooth flush motion, taking him inside you to the hilt without warning, and his head falls back as he moans. He’s stretching you out wide and full, his thick cock pushing into every spot inside you that you didn’t know could feel like this. 
“Oh my fuck,” Your body moves on it’s own, rocking your hips in a circle to take him deeper and roll your clit across his pubic bone, “Cheol, Cheol,” 
He blinks hard, finding your eyes at the sound of his voice, “Yeah?” 
You feel strangely like you might cry at the rush of endorphins, and you roll your hips again, whining out a need, “Hold me, please? Please, touch me,” 
Seungcheol softens, his hands unclench on the cushions below him and he coasts his warm hands over your thighs, your hips, up and down your sides, “I’m right here,” he murmurs. 
You relish in the feeling of it, and you direct them from their wandering comfort to a landing place on your hips, the perfect soft place for him to grip in with his fingers and keep you steady while you work him. He follows your lead, watching you above him with no hesitation, and his mouth falls slack when he watches you get your position right on your knees and lift up to draw his cock out of your warm, wet channel. 
“y/n,” He pants tightly. 
You sink back down hard and he groans, cursing and no doubt leaving a pretty bouquet of bruises where his fingers press down. 
“Your cock,” You moan as you bounce again, finding a steady rhythm, “you feel so perfect,” 
“Yeah?” He bounces you, teeth clenched as he tries not to come too early. 
“Made for me,” You grind down and jolt against the pleasure, “never felt something this good,” 
He groans, a hot pant of breath and then he stutters his hips upwards, “D-don’t, I’ll come,” 
“Good,” You sink down and back up, feeling him stretch you open again and again. 
“Come here,” He reaches up for you, tugging you down by your neck to get you close and you can feel him suddenly reposition and change the angle, take back control as he pins you to his chest and pumps his hips. 
The way his cock punches into you, curved and pressing directly into your g-spot, makes you choke out a moan and dig your nails into his chest. 
“Say you love my cock,” He pants suddenly in your ear, “if it feels so good, say it, tell me,” 
You moan sharply, “I fucking love your cock,” 
“Fuck yes,” His hand claps down on your ass and grips you tight as his hips piston upwards. 
“Ah, ah,” Your legs are trembling again, “I can’t,” 
“Yes, you can,” He pants, “I want to feel you come on my cock, babygirl, squeeze me,” 
Your eyes slam shut. 
“So fucking tight,” He breathes, “so wet,” 
“For you,” You choke out and hips stutter. 
“Oh, f-fuck,” He pushes up hard, but instead of thrusting he locks his hips there with your bodies pressed flush together and at the sound of his sudden moan, the way his hands lock tight on your body, the way warmth floods your belly, you know he’s coming. 
Your brain somersaults and you rock your hips, trying to keep catching the friction against your clit to help push you over the edge, “Ah,” you whine, “no, please,”  
He doesn’t go anywhere though, he just presses his hips up to keep giving you the pressure you need and holds your hips down with his broad hands, and you hear him hiss at the overstimulation but he groans and manages, “Come baby, you’re so close, there you go, there you go,” 
You’re saying something, but you can’t really hear it. All you can feel is the bubble about to burst inside you as you drag yourself fast and frantic against his body. You’re needy and seconds away, falling into trembles again.
  “So beautiful,” He mumbles, dragging your mouth up to his and locking you in a heady kiss. 
“Cheol!” You squeak against him, body cracking apart into shakes as you come, probably louder than you wanted to as you fall into the sweet space between his neck and shoulder. 
“I’ve got you,” His softening cock slides out as you come, but he slides a hand between your thighs and rubs fast circles on your swollen clit, “fuck, look at you, god, you’re such a mess,” 
Your brain is dizzy as he talks you through the edges of your orgasm. 
“So wet,” He bites down softly on your shoulder, “soaked for me and full of my cum, fuck,” 
As you collapse on his chest, your orgasm receding, his hand slows, but his fingers stay slipped between your folds in the messy mixture of your slick wetness and his release. You are a mess, but he seems to like it and if you’re benign honest so do you. 
“I’m so,” You breathe out, shaky and exhausted, “god, I don’t know,” 
“Mhm,” He sighs, and finally he slides his fingers out of you to rest on your hip, his other hand stroking a line up and down your back while you recover together. 
You need to get up, run to the bathroom and get the shower started, but you’re boneless and floating and he’s just the perfect temperature, so for a little while you don’t move. 
When he shifts his hips under yours to readjust your eyes pop open and you start to move, “Am I hurting you?” 
“Shh,” He wraps his arms around you and gathers you tight to his chest, “don’t you dare go anywhere,” 
“Yeah?” 
“You’re perfect,” He repeats and you smile against his skin, “next time I want you sitting on my face,” 
You laugh against him, “Next time?” 
He’s quiet, his fingers still dragging up and down your spine, “If you want,” 
You shift up in his arms, settling on his chest so that you can see his face, “So much,” 
He cups your cheek, brushing his thumb along your face, as he smiles, “I missed you, you know,” 
Tears prick at the back of your eyes and your throat goes thick, and you don’t trust your voice but you nod and press your lips to his, “I missed you too, all the time,” 
He gives you a moment, just staying calm and kind with his hands, and then he leans up to capture your lips once more, this kiss so much softer and more familiar from the frantic emotion a few minutes ago. His kisses travel from your lips to your forehead and then he smooths back the tangled mess of your hair, “We should get cleaned up,” he murmurs, “how are you feeling?” 
“Like I might not ever walk again,” You joke wryly. 
“I didn't hurt you, did I?” He leans to look you over, “I got a little carried away,” 
You shake your head, “No, I’m perfect, I promise,” 
“We didn’t talk much beforehand,” He notes, brushing his palm over the swell of your hip, dipping at your hip crease, and tracing up over again at the curve of your thigh, “I just want to be sure you’re feeling okay with everything,” 
“I’d tell you if I wasn’t,” You press, “you know I would,” 
“Good,” He sighs. 
You stretch on top of him, your knees aching from your curled position and you smile, “You want to get a shower? We can share the hot water,” 
“You’re insatiable,” He quirks an eyebrow at you. 
“Not for sex,” You slap his chest lightly as you climb off him, wincing at the sudden stretch of your knees, “I can barely move,” 
“I like a challenge,” He sighs, rolling off the chaise and stretching long and you catch yourself watching the strong flex of his back, the cut of his shoulders, the curve of his ass and his muscular thighs. 
Maybe you could rally. 
Seungcheol turns and his eyes flick over your body too, “Yeah,” he nods, “I think I can get one more out of you,” 
“My shower is shockingly small, so,” You reach for him, guiding him down the hall with you, “we’ll see,” 
“I said I like a challenge,” He shrugs, and all of a sudden you can’t stop laughing. 
Your shower is small, but in the end it doesn’t matter. Seungcheol ends up crouched on his knees anyways, with one of your legs hitched over his shoulder while he takes his sweet time with his tongue bringing you up to your softest, easiest orgasm of the night. You trade lazy kisses in the warmth after, the suds long gone and your fingers pruned by the time you fall into bed. 
You don’t have to ask him to stay, he just does. You talk for as long as you can keep your eyes open, stories of years ago when you saw him almost every single day. You whisper late into the night, until finally he falls asleep first, his head lolled to the side, but his hand still wrapped tightly around yours. 
You tumble into sleep right alongside him, his skin smelling of sweet peach and nectarine. 
In the morning, you wake up to something cold suddenly pressed to your cheek and you start to stitch together the world around you in quick threads. 
“Kkuma,” Seungcheol’s voice reaches you first, a hushed whisper as he tries to get his dog’s attention, “come here girl, let her sleep,” 
You groan a little, and you realize the something cold was Kkuma’s very wet nose against your cheek. Instead of listening to Seungcheol, she presses her nose to you again and follows it up with a lick, her panting excitement pushing you from laying on your side to your back as she collapses over your chest. 
“Kkuma!” He exclaims quietly, “down girl!”
Your eyes start to pop open, and this time you see his dog’s fluffy white face inches from your own, delighted that you’re awake. 
“Kkuma,” He tries to drop his voice to a lower tone to get her attention. 
“It’s okay,” You yawn, reaching up to scratch Kkuma behind the ears, “I’m awake now,” 
“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol moves into your bedroom, and you can see he’s fully dressed and has been for some time, “I didn’t think she would just jump on you like that,” 
Your brain is still a little sluggish and you rub your hand over your face, “Did you go home?”
He grins and nods at your sleepy question, the answer obvious from the dog on your chest, “Yeah, I needed to run home and take her for a walk, I hope you don’t mind I let myself back in,” 
“Not at all,” You smile up at him, “I’m just sad you’re not in the cuddle pile,” 
“We can fix that,” He tosses his beanie on your nightstand and then holds up a little carrier containing two coffees and a few little pastry bags, “and I bring gifts,” 
“From that place by your apartment?” You brighten, recognizing the stamped logos on the cups. 
“Mhm,” He passes over your cup, “sugar, no cream,” 
“You remembered,” You push yourself up in bed, Kkuma adjusting herself to snuggle into your side, and accept the cup, “thank you,” 
He lays his heavy denim jacket on the chair by your dresser and slips back into bed with you, dragging the covers back over both your legs, “Of course, I did, not that much could have changed in a year, right?” 
“Mm-mm,” Your legs slide together as you tuck under his arm and settle back into his chest. 
His fingers play with the ends of your hair while he sips his coffee, and then he sighs, “y/n,” 
Your stomach freezes and you wonder if you’re about to get let down easy. If waking up in the morning cleared his head, if a text from Mingyu changed his mind, if on the trip back to his place he worked out the right way to break your heart, if he practiced it out loud in his car with the dog. 
“What’s up?” You say, hoping you sound far more casual than you feel. 
“About Gyu,” He exhales heavy, his coffee leaning against his thigh as he gathers his words, “listen,” 
“Don’t,” You murmur, pressing your eyes closed, “please don’t go,”
“Go?” He asks. 
“I’ll tell him, and I know he’ll be fine after the shock wears off,” You twist in the bed to look up at him, “please just stay, last night was… Cheol, please just think about this,” 
His brows knit together tight in confusion and he sets his coffee on your bedside table to free up his hand and brush it along your cheek, “I was going to say, about Gyu, I’m meeting him for lunch at two. I’d like to tell him about us today,” 
“You what,” You blink. 
“I’d like to tell him that I picked you up after your date,” He says, “and that we got to talking, and that we kissed,” 
You can almost see Mingyu’s wide puppy eyes as he realizes where the story is going to go. 
“And that I asked you out on a date,” Seungcheol finishes, “and he’s going to ask me a lot of other questions which I definitely am not going to answer, except one thing,” 
You swallow nervously, your coffee almost tipping to the side forgotten in your hands until he plucks it up and sets it to the side. 
“He’s going to ask me if I’m serious about you,” He says calmly, like you’ve discussed this before, “and I’m going to say yes, but that’s the kind of thing you should know before your brother does.”
“You’re serious about me,” You say it back, your heart picking up as the words come off your tongue. 
“Yes,” He nods, unequivocal, “and I hope you feel the same way because before I drive across town and tell my best friend I’m in love with his sister, I just need to know if you feel even a tenth of that,” 
Your heart should be pounding, your stomach fluttering, your body flooding with emotion at the casual confession, but all you feel is calm. Mingyu told you once that life would fall into place, you just never thought you’d have that realization while it was happening around you. 
You try to keep a straight face when you say, “There’s only one problem,” 
“Okay,” He says, but you watch his hand fidget in his lap. 
“You never actually asked me out on a date,” You point out with a smile, “and I don’t want to lie to Mingyu about anything,” 
He grins, his tongue dragging against one side of his teeth as he shakes his head in disbelief, “You’re right,” he says, “that’s my mistake, will you go out with me?” 
“I’d love to,” You lean into him so you can press a quick kiss to his lips and take his hand in yours, lacing his anxiously twitching fingers with yours to hold him steady, “and if Gyu gives you any lip about this,” you kiss him again, “tell him I’m in love with his best friend,” 
“You are?” His fingers tighten on your hand. 
“Mhm,” You suddenly can’t keep your lips away from his, “and you tell him that if he does anything to ruin this, that I’ll make him sorry,” 
“Now that,” He laughs, “that I believe,” 
You pull him down to you and your body without another word, and with a hushed apology he pushes Kkuma off the bed so he can splay you out in the middle of the mattress. He takes you fast, hurried and full of need now that you have so much time ahead of you for slow. For now, you have a lot of catching up to do.
When you finally make it out of bed the coffee is cold and Seungcheol is late for lunch. 
8K notes · View notes
mrsbarnesblog · 4 months ago
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I feel like when reader gets fed up with Rafe not making a move, she tries to go on a date with someone else and it makes him realize that he has to act if doesn’t want to be left with just “baby daddy” label. loved your story
masterlist ko-fi ao3
requests are open
summary: when you have a baby with your ex-friend with benefits, he realizes that he has to talk about your feelings if doesn't want to lose you (can be read as a standalone, but is part two of this fic)
word count: 1.1k.
warnings: ex fwb, baby daddy Rafe, he's really soft and cutesy (i can't help myself, sorry)
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Raising a baby with you felt easy. It felt safe and stable because it seeming like you worked perfectly together, never having serious fights and always easily understanding each other. Rafe adored both of you and he was happier than he ever was, even if he was constantly tired from sleepless nights. 
