#anyway hi this au has barely started and i am in shambles

[dimonds456-art]

@blacktobackmesa's Run For Your Life is. Fun.

Image ID: A parody of the "This Is Fine" meme with Dr Coomer, from the au Run For Your Life. He's sitting in a room that is on fire. He's next to a table with a mug on it, which has his character model's face on it and the word "NO" for some reason. In the next frame, he picks it up, but his hand slightly clips through, so his thumb is sticking out of the side of the mug while his fingers don't hold anything. "This is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" he says, glitching out. End ID.

[snackhobi]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being a barista isn’t all bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s Tuesday,” he states solemnly.

“I know?”

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

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

“I did.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Actually, on the note of cute regulars—

“Your 2:15 appointment is here.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’ve barely spoken to him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi,” he says, and… that’s it. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Witchcraft,” he says, and you laugh.

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

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

“Was that the weekly special?”

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

“Would you recommend it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Record scratch. Freeze frame.  

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

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

Oh, God.

A couple.

You’ve been crushing on a taken man.

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

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

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

You are the worst.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why, oh why, oh why.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s dyed his hair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So you say: “You dyed your hair.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(“Good lord,” Taehyung says faintly.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Huh?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi,” Yoongi says.

“Oh! Hi,” Taehyung says.

“Hyung! Look!” Jungkook says.

“Jungkook, wait—” you say.

“Whirr,” the lidless blender says.

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

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

And then Yoongi laughs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Your heart aches.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Duly noted.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he spots you standing there.

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

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

Yoongi stares at you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, you think. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Still want to take me on a date?” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, I won’t,” you say. 

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

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

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​ @vensulove

[soobasaur]

are you mine?

— a lee minho au

genre: enemies to lovers minho x gender neutral!reader

a/n: this is for my bestie who has been in a minho obsession lately and needs more content, you know who you are :]

« masterlist

you and minho didnt exactly,,,get along very well for a while

the only reason you both even knew each other was two of your best friends were dating and merged ur friend groups

(thanks a lot binsung 〴⋋_⋌〵)

you wouldnt go as far as to say you hated him

but you liked to pretend you did

you just barely saw him around so why not just mke him your mortal enemy??

it was easier to hate him then admit he was decent company!!

you had a reputation to uphold!!!!

and apparently he did too because he never really disagreed,,,,

you guys just ever had a chance to get off on the right foot and really talk

mutual disagreement <33

the thing is, the both of you were never left alone together

like ever

until that one time yall were abandoned (-д-；)

you and ur friend groups planned a hang out but everyone ended up cancelling last minute with no excuse

it was just you two who didnt get the memo and ended up alone

now that you think about it,,,that sounds like smth ur friends would do on purpose

(again, fuck u binsung!! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ )

so just picture this,,,you and minho both showing up to an arcade and sitting in silence for an hour before getting a text that everyone cancelled

your immediate thought was to go home bc why would minho want to hang out with you???

but after the both of you read the text in the groupchat he got up and made his way inside, holding the door open and quirking his eyebrow up at you

“well, are you coming or not? I wanna try the new vr game.”

and you were just like \\(⊙︿⊙)// ???

he? wants?? to hang out??? with just you????

but u ended up following him in and he paid for your guy’s tickets ≧◡≦

“just buy me lunch after and we’re even”

lunch??? now this mf wants to get lunch together?!$%

you learned one thing about minho that day

he was,,,competitive,,VERY competitive

like what demon possessed him kind of competitive

whenever he won he would flash you a smirk and skip to the next game as he dragged his row of tickets along

it INFURIATED U!!!

ur pride was in shambles

so you unleashed everything after that and won a good amount of games ;)

u had been eyeing a cute cat plush the entire time but u didnt have enough tickets at the end :((

o(╥﹏╥)o damn it capitalism u just wanted a plushie

you didnt rlly want anything else so you gave your tickets to minho and waited to the side for him to get his prize

he came out with tHE SAME PLUSHIE YOU HAD BEEN EYEING \\( ಠ_ಠ)//

but before you could sulk about it he handed it to you and started to make his way to the exit Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ

and during lunch this bitch ended up paying even after saying you should (｀ε´)

\(▰˘◡˘▰)//\\ (▰˘◡˘▰)//\\ (▰˘◡˘▰)// \\(▰˘◡˘▰)//

After that...hang out if you will,,u started to notice minho everywhere

LIKE E V E R Y W H E R E

why was this bitch all over your college campus?

you never noticed minho was in ur class for the longest time jsskkfk

like all of a sudden u just spotted him out of the corner of ur eye and were like o h

once he noticed you too there was no going back

say good bye to paying attention in class

(as if you ever did anyways)

he started to inch closer to you during class

he even started sending you notes

ಠ▃ಠ and u were so paranoid the professor would catch you

but this bitch was slick so u were fine

ヽ(๏∀๏ )ﾉ

he was the type of guy to throw little crumpled sticky notes at you whenever he wanted to say something during class

they’d be covered with doodles of cats and his scribbly messy handwriting + little hearts

it was usually just some dumb thought he had or a crude drawing of the professor (. ﾟーﾟ)

other than those few notes you guys never really talked outside ur friend group

there was one incident late at night tho

you had a big project coming up and it was 2am and you were...2 sentences in T_T

you deserved a coffee break <3

so that was how you found under the awning of an all night coffee shop

except it wasn't all night and closed right after you got ur coffee!!

and now u were stuck under the awning!!

all you had was your measly hoodie that you stole from changbin and your now soggy cup of coffee as you waited for the rain to pass

you might as well of just stayed home since ur wasting all this time you could’ve been working on your project standing outside

were you gonna work on the project once you got home? no

but did the thought of wasted time still make you mad? yes

you slumped against the shop as you bitterly drank your coffee, crushing the cup between your hands

after a couple minutes you felt the rain above you stop

you look to your side to see,,,minho?!

this mf was holding an umbrella above your head

“here, take my umbrella.”

thats when you noticed the cafe uniform he had on

“you work here?” you asked, before taking the umbrella from his hand

“yeah, your observant ass didnt see me literally make your coffee,”

“oh whoops,,,i thought you hated me, why are you giving me our umbrella?”

“i do, but id rather you uh...not die in the cold looking like a dead rat.”

was it just you or were his cheeks dusted pink?

probably the cold

(y/n you dumb bitch-)

you both walk back to your dorms after that

and he insists you carry the umbrella

cus his poor arms are tired from making coffee all day :((

and maybe it's an excuse to be closer to you

since hes a bit taller he has to crouch and scoot closer to you in order to not get wet >_<

⊙﹏⊙ ⊙﹏⊙ ⊙﹏⊙

over the next few weeks your find urself at the cafe he works at more often

one time you got the hours wrong and he wasnt on shift :(

but when you got up to leave he walked in and spent the day helping you study instead of working

you went for the coffee!! not for him!! definitely not,,,

(¬‿¬)

“look, im only hanging out with you cus you get the employee discount.”