Every time Rafe looked at you holding your daughter, smiling and particularly shining in your post-pregnancy bliss, he felt his heart flattering. You were his. The mother of his daughter, his friend, his family, his girl. 
Then, when you unexpectedly mentioned to him that someone had asked you out, things went south. 
You both hated every second of what was likely your first serious argument, but you were unable to contain your emotions when the situation deeply hurt both of you. 
“I don’t know what you want from me, Rafe! I don’t know what you expect from me when the only thing that I know for certain is that I am the mother of your child!” You screamed at him, blinking away your tears. 
“Don’t say that. You know what I want from you, and I can’t let you go out on dates with some random dudes, Y/N. Like, you have to be joking. We just had a baby, for fuck’s sake!” His hands flew to his hair as he started walking back and forth in the middle of his living room. 
“As far as I’m aware, I’m single, Rafe.” You said it bitterly, bringing your legs closer to your chest and wrapping your hands around them. You wanted to hide because it felt to heavy to be talking about it, especially when you never desired anything more than to be appreciated and loved by the man in front of you.
“So this means nothing to you?” 
“It was not what I said.”
“You said you’re single.” 
“Am I not?” You whispered. “You were horny and had a baby with me. Just admit it.” 
You were looking at each other with emotions and unsaid feelings on the tips of your tongues. It hurt you to say it; it hurt you to realize how easy it was to end everything here and face the reality that you were no one to each other. Tears flooded your vision and you looked down, defeated. 
“I’m sorry.” Rafe whispered back, as the panic started to settle in him. “I’m so so sorry, Y/N. It has never been my intention to make you feel this way, but I promise that you’re much more for me.” He came closer to you, kneeling in front of your shivering body. “Even if it was casual sex at that time, I would've never signed up for a baby with someone who I felt nothing for.” 
His hands reached for your legs, setting them down on the floor and instead moving closer to you. Rafe touched your face, making you look at him through wet eyelashes and you noticed a longing, almost pleading, look in his eyes. 
“I love you. I love you and our little girl, and I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want you. I need you because you’re my best girl—the prettiest, sexiest, most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. I was too dumb to not do it earlier, but I want to have it all with you. I want you both here all the time, with me. You are my family. ”
He left you completely speechless, making you sob harder and lean into his chest, leaving wet stains all over his shirt. You didn't know how you could live in denial for that long, but you realized how desperately you craved to hear these words. How desperately you tried to convince yourself to stick with what you had when the only thing you ever wanted was him.
“Sh-h, baby…” He soothed your hair, holding you closer and allowing you to let go of your emotions. Rafe hated how oblivious he was to your feeling this whole time. Seeing you break down hurt him more than he could imagine and he knew he would do anything to never see that look in your eyes again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, mama. I love you.”
“I l-love you t-too.” You hiccuped, leaning back and wiping your face. Rafe’s eyes stayed on yours when he slowly traced with his thumb your slightly swollen bottom lip and then moved closer. 
He kissed you slowly, passionately, gently biting your lip, as if he were claiming you again and you felt that familiar sparkle in your body that appeared whenever he was touching you so gently. You brought your hands to his shoulders to feel his body closer to yours and he obliged, slightly hovering over you.
Soft crying from the bassinet interrupted you, and before you could even begin to worry about your daughter, Rafe had already pulled away, but not before giving you that promising look and moving in her direction. 
“Hi, pretty girl.” He cooed, taking her in his arms and lifting her up in the air. She looked so tiny compared to him and you felt another wave of tears coming in. “Sh-h, it’s okay. Are you hungry or did you just want someone to hold you, hm?” Rafe placed her on the crock of his arm and started swaying from side to side. Her cries slowly calmed down, as she was looking up at him with big blue eyes. “That’s what I thought.”
“You’re so natural with her, i’m kind of jealous.” You laughed, wiping the leftovers of your tears. Rafe smiled back at you and sat down near you on the couch, wrapping his free hand around your shoulders to bring you closer. 
“Not as good as you. You’re an amazing mom. We love mommy so much, right, princess?” He tickled your daughter's belly and she giggled, looking between both of you happily. “I meant it when I said it, Y/N. I want you to move in. I want to have you both with me 24/7, because I cannot do it like this anymore.” Rafe almost begged, turning his head in your direction. Your eyes searched for his and the look that you saw there made your heart flutter. 
The thing about Rafe was that he was bad at expressing his feelings, but his eyes always showed you what you wanted to know. And now, when there was nothing but pure love and admiration, you knew that it was true. 
“Okay. I want it too.” You smiled, peacefully resting your head against Rafe’s shoulder, as the worry inside of you finally calmed down.
2K notes · View notes
sincerelyneo · 8 months ago
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will you be reposting the jeno fic you had on your old blog? it was my fave 🥺
here it is <3
fireproof | l.jn
“‘cause no body saves me baby the way you do”
💿now playing: fireproof by one direction
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❯ summary: Your brother Jaemin loves throwing parties when your parents aren’t home — but you hate it. In an attempt to escape the loud music and sweaty bodies you try and head out. But there’s no way your brother’s best friend, Jeno, is letting you wander around the streets so late.
❯ pairings: jeno x fem!reader
❯ genre: smut, brother’s best friend, college!au
❯ words: 8.4k
❯ tags: 18+ minors dni!, smut, masturbation, minor mentions of drug use, drinking, marking, slight protective brother jaemin, begging, spanking, mentions of marking, unprotected sex (don't do this!), oral sex (m/f receiving), fingering, reader uses she/her pronouns, jeno fucks his best friend’s little sister.
a/n: i changed the title hehehe
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This party fucking sucks.
You’re not even drunk. The vodka is watered down, you're sure of it. Your friends ditched you about half an hour ago — disappearing with some of the guys they had been speaking to and seeing. 
"Come to the party with us, they said." You mimic to yourself into your plastic cup. "It'll be fun, they said." 
You scoff taking another swig but pull your face at the awful taste that lingers in your mouth. There are better things you could be doing on a Saturday night, you think. You’re almost positive you saw a new show released on Netflix today. Or better yet, you could be reading some sort of erotic novel that would spice up your Saturday night more than this shit.
But the thing is, this party is at your own fucking house.
Your brother is throwing it. 
Every time your parents go away for one weekend he can’t help but jump at the opportunity to trash the place. You don't see why he can't just have a few of the boys around, have some beers and then call it a night. But no, that isn't exactly Jaemin’s style. 
Of course, he has to invite a bunch of random weirdos that seem to be snorting cocaine off of every surface in this house, and smoking whatever kind of weed they could find. And sure, you’re not impartial to a good night but this... this is not your idea of a good night.
At all.
Sighing, you push through the masses of people, seeing the sweaty bodies that are dry humping one another or eating each other's faces off so much you feel like you’re going to throw up at the sight. 
Stopping in your tracks, you reach into the back pocket of your denim jeans to pull out your phone, seeing that it is half-past midnight. If you know Jaemin — and you did — this was only the beginning of the night. The party is definitely far from over.
Fuck sake.
You put your phone back in your pocket and continue to manoeuvre around the bodies in the hallway. Your stomach growls and you think about how you're drinking on an empty stomach. The only thing open at this time is a Mcdonald's but you don't necessarily want to be that person that sits in McDonald's by themselves on a Saturday night. 
Still, you head for your front door and try your luck at an escape. As you reach your hand out to grab the door handle you smash headfirst into a body. Well to be more specific a chest. A hard chest.
"Ow, fuck!" You lift your hand up, rubbing your forehead.
"Sorry little Na, didn't see you there." You immediately recognise that voice. The deep slowness in which he talks. It’s the only voice that has a straight hotline to your core. 
Yeah, you couldn't ever forget that voice.
You stop rubbing your head and slowly look up, following the lines of his muscled chest that you can see through the tight white t-shirt he's wearing with a pair of denim jeans and converse. Yes you had already checked him out tonight, but you’re only human. And when your eyes meet that sharp jawline, hollowed-out cheekbones and those damming brown eyes, you involuntarily clench your thighs together.
You shun yourself because you know you can’t have him. And that’s the reason why you hate him. 
He's your brother’s best friend.
Lee fucking Jeno.
The worst man on this planet. for many reasons like for one he’s insanely hot. Like too hot. Who on this planet even needs to be that hot? But to make it worse he knows he's hot. Girls are always flying off his arm fueling his ego. He's also selfish and arrogant. 
But the reason you hate him the most, the reason you despise him so much, and avoid him at all costs is because of the burning need — it's past being a want it's a fucking need — to just devour him. Every part of you screams out whenever he is in the same room. 
And you hate it.
You have zero control over your words and actions with him — and he knows it with how much you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of him over the years. Your cheeks tend to grow red without your permission, and oh does he love to point that out.
Ever since your brother brought him home in his first year of high school, they have been inseparable — and you’ve been madly in love.
Well, you’re not in love with the boy. You just, you know, want to rip his clothes off. And let him fuck the living daylights out of you.
"Aw, there they are." He distracts you from your thoughts. 
His eyes are burning straight through you. As if he can tell what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. And right now, you have very infuriating dampness in your panties that wasn't there 30 seconds ago. 
"Those rosy cheeks, are they for me, little Na?" You swat his hand away as it attempts to reach up to caress your cheek or some stupid shit like that.
"Stop that Jeno!” You snap at him, getting angry is your default with him.
It the perfect remedy to keep him away from you, so you don't do something stupid like fuck your brother’s best friend
“Please just get out my way.” 
"Such a pleasant girl, aren't you?" He winks. 
He fucking winks, and your pussy screams in delight. If you were any other girl, you’d be swooning right now. You’d be on your knees begging for it. 
Well, you won't be on your  knees for him.
Ever.
Especially not tonight.
"Just get out of my way, Jeno,” you push him rather hard. 
You knew it wouldn't make him budge if he didn't want it too but he dramatically moved out of your way of the door. You yank it open and dart through onto the front lawn. Halfway down the driveway, a sharp tug on your arm spins you around and you’re  faced with Jeno... again.
"Fuck sake, what do you want?" You shake your arm out of his grip but he doesn't let go. 
You give up, huffing and dropping your shoulders. The two of you are just staring at each other, so much so that you didn't even realise how close you really were. Your chests are almost touching, there is a hair width between you. And due to your height, if you looked forwards you’d be looking at the bottom of his neck, right where you see him gulp before meeting your eyes again. They seem to burn into yours, suddenly growing intense. 
He is the first to look away but he doesn't just look away, no. You watch as his eyes flash down to your lips. Your breath hitches, he sees that and when he looks back to your eyes again, he flashes you a knowing smirk.
Motherfucker. 
"Come back inside." He says as he throws his head to the side, signalling to your house.
"No," you all but stomp your foot.
"You're such a fucking brat, you know that right?" He growls, closing that gap so that your chests touch. There’s an electricity running through you, begging for him. 
"I'm not a fucking brat, I just don't want to be here at this shitty party!” 
You don't break his eye contact, chests still touching. He can sure as hell feel each heavy breath you take and probably every beat of your heart that seems to have sped up since he moved closer.
"Just go inside, go to your room, anything. Just don't fucking leave, your brother would have my balls if I let you go out alone this late at night.” 
You roll your eyes at the mention of your brother. You love him, you really do, but hearing the word brother leaves Jeno’s lips reminds you exactly why he’s even here.
It’s not for you — it’s for Jaemin’s sake. 
"I don't see why either of you care, you've got plenty of booze and girls to keep you occupied to not even notice me gone,” you stand your ground, trying to tug your arm once again but he still won't let go.
However, he has loosened his grip so it isn't so harsh, but it's still locked around your wrist. In fact, you’re sure you feel him drawing little circles on the inner skin with his thumb and that thought alone has you squirming no matter how much you try to ignore it. 
"I think I'd always notice when you're not there," Jeno says under his breath, his face lowering to yours. 
If you didn't know better then you’d think he was about to kiss you. But that can't happen. Can it? 
Everything but your core is saying no. Your whole body is screaming to open up your mouth and say please. But you ignore it — you always do— and try to keep a brave face. But as he gets so close, too close, your eyes automatically flutter shut.
You expect his lips to graze yours but they don't, instead, you feel his cheek against you , only faintly, as his lips skim your ear lobe.
"I think I'd always notice when you're not there because there won't be some childish little brat moaning about not getting her own way." 
Your eyes shoot open as he pulls back, laughing at your flushing cheeks. Your eyes narrow as you finally tug your arm hard enough this time that he has no choice but to release you. 
"I do not moan about not getting my own way and I am not childish nor a brat,” you sneer at him. 
"Sure,-" he huffs, laughing, crossing his arms over his chest. "Whatever you say." 
"Why can’t you just go inside and leave me alone,” you cross your own arms over your chest. 
"No can do." He stands there like some sort of bouncer, you look to your right and see the path only a few steps away. He watches you and says a low, demanding, "Don't." 
But you do it. 
You spin on your heel and run for it. But you only make it two steps before two large arms are wrapped around your waist from behind and you’re being sprung back into a hard chest. Jeno’s one arm sits tightly around your waist, his fingers digging into your hip and you squirm against him. To stop your wriggling, his other hand flies up to grab a hold of your throat, tilting your head back to the rest of his shoulder. 