“sure, and not cus you enjoy my company-”

“i 100% despise your company.”

ok but u didnt

u actually /REALLY/ liked his company

like WTF

where has he been all ur life

ew that sounded too romantic

but like fr where was he hiding

(・ε・｀)

soon you both were joining binsung on their dates

but it wasn't a double date!!

it was just four friends hanging out and two happened to be a couple

and they liked to hang out at fancy restaurants and do couple like activities

totally normal!!

there was one incident where you were about to pay for your meal but minho placed his hand on top of yours and slid his card instead

“you can pay on the next date.”

NEXT? DATE??

excuse me sir what do u mean-

you ignored changbin and jisung’s snickers behind you the entire night

when minho walked you home you couldnt help but let urself blurt out

“was this a date?”

minho gave you an incredulous look

“...was it not??”

oh my god this is embarrassing

“OH MY GOD WAS IT NOT?!!”

you ignored how minho was now turning crimson red and panicking and tugged on his collar, pulling him down for a kiss

“it was...a date” you mumble, now shy at the close proximity between the two of you

“...im gonna kill jisung.” he muttered, pulling you in for a hug, “he told me this was a double date”

“that can be our next date, the murder of our best friends.”

“wow i am in love with you.”

＼（＾○＾）人（＾○＾）／

minho and y/n murder besties!!

for legal reasons that is a joke

( ˶˘ ³˘(˵ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°˵)♡

thank you for reading !!

[moonlight15sworld]

Fem y/n x Sapnap love story pt.1

The meeting,

Background info: for the past five years there has been a war going on between the dream SMP and L’Manburg  we known as Manberg. After the death of Manberg’s president Jschlatt and Technoblade’s so called “betrayal of L’manberg” along with Eret’s betrayal everyone was in shambles so Wilbur decided to take command and everyone approved.

Notices: in my AU/storyline Wilbur didn’t blow up L’manberg and instead is working inside the wall to build a tough enough base and “army” to defeat Dream and his “disciples” and so they have been going to war for about five years now.

Part one: my name is y/n soot and I have been fighting in this war for two years now and if you haven’t figured it out yet I’m on my half brother Wilbur soot’s side of this war and to be honest I’m not quite sure it’s the right one.

“Hey y/n are you coming to the meeting today?” No I’m just going to head to bed Tommy thanks for asking though “if that’s what you want then I’ll see you tomorrow” you too Tommy good night “night y/n” *sigh* it’s always the same work,sleep and fight what’s the point of going to those stupid meetings anyway they never listen to me not even my own brother I miss the old Wilbur *in the middle of the night* huh? (Why do I hear running this late at night everyone should be asleep except the patrol units) *the door opens and someone runs through closing the door behind them* w-who are you!? *he runs up and covers y/n mouth with his hand* “shh be quiet” *he pins y/n against the wall* (wait I recognize the bandana that’s Sapnap) *y/n starts to freak out* “calm down I’m not here to hurt you” then why are you here? “I needed a place to hide and this was the closest one” why are you hiding? “Cause your stupid patrol friends found me when I was trying to leave” we aren’t friends and that’s there job now I’m going to give you exactly five seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t alert the others that your here “okay okay let’s not do anything hasty now y/n” h-how do you know my name? “Everyone knows your name y/n after all you would be a great asset to have on our side” oh yeah sorry but I’m just fine here “there’s no point in lying to yourself after all we both know that your on the wrong side come and join us I’m sure you’d be a lot happier” (it does sound like a good offer but…) I’m not falling for your tricks you just want to use me so your side can win this stupid war *y/n eyes start to water* that’s all any of you care about “y/n please don’t cry” why do you care so much I barely know you “y/n I care because it’s the right thing to do no matter what you might think of me I would never try to harm you in any way” I won’t tell anyone you came just please go “if that’s what you want just please think about what I said”

Notes,

This is a new series like if you want another part

I do take suggestions

If i miss spelled anything please let me know even though I watched the animated version of this series I am not an expert on it

This is my AU storyline and my version of events is somewhat different than the original

This is an entirely new storyline that I have created meaning that this is not copyright or a stolen idea this is a completely of my own imagination and creativity

[trashystar420]

CHAPTER 3!!! Babysitter Maribat AU AGE Reversed Chapter 3!

Well here’s chapter three, not sure how good it is. A bit OOC here so yeah.

Selina awoke from the annoying buzzing from her cellphone resting on the night stand. It was Bruce?!? Selina immediately answered.

“Wh-THE MANSION IS IN ONE PIECE SELINA!!!!! Do you know what this means!?!?” Before the older woman could respond, Bruce interrupted her, again.

“ I can take you out on dates, I can actually focus on work without having to stress over them, I can actually feel confident walking into my home to NOT find it in pieces!!!! Selina please you must give me that lady’s number!!! Selina Love!!!” Selina was too stunned to even respond. How were you supposed to respond when the BRUCE WAYNE, stotic man who feels nothing, shows more emotion then he has in the last thirty years. Not that this was a bad thing, for a happy Bruce meant a GRAND time in the bed.

The cat lady licked her lips, eager to have the man in her bed yet again. She really must thank that girl for doing this for her.

“Brucie Dear, could you please slow down, I can barely stay awake, especially from last night.” She purred. What she didn’t expect was the tone in his answer.

“Oh, I know and I can keep coming back, IF you give me that young lady’s number.” Shit, since when did he get this aggressive!??!? The poor lady was blushing a new shade of red. Bruce wasn’t the type to be this aggressive. Now she REALLY must thank Marinette.

“Ugh let me talk to her first, then we’ll see.” And she cut the call. Getting up from her bed, Selina’s nightgown slipped out of her shoulders. The proof of Bruce’s late night visit was all over her neck and upper chest area. Blushing at the reminder of what went down that night, Selina made up her mind and called Marinette quickly.

...

...

...

“Mari dear, I’m sorry, were you sleeping?” She asked wincing that she woke the poor girl up, she wasn’t much of a morning person, much like herself.

“Mmmm” the older lady chuckled.

“Hey Mari dear, you know the babysitting gig I set you up for?” Somehow that woke Marinette up.

“OH NO DID I DO A TERRIBLE JOB?!? What if he fires me?!? What if he blacklists me and I can never get my dream job!?? Am I going to jail I can’t go there Selin- Marinette calm down!!!” Selina finally calmed the now sobbing Bluenette over the phone.

After a few minutes of Selina calming the girl down, Marinette was now in a better state of mind to listen to what Selina had to say.

“So he actually wants me to be a permanent babysitter?” She clarified. Selina confirmed.

“Why is this so hard for you to believe?” Selina asked annoyed. The young designer chuckled, as though the older woman knew no better.

“don’t you think it’s a bit weird how he hasn’t even had me for a week to SEE if I was good or not? What about a proper background check?!? For all he knows I could be a suspicious person who is in it for his fortune or something?” Selina rolled her eyes. Leave it to Marinette to start overanalyzing.

“That’s because I recommended you to him dearie, are you saying I have poor judge of character?” She teased.

“Yes” she retorts back then precedes to laugh, Selina gave a pout but let it slide. She really owed Marinette this.