His eyes flash to his hand around your neck and he takes a deep breath that causes his eyes to flutter shut. Then you feel something growing behind you causing your own eyes to grow wide. He leans forward, lips skimming yours barely. 
“I said don't." It sounded more like a growl than anything and a small whimper escaped your lips. "Are you going to walk inside or am I going to have to carry you?" He whispers still close to your mouth. If you lifted your head slightly, you’d be kissing.
"I'm not going back inside." You sternly reply, he just laughs and his hold loosens on you. 
But he doesn’t free you. Instead he throws you clean over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. 
“Put. Me. Down. Jeno." You scream, hitting his back, but he doesn't listen. Carrying on heading back inside your house. 
Your cheeks are bright red and you stop your attack on Jeno’s back and decide to clench his shirt in your fists and hide your face in it.
"What's going on here?" You hear Jaemin’s voice and your head flies up.
"Your sister tried to escape," Jeno says laughing, bending down to lower you to the ground. 
When he stood back up, you were so close your bodies touched again, your breasts rubbed against his firm chest and your nipples stiffened. His eyes glanced down to them and they darken, then he looks to you again and grabs your shoulders, spinning you around to face your brother. You automatically lifted your arms up and over your breasts to cover the obvious arousal.
"Come on Y/N, you know you can't be walking around aimlessly at night." Jaemin chastises you.
"I'm not a child Jaem," you roll your eyes with a shake of your head.
"So what? Grown ass people still get kidnapped!” 
You groan, I'm going to my room." 
You push past him and head towards the stairs. You turn around seeing Jeno’s smug face knowing he’s got his own way about you coming back inside.
But you won’t give him the satisfaction. You’ll  just sneak out the window and have your perfect escape. He won't know. 
Not like he’ll come to check — right?
You spin on your heel as you hear the sound of footsteps following behind you. Jeno’s there, eyes locked on your ass until he sees you looking back down at him and then cocks his head to the side and smiles innocently. 
“What are you doing?” You spit. 
"Just making sure you actually do go to your room." He flashes his infamous eye smile that has plagued your dreams since you first met him. "And that your windows are locked. Don't want you running away now do we?" he winks at you.
He’s so irritating!
With a huff, you turn around and storm your way up the last couple of stairs, making sure your stomps are extra loud. You can just hear Jeno snickering behind you and that only rattles you even more. When you reach the landing you turn immediately and head to the last door of the hallway and pull it open, stepping inside of your bedroom. You go to slam the door shut but a sneaker covered foot stops in between preventing it.
You immediately roll your eyes and groan. 
"Leave me alone Jeno." You groan, leaning up against the door with your back, pushing it.
"Let me check your windows then I'll leave."
"What kind of request is that?” You sigh, running a hand through your hair. 
"Just let me."
"No."
The two of you enter a stare off — one you both know he’s going to win. And he does, because you don’t even let two whole minutes pass before you’re huffing out a “Fine.” 
He makes his way over to your window, making sure it's locked, then he chuckles, drawing your curtains too. The only thing lightening the room was your bedside lamp that you had an awful habit of leaving on. That, and it was the perfect deterrent to make it look like someone was in there, keeping strangers from having sex on your bed.
“All done?” You ask, breathy. 
He smirks, his eyes flashing to your lips again and you swear to god if he does that one more time you’re either going to kick him in the balls or jump on him and kiss him. 
You force yourself to take a step back and take a deep breath which makes him laugh.
"Well goodnight little Na, don't go sneaking out because I will know about it." He walks off to the door and before he exits you say,
"And how would you possibly know that?"
He looks over his shoulder, his eyes flash up and down your body, "I just will,” he winks then closes the door behind him.
You huff out and stomp your foot like a child. God you needed to grow a backbone and stop letting that idiot mess with you. 
Storming into your bathroom you slam the door shut. You strip off your clothes and turn on the shower. Whilst waiting for it to get up to temperature, you sigh. 
"Let me just lock your windows for ya." You pull a face copying him. "Want me to check that for ya?"
Once you’re done in the shower you climb out of it and dry yourself with a towel. 
"He's so fucking annoying ugh," you say to yourself as you pull the bathroom door open and saunter into your bedroom naked. 
You don't even check to see if anyone was in there, too busy ranting about him. And when you feel the cold draft of your bedroom it makes you realise you had just walked into your unlocked bedroom naked. Immediately, you covered your body remembering the party going on downstairs; but on first glance, it appeared no one was in there. Still you quickly grab your oversized grey t-shirt from the end of your bed, throwing it on over your head, but skipping your underwear. 
Your room was fairly simple with white furniture, a wooden floor, soft pink bedding, a few cuddly toys. The bed lies against the far wall, opposite the door and you leave your lamp on to have a little bit of light to help you sleep. 
Trying to fall asleep you flip over so your back faces the light. You try a few different sleep scenarios but everything keeps going back to Jeno.
And the way his hand gripped around your neck. 
You flip over again, keeping your eyes shut, yet, Jeno just waltzes into your mind continuously. Like he won't leave you alone. You feel so much anger coursing through your blood, yet you have this strange pulling into your core. 
You need to give attention to it — so you do. And as soon as you slip your hand under the covers, the fantasies start rolling in. Jeno’s arms around you, grabbing at your waist, your hips, your ass, your breasts.
Your breath hitches.
His tongue in your mouth, along your skin, tracing your neck and stomach, then between your folds lapping at you. Your eyes shoot open as you clench your thighs together and immediately feel the wetness.
It was just too much to ignore. This wasn’t going away. You already knew that. 
You just needed some relief and then you’ll be free for the night. Jeno never needs to know and it’s not like you haven’t done this exact same thing before over him. 
Your right hand finds your centre first, sliding between the folds and instantly feeling the slick wetness there. Slowly and sensually, you begin moving your fingers in a circular motion. Eyes closing instantly, flashes of Jeno now being played before you.
In your mind, it was no longer your hand but his. Rubbing your clit, sending shivers down your spine and causing a small panting moan to escape you. 
Your left hand begins clutching at the sheets and as you feel your nipples peak and rub against the soft material of your shirt, you have no choice but to swiftly move your hand up and under to take hold of your own breasts and squeeze. You moan again as you begin to work your fingers faster over your clit.
Now in your head, Jeno stood before you shirtless. Seeing the ripples in the muscles of his abs, he flexes his arms, making you grow weaker. But you always felt like this whenever you saw him shirtless at the pool, or the beach. 
And you couldn't deny how fucking sexy he was — you wouldn’t?”
"What’re you thinking about?" 
You pause instantly, back arched, orgasm growing close and eyes squeezed shut. You can't decipher whether that voice was in your head or in real life so you just grow still and relax, trying to pretend it didn’t happen. 
Your breathing which was already heavy, grows even more so, this time with panic and worry. You don't want to open your eyes, scared of what you might see because you recognised that voice.
At least, you’re really fucking hoping Jeno’s voice is all in your head, because you’re seconds away from orgasm.
"I asked you a question." 
Your eyes fly open. He’s definitely not in your head. 
Ripping your hand away from your clit, you pull the other away from your nipple and force yourself into a seated position with your hands splayed behind to hold you up. You scream on instinct, he doesn't so much as flinch as he stands at the end of your bed. 
His eyes are dark, head low and looking up at you through his lashes. He has that smirk on his face, and his hands are fidgeting, rolling his fingers against his palm. Your eyes roam his body as your scream continues and you wish you hadn't, only because your scream turned into a moan as you spied his hard erection pushing against his jeans.
You gasp and look back at his face. 
"What're you doing Jeno?" You whisper-shout, even though the party downstairs would make it difficult for anyone to hear you anyway. 
Still, you didn’t want any party goers walking in on a flustered you in bed with Jeno and his very large, very prominent erection, standing at the base. 
Fuck. It's so big. You can tell from how it's breaking at the seams of his jeans to be let free. Your mouth waters at the sheer thought of his dick — wondering what it looks like, how it feels in your hands, in your mouth — how it tastes. 
Fuck no. Absolutely not. 
You shake your head, trying to rid the thoughts and ignore the fact your core is pulsing right now, begging for one last touch so you can explode into orgasm. You really fucking needed it.
"I asked you what you were thinking about?" He says lowly, and it causes your breathing to still.
“H-how long have you been standing there?" You whimper. 
He shrugs, “That doesn't matter, what does matter is-" he moves his head up, looking you dead in the eyes as he cracks his neck and then his fists in each hand. "-What you were thinking about whilst touching yourself? Was it me?" 
He smirks again and you stood up, throwing the duvet off of your legs. 
"Not a chance," He says sternly. You look at him again, face paling. 
"What do you mean, no?" you ask, cocking your head.
"I mean don't you fucking move-" His tongue came out to lap at his bottom lip as his eyes moved down your body, down your legs. 
You instantly went to grab the duvet again but he grabbed it first, ripping it from the bed and throwing it across the room. You get down on all fours, crawling to try and get it before him. 
"Jeno!" You exclaim, reaching your hand out for it but it was too far away. You look up at him on all fours, and from this angle... God. You gulp. 
"Give me my cover."
You try to wash away every fantasy of being in this position before him but you can't ignore the way you need his hard cock, seeping at the tip and begging for you to lick it, to suck it. 
Stop. No. Not now.
His hand comes to the side of your face, pushing a piece of your hair behind your ear and you shiver at the touch. 
"Lie. Back. On. The. Bed." He commands.
Your eyes flutter shut for a moment and then slowly, you move to follow his command until you are back down on the bed. You keep your legs closed and hands on your stomach. 
You weren’t sure why you’re listening to him — obeying him . But something in you, some instinct is just screaming at you to let this play out, see what he wants.
"Touch yourself." He says and you blanch, your eyes growing wide and you sit up again, but one stern look from him has you lying back down again. "Touch yourself and tell me what you think of, how you feel, tell me everything Y/N."
Your name. He never bothers to call you that. Usually emphasising how you’re his best friend’s little sister with the nickname he’d given you. But honestly, you’re thankful for the nickname because hearing your actual name from his lips, all nasally and sensual, sends you spiralling. 
It makes you putty in his hands. And as for your hands? Well, they slowly spread your legs wide revealing your soaking wet cunt to him. You keep your eyes pierced on him, watching how his breath hitches, eyes glued to you. The way he automatically grabs his cock through his jeans and squeezes is like a reflex. Closing his eyes only briefly before they're back on you, on your core. 
You feel yourself growing red, the heat of embarrassment consuming you whole as you slide your hand down your stomach. As soon as your fingers make contact with your clit, your hips are bucking off of the bed and your back starts to curve. Building up your arousal doesn't take long. You were already half there, teetering on the edge. 
Except this time your eyes lock onto Jeno’s for real whilst your fingers are moving, soft moans leaving your lips. You spy his own hand on his cock, he hasn't pulled it free but he moves his hand back and forth over his shaft. You can see the way his arms tense as he moves and watches you.
You throw your head back with another moan. Seeing him stood there isn't enough, you need something more. You need him climbing on top of you, replacing your fingers with his. His hot breath against your neck as he rubs you harder and faster. 
"What are you thinking about?"
"You." You say breathily.
"What about me?"
Your eyes shoot open to stare at him, he looks tense and flustered. Just as bad as you. His hand stops moving on his cock and you make a mental note that he might've been close. Too close. And this might be over too soon.
"Your fingers on my clit, rubbing me," you throw your head back as the fantasy flashes again. 
"Yes, and what else?" He growls. 
"Your mouth." You breathe again.
"My mouth, huh?" He bites and your fantasy continues. 
"Yes. Everywhere." You cry out, orgasm seconds away. "Your mouth on me, about to- God, Jeno I'm gonna cum,” your back arches, hips bucking, fingers moving so fast and rough. 
"Look at me." Your eyes fly open at the command. "I want you to cum whilst looking at me."
And you do. The sheer dominance radiating off of him is the final straw that has you crashing down. 
Your orgasm rips through you as your hips lift so far off the bed. You moved your fingers through your orgasm, riding it out but finally, your hips fell back to the bed and you let out a heavy breath.
Before you could even open your eyes again, you felt two large arms wrap under your thighs gripping your hips, and suddenly you’re yanked to the end of the bed. Your eyes snap open, and your head lifts up as you spy Jeno on his knees at the end of the bed, his mouth centimetres from your dripping pussy.
"J-Jeno,” you mumble, just the sight of him has you moaning. 
You’re not sure if getting yourself off in front of him was the moment you both decided to cross the line; but now him manoeuvring between your legs, you knew you definitely had. Regardless, you know now you aren't ever going back to the dynamic you had before. 
"I’m gonna make those fantasies come to life baby.” 
He doesn't miss a beat. His tongue comes out and swipes a long lick up and through your folds. All common sense leaves your head as you fall back against the bed. 
"God, you taste so good. I fucking knew you would." 
He’s thought about this? You know you have. 
He repeats the motion again, this time focusing on your clit, making sure to run a smooth stripe along it, circling it only slightly, enough to have you wriggling. One of his hands splays over your stomach, holding your hips down. 
"I want you to cum on my tongue. I want to taste every drop of you,” you gulp, looking down at him between your thighs. You don't miss the dark pupils in his eyes and that daring look, the one telling you to follow his instructions. 
"Jeno, oh my god,” you cry out, your head flying back as his mouth attacks your clit. He sucks it in, flicking his tongue all over in a frenzied motion. 
You know he knows all the right ways to make a girl squirm. And you are fucking squirming. All over the fucking bed, you’d be breaking free from him if he didn't have his large veined hand holding your stomach down. Your stomach is now on show. Your t-shirt has risen up to just below your breasts and you see the way his eyes watch the movement as you move about, tits bouncing around.
And as if he can hear your thoughts he says,
"Take your top off." 
You do it without question, lifting the hem and throwing it over your head. Now you’re laying there completely naked. His hand that was on your stomach comes up and takes hold of one breast, instantly taking your nipple between his fingers and you hear him, no you feel him, moan into your pussy. 
The vibrations cause you to cry out, hands knuckling the bed sheets. 
"You're so fucking hot Y/N, God." He murmurs before attacking you again, his mouth working wonders.
And that tongue. You’re so close. You can feel it. 
Then you feel as he slides two fingers into you. Jeno curls his fingers inside of you, hitting some sort of sensitive spot, and as soon as his fingers massage that area inside you and his mouth returns to your clit, you explode.
You don't even know if the music downstairs would cover your screams as you fell into ecstasy. His hand on your breast doesn’t  move, but the one that had been hooked on your hip moves to splay against your stomach holding you down as he laps at you, riding you through your second orgasm until you couldn’t take it anymore. He pulls his fingers out, then his mouth away from you at just the right time.
You lay there spent. Completely. 
Eyes fluttering open. Jeno stood between your legs looking down at you. His cock looked painful in his jeans. You had once felt exhausted and ready to fall asleep but as soon as you saw his erection you shot up in your seat. You immediately fumble with his jeans until his hand comes to your jaw, pulling your head up to look into his eyes. He stares for a moment before blinking, taking a deep breath.
"You don't have to- I didn't do that for you to-"
"I want to. I want this." You nod eagerly,"I want you.” 
You lick your lips and it's as if something snaps in him, that moment of care vanishes and he lets go of your chin.
"Well then, suck my cock,” he says, standing there and you do as you’re told.
You unfasten his jeans, pull them down and then his underwear. His large erect cock springs free instantly and without a second thought you take hold of him in your hand. Your hands look tiny against his dick. 
You move your hand slowly up and down his cock, and notice how his thighs tense, then his stomach and you follow your eyes up until you meet his face. His head is hung low, eyes dark and hands clenched by his sides. Keeping your eyes on his, you lean forward and spy the precum, flicking your tongue out and taking it in to swallow down with a moan that makes him grunt. 
You moved so that your face was closer to his balls, then you stroked your tongue all along his length, and felt the way he flexed beneath your muscle. There’s a cocky smirk covering your face when you move back to the top and suck his tip into your mouth.
"Do you like sucking my cock?" He asks, his hand threading into your hair to start pulling on the roots to yank your head backwards. 
"Do you like it when I suck your cock, Jeno?" You flip the question with a smile the power in your hands. You continue working him and he flexes his hand in your hair.
"That's how you wanna play?" He grins at you.
You pretend to think for a moment, "I’m not playing anything." You move your head closer down his length, licking  another long stripe hearing how he curses under his breath and thrusts his hips towards you. "I just want to suck your cock." 
With that, you take him into your mouth, sliding down until you reach your limit. You can't take him whole, he’s way too big for that, but you take what you can. He coughs and splutters a bunch of inaudible words, but you just pull back up and repeat the motion, continuing to take him back into your throat. 
His hand stays threaded in your hair, keeping a rough hold so that you can't pull away — not that you wanted to.  
You love every second. Even as you feel him tensing, his hips moving as he thrusts into your mouth. You look up through your lashes to see his head thrown back as he moans out and hisses every so often when you drag your teeth along his cock. You can tell he likes it as the precum coats your tongue. That and the way he doesn't tell you to stop. 
"Do. That. Again."
And you do, watching his head fall forwards."Such a pretty sight, my cock filling your mouth. What do you think your brother would think about this?" he smirks and your face falls pale.
You almost stop sucking his dick but he doesn't let you, slamming his hips forwards so his cock hits the back of your throat.
Your brother.
Not a thought you want to think about right now but it is something you needed to consider. This was his best friend. You’d finally gotten the man so forbidden, always out of bounds. The whole time you didn’t know that he wanted you as much as you wanted him. 
You moan uncontrollably, and it must send vibrations along his cock as you feel it twitch in your mouth, his thrusts become sloppy and his grip on your hand grows tighter. 
"Fuck, Y/N, I'm gonna cum." He grits out. "Are you gonna let me cum in that pretty mouth of yours?" 
You look up at him. You can't speak so you try to nod. 
"God, you’ve always been the death of me," He thrusts several more times as you slide your tongue all over his length and tip. 
You do it a final time as you take him to the back of your throat, gliding your teeth along him which must've been his undoing as you felt the hot steaming cum splatter against the back of your throat. 
You pulled him out your mouth slowly. Even as he is softening he is still thick and large. You kitten lick the tip as he hisses, causing him to loosen his grip in your hair and you sit back, making sure to obviously gulp so he knows you swallowed every last drop of him. Leaning forwards, his hand comes to your chin and he moves his mouth so close to your you think he might kiss you but instead he says,
"Good girl." 
You hate the way those two words made you clench your thighs together. You thought the two orgasms were enough but no, you’re ready for more. You need more. 
He’s quick to remove his shirt, and as he lifts his arms his abs flex. You are point-blank gawking at him standing before you, making him smirk. 
That snaps you out of it. Remembering you are sitting here, soaking wet and naked before him. You crawl back on the bed and then realise you have no duvet so you have to pull your knees to your chest and cross your arms over your knees to cover yourself. 
He watches you, laughs and then shakes his head. He then moves, shoving off his jeans and underwear the rest of the way off until they both land on the floor.
"Wh-What are you doing?" You ask stuttering, thinking he should actually be getting dressed to leave.
"What do you think I'm doing?" he asks. 
Can't he ever just give you a simple answer? 
Then you notice how his cock has sprung to life again and his hand moves to touch it. Moving up and down the length as he cracks his neck.
"You're h-hard again?" You stutter, eyes glued to the impressive size of him. 
"I'm always hard for you baby." He winks and for once, it didn't make you want to punch him. 
"Jeno, we can't." You shake your head.
 You’re already way past the line. Sex would destroy the whole scale. Still, the idea of him, his cock inside of you, whispering filthy things in your ear... it isn't something you can ignore. 
"You want it." He says point blankly. 
You gulp and remain silent. He moves onto the bed, kneeling and then crawls towards you until he is over you. His hair has fallen over his eyes — so fucking hot. "I know you want it, why try to deny it?" He cocks his head to the side, smugly.
"I-I'm not." You fidget. 
“Yes, you are." He ducks his head low, burying it in your neck. You feel his warm breath and your heartbeat rackets so loud. "You don't want to want me to fuck you,” His teeth graze your neck, sending you into a panting mess as he sucks and bites. 
He then pulls away and laps at the mark you know is there, the one he put there as a reminder tomorrow when you come to your senses that you did this.
"So I’ll ask again. What do you want?" He looks down at you, plump pink lips swollen and wet from his constant licking and biting them. 
You’re going to let your brothers best friend fuck you. And you’re going to love every second of it.
Not wasting another moment longer to think, you grab hold of his neck and lift your head whilst pulling him to you to smash your lips together. There’s heat, fire, and explosions of electricity. 
Your hands claw at his neck, his back, his sides. Anything to pull him closer. His crotch, his hard cock, grinds against your soaking hole and you groan out whilst continuing to kiss him. Both so desperate for each other. His hands skim down your body, kneading your breasts, your hips. He grabs hold of anywhere and everywhere. 
His lips detach from yours, giving you a moment to see how swollen they are before they're attacking your neck. He peppers kisses along your jaw, not sweet kisses but hard and sloppy kisses. Sucking and biting the skin causing your back to arch into his chest, pushing your breasts against him, making him moan. He thrusts his hips forwards, his cock sliding between your folds, hitting against your clit making you quiver.
"Fuck, we really shouldn't be doing this." He continues kissing you down your neck, reaching your collar bones that he also decides to leave marks on. 
"Jeno please," you cry out. Both of his hands move to your hips to hold you still. 
"Please what baby?" He smirks before moving lower to take one of your nipples into his mouth.
"Fuck Jeno,” you cry out as he flicks his tongue over the bud, biting it harshly so you cry out again then soothing it with a soft warm suck.
"Please what baby?" He repeats. 
"Fuck me. Now!”
"And what about your brother?" he brings him up again and you roll your eyes. 
"Stop bringing him up," You moan as he takes your other nipple into his mouth, repeating the process.
"He'll kill us if he finds out." he grins.
"Then he can't find out," You pant out of breath as Jeno moves.
His face is so close to yours that your lips are only just touching, his chest is pushed against you and his cock sits lodged between your folds. You try to shift to gain some friction against your clit but his grip holds you still. His eyes flicker across your face then he says,
"I won't tell if you won't?" His lips caress yours in the faintest of movements. You flick your tongue out to wet your lips, but in the process he bites onto your muscle making you wince then moan, "What do you think, huh?” 
There’s no room for discussion — your body won’t let you. 
"I won't tell if you won't."
He doesn't miss a beat once he gets your approval. His lips are on yours as his hips thrust forwards. His cock thrusting inside of you, tearing you open as you pull your mouth away to cry out.
"Holy fuck."
He stills once inside you, making sure to push as far as possible until his pelvis meets your skin. Your legs wrap around his waist instantly.
"You feel so fucking good." He breaks from your kiss to breathe. "I always knew you would but this-" he looks down to where you are connected and he thrusts further, trying to get deeper but he can't possibly. "-this is better than anything I could've imagined." 
"Move, please." You grunt trying to lift your hips to encourage some movement. His eyes fly open, dark and daring. 
"Beg me." He smirks and does a tiny thrust, a teasing thrust.
"Fuck off,” you pant, trying to do it yourself but he uses his hips to pin you to the bed.
"Beg." He smiles and cocks his head to one side. "Me."
You hated his arrogance. But fuck, you want him so bad. So badly that you will beg.
"Please fuck me, Jeno." He pulls out of you and you suck in a deep breath.
"Again." He grins now. 
You can't bear to look at him but looking down means watching as he holds just the tip inside of me.
"Please. Fuck. Me." You pant, half moaning, begging for him. 
He thrusts so hard into you, you wince and moan out in pleasure. He hit so deep inside that you’re sure you’ll bruise.
"Anything for you, Y/N,” he whispers in your ear before sucking and biting on the lobe. 
Then he's pulling out and thrusting into you. Again. And again. And again. Harder and harder each time. Faster and faster. You lose your breath, becoming a big ball of pants and moans — just like  Jeno.
God, the sounds he makes. You’ve never heard someone so vocal before, but fuck it's hot. The small grunts he makes when he fucks you, the groans when you clench around his cock and feel yourself building. He moves his hands under your ass to lift it, plummeting into you from a new angle, going so much deeper.
"Your pussy is so tight. Fuck,” He says between thrusts, and gritted teeth. 
He seems to have found a weak spot right under your ear that has you clenching like mad around his cock. And he loves it. 
"How have you just been there in front of me this whole time? How have I stayed away from you?" He seems to be asking himself because he doesn’t press you for a reply. 
He removes his lips from your neck and sits back on his heels, his cock still inside of you, slowing his thrusts and he lifts your legs up, moving them over his shoulders. His head moves from side to side, placing a soft kiss on each ankle and for one second. You’re dumbfounded as he looks at you, a daring smirk written across his face. 
He wraps his arms around your thighs, locking your legs in a straight position against his chest on either side of his head, and then he begins pounding into you again. However this time, he moves one of his hands to your centre, his thumb moving closer to your clit. You feel how it grazes your nerves. He strums it once. Twice. Three times then you're wriggling around like a mess, back arching off as your orgasm tears through your body and you explode into euphoria. Again.
He rides you through it, fucking you as you clench and squeeze around him. A string of curse words come out of him, you feel him so close but he doesn't cum. He stops stroking your clit as you batted his hand away, you didn't realise you had been clenching the sheets with white knuckles until you relax your hands and feel a cramp in your palm.
Jeno slows his thrusts until he stills inside of you, his chest is moving up and down with each of his heavy breaths. You move your legs off of his shoulders, enjoying the movements as your legs feel strained too.
But as soon as your feet hit the bed, he grabs you and flips you so you land on your stomach. He pulls your hips up and slides into you again.
"Fuck!" You scream as he slams into you unapologetically. One hand holding your hip, the other trails along your back as he begins fucking you from behind. He leans over you, still ploughing, and comes closer to your ear.
"I always wanted to fuck you like this, you are always strutting around showing off, your ass? Do you like teasing me?" 
You don't even know what you like right now. Mind too focused on needed Jeno to fuck you any way he pleased. 
He grins, then shoves your head back down into the mattress, straightening his back and fucks you harder than you think you’ve ever have been before. You couldn't keep up with the movements, head a complete daze from all of the orgasms that he had given you.