“So Selina, how was it?” Mari asked in a mocking tone. Selina heaved a sigh.

“It was absolutely Devine Mari Darling. It was perfect, though I think the neighbors might complain over the noise.” The more experienced woman smirked. Marinette blushes on the other line and quickly chastised her.

“Selina!”

“You asked for it!”

“Ugh so should I call him?”

...

...

...

The Wayne’s were currently seated in the dining room, everyone eating the breakfast Alfred made for them. What was unusual about this morning was Bruce’s mood visibly brighten, which set everyone else other than Alfred off.

Tim reaches over to lil Dick.

“Why do you think he’s in such a good mood?” Dick asked. Tim being the know-it-all he is, gave an answer.

“Bruce got to go out with Selina, and came home to find the house not in shambles.” He whispered, fearing that the good mood his father has will dissolve.

“Father, are you ok?” Damien asked. His father smiling unnerved him. Something about it felt really unnatural.

“Never felt better.” He responded too quickly for Damien’s liking. Jason was just poking his pancake with a fork. Alfred looked concerned, usually Jason loved eating anything and everything.

“ What is the matter Master Jason? Are the pancakes not to your liking?” The butler asked. Jason shook his head, then looked at Bruce with fierce determination burning in his eyes.

“Hey Bruce.” The man looked at the young boy feeling slightly apprehensive.

“Did having sex with Aunt Selina really feel that good?” Bruce immediately spits his drink. Tim was on the floor bawling, while Damien did his best to look unaffected, but ultimately snickered. Dick, being the innocent bean that he is, wonders out loud what sex is.

A blushing Bruce told his clueless son it meant nothing, while Alfred gave a disapproving look to the troublesome brat.

“Master Jason was that appropriate?” Before Jason could answer, Tim gave a ‘yes’ in response to the question. More laughter persisted as Alfred gave a dejected sigh, Dick being clueless, and Bruce wanting the earth to swallow him whole.

The phone left on the counter buzzed. Quirking an eyebrow, Alfred retrieves the phone for Bruce.

“Unknown number?” Bruce took the phone and accepted the call. He waited on the other line with baited breathe thinking it would be another spam caller. Instead a familiar feminine voice spoke.

“A-Are you Mr.Bruce? The one who needed a last minute babysitter? Selina told me that you were planning on making me a permanent one...”

“Ah Ms.Dupain-Cheng, did Selina give you my number?”

“Yes, sorry to call you so early.”

“Ah I wouldn’t worry about that. Anyways this is good timing, I need to talk to you about being a babysitter. I made sure to deliver you your check in the mail. You should have gotten it by now.” Shuffling was heard from Bruce’s line. And some crashing noises. Bruce was close to wincing.

“Ah um... si-sir y-you didn’t”

“Oh yes I did”

“But sir this is $10,000!!! Isn’t that much for babysitting two kids, well behaved ones at that?!?” The entire mansion echoed the laughter that came from the businessman.

“It’s because they behaved so well that I gave you that much, but now that I think about it. Perhaps I should give you three extra zeroes.” He replied. Now everyone was listening in on the conversation.

“NO! I-I mean, Monsier Wayne, please this is considered too much for a babysitting job, and for a day. Please I can’t accept this.” Bruce wasn’t having any of it.

“Oh no I insist you have been a great help. You have no idea how hard it is to manage those troublemakers.”

“You must be joking, the boys have been nothing but angels”

“ either way no take backs” Bruce stubbornly stated. The boys couldn’t pick up what Marinette said over the phone that was muffled by Bruce.

“Can you come at least once a week?” He asked. More muffled digital voices in. The boys gaped as their well respected father, fist-bumped to himself like a little kid getting the best thing in the world. Alfred had merely begun cleaning up after the Waynes.

“Yes you can cancel in advance if something comes up.” He answers

“Yes you can take the boys out, but make sure it is not passed 7.” Jason and Dick perked up at that. Even Damien had to do a double take on that. Tim was listening intently to every little tid-bit.

“You want to start by the beginning of next week?” Bruce asked to confirm.

“I would be glad to Monsieur Bruce.” Marinette finished.

“Please Ms.Dupain-Cheng call me Bruce.”

“Only if you call me Marinette.”

“Then it is settled, Marinette.”

“See you next week Mon- er - i mean B-Bruce.” And the call ended. Bruce was half tempted to do a happy dance, but after looking at his boys, decided not too.

“Now everyone, I expect you all to be in the bat cave by 8, we have another serious meeting to discuss. But right now. ‘Looks at wristwatch’ looks like I have to get going.” And off Bruce went. His kids could only stare as he took off in his very expensive looking car.

“Miss.M-Marinette is going to babysit us!” Squealed Dick while Jason grinned from ear to ear.

“I’m so gonna beat pixie-bob at ultimate mecha strike three!!!” Jason spoke determinately. Tim just sipped more of his coffee, realizing he’s gonna need another mug and walks to the kitchen to make some more.

“That harlot is simply humoring you two.” Damien answered, while looking away. Dick and Jason were clearly offended by that statement.

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK!” Dick screeched as he racked his older brother who was completely caught off guard.

“Yeah lil Dickie teach Demon Spawn a lesson!!!! Jason cheered from the sidelines, and Damien struggles to get the flexible boy of him. Dick eventually kicks Damien in the family jewels.

“Ahhhhhhh oh you are so gonna- eat shit Bitch!” As Jason threw a chair at the incompacitated Damien. The two younger boys fled the scene as a rather pissed off Damien got up. Alfred offered him an ice-pack and he reluctantly took it.

“When I get my hands on those two.” As he stormed off after his idiotic brothers.

...

...

...

“Tikki!!!!!!!!” The super heroine pleaded. The small goddess just gave her a look.

“Just take it in strive Marinette”

“But it’s $10,000!!!!! Don’t you think it’s too much!?!?”

“I don’t know, sounds to me like those boys were not so nice to begin with Mari” Mari scoffed. How could anyone think anything bad of Jason and Dick. They were absolute angels and totally adorable.

“Please Tikki, your just jealous.” The kwami just gave her a look, before muttering ‘clueless holders’

“I heard that!”

“That’s kind of the point!” The kwami sighed. It’s going to be quite the adventure.

[ourkarlanicoleuniverse]

Sweet Nothing (MHA Staff AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 4

Warnings: sfw, some angst, slight spoilers to MHA

Lily and I were getting ready for our meeting while Aizawa and Vlad were talking about how they were splitting the USJ for today. Lily and I spent the whole week preparing to discuss our concerns about how the school really handled the students and really wanted to vocalize how all the staff has to be held accountable if anything occurs with the students. It wouldn't matter if it were an on-campus or off-campus issue. So far, the Pro Hero Hound Dog, Ryo Inu, the head of the UA's counseling department, seemed very behind our school plans. We just needed to discuss it with the rest of the counseling staff and Nezu.

"I'm sure they'll agree with it. I mean, they agreed to your idea about a counselor per class instead of one counselor per year." Lily patted my back while I mumbled over my speech. It was a bad habit I gained from All Might, and I'm guessing Midoriya got the hang of it when I hung out with the class yesterday. Love that.

"I know it seems like I have Nezu wrapped around my finger, but I am literally going to go up to my boss, and ex-principal, who practically raised me, and tell him that I think he sucks at his job when it comes to students' mental health." I scratched the back of my head. Maybe I should've opted to wear my hair up instead of curling it for this meeting. On the other hand, Lily was wearing a creme pants suit with her hair wrapped in her signature bun. "I feel like I am being ungrateful and a huge hypocrite." I pushed my hair back and wiped my palms on the shorts of my suit.

Lily looked more concerned about the other staff members watching us, "Okay, I know I'm a counselor but please pull yourself together. Aizawa and Vlad look like they're about to run and get you water and a ventilator." I spinned in my seat towards the two men to see them staring at me. Welp this is embarrassing. I simply waved awkwardly and turned back to Lily, "We're not talking about you, we are talking about the current students. Nezu will understand that. And you can always use your time in the U.S. as a way to back up our argument and not have to bring up your time living at U.A. It is as simple as apple pie."

I just blinked at her. "You did not just use, 'It is as simple as apple pie.'" I motioned my fingers as air quotes and made a high pitched North Carolina accent to emphasize the phrase. She simply nudged me and laughed. "I hate baking. Whoever thought baking was easy needs to reevaluate everything." I shook my head, my nerves finally dissipating once the topic switched over.

I checked the clock to see if I still had time to spare. Sadly I didn't so I packed up my stuff and told Lily to start walking over to the meeting room. I passed by the two teachers, Vlad gave us two thumbs up and Aizawa just nodded. "So, explain to me why all the male staff at U.A. are so attentive to you." She smirked.

"It's mainly Present Mic. But since you asked, most of them we're U.A. students at the same time I was. So they knew me before I became the self-confident pro you see before you today, that is still afraid of their mouse principal that is like two feet shorter than her." I gave a fake chipper tone.

"Why are you so intimidated by Nezu anyways?" Lily's honey brown eyebrows scrunched creating a crease between them.

"Simple answer. He took me in when my mom couldn't take care of me. The real answer, he thought it was funny to be the staff member in charge of my final exam in my first year at U.A. and it wasn't fun." I visibly shook in my suit.

"Wait, is it that time where you thought you and Iris were up against robots but instead it was..."

"YES! And I don't want to talk about it." I looked over at her with pleading eyes. "I mean it. I can talk about a lot of things, that is not one of them."

"But it's not even the worst thing to..."

"Doesn't matter, I don't like talking about it." Lily just shrugged and kept walking without pressing me further. She's right, it isn't the worst thing to happen to me; it's more just an embarrassing story that I don't like because I seriously underestimated Nezu that day. I really hope he hasn't done that to any other students after that. Once we hit the door to the meeting room, we were met with Hound Dog and no Nezu.

"Where's Principal Nezu?" Lily asked as she opened the door for us.

"He's giving All Might a lecture about how a teacher needs to prioritize his students." Ryo rubbed his eyebrows, "So, the meeting has to go without him."

I raised my eyebrow, "Wasn't the point of the meeting for him to not be here? What did All Might do?"

Ryo looked just as annoyed as we did, "He went around saving people this morning so he ran out of time and needed to recharge. So Nezu wanted to talk to him because he felt that it was more important."

I smirked a little despite being annoyed at the slight hypocrisy, "I can see it now, All Might on the couch at the teacher's lounge while Nezu brings out the tea and starts talking about the meaning of being a hero and a teacher." I did a slight impression of Nezu's mannerism causing them to laugh along. "If anything, he could've just passive aggressively brought All Might along to the meeting so he can hear us lecturing." Then it hit me. Aizawa asked me and Thirteen is we wanted to join him in training the students at the USJ tomorrow. "Shit. Aizawa is going to piss when Toshi isn't in class. Let me text him really quick since no one else is here yet." They simply motioned me to do so while they got seated. Lily even grabbed my bag with my laptop and tablet for me.

Hey, Aizawa.

Toshinori went out using his quirk this morning and wasted his energy again. He might not be able to come in for the beginning portion of class. I'm sorry, I barely found out because Nezu is with him and not at the meeting. Tell the kids I said, "Hi." and that I wish them a good day! Please don't be mad at the big guy okay, I'm sure he feels really bad :)

Message not delivered

That's weird. Maybe he has his phone off or something. Oh well, Thirteen will probably catch him up to speed about Toshinori. I noticed the other counselors were showing up so I made my way inside quickly and let the meeting start.

Things were going smoothly until all of a sudden the internet connection stopped working and Lily's powerpoint froze up on the screen. Ryo and I were struggling to fix it when all of a sudden, Iida ran into the meeting room gasping and slightly heaving. "Iida? What are you doing here, this is strictly for U.A staff..."

"There are villains attacking the USJ! I ran into All Might and he told me to go and alert as many heroes as possible." The tall boy flailed his arms in chopping movements despite needing to catch his breath. "I am sorry for the interruption but I am assured that you understand the importance."

Hound Dog stood up and ordered everyone to head to different school areas to make sure it was just the USJ that was infiltrated. I put my hands on the boy's armored shoulders, "Hey, hey, its going to be okay, take deep breaths. Did you tell other staff?"

He nodded finally catching his breath, "I told Nezu and some of the teachers, they are heading there as we speak."

I nodded with him, "Okay, relax; we're a school full of pros; we'll make sure everything turns out fine." I pulled off my blue blazer and my heels.

"What are you doing, Ms. Montoya?" The boy looked bewildered.

"I'm heading to the USJ and I can't really run in heels." I smiled and held my shoes up and then started rushing over there with Iida following close behind.

"But what about your suspension?"

"To hell with it, you students are more important." I kept straight ahead when all of a sudden I was lifted off the ground, "Um, Iida what are you doing?"

"Sorry, Ms. Montoya, I am not trying to be inappropriate, it's just that I'm faster and they're attacking my classmates and my teacher." If it weren't a dire situation I would've told him to put me down but this boy was running on pure adrenaline so he probably was going to be a lot faster anyways.

I simply nodded, "I admire your determination about helping but once we're at the USJ I want you to just get as many of the students out without running into any villains. Your safety is most important." I honestly don't think the fifteen year old heard me while he was running.