You come to a conscious mind when a hard slap lands on your ass, it makes your pussy throb so he does it again, and again, rubbing over the area and soothing it before doing it again. Each time it makes you clench around him. 
"Jeno," you cry out between thrusts.
"Yeah, baby?" His voice sounded so much deeper, which told you he was close. That and the way his thrusts grew random and unstable.
"Want you to cum in me," You moan, clenching the sheets again. 
"I'm not wearing a condom," He grits through his teeth. 
"I'm on the pill,” you manage to say between heavy breaths. You needed him to cum in you now. 
He shakes his head, "Last thing I need is to get my best friend's little sister pregnant." And that was that because he thrust a few more times, then pulls out, and instantly, all over your ass and back you felt a hot liquid splatter about. 
As soon as his grip left your hip you fell straight down onto the mattress, and your body was thankful for it. Everything hurt. He'd destroyed you. Fucked you, well and truly. And you couldn't stop the smile on your face.
"I'll go get a cloth." He said through some heavy breaths then climbed off of the bed and went to your bathroom. He emerged a moment later, used the warm cloth to clean up his mess although you notice him take a minute to look at it.
"Admiring your work?" You asked him through a laugh, he looked at you and shook his head chuckling. 
"Trust me, if I could take a picture I would,” he wipes it away. Then he returned to the bathroom to throw the cloth in the hamper but as soon as he stood in the doorway of you heard three loud knocks on your bedroom door. 
"Y/N? You in there? Have you seen Jeno?" 
You shot up in bed, suddenly not tired or spent. Jeno���s eyes grew wide too.
You lifted your finger to your lips and gestured to Jeno to stay in the bathroom. He didn't hesitate as he shuts the door. 
Jaemin would fucking kill him and you, without a doubt. Only moments ago you had his best friend’s cum covering your ass. 
"One second," you shout,  jumping out of bed and grabbing your T-shirt. Then you rush over to the door, paint on your best sleeping face and yawn whilst opening it. 
"Oh, you were asleep?" Jaemin stood on the other side, hands braced on either side of the door frame.
You fake another yawn. He looks behind you and you turn too, fearful Jeno was standing there but then you spied your duvet cover on the other side of the room. Jamein frowned and looked back to you. 
"I was hot." You shrug. 
"Shit sorry," He quickly says. "I just can't find Jeno anywhere.” 
"He’s your friend not mine.”
"I don’t understand why you two hate each other," He rolls his eyes and you can't help but scoff at the irony. 
Hate wasn’t exactly the word you’d use for the guy that was just 8 inches deep inside of you. 
"Well, he's probably off getting high or fucking some girl.” 
“Better not be in our parent’s bed again,” he huffs, and your eyes go wide. “Fuck, he better not be doing it in my bed either,” he says to himself. 
And with that, he storms away heading for his room. Chuckling, you shut the door and Jeno emerges from the bathroom, a towel now wrapped around his waist and he stands there facing you. 
"That was close."
"Too close." You sigh. 
He dresses himself as you climb back in bed, getting your duvet back on and covering yourself with it. He walks over to the door and pulls it open, peeking outside to check the coast is clear, then once he does he turns to look over his shoulder at you.
"Our secret?" He says.
"Our secret." You nod and he steps out, not looking back and shuts the door.
You lie back on your bed, head falling into your pillows and laugh. 
But then you shake your head processing it all, moving your hand to cover your mouth, looking at the ceiling. 
You just fucked your brother’s best friend.
2K notes · View notes
roosterr · 1 year ago
Note
Hi idk if you're accepting requests but I literally just read the amnesia fic, and I was wondering if I could request where reader suddenly remembers everything, and sprints around base trying to find them, and just jumps on them crying and apologizing for forgetting them. Just some really fluffy comfort? It's okay if you don't want to write this lol
the 141 when you have amnesia – p2
note: i have received your therapy bills :)
wc: 5.2k
warnings: still a bit angsty I'm sorry I couldn't resist, fluff, hurt/comfort, mild injury and blood, happy endings for all I promise
ao3
[part one]
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price
✹ john thought your initial reaction was a good sign. you seemed to be taking things well, considering the extent of your injuries, and it was only a matter of time before your memories returned.
✹ your spirits are high when you're reintroduced to the team, and though you don't remember them either you do say they feel familiar, which he takes as a good sign for your recovery.
✹ when you're finally discharged, he takes you home, to the house that the two of you bought together. he shows you the photos of the two of you that decorate the walls, fondly retelling the stories of each one to you even though you were there, and these are your pictures.
✹ if you notice the way he chokes up when you get to your wedding photos, you don't say anything.
✹ like the true gentleman he is, he insists on sleeping on the sofa and leaving you to take the bed, despite your protests about it being his home too. even though you were receptive, he would never risk making you uncomfortable by sleeping in the same bed when he was, essentially, a stranger.
✹ in all your years of marriage, he's never slept on the sofa before. the two of you rarely go to bed without each other, apart from the times you're separated by your job, and consequently he finds himself not getting much rest.
✹ you're still on leave while you're physically recovering from being in a coma, so john has to go to work without you every morning, something he also hasn't done since you got married. he wishes he could bring you with him anyway, just to have you near him, but he knows that's selfish and you still need time.
✹ the base is dull without you.
✹ again, he keeps up the appearance that he's okay, and maybe it's a little more true this time now that you're actually awake, but he still feels your absence like a weight on his shoulders.
✹ the other three are pleased amongst themselves about your recovery, gaz and soap constantly asking him how you are; and he knows they mean well, but it's still irritating because how could you be okay? you don't even remember your own husband, nothing about this is okay.
✹ he keeps his grievances to himself though. he's still their captain, he can't afford to fall apart when he still has a job to do.
✹ he's woken up one night by soft footsteps in the living room. his neck aches as his eyes snap open, every sense on high alert until he realises it's just you. a quiet grunt escapes him as he sits up, massaging his sore muscles from sleeping on the sofa.
✹ when the sound of muffled crying reaches his ears, he's immediately on his feet, his heart racing as he shuffles over to where you're standing with a hand covering your mouth.
✹ he presses a hand to your back, rubbing soothing circles between your shoulder blades. you don't look at him, your crying only increasing in volume now you're not worried about waking him.
✹ now that he's right next to you, he sees through the darkness that you're holding one of your wedding photos. it's his favourite picture, the one where he's lifting you with an arm around your waist and you're both gazing into each other's eyes with the most lovestruck expression on your faces.
✹ "i– i know i love you, so wh-why can't i just remember you?" you sputter in between sobs, and you might as well have just ripped his heart out of his chest, because he can't stop the way he breaks down at your words.
✹ john wraps both arms tightly around you, caging you to his chest and nestling your head into the crook of his shoulder while pressing his own tear-stained face into the top of your head.
✹ "it's alright, love–" his voice cracks pitifully, and he's never felt quite as hopeless as he does in this moment. "it'll be alright, you'll remember, i promise…"
✹ he's not sure who he's trying to convince, you or himself as you both sink to the floor in each other's embrace. you stay like that for hours, crying for your lost memory into the early morning.
✹ after that, he can't be bothered to pretend he's okay anymore.
✹ he starts drinking again, shamelessly in the middle of the day and grumbling at gaz and ghost when they wrestle the bottle away from him. he knows you'd disapprove, but the toll of lying to himself and everyone around him has caught up. all he wanted was his partner back, the love of his life, you.
✹ the others try to knock some sense into him, but talking to him becomes like going back and forth with a brick wall. gaz even gets kate on the phone to yell at him, but nothing seems to get through. he orders them to leave him alone, stop asking about you, and it really feels like he's lost hope.
✹ it goes on like this for a week straight, nearly a full month since you first woke up.
✹ and then one boring afternoon, there's a commotion outside his office. john hears cheers and shouts from down the corridor, but he can't bring himself to care enough to investigate.
✹ he's not in the mood to celebrate whatever it is they're cheering about anyway.
✹ john's just about to stand and yell at them to shut up, but then you're suddenly standing at his door, slamming it behind you as you rush over to his desk. his face must be the picture of surprise as he swivels in his chair to follow you as you approach, opening his legs for you to stand between them.
✹ his breath catches in his throat as you cup his face, your touch so tender it has his heart hammering against his sternum like the very first time you touched him all those years ago. he plants his hands firmly on your hips, too afraid of getting his hopes up to say a single word as he watches you get closer.
✹ your face hovers just above his, warm breath fanning over his face as you inch ever closer. he sees your eyes glistening before they flutter shut, brushing your lips against his with an anticipation that has his skin tingling.
✹ when you pull away, his eyes stay closed, but he can hear the smile in your voice when you whisper,
✹ "i remember you now."
✹ his heart might’ve actually stopped at your words, surprise shooting through him like a bolt of lightning as his eyes snap open.
✹ in a second, he's lifting you by the waist and dropping you onto his desk, uncaring for the various papers that he brushes out of the way to make room for you.
✹ he can't stop the overjoyed laugh that rumbles in his chest now he's the one standing between your legs, gripping your face and pushing his lips back against your with all the passion he's been bottling up during your recovery.
✹ you smile into the kiss too, wrapping your arms securely around his neck, running your fingers up his neck and through his hair. it feels like a weight has lifted, something heavy in the back of his mind finally dissipating and allowing him to relax into your hold.
✹ the two of you break away after a moment, keeping him close to you as you press your forehead to his. "i'm sorry that i ever forgot you."
✹ "i can think of a way you can make it up to me, love…"
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✹ you're so apologetic about your amnesia, it breaks his heart all over again. what's worse is that he has no idea what to do; he doesn't want to try and force you to remember, that would just stress you out more, but he wants you to remember him so desperately he feels it ache in his bones.
✹ in the end, he decides to just let things play out. he wants you to recover at your own pace, and not just because of him and how he feels about you.
✹ he also doesn't say a word about your relationship, but with how he initially reacted, he's sure you got the idea. you don't mention it either, which admittedly hurts a little, but he's sure the confusion of waking up to having a boyfriend who's name you don't even know is worse than how he feels about it.
✹ kyle vows to take care of you the moment you're discharged. he takes you to your room, shows you where everything is, makes sure you know where he is should you ever need anything, and he even introduces you to the others again.
✹ you still remember your job and how to do it so, once you're physically well enough, you get right back to it. they carry on as normal, the rest of the taskforce – assimilating you back into their nights of drinking and fucking around as if you'd never left.
✹ kyle still doesn't feel right about it.
✹ he doesn't want to treat you like glass, because you're exactly the same as when he first met you. you're still quick-witted, stubborn, and one of the toughest people he knows, you just… don't know him.
✹ it kills him on the inside, but he stays strong for you; the last thing he wants is to become the mess of a man he was when you were out, he doesn't want you to see him like that. he sorely misses spending his nights with you, and talking endlessly about your days to each other. he sends you longing glances every time you look away, wondering if you'd ever feel the same again.
✹ if you can go back to living normally, why can't he?
✹ but as the weeks go by, kyle notices how you start to withdraw, the loneliness that blocks out the light in your eyes that he loves so much. you fade into the background of conversations, sticking to listening rather than engaging.
✹ you watch them from afar, and he still knows you well enough to know what's going through your head. feeling somehow like you belong and also like an outsider at the same time, wishing you could understand the inside jokes you were a part of.
✹ he wishes more than anything that there was something he could do – make you understand that you're wanted, and you're a valuable part of the team even without your memories, but any time he brings it up you simply brush him off with that far away look in your eyes.
✹ three weeks go by before anything changes.
✹ it's the first time in a while they finally have an afternoon off, so of course they decide to spend it playing football on one of the fields within the bounds of the base. soap and ghost on one team, gaz and the captain on the other, with you spectating and keeping score on the sidelines. 
✹ kyle offered to sit out if you wanted to play, but you'd brushed him off with the excuse of wanting to rest and read your book, laying out your jacket on the grass to sit on.
✹ he could tell you weren't all there, but he didn't know how to help you; so he just reassured you that you could call him over if you needed anything, and left you to guard his own jacket and water bottle before running off to join the game.
✹ the whole time he was sprinting around the field, he couldn't stop looking over to you over by the sidelines. he wasn't with it, he hadn't been since you woke up, really, and the others could tell.
✹ price abruptly calls half-time, clapping gaz on the shoulder and giving him a knowing look. "just talk to 'em, before it eats you alive." he chides, pushing him in your direction before he can think to protest.
✹ with a deep sigh and a glace backwards to the others, who shoo him away without a word, he jogs over to where you're sitting. the way the late afternoon sun hits you just right stops kyle dead in his tracks when he catches how it glows in your eyes. he feels a pull in his chest as he approaches you.
✹ you look up from your book as his shadow reaches you, shooting him a tiny smile as he drops himself next to you. he takes a swig from his water bottle as he catches his breath, extremely conscious of the way your teammates are pretending not to watch him while he comes up with the words.
✹ "so, who's winning then?" you ask, turning so you're facing him. he sees how your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes.
✹ "aren't you supposed to be keepin' score?" kyle chuckles, shifting slightly closer to you as you look away with a bashful expression. he allows your hands to brush, wanting nothing more than to lock your fingers together.
✹ "i'm not really paying attention."