We finally met with the other staff with Nezu at the USJ. The bright relieved faces on Class 1-A's face made my heart sink. "Sorry we were late students." Nezu spoke up. I turned to Iida and the boy looked so proud of himself that he was able to help get us here. I observed the whole place and saw every inch of it in shambles. I couldn't really see where Toshinori was, but I guess it was where the smoke was located. Great that means he's running out of time. Sero and Sato were holding up an injured Thirteen. I looked down to see Asui and Mineta carrying a broken Aizawa. Fuck. I turned to Mic, and he looked almost as furious as I was feeling. Directions were given to the student while the teachers began to fight. First to step up was Snipe shooting all the way to where All Might was. Guessing he was shooting a villain that was fighting him. After that it was Mic with his voice quirk. The villains didn't know what they had coming in for them. I went down as fast as I could to the kids and Aizawa as the rest of the staff followed in suit of Snipe and Mic. I grabbed Aizawa out of their arms and laid him down for a second to analyze him. His face busted in, and his arms and legs were broken. How are you going to recover from this one, Sho? I looked up and the students, "Shoji, you think you can carry Mr. Aizawa out of here?" He nodded and moved his six arms to situate Aizawa comfortably on him. "Okay, all of you start heading up now into safety, okay? Is anyone else injured?" For the students that were with me they all seemed fine. "Okay, good. I am going to help the other staff and find the rest of the class. Please get out of here and try to be safe. You guys did phenomenally, and I'm extremely proud at how well you are handling this situation." I smiled and gave them a quick nod before following in after the chaos. I have to go find Toshinori before he loses his time.

I shouldn't be using my quirk, but I don't really care right now. I decided to channel some of my energy into my legs and make a huge leap into the middle of the USJ in between All Might and some blue haired villain with hands all over his body. There was a purple ghostly figure behind him with glowing gold eyes. I pushed Midoriya out of the way while I noticed that Kirishima, Bakugo, and Todoroki were all a few feet away from the scene. "Who are you? You don't look like a pro? You don't even have a suit." The blue haired villain croaked out, he was bleeding from Snipe's shot.

I gave him a simple smirk once I started hearing more bullets flying through the air, "You don't need to know." I used an old quirk I gained years ago that I had so much trouble wanting to use it. I created a large amount of clouds to hide All Might, Midoriya, and I while the villain was failing to dodge the bullets coming at him. The clouds were dense enough to protect all of us from any last minute chances of an attack. The ghostly figure wrapped around the boy as he fell to ground, I tried my best to come after it but I just flew threw while they both disappeared. So much for being useful. I groaned as I watched the borrowed cloud quirk start to fade as well as All Might's muscular form. He was telling Midoriya that he saved him and kind of praised him for nearly getting himself killed which I didn't really appreciate but I couldn't really say anything about at the moment.

"Midoriya!" We all turned in the direction of the sound, it was Kirshima in his Red Riot suit running towards us. "Are you okay?"

I was getting ready to use the cloud quirk again when Cementoss came to the rescue and blocked the redhead for me with his cement quirk, telling him that everything was okay and that to go with the other students. I admire the compassion the student had to go check on his classmate, and I was able to tell that Toshinori was impressed by it as well. I sighed, "You really need to just let me and the other heroes handle things, Toshinori."

Midoriya looked stunned. "AAAAhh... IIIIII... ahhhh?"

I walked up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder, "News flash kid, all of us teachers know about All Might's situation. I actually knew for the whole ten years. I also know you have One For All. Congratulations and my condolences, because that quirk is going to be hell to learn." I chuckled, "It's okay, though; you'll have me to help you with it though. Now I am going to go help other students get escorted out of here, you want to help while Cementoss sneaks Toshi out of here?" I raised my eyebrow. The boy still stunned with his mouth hanging just simply nodded and followed my lead.

We managed to grab the rest of the students and I was about to escort them out when Kayama stopped me. "I'll get them out, you need to go to the hospital with Aizawa."

I raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean I have to go?"

"Nezu lied and said that you two were engaged so that way you can have access to his room and keep the students updated with his condition while he's recovering."

I blinked. He couldn't have just said that I was a colleague from the same agency as Eraserhead? I just nodded and she pointed me in the direction of the ambulance. "Please make sure my kids are okay while I'm gone."

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

Beep. Beep. Beep. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. Sitting in the hospital room with a just barely stabled man laying unconscious in bed was starting to eat away at me. I had to stay in the waiting room as both Aizawa and Thirteen were in the ER undergoing surgery. Thirteen was out first and was conscious, so I was able to talk to them and check on them while waiting for news on Aizawa. All I had to do was tell them that I was from U.A. and show them my hero license and school I.D. and they let me in. I don't understand why Nezu had to lie about my relationship to AIzawa. Toshinori's friend Detective Tskauchi had a partner of his come in and watch over the both of us and another cop to look over Thirteen. "Yeah, no they're both stable, the students have nothing to worry about. Hey, you want to say 'Hi' to your counselor while you guys have me on the phone?"

I gave a short hello and told them everything was fine and explained that I was made Aizawa's emergency contact since we're partners at the school and how I would keep them updated. Afterwards, the detective left the room to continue talking to Tskauchi about the case. I just stayed sitting beside Aizawa's left. The poor guy was practically mummified. The doctor told me that his quirk might have been affected by the attack. But aside from that the rest of him should be perfectly fine after a period of resting and healing. I'm just relieved that he's alive. I had to go straight to the hospital, I didn't even know I left my phone in my blazer back at the meeting room. Given that Lily doesn't actually fight as a pro and is only allowed to use quirk due to her counseling job, I'm hoping that she got my stuff while she was calling the police and ambulance. I chuckled. Really that's what I'm worried about right now?

I never really felt comfortable in hospitals. Just never had a good memory with them. Which is ironic considering my mom is a doctor. Hospitals reminded me of all the times I thought I was going to die. And now, I'm here seeing one of my first friends ever almost die. My grandfather must be laughing in his grave watching me right now. Heck, I'm laughing at myself right now. I tried hard to be a symbol of hope for people, and I'm not even doing that because of my stupid suspension and I'm holding back on my quirk. If I was... no. Nope. I will not be blaming this on myself. I was having a normal day, I couldn't have expected this. Scanning over Aizawa, I kept following how his chest rose and fell and matched my breathing to that to calm my thoughts. You would think you would be over all that, Mai? I am over it. Today was just a setback.

What would happen if Aizawa couldn't use his quirk anymore? Would he even be upset? When he was a kid he was always insecure about his ability to be hero because his quirk was a combat based quirk. But even so, his quirk gave him an advantage against villains because he could stop their quirk and be able to make it an equal fight. So without his quirk... would he go back to that insecure kid, or would he just make his peace with it?

I didn't know I was crying until the detective came back and gave me the tissue box from the table next to the window and I felt the tears repeatedly hit my hands in my lap. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry about your fiance. At least he's alive though." I simply nodded. At least he's alive. "Do you need to use my phone to call someone for you? In case you need clothing or anything?"

I shook my head and sniffed, "Detective Tsukauchi is a friend of mine. I'm sure he'll grab some stuff before he comes to the hospital to talk to you in person. But thank you."

———————————————————————

My master list 😊

Tag list:

@inumorph @thatgirlwithcamera @mel-sanch

[softjeon]

Feu Rouge | Pt. 3

• Pairing: Yoongi x Jungkook • Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff/ Romance | Brothel!AU • Words: 6,5k | written with @cassiavioletblue • Disclaimer: nsfw content, sexual abuse

↳ “Being young and offering your body - that’s not that special, is it? What makes you think I would want you? Besides who knows how you might look under those clothes?” Yoongi didn’t change his stance, just watched Jungkook start to get uncomfortable under his gaze.

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A/N: Just a reminder to be aware of the disclaimers for this chapter! Thank you! 

The sun was setting low on the horizon dipping his room into a beautiful orange light and Jungkook rolled his shoulders back, as he gazed back into the mirror to check his reflection. He got up and reached for his satin robe at the edge of his bed. It was time to get ready for another night in the ‘Feu Rouge’.

After a month of being here, Jungkook had established a routine to get himself ready and his room filled with more and more personal things…and gifts.

A lot of them.

From his customers.

They were filling his drawer; some were even decorations for his room when the first customers were seeing that Jungkook had barely anything yet. So, they asked about what he liked, what he wanted to have as a tip. Even the curtains that were garnishing his window frames now had been from a customer that worked in the cloth trade. It gave his room a soft touch. Jungkook loved it a lot.

The attention, the praise.

He felt good and safe.

When he walked into the main room, Jungkook didn’t even turn to go right to the couches but instead walked up to the reception and to Yoongi, leaning over his desk. “Did you make appointments for me already or do I have to go out to hunt?” Jungkook pursed his lips into a pout, hoping that once more the customers were waiting for him to show up and not the other way around.

“Ah, no, you won’t have time to hunt. Mr. Lee booked the whole night with you again. You know he’s rather the cuddly type so it’s going to be a calm night for you. But I guess you appreciate it after so many nights without a single break. You know you can rest in between if your week has been this successful? You paid your fee already so if you wanted you could stay in all night and eat blueberries or whatever else you prefer. Don’t overwork yourself please.”

“I am fine, Yoongi. I will tell you if I need a break,” Jungkook smiled at his boss, lowering his voice a little as he added, “Thank you by the way for the chocolate. It was my favorite treat last night. I’ll have to come to the market with you one day, will you take me?” He jumped from one foot to the other excitedly.

So far, neither was talking about their night together. They had no reason to. For Jungkook it had been a way to show that he was able to handle the customers and ever since then Yoongi had let Jungkook work. It didn’t surprise him when the customers were just as amazed by the younger, as Yoongi had been and Jungkook had worked his way up easily. They were booking the youngest as if they had been starving before and even the customers that were regulars and normally coming for the other boys were turning their heads and showing interest in his little gem.

Though of course something had changed between them. Not on the outside as Jungkook showed respect and called him Mister Min in front of the customers like he should. If they were alone however he still called him Yoongi - and he liked it way too much to tell Jungkook to stop.

He had a soft spot for the younger and it showed, in the way he smiled whenever he visited him despite not having an appointment or in the little gifts he brought him, secretly of course because he didn’t want the others to think that he was playing favorites. Although he definitely was. But he had been gone for him that night, after they had slept together and Jungkook had giggled, all soft and high on endorphins and so very proud that he had done well. He had tried to act the scene out until the end, pretending for Yoongi to be his customer until he couldn’t wait any longer and he had asked him how he had been and if he was good enough to be sold at the same price as the others.

Yoongi would have promised him anything in that moment, drunk on Jungkook’s warmth and his kisses and dizzy from the galaxy in his eyes. He had paid him more than he should but it was worth it for the stunned expression on the other’s face and the pure joy when he realized that he had enough money to buy himself extra food and decoration for his room or other little necessities. At that moment Yoongi realized that there was no need to pretend; Jungkook had easily sneaked into his heart.

“Yoongi?” Jungkook waved a hand in front of his boss and laughed when the other shook himself out of his thoughts. “I’ll be gone with my customer now, okay?” He scrunched up his nose cutely and then turned around, waving over to the other boys at the main hall before he caught up to his customer taking his hand as if he wasn’t about to get paid to get fucked the whole night.

The moment Jungkook was gone, Jimin stood at the reception with a big smile on his face, rose colored cheeks, his robe hanging off on one side of his shoulders. He raked one hand through his messy hair before he spoke, “I am done with my first customer. He’s taking a shower now, but he left this present for me.” Jimin pushed the small gift box over to Yoongi and then waited a little to see the approving smile on boss’s face and then asked if he had any customers asking for him already. His eyes were following exactly where Yoongi stored his gift to look at it later, already seeing a few more on top of his desk. “For who are these? We just started the shift, didn’t we?” Jimin couldn’t help but feel the jealousy rise in him. He was usually the one who was getting the most gifts.

“Most of them are for Jungkook but there are a few for Tae and for you - and one for Hobi that will go right into the bins. He always gets the crazy people…,” Yoongi answered honestly without any idea what that knowledge would be doing to Jimin’s ego.

“Oh,” Jimin said, not too disappointed since there had been something for him, too. Still he wondered what it was about Jungkook that made people go crazy for him and send him so many presents even if he wasn’t there to serve for them. Jimin wanted that, too. Biting his lip, he looked over to the main room, letting his gaze wander over the people mingling with the boys and then back to Yoongi. “Did anyone ask for me already?”

“Not yet, but don’t worry, you always find someone. And even if you would have a break for one night, you’ve got enough on your side to pay your fees anyway,” The brothel owner casually mentioned while filling out some kind of form. “You still have a few years before you’ll get too old. Till then you can stay here and take it slow.” It wasn’t really what Jimin had hoped to get as an answer, but he took it anyways. With Yoongi you never knew anyways. Sometimes he was really sweet and caring and then on other days, like today, Yoongi didn’t carefully chose his words and it was hurting Jimin. More than he’d like to admit. It wasn’t Yoongi’s fault anyways that Jimin needed the validation from time to time, so he was only hoping that he could keep the present from his last customer. Those gifts were the only thing he could hold on to sometimes.

…

Jungkook yawned, blinking his eyes tiredly as he sat down at the table in the kitchen where everyone else had gathered the next morning. He reached for the fruit Taehyung was cutting, earning himself a glance from him. “Make your own,” He teased the younger, before pushing his plate over to him so Jungkook could take another piece. Jungkook had been working non-stop since the day Yoongi let him and it was slowly tiring him. The night shifts mixed with him still getting up rather early were exhausting him and Jungkook thought about what Yoongi had said a few days ago. But Jungkook had never been really good with taking care of himself and knowing what was good or not. He needed the money. He was making a lot of people happy with it – so he would continue. Just like he had continued even though he was rather sore in the beginning. Jungkook didn’t want anyone to know and if one of the boys asked he just shook his head and smiled.

They shouldn’t worry about him.

When the boys left to report to Yoongi in the morning or do their own duties of washing their clothes, cleaning up their rooms – Jungkook still sat in the kitchen, gazing out of the window mindlessly. Rubbing his eyes, he got up after a while to shamble his way over to Yoongi’s office. He didn’t bother to wait after his knock, but came in right after, smiling at his boss. The smile grew even wider when he saw what was on Yoongi’s desk.

“You got it for me!” He exclaimed happily reaching for the satin ribbon that Jungkook had wished for to work into one of his outfits. Walking around the desk, Jungkook hugged Yoongi tightly, thanking him again. “You can take it off my loan. I don’t care what you paid. It’s perfect, Yoongi,” The smile reached his eyes and Jungkook held on tightly to it before he gave his daily report. Jungkook was an emotional person and it swept Yoongi off his feet every time. It was heartwarming to see him so happy over a few ribbons and he had intended to gift them to him anyways so he mumbled something about ‘not going to let you pay your own gift’ hoping that Jungkook wouldn’t resist.