✹ there's a beat of silence and that helpless feeling is back as he watches you look back out to the field, where the others are still kicking the ball back and forth.
✹ "how you doin'?" he asks, keeping his voice low as he leans in even closer to you. your mouth opens to respond, that slightly off smile back on your face, but before you can he places his hand fully over yours, giving it a comforting squeeze. "actually."
✹ you sigh, heavy and tired, and bring your gaze back over to his. "it's… hard." you begin, your eyes betraying the internal struggle. "and i'm… i know, before, we were–"
✹ he blinks and you're being sent over backwards by a football flying into your face with a smack that makes kyle's ears ring.
✹ immediately he's crouching over you, helping you sit back up and pressing the sleeve of his jacket to your nose, uncaring for the blood that stains it.
✹ "you alright?" he murmurs, gently holding your face as he inspects your nose. you nod, wincing at the movement, and take the sleeve of his jacket from him.
✹ once he's sure you're okay, his vision turns red with anger. it's pretty obvious who kicked the ball when he whips around to see soap kneeling on the ground with his head in his hands.
✹ "oi!" kyle shouts, sending him a deadly glare as he gets up. "soap, what the fuck!"
✹ the man in question looks up from his hands, an incredibly guilty look on his face. "i'm sorry pal! i dinnae ken what happened!"
✹ "just piss off, you prick!"
✹ kyle looks back to you, crouching down again with a concerned frown; but you're already looking at him, the silhouette of his own form reflected in your wide eyes. your nose is still dripping blood, but you drop his jacket and your hands to your lap anyway, mouth agape as you stare back at him.
✹ "what's wrong? are you–"
✹ you cut him off by tackling him to the ground with your arms around his neck, squeezing a surprised 'oof' from him as you land on top of his chest. one of his hands flies to your waist to steady you, the other carefully cradling your head.
✹ "i remember!" you cry, an elated laugh bubbling up as fresh tears wet your cheeks.
✹ kyle lets out a relieved laugh of his own, craning his neck to plant his lips firmly on yours with an infectious grin. in the background the others groan at the display of affection, but neither of you pay them any mind.
✹ eventually the two of you pull away, a wide smile still plastered on both of your faces as you get up from the grass. he pulls you in with the hand that still hasn't moved from your waist and leans to whisper in your ear,
✹ "fancy kickin' soap's arse?"
✹ "you read my mind."
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✹ johnny's enthusiastic with your recovery. anyone could've guessed that from the moment you woke up he'd be doting, eager to help you in any way you could need.
✹ yes, you didn't remember him, but be was just so ecstatic that you were okay – apart from the amnesia – that he couldn't find it in himself to be disappointed about it. you'd get your memories back soon enough, and then everything would go right back to the way it was.
✹ sometimes he gets a little carried away, forgets that while you are technically in a relationship, he's not much more than a stranger to you right now. more than once you end up having to ask him for some space because he's so incredibly touchy, and you're not sure how to handle it.
✹ you also request a temporary room to sleep in while you recover, separate from him. johnny's not sure how he feels about it.
✹ he feels that sinking feeling in his chest whenever you push him back with a hand on his chest, a polite smile tugging at your lips. it's disheartening, but he tries not to let it get to him. you'll remember soon, and then this will all be in the past.
✹ maybe you'll even laugh about it, how you could ever forget your wonderful boyfriend.
✹ he takes it upon himself to read up on amnesia, so he can better understand how to help you in any way you might need. once he learns that exposure to memories that you've lost can help your recovery, he eagerly convinces you to let him show you places that have meaning to you and your relationship with him.
✹ you agree, and he didn't actually need to do much convincing because you seem just as interested in the idea as him. he knocks on your door the following evening, offering you a single rose before whisking you away with a charming smile.
✹ he takes you on your first date all over again, with the same level of enthusiasm as before. he treats you to dinner at a relatively nice restaurant, telling you all about how the two of you got together in the first place, and memories you have together. he even orders you dessert, recalling with a chuckle how he accidentally guessed your favourite on your actual first date.
✹ once you both finish eating, he guides you by the hand to the canal for the second half of the date, a romantic moonlit stroll by the water. he pulls you close with an arm around your shoulders, meeting your eyes with a fond smile and a blush dusting his cheeks.
✹ "hold on…" you mutter, a pensive expression taking over your face as you stop walking. you turn to gaze at the water, seemingly working something out in your mind. "this… this is where gaz fell into the river that one time, right?"
✹ johnny's heart misses a beat, his eyes lighting up with renewed, excited hope as he grins at you. "you remember?"
✹ "a little, yeah," you smile, dropping your gaze and hands from his with a sorry scratch at the back of your neck. "the rest is still blank, though…"
✹ his smile falters, but he's quick to make sure you don't see his disappointment by pulling you into a reassuring hug. "that's still somethin'! you'll be good as new in nae time!"
✹ the next morning, he finds you and gaz in the rec room on one of the couches, talking animatedly with each other. that familiar shine is in your eyes, the sight johnny's been missing for the last few months. it makes his heart feel light, finally seeing you acting like your normal self again after so long.
✹ he approaches you both, watching you fondly as you talk and laugh with gaz, but his good mood is soured when you only briefly acknowledge his arrival when he sits down across from you, before resuming your conversation with gaz. his brow twitches downwards.
✹ gaz is one of your closest friends, and he’s glad you remembered him. he's happy that you got part of your memory back, even if it wasn't a part that included him.
✹ this was a good thing. you'd remember him soon, he was sure of it.
✹ a few more days pass until anything else notable happens. while you were in the gym together, you told him you felt a headache coming on, so he offered to walk you to the infirmary for some painkillers. the casual conversation you made on the way wouldn't have bothered him before, but he just couldn't shake the image of you and gaz being so comfortable, while he's still stuck on the outside.
✹ he doesn't say anything though. making you feel bad about it won't solve anything, and it's not like you're doing it on purpose, he knows you wouldn't do that to him. you were just excited to have a familiar face, that's all.
✹ while you're waiting for the medic on call, your head suddenly snaps to attention and you get that same pensive look on your face as that night by the river.
✹ "you got something?" johnny asks, bringing his hand up to rest on your upper back. he doesn't want to get his hopes up, but he can't help the way his heart flutters with optimism.
✹ you nod, a smile growing on your features. "i remember that time lt. dislocated my shoulder, and price basically forced him apologise to me," you laugh, thankfully facing away from johnny as his lips turn downwards, "god, he was pissed, it was honestly kinda funny."
✹ "what, uhm…" he lightly clears his throat, hoping you don't hear the dejection in his voice, "what about me?"
✹ you meet his eyes again with an apologetic shake of your head. "i'm sorry, soap…"
✹ "yer fine, it's–" he swallows thickly, waving you off with an exaggerated smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, "this is good, it's progress."
✹ since then, he's given you more space. it's clear to him that his efforts aren't helping you remember him, it actually feels like it's having the opposite effect. of course, he's glad you remember your friends, but you still don't remember him – your own boyfriend.
✹ it's wrong, and he knows it is, but he's jealous.
✹ he has to watch you carry on like usual, without him. you haven't set foot in the room you used to share together since before you were comatose. he's done his best to disguise how much it hurts, but it still annoys him how no one else seems to notice how wrong it all is. the others don't need you like he does, they don't lay awake at night going over every moment, treasuring the time you called him yours, yearning with every fibre of his being to go back.
✹ it's been a month and a half since you woke up, six weeks of being so close yet so unbearably far from you. he prays to any god that will listen to bring you back to him, allow him to hold you in his arms once more, but nothing ever changes.
✹ the thread he's been hanging on by ever since you went down on that mission gone wrong is one more bad day away from snapping.
✹ he's approached by gaz one morning, while waiting for the others to begin training, who takes it upon himself to ask johnny about how you're recovering. when gaz teases him about how he was the first person you remembered, and johnny thinks he might just strangle him.
✹ "careful, soap, i might steal 'em away," gaz laughs, patting his shoulder with a camaraderie soap scoffs at.
✹ "shut the fuck up." he snarls, his face bunched in a strikingly out of character scowl. his hands twitch at his sides, nails digging painfully into his palms.
✹ gaz blinks, his eyebrows shooting up, clearly taken aback by the hostility from his friend. "alright, i was only jokin', mate."
✹ "aye, well, i'm nae laughin'."
✹ the tension is stifling. he can tell gaz wants to say something more, but he holds his tongue – too worried about upsetting soap any further.
✹ they stand in silence with each other like that for a while, gaz watching him from the corner of his eye while he keeps his gaze firmly on the grass below him.
✹ thankfully, after not too long the uneasy atmosphere is interrupted by a shout from the direction of the building, "johnny!"
✹ his head snaps to attention to see you, grinning uncontrollably and sprinting towards him at full speed.
✹ "wha–" he's caught off guard by how you leap into his arms, hooking your arms around his neck as he stumbles backwards in surprise.
✹ before he has time to question your actions, you're smashing your lips against his in a searing kiss that has johnny's head spinning. he wastes no time in reciprocating, securing one arm around your waist and bringing the other to the back of your head, using it you press you impossibly closer to him as he groans into your mouth.
✹ you reluctantly pull away, just enough to take a shaky breath, but johnny's had stays put on the back of your head. "i'm sorry i forgot, i'm sorry…" you mumble against his lips, dragging your fingers through the unkempt hair of his mohawk.
✹ he drops his head into the juncture of you neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply the scent of you that he's gone so long without. he laughs into you, slightly delirious and just so overjoyed to have you in his arms again that feels his eyes sting with tears.
✹ "i've missed you, bonnie," he chuckles wetly, pressing his lips back to yours in another desperate kiss, "i've missed you so much,"
✹ "i'll never forget you again."
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ghost
✹ he avoids you like the plague.
✹ or he tries to, at least. but truth be told, after spending so much time learning to be vulnerable around you and allowing you into his guarded heart, it's difficult to go back to being a stranger to you.
✹ that, and he doesn't actually want to.
✹ but he needs to. being around you, the love of his life, knowing that you don't remember him, it's like a knife stuck between his ribs. any time he's in the same room as you he finds himself fighting the urge to grab your hand, or press his forehead against you.
✹ he knows you don't want him anymore, the last thing you deserve is a giant of a man – who you're clearly afraid of, even if you won't say it – hanging around you like a shadow.
✹ you're still kind to him, because of course you are, checking in on him and trying to talk to him any opportunity you get. it's nice, sometimes he can even pretend everything is normal when he shares a laugh with you, but then he sees the hesitance in your eyes and he's brought back to the cold reality of the situation.
✹ the weeks drag like this, every fleeting look from you another bleeding wound on his heart.
✹ he keeps it together surprisingly well, all things considered, but the breaking point comes when you find him having a smoke one night, on a bench just outside the barracks.
✹ "simon?" your voice cuts through the silence, his eyes snapping to you as you sit down next to him. he takes another long drag from his cigarette as he watches you, uncertainty in your voice as you continue, "can you tell me about… me? and us?"
✹ no matter how much he thinks he should, he can't look away from your pleading gaze.
✹ "we… you're everything to me," simon mutters, dropping his cigarette and putting it out with the heel of his boot, "i've never felt the way i do with you before, you've helped me more than you could ever know…"
✹ his vision blurs with unshed tears. the sadness on your face starts and ache in his heart, the desire to take you into his arms and just hold you making his skin bristle.
✹ "you don't have to feel the same way, but…" he pulls the balaclava from his head, setting it on the bench in the space between you, bearing his face to you like he always does, "even if you never get your memory back, i'll always love you."
✹ the way you look at him makes it so incredibly difficult not to cry. your eyes are glassy and far away, your bottom lip pulled between your teeth with an expression that screams guilt – but it's not your fault, and he'd never blame you.
✹ you open your mouth to say something, but the words never materialise. the night stays silent, and simon expects it, but it still makes his bones ache with a heaviness that he knows he can't shake.
✹ he stands, picking up his balaclava, and walks quietly past you to the barracks door. there's no fleeting look, not this time. he disappears to his room without another word.
✹ he's not sure how much later it is when he hears a knock on his door. minutes, hours, it didn't matter. it all blends together now.
✹ when he doesn't bother to answer, whoever it is lets themselves in, shutting the door gently behind themselves. he sits up with the intention of chewing them out, but when he opens his eyes they land on your form, curled in on yourself and shuffling quickly over to him.
✹ you're here, in his room, with a face that looks like you've been crying for hours, puffy and tear-stained with bloodshot eyes.
✹ he almost thinks he's dreaming, but the warmth as you wrap your arms around him and bring his face to your chest is too real, too familiar. he brings his arms up  around your waist, releasing a shaky sigh into your skin as he squeezes you tighter against him.
✹ a few hot tears meet the top of his head as you whisper to him the words he's been waiting, longing to hear, rocking gently from side to side.
✹ "i remember, si."
✹ it feels like he can finally rest, like the state of being he's been living in for the last few months melts away with your touch and he feels safe again.
✹ with his grip around your waist, he hoists you onto his bed to lay back down with him, holding you tightly against his chest, your heart right beside his own racing one.
✹ you cradle his face again, pressing your lips to his face over and over, touching every inch of him with your love.