“I thought about what you said,” He added quietly when he was done with the formalities, “You remember when you said I can take a break sometimes. I thought to take the weekend off maybe, just to sleep in. I don’t think you have any appointments planned for me there, yet right?” Jungkook rubbed over his face, the tiredness clearly written on his face for a moment only to be washed over by a blinding smile again and a blush on his cheeks.

Honestly Yoongi was glad that Jungkook had suggested to get some free time because else he would have to worry about the younger overworking himself. Jungkook was quite the perfectionist and he was ambitious and driven, probably more than his body liked. So he agreed to Jungkook’s idea, crossing out the whole weekend to not make the mistake of booking an appointment for the younger and then send him out of his office again.

…

Tonight, Jungkook had no regular customers, so he sat in the main room, his leg draped over a man’s lap as he was talking to him, complaining about his wife at home. Jungkook was pretending to listen, but his eyes kept flickering around the room and to Yoongi who smiled back at him. The younger had to fight the urge to wave, feeling stupid for even thinking about doing that when they were only a couple of steps apart. But anything was more interesting than listening to the old man talk about how his wife was cooking the stew wrong.

Jungkook hummed in response, leaning his head against the man’s shoulder to show his interest hoping that he would just book him soon, so they could get it over with.

Everyone else had been already gone, but Namjoon – who just got up. His eyes followed the rather tall man, one woman on each side of him, hooked on his lips and whatever he was telling them. Jungkook chuckled to himself. It was rather fun to see the different approaches by the other boys. While Jungkook was playing the ‘innocent but cocky’ one perfectly, Namjoon and Jin were luring in the people with their talk, their humor and just their good looks. Then again Hoseok, he was just a natural flirt. Bold and talented with moving his hips to the music, making every customer go crazy. Jimin played the perfect baby boy, loved by the rich and known men in this brothel who loved to send him new jewelry and presents daily. Even though Jungkook got a taste of that, too and he had to admit it was intriguing. And then there was Taehyung, who everyone just fell for the second he was in the room. Jungkook wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but people just loved him. Everyone did. He was a good soul and a great actor. Jungkook was just wondering about if he was doing a lot of role-plays when he heard his name being called by Yoongi.

“Yes,” The customer in front of Yoongi nodded, “I’ve been travelling so I just want a bit of company for the night. A few hours maybe. How much does he cost? Is he good? Will he do as I please?” He leaned a bit closer over the desk, his smile warm and friendly.

“Of course, he’s good otherwise he wouldn’t work for me.” Yoongi’s answer came quick and confident. “And he’ll do what we agree on and what you can pay him for. So, tell me what exactly you want and then I can name a price. And maybe he’s interested in granting you your wish. My boys don’t just act out whatever they’re told, they have their own will and know how to use their heads - which makes it so much more pleasurable when they agree to act out your fantasy for you. The more details you give me the better instructions they get and the more enjoyable your night is going to be.” Yoongi’s smile was just the right mixture between promising and daring to tease the secrets out from his potential customers.

The customer nodded, “Just simple, please. Can he pretend to be a virgin for me?” When Jungkook came around the corner, the younger bowed in front of the customer and then turned to Yoongi. He wasn’t allowed to mingle into their business, before it wasn’t settled, yet. The man’s smile got bigger when he eyed the boy, licking his lips slowly. “Just a couple of hours, please. Three, that’s all I need to unwind a little,” He winked at Yoongi and reached out his hand for Jungkook to take who hesitated, waiting for his boss approval. Jungkook had never seen the customer before, therefore he wasn’t sure about acting on his own and without Yoongi’s official orders and would only move when he said so.

“Oh, he can absolutely do that. He won’t have to do very much acting for that. He’s still very young and our newest boy. He barely had time to try himself out. You’ll feel what I mean.” The lies came fluently over Yoongi's lips especially because those men mostly weren’t interested in the physical manifestation of virginity but rather the social construct, the meaning of it, the ‘being the first one and therefore forever a special memory in another person's life’. Looking for that in a brothel were sex was something so absolutely non-special was proof of how desperate they wanted to get their wish fulfilled. Good for Yoongi - and good for Jungkook because all he would have to do would be recreating some of his former shyness and looking at the customer with his big, dark eyes and the man would be gone for. So, they decided on a price and then Jungkook was finally allowed to take the man with him.

Jungkook smiled at Yoongi one last time, before he let the man take his hand and lead the way. Inside of his room, Jungkook closed the door behind them and turned towards the man putting on his best ‘innocent’ expression while his hands wandered up the man’s chest. “Mh, you feel good,” He blinked up at him while his hands intertwined at the back of his neck. The man was rather tall, so Jungkook stood on his tip toes, giggling softly as he almost lost his balance. “Will you tell me your name?”

“No, you don’t need to know that. You won’t have to call me by my name anyway, you’ll be too busy gasping and moaning while I take you. You don’t have to flirt with me either. I know you want me already. And even if you wouldn’t, I paid you so I can do whatever I want with you. So, make yourself useful and get out of those clothes. I want to admire what is going to be mine for tonight.” While he was talking the man already loosened his belt, opening his shirt, undressing halfway while walking towards the bed.

Jungkook was confused when the man’s voice sounded so rough, but he figured that it was the role he wanted to play, so he adapted to it. He undressed, wanting to put on a little show when Jungkook notice that the man wasn’t really watching him but rather walked past him. The moment he stood in front of the bed and turned again, Jungkook used to get rid of his shirt slowly, bending over to show off his body perfectly to him as he pulled of his pants as well, but the man took him by the hips and gave him a shove so that Jungkook landed on the bed rather ungracefully.

“I don’t want you to strip like a whore. Just undress so that I can see you naked. Cause that’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to see you naked. You pretend to be all innocent, but I see through you. Your body might be pure, but your mind is dirty. You’re just waiting for someone to give it to you good. Tell me you want it.” The man discarded of his shirt and got onto the bed. “Tell me that you want me to take you hard.”

Jungkook’s heart was beating fast when the man kept talking down to him. Something he really didn’t like. He endured it, nonetheless, thinking that it was what was turning the other on. So, instead Jungkook tried to play his game, caressing over his shoulders while his heart rate sped up anyways. “I want you, but take it slow with me,” Jungkook pursed his lips, remembering how he wanted him to pretend to be a virgin, “It’s my first time. Please, be gentle with me.” Trying to get back the control a little more, Jungkook reached down to grip the man’s cock into a tight hold, jerking him off slowly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep in mind that I’m your first. You won’t get a better first fuck than with me, baby boy.” The man closed his eyes, letting Jungkook take control of the situation for a little while, before he took the youngers hands away. “Lay down, on your back, baby. And spread those beautiful legs of yours. Let me watch you get comfortable. And then I’m going to claim that cute little ass of yours. It’s a wonder that no one else did it before me. I bet you look perfect while taking a big, hard cock.”