✹ "i'm sorry…" you whisper like a mantra, punctuating every kiss with an apology that makes his throat constrict with the raw emotion he feels. "i'm sorry,"
✹ "don't be…" he mirrors how you hold his face, tangling his legs with yours as he captures your mouth and pours every ounce of passion he has into the way he kisses you. "don't be, love."
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pomefioredove · 5 months ago
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Hiya! Hope you're doing okay, and take it easy if you haven't been!
For the flirty prompts starters list, could you maybe do: "Stop saying things that make me want to kiss the hell out of you." with Vil? I think it'd be a good one
Thanks!
(I hope you have fun writing this if you do! No biggie if you don't or if someone else already asked!)
GIGGLING SO MUCH
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summary: "stop saying things that make me want to kiss the hell out of you" type of post: short fic characters: vil additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, Vil experiencing cuteness aggression.jpg, not proofread a part of this event
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Vil considers himself to be an eloquent man.
After all, how one speaks is just as important as how one carries themselves, and every last inch of him, from his looks to his body language to his words, have been refined to perfection. Each a golden thread in the dazzling tapestry that is Vil Schoenheit.
And yet, despite that, he still can't seem to find a way to describe you.
Frustrating is not quite right. Epel is frustrating. Those first years you insist on spending your precious time with are frustrating. But you...
You are not annoying, nor are you incompetent. His usual vocabulary for the students of NRC is useless when it comes to you.
...And different is too vague.
Vil just seems to forget what to do with his hands when you're around.
You look so soft in the golden afternoon light of the lounge, which is distracting enough as it is. Now you're giggling in the way you do, and he can't concentrate, and... what was he doing, again?
"Stop that," he says, plainly, not looking up from the textbook he'd been reading. Or trying to, anyway. He'd lost his place some time ago.
You make this... sound, this confused little hum, and he pictures you tilting your head to the side like a puppy. Sevens, you're just so...
He huffs. "I said, stop,"
"Stop what?"
Clueless little thing. Vil sighs, finding it within himself to make eye contact. He'd given up on finishing this assignment early, anyway.
"You know what,"
You stare back, unblinking. Are you really so oblivious? No, there's no way you aren't doing this on purpose, whatever it is, just to get on his nerves. Did those friends of yours put you up to this?
He should scold you. He invited you to study with him, a luxury which many would pay millions for, and here you are, being...
Ugh. He still can't think of the right word.
"Am I being too loud?" you ask, a confused lilt in your voice.
Sevens, you are so dense, he wants to just grab you and squeeze you like a stress ball until a thought comes out of that empty head.
The thought of that is no help. If anything, it just bothers him more.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. Are you really not doing this on purpose? "No. You're distracting me,"
"Oh... sorry,"
...In such a soft, meek little tone, like you really feel bad about it, looking up at him with those eyes of yours... ugh. He wants to bite you, squeeze you in his arms until this overwhelming, restless feeling passes. You're so...
"It's... fine," Vil relents. "I don't think I would've gotten much done today, anyway."
You actually tilt your head to the side this time, worsening his condition. "Something on your mind?"
Sevens, what are you doing to him? He can't sit still. He pictures himself reaching across the table to pinch your cheeks, to kiss that sweet, worried expression off your face. The effect you have...
And you're not even doing anything!
"No," he says, his voice strained with the weight of the lie. "Just burnout. It's a busy time of year for me."
You seem to take that as a cue, standing from your seat with wide eyes and holding out a hand, much to his chagrin.
"You should be resting, then. Overworking yourself will only make things worse. Come on, let's go back,"
Such a determined expression on that pretty face of yours. There's just something about how you respond so innocently, so intent on caring for him, you're...
You're so...
Vil feels his heart drop. Oh, Sevens. That's the word.
You're so cute.
"Stop that," he snaps. He can feel his face warming. "This is the last time I'll ask."
A little flash of annoyance crosses your face at his dismissal. How adorable...
"Stop what?" You repeat.
Even your scoff is cute. His face feels hot. He can handle beautiful. Gorgeous, pretty, sexy, even, But not cute. And now he's getting himself all worked up over it, and you're being so sweet, and...
"Stop saying things that make me want to kiss the hell out of you!"
Nothing has ever had such an effect on him before.
After all, it would take something incredible to fluster Vil- and here he is, blurting out every thought he has, blushing like a schoolgirl as he realizes what just came out of his mouth.
Vil Schoenheit, suddenly terrified of being rejected. It was as if he'd woken up in a parallel universe.
Or died, and went to his own personal Hell.
The shock slowly wears off your face, and you... laugh.
You laugh.
"You're very forward,"
"I'll take that as a compliment, and not the way you meant it," he mumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. "Though I'm failing to find what's so amusing."
You move around the table to sit next to him, eyes gleaming. "How would you like me to react, then?"
Vil stares back. Was that... flirtation? Perhaps you're not so oblivious, after all...
But still cute.
Still very cute.
He sighs, though there's a smile playing at his lips now. "Save me the embarrassment of being rejected,"
"Hmm... I suppose that can be arranged,"
And with that, he cups your face in his hands and draws you in for that kiss.
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heavysighing-dreamyeyes · 3 months ago
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God ever since reading A Gilded Cage I cant get the thought out of my head of a part 2 where Reader doesn't see Jason for a few days after the revelation. Like maybe he thinks he's being kind and giving us some time to process, maybe he's on his angst again, or maybe some outside factor has taken his attention so the only time he's able to visit is while we're asleep.
And the whole night of the reveal feels like a fever dream when we wake up but there's a blanket draped over us and a fuzzy little kitten purring up a storm on our chest (in my heart his name is Bean (short for Toebean)), so we're at least kind of sure it happened. But as the time passes with no sign of Jason our certainty begins to wane and until we finally get fed up and write on the notepad the first thing we've asked for since that night: "You."
Or something like that idek okay I've been over here clawing at my walls frothing at the mouth I never really even liked ak!Jason before reading your stuff and now I'm feral for him and its all your fault and I'm not even mad about it
A Glimmering Collar
AKA Part Two of this series. Ahh, nonnie, you literally cooked with this. I love when my fics inspire people enough to keep thinking on them! Seriously, ty for dropping these ideas in my inbox cause I had nothing going on in my brain for a part two initially. Hope you enjoy!
~2.6k words
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You wake up to something tickling your nose. Your body feels heavy, your mind even more so. Nothing in you is ready to open your eyes, to face the fact that last night could all have been a dream. That he isn't– that was just a dream.
Something soft flicks your nose again, and you force your eyes open. You blink hard once. Then twice. It's a kitten. It's tiny, and it's sitting by your face. Every few seconds, its tail sways and brushes your nose.
Oh. You sit up slowly, trying not to frighten the small thing. It looks at you contently over its shoulder and meows. The kitten stretches as you stare at it, then plops itself directly on the blanket resting over your lap.
Huh. There's a blanket you definitely don't remember grabbing sprawled over your legs. You carefully reach down to pet the kitten's head. Your heart melts a little when it nuzzles your fingers and purrs.
You look around the room slowly. Nothing else looks different. The notepad is still in place, but the kitten and blanket all point to one thing. Last night was real. Jason is alive. Jason is the Arkham Knight.
You're trying to wrap your brain around that when the door flies open, nearly making you jump out of your skin.
"Good morning!!" A flurry of voice call from the doorway. Your eyes widen as three brightly dressed people strut their way into your apartment, "Are you ready for your shopping trip, hun?"
"My– excuse me?" You stumble out, tucking the kitten to your chest as you stand.
They giggle, and one of them steps forward, "Your shopping trip, sweetie! And spa day, of course. Oh, ha, we haven't even been introduced, have we? I'm Krystal with a K, she's Destini with an i and he's Robbi also with an i."
Robbi huffs and walks up to you to pet your kitten, "Why can't you ever introduce Destini second? She can be Destini also with an i, ya know."
The other girl walks up to you as well and picks affectionately at your clothes, "Because it's alphabetical that way, Robbi. Now you better go get dressed, we have brunch reservations and mimosa plans!"
"I– sorry? What?" You ask, eyes darting between the three of them. Whatever this is, you can't keep up. You've barely processed Jason kidnapped you, and now you're supposed to go get a massage and drinks?
"The boss wants you to go out," a flat voice cuts in. You're the only one that stiffens at the sight of two large men stepping through the door.
Krystal speaks up, "We're here to make sure you have a good time! And Mack and John are here to keep us safe!"
"Mack and John," You echo weakly.
"Your body guards, silly," Destini chirps, ushering you to your room. She plucks the kitten from your hands, "Now get dressed! Wear something nice!"
You stare at the door as she shuts it. What just happened? You hear them chattering happily in the kitchen, idly talking about pregaming your shopping trip.
Your whole mind is a mess, and you sluggishly get ready, thoughts whirling. You've barely talked to soul since you were kidnapped, and now you have five new names to remember, a kitten, and a day out.
You're not exactly sure if you should be unsettled or grateful at how quickly Jason worked to get you what you asked for. By the time you've opened your bedroom door, Krystal, Destini and Robbi are passing around a flask, and playfully trying to get your 'bodyguards' to drink it.
You wonder what they must think of all this. Who they think you are. You're struck with the realization that Jason must be paying them to entertain you today.
You don't get to linger on the thought before Robbi hooked his arm with yours, dragging you towards the door, "Let's gooo, the brunch place we're going to does the best pineapple mimosas. Or cherry, if that's your thing."
"Wait," Mack– or John, you're not exactly sure which one is which– stops you, "Boss wants you to wear this."
The girls and Robbi coo in awe when Mack opens a box, revealing a glittery, jaw-dropping choker. You waver at the sight of it. It's not that it doesn't match what you're wearing. You'd dressed up like Destini suggested, but it feels like some kind of trap.
You reluctantly pick up the necklace, eyeing how it catches the light, "Is it– are sure it's safe to wear this out?" Safety isn't really what you're concerned about at the moment.
You're more worried about the crushing weight that this means more than you understand.
John nods once, "There won't be any problems."
Krystal happily plucks the necklace from your fingers, and before you have time to argue, she drapes the necklace around your throat. "It's beautiful, hun. Just like you. Let's go get you something to eat," her voice is soft, measured, and full of so much understanding it makes you want to cry.
You don't know much they know, but when she hooks her arm with yours to guide you out the door, you have a feeling there's more awareness than their bubbly attitudes let on.
The day ends up being wonderful. Being around people, out under the sun (the sun Gotham does get), was rejuvenating. You had fun, joked, smiled, and for a day, it was almost like you didn't have a prison cell to go back to.
The food was delicious, the spa relaxing, and you didn't have to carry back a single bag. Krystal had flashed a black card at every payment, every place ever could want to shop at, reassuring you it's all been taken care of.
But the time you've collapsed on the couch, exhausted but content, the uneasy feelings from this morning are gone.
You settle on the cushions to wait for Jason. To thank him for listening or to yell at him for still keeping you here, you're not exactly sure yet.
But he doesn't come, you fall asleep in your expensive necklace and pretty clothes with one hand petting your kitten. He doesn't come the next day either, at least not while you're awake, but Krystal, Destini, and Robbi do.
Your friends, the people being paid to entertain you are nice, perfect even. They're exactly what you would have asked for.
Your kitten is perfect too, it cuddles with you at night and nuzzles under your chin after you're left alone, when the unease finds its way back to you.
It's been days since you've seen him. It's starting to feel like a lifetime. You know he comes back after you fall asleep, he moves things. You think it's his way of showing that he listened, that he came back because you asked.
The notepad, the one you haven't written on since that night, shifts closer to you on the glass table if you sleep on the couch.
The glimmering choker gets pulled out of the drawer every time you try to put it away. Your kitten has a growing collection of toys and things to climb on.
It's obvious he's visiting, so why won't he let you see him? Day five of dancing around each other breaks you. You want to see him, want to talk to him, and understand. You want Jason.
Your hand shakes a little, when you go to write on the notepad, and when you wake up the next morning, the paper is blank again.
You wait. You wait some more. All day you wait for him. No one else comes. It's strangely quiet, with just you and your kitten. You've just about given up, collapsed in your bed, when the glowing whites of his helmet catch your attention.
You sit up quickly and throw your legs off the bed as you stare into the doorway, "You came."
"Did you mean it," he asks, any emotion he's feeling hidden by the aggravating modulator.
"Mean what," You question, standing off the bed to walk closer to him, "Will you take the mask off?"
He doesn't move for a moment, just takes in the sight of you. The silence that drags almost makes you regret the question, but he carefully pulls off his helmet, "What you wrote. That you wanted me."
"I– yeah, Jason. I haven't– it's been days since I saw you," You only notice mid sentence that his hand is reaching for your face, it makes your voice waver. "You never answered any of my questions," You finish weakly.
His hand stills and he drops it, "Questions. That's what you wanted?"
You nod a little, searching his face for any hint of what he's feeling, but he gives nothing away.
He sighs softly, and looks away, adjusting his helmet under his arm. You think he might look disappointed, "I can't give you the answers you're looking for."
"Why not," You question softly, worried to push him away.
Jason turns his focus back to you, "I just need you to stay here. Please," he sighs out your name, and his hand twitches as if to touch you, "Don't fight me on this."
"That's not fair," You mumble, "Why am I here, Jason? You know I would have listened if you came to talk to me instead of– this."
Silence falls again, and he steps past you into your room. He sets his helmet on your dresser and picks up the choker resting on the wooden surface, "I wish you would wear this. I picked it out for you."
"Jason," You start, tracking his movements.
"I know," he cuts you off, "but I told you, you don't need to understand anything." You stiffen when he steps back towards you and guides you to turn around.
The air leaves your lungs as his gloves brush over your skin. He sets the necklace around your throat, and even after it rests heavy against your skin, his touch lingers.
"You just need to stay here. It's safe. I've given you everything you've asked for, and everything you haven't," Jason says softly, stepping out from behind you. His gaze lingers on your neck for a moment, and the stifling, unexplainable feeling sets back into your gut.
Your words stick in your throat. There's a sense of danger, one that doesn't make sense. Jason wouldn't hurt you. Not the Jason you know. But is this the Jason you know? The thought makes you want to tear the choker from your skin and throw it at him.
"It feels like a collar," You say quietly, and your breath hitches when his gaze snaps go yours, "I mean, it's pretty. Really. But, it feels– like it's more," You stumble out.
He nods slowly, and he doesn't stop himself from touching you this time. His fingers trace the choker, linger over your collarbones, brush along your pulse, "Maybe it is."
You blink at him, every thought flying from your brain, "What?"
He hums softly, hooking a finger under the shiny jewels to draw you closer, "Does that scare you? Knowing that you can't leave? Knowing that no matter how pretty these are, it's just another way to keep you?"
"You wouldn't hurt me," you say instead, it sounds like you believe it, but you're not sure if you're trying to convince yourself or him.
"I don't want to," He admits, fingers leaving your throat to trail up your jaw, "but I probably could."
"I don't believe that. I remember–" He tuts, tapping your cheek. Your heart drops when you realize he's mirroring where his own brand is.
"I'm not what you remember," he says firmly, before whispering your name, "I'm not that Jason. Not really."
"Then who are you," You ask, even though you don't want to know the answer. You want to pretend he's still something you know.
His eyes dart over your face, then back down to the necklace, "I'm still Jason. But I'm also the Arkham Knight."
"What does that mean," You push, reach up to grab his wrist, demanding his attention, demanding real answers.
"It means that you stay. It means that I give you what you want. Everything and anything except leaving," he says, voice lowering to something kinder, gentler, "it'll make sense eventually. You'll be happy here. Safe."
"Will that make you happy?" You ask, fingers tightening on his wrist. Half of you wants to pull him away, stop him from tracing patterns over your cheek, but the other part of you wants to press his hand closer.
Something flicks in his eyes at your words, "Yes."
"Will it keep you safe?" You murmur, eyes locked on his.
He doesn't answer, clenching and unclenching his jaw for a moment, "Safety is an option I don't have."
"It could be, if you wanted it," You say, dropping his wrist. It must be true. Even with all the secrets he's keeping, his evasive disappearing act, he could take off the armor. Leave behind the new symbol engraved over his chest.
He laughs a little and swipes his thumb under your eye, "I'm glad that you don't understand. It's good, that they didn't twist you into something unrecognizable."
"Understand?" You prompt, unsettled by his laughter.
"That they need to pay. All of them do," he smiles a little, it's a mockery of the one you remember. Jason traces the choker one last time before stepping back.
"You're leaving," You say, not a question, a statement of fact. He's leaving, without explaining anything again.
"I am," he affirms, moving to grab his helmet.
"I want you to stay," You breathe out and he freezes in place.
He exhales softly and faces you again, "You don't know what you're asking."
"I do. I want you to stay," You repeat, reaching out to push his helmet back towards the dresser.
"And then what?" He asks lowly, a warning, "What do you expect to happen?"
It makes you waver, "I– I don't know. But it's what I want."
It's another long moment of nothing before he answers, gesturing towards the bed, "Go to sleep."
"You'll stay?"
He nods at your question, unceremoniously dragging the chair from your desk to your bedside.
"Is that going to be comfortable–" You begin, settling yourself in the bed.
"You're overthinking it," he mumbles, waving at you to lay down. You do, watching as your kitten jumps into his lap, curling up like this is something that happens all the time. (You have the feeling it is) "Have you named him," he asks quietly.
"The kitten? Mm, no. Wanted you to," You say softly, carefully not to unsettle either of them.
"I wouldn't be good at it," Jason protests, eyes flicking between you and the kitten.
"I don't mind," You murmur, "anything's better than 'kitten'."
He pauses, so quiet and still you think he won't answer, "Bean," he mumbles, reluctant as the newly appointed Bean cuddles into his armor.
You smile, "Bean's a good name."
He doesn't answer, seemingly engrossed with watching the kitten.
You take him in for another moment, memorizing his face before closing your eyes. It's not an accident that you leave your palm open and face up by the side of the bed.
There's no more pleasantries exchanged, no sweet goodnights or the gentle touches against your face you've grown used to. But just as you finally start to drift off, as darkness finally draws you to rest, a warm, rough hand weaves itself into yours and squeezes.
Part Three
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bamsara · 2 months ago
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I'll ask, if it hasn't been already - regarding the tags on the fanfic poll:
What kinda things make you click out/give you the squick? I'm so curious 👀
rubs my hands together: could be a mix of things anywhere between character dynamics, personalities or even how the fic is formated
Btw for people who don't know what squicks are: 'Squicks' are just personal preferences that someone doesn't like. Nothing wrong with em it's just not your vibe. (Exp: Like how all my friends HATE tomatoes but I am tomato eater forever)
anyway long ramble list:
Can't read big blocks of text without breaks very well, and I dislike when characters (esp main characters that are talking in every chapter/scene) have bolded or italicized dialogue. I think it's fine for special reoccurring characters but it genuinely messes up with reading flow for me when it comes to taking in information if used too much
If I'm reading a fic specifically for a monogamous romantic paring, I don't care for the 'past lover interest reappears' trope or one of them currently has one, or the love triangle that results in one of them being like 'oh but i love them both i can't possibly choose!' *cough twilight cough* it just makes the relationship feel disgenuine and icky. zero stars. Any mention of a character's past relationship usually makes me just click out, just personally not here for that
-^^^ to go with this, big fan of the 'misunderstanding where someone thinks there's a love rivelry but the third person never had a chance.' Like to the main pairing there's only eyes for each other and that's all they care about, there's just some third person who's there and causing problems (either because someone in the pairing is jealous of the third person thinking they're gonna steal the other when it's not, or the third person thinks they're a love rival when in reality they're not even thought about) *cough Tyren cough*. I think there's a lotta comedy to have with this. Bonus points if it brings main pairing closer together
When characters have linear character development and recovery. I prefer my characters to realistically relapse and bit a little bit of a hypocrite as they develop from start of story to end. Failing and falling short and again makes the final result much more satisfying when they're healing
When characters use 'therapy speak' or otherwise react perfectly 'acceptable' to stressful situations. Again, I prefer realistic depictions of characters under stress, and work out becoming better under that stress rather than just One Big Thing Happen and suddenly they're never going to react negatively or lash out again because another character told them It Was Bad and To find Better Coping Mechanisms.
Unhappy endings. (Or open ended ones) Sorry for hurt/no comfort lovers but none of my fics will have unhappy endings. I like my stories to have people that go through absolute hell and still come out on the otherside
The ace in me doesn't care for fics where physical attraction is a large part of the ingredients that gets the pairing together. Not saying they can't admire each other when the sunlight hits them or wearing a nice outfit but just not a fan of reading about how 'sexy' a character is to another. Probably why I usually blast all my characters with the aspec beam
That's all I can think of off the top of my head but if someone had a more specific question I might be able to answer
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pseudowho · 6 months ago
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Surely mister perfect dad-husband-lover Nanami babywears? I could see him in a big woven wrap, maybe one in the same pattern as his tie?
And once the baby is a toddler, tossing them on his back while they run errands about town?
Bonus: would Higuruma? I haven’t read the manga so I only really know of him and his traits via fandom…
Nanami Kento: He absolutely babywears 👏👏 I think he'd be into the reliability of a structured carrier myself, but would absolutely fall apart if Mrs.Nanami has one made with a bespoke, tie-matching pattern.
I think he'd also have a meticulously organised baby bag with snacks, outfit changes, medicine, etc. Truly, a prepared king. He finds it uniquely frustrating that most baby-change rooms are in women's only bathrooms.
I think he'd have a back carrier for a toddler, but he'd encourage them to walk as much as he could, wearing the carrier just in case. They'd get thrown on his back when he needs to carry stuff though. He'd check they're awake back there by doing the Reach Back and Offer Snack technique...if a little hand comes out to take the snack, they're awake 😌
He'd be talking to people while babywearing, his usual low, stern voice, and would randomly interject every now and then with his sweet dad voice to include the baby: "...so we intercepted the Curse on the second floor, and Ino managed to take it out. But you don't need to know about that, do you, sweetheart? No, nooooo. No scary monsters here, no there aren't..."
Talk too loudly by him while the baby's asleep on him, and you'll be met with a death glare, and a single, raised finger in threat; Mr.Nanami Kento, who can excuse murder, but draws the line at disturbing naps.
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Higuruma Hiromi: While I HC Higuruma as child free by choice (I have written just one fic of Dad!Higuruma), I think he'd absolutely babywear through practicality, the guy's too busy to push a buggy. If he has to use a buggy one day, I picture him jogging this baby to daycare (because he's running late) while pushing this buggy. He drops his baby off, gives him a big kiss and hair ruffle...then runs back, because the baby's been holding onto his case notes for him, and he forgot them.
That baby would be his confidante; Higuruma would share case details and ask his baby's opinion ("...so the prosecution, think they've got the evidence they need, but they're clowns. They're clowns, aren't they? Aren't they darling? Yes they are..."), go to client meetings with the baby ("Look...I believe you, but my kid doesn't look convinced. Maybe try something more like..."), and use his baby as an excuse ("Ahhh I'm sorry, I can't make that client lunch actually? Why? Oh, me and my baby hate you I haven't got childcare for the afternoon, today.")
Higuruma's a big oral fixation guy, and a fidgeter (pen chewer, gavel twizzler, tie loosening...) and assumes his baby is too, so has a baby fiddle-clip for when he's babywearing (he likes a wrap sling-- he knows it looks sloppy, but he's a dexterous king and can tie one in 10 seconds flat). He may or may not have had a bespoke fiddle/teething clip made, with a little rubberised gavel on it for chewing.
He's one of those dads who feels sleepy when a baby naps on him. You'd find him, slumped back in his office chair, with a baby napping on his chest, while Hiromi snores away, head back and exhausted, a pen and paperwork still in his hand.
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Mr.Haitch is a keen babywearer. I'm very into Strong Man Wears Baby as a thing 💀
-- Haitch xxx
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aduh0308 · 2 months ago
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KINKTOBER 2024
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a few fics for everyone for my favorite spooky season !! begins releasing October 5, 2024, at 0:00
most of these fics contain darker themes, such as stalker au, stepcest, dubcon, etc. please read at your own discretion. every fic posted will have warnings above the contents and i sincerely advise you to read them all the way genres and pairings are left unknown until the day the fic comes out!
dont like it don't read it! i clearly state everything before the fic itself, so it is up to you to keep your personal boundaries
_jjun has followed you || choi yeonjun
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you don't think much of it when someone with the username _jjun follows you on instagram. that is, until strange things start happening and you find yourself running to your new neighbor for help _k words non!idol au "all mine, pretty body's all mine, fuck"
you're like a fallen star || choi soobin
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your beautiful, beautiful boyfriend has started to glow around you 2.8k words non!idol au "you're so pretty, so fucking pretty,..."
stupid fucking parents || choi beomgyu
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if you'd never met him, this would be a lot easier. granted, if you never met him, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place. 7.3k words non!idol au "you're so fucking disgusting, don't you know? fucking me when you're like this?" ''m sorry, 'm so sorry, i know, know 's gross but i can't"
canines || kang taehyun
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there's a cute quiet boy in your college class that's sweet to everyone, but there's something just slightly off about him. something that becomes very apparent when he insists begs you come over to study one specific night of the month. 3.7k words non!idol au "ah— fuck, so fucking good around me, taking me so good, what a good girl..."
i'll make you stay || huening kai
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when a day on the beach with your friends turns into you getting stranded alone on an island, the last thing you expect is a fairy boy to come out of the shadows. 7.6k words non!idol au "couldn't stay away from me, could you? pretty girl's only been here for a few days and she's already tight around my dick..."
Bonus: curtains drawn || choi soobin + kang taehyun
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maybe it's weird to walk around your apartment completely naked. but your across-the-way neighbors are fine as fuck, and keeping your curtains open at night has become a daily occurrence for all three of you. _k words non!idol au "look how pretty, taking the both of us so well, even better than i've dreamed of.."
Bonus #2: there are more of you? || ot5
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you had no idea the ghost in your house had friends. _k words non!idol au "see, told you we knew just how to make you feel good, been watching you for too long..."
thats it !! send in an ask or comment below to be added to the taglist <3
[taglist: @hanhani29 @kissesmellow21 @little-shiny-starr @inkigayocamman @hkplushier @gyustoenails101 @pombeom @bambammtori @miukuui ]
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