Jungkook did as he said, shifting back and only reached for the lubricant for himself and protection to give it to the customer. He was trying to not listen to much to what the other was saying, not liking the rough undertone in his voice. But it was his wish and Jungkook would be his fantasy. “I will take you so good, “Jungkook purred, pouring some of the lube on his fingers, spreading his legs wide to make a show of how he would be working himself up for him.

Every customer loved it.

“Don’t do this.” The man pressed his wrist down on the mattress before Jungkook could touch himself. You’re mine. Only I am allowed to touch you like this. You’re supposed to play the innocent part. How can you do that while fingering yourself like some dirty whore?” He leaned over Jungkook, his knees left and right from his hips so that he had the better leverage on him. “Also, I want to have you tight. So, fingering yourself open would kind of be against my fantasy. And your owner said you’d fulfill my fantasy. So, do as I say and be what I want!”

Jungkook gulped heavily when the customer took the lube from him and hovered over him, locking him in successfully. “But I don’t want to hurt,” His voice sounded shy and unsure and it wasn’t part of his role but Jungkook himself, who was starting to feel like he lost completely control over this. He shouldn’t be doing this without any lube. He was already sore from working all week. This wasn’t a good idea at all.

“It’s supposed to hurt for your first time, boy. It’s so that you’ll remember it.” The smile on the man’s face didn’t suit his heartless words. He noticed the satin ribbons that Jungkook had placed on the outer corner of his nightstand, trying to tie little bows with it. “Oh, what’s this? Do you play with them? Like a little kitten?” He reached out for them, letting the end grace softly over Jungkook’s skin and teasing him with it. Jungkook’s eyes were nervously watching what the customer was doing. It wasn’t often that Jungkook felt so out of depth with someone. Mostly he could easily fulfil their fantasies, be what they wanted him to be, but this one seemed different. “It’s a present from a friend. I need them, could you please?” He motioned over to the table, “I am getting kind of cold over here. Don’t you want to play with me instead?”

“I do. And I will.” The man took Jungkook’s wrist in one hand and then quickly bound then together with the satin ribbons, tying the knot so tightly that Jungkook wouldn’t be able to slip out. The ribbons were thin enough to cut into his skin if he pulled too hard - but not thin enough to rip. Yoongi had bought him high quality satin fabric. And now his thoughtful gift sealed Jungkook’s fate.

It took Jungkook a bit too long to realize what was happening when his hands were already tight up and he was writhing underneath the man. “No-no, please, I don’t do these kind of services,” Jungkook’s voice was shaking as he tried to get away from under the customer, “Please untie me. I will make sure to get you someone who is far more experienced with those kind of things but…but I-I can’t.” He choked on a breath, when the weight of the man kept him from moving away from him and the smirk on the man’s face was saying enough for Jungkook to understand. He wanted this. He wanted Jungkook to feel like this. Helpless. “I am sorry sir, but this isn’t what you paid for,” It took all of his strength to talk to the customer as calm as possible, “I would like for you to leave now, please.”

“So polite, aren’t you, cutie? I don’t want someone with more experience. I like that you don’t have any. That whatever I’ll be doing it’ll be your first time. Did really no one else fuck you like this? Your owner was right then, you really don’t have to act with me.” He pushed Jungkook’s arms over his head, holding them down easily from his position. “And don’t worry about payment. If you’re good enough and you earned it I can pay you a little extra.” He winked at him before gripping Jungkook’s hips.

Jungkook gasped when the tight grip made him awfully aware of the situation he was in right now. He stared up at the customer, the fear evident in his eyes. “Please, untie me. You will want my hands on you, I can promise you so much more,” Jungkook was trying to save this situation somehow, to feel like he had some kind of control in this and not the customer who was easily overpowering him right now. “I know what I want. And it’s you, exactly like this under me.” He stroked himself a few more times before changing position. But as Jungkook instantly tried to move he sighed deeply and sat back down. ��Why don’t you behave, baby boy. I paid you. You’re mine for three hours. Everything else is just subject to interpretation.” He plucked another ribbon from the heap on the nightstand and tightly bound Jungkook’s wrists to the headboard. The beautifully carved decorations had become a trap for Jungkook.

Jungkook was helplessly watching, whining and pleading the customer to let go off him. He didn’t want to believe this was true but when his hands were tied up the headboard, Jungkook realized that the next three hours would be hell. Something that he always feared but never thought was going to happen. He pulled at the restraints, rubbing the ribbon harshly against his soft skin making him cry out in pain. But it was nothing against what he would endure soon, he’d figure that a little while sooner, when the man forced his legs open and settled in between his legs. Jungkook was shivering, trying to pull himself away from him but he was way stronger. “Please untie me, please. I won’t do anything but please,” Jungkook was downright begging now, fearing the moment the customer would take him just like that. Without any preparations or warnings.

The first slap in his face came without warning and shut him up immediately. “Stop whining. I don’t want anyone to come in. You know what’s going to happen if anyone tries to come in? I’ll just take you harder and finish earlier - but I’ll have you no matter what. It’s your fucking job to do what I want so shut up now and take it like you shut or I’ll have to shut you up for real.” Jungkook hadn’t expected the slap, his cheek burning hot, the pain forcing him shut. He waited for a second to see if Jungkook was trying to plead again but the younger just stared at him, his eyes wide and tear filled, his chest heaving from the attempts to free himself from the restrains and the man’s weight. There was a shudder running through the younger’s body and the man smirked when he felt it. “Trust me, you’ll like it. I’ll give it to you good and hard. You’ll see I’m going to make you come like the filthy little thing you are.” He reached out for Jungkook’s cock, giving it a few good strokes.

He couldn’t help but sob in this moment, turning away from the customer trying to ignore how his body was betraying him the second he was jerking him off. He was scared, just so scared that the man would do worse than slapping him. He should be quiet and hope that the man would finish soon, nonetheless Jungkook couldn’t help but fight back just one last time. He spit the man right into his face, not caring about the consequences. Only now did he keep his mouth shut, his fingers wrapping tightly around the ribbon that held his arms up, which were already starting to hurt.

The man froze before wiping the spit off of his face. “Bad, bad mistake, little one.” He whispered, staring Jungkook right in his face. “You shouldn’t try to make me angry while you’re bound and at my mercy - though maybe it’s exactly what you want, hm…You’re pretending to be all shocked and mad at me but then you do something to make me angry, it’s almost as if you wanted  me to hurt you. Is that it? Do you get off on this? You can call yourself lucky then cause I’m going to give you exactly what you need.” He pushed Jungkook's thigh aside to get a better angle. Draping himself over him to stop Jungkook from struggling because it made it harder to position himself. “Just enjoy this, baby.” Then he pushed in, hard and recklessly.

Jungkook had simply closed his eyes at some point, begging, hoping it would be over soon. The hand over his mouth was successfully shutting him up and keeping him from screaming, the hits on his cheek making him feel dizzy and nauseous and Jungkook was almost hoping that he would lose his consciousness at this point. The pain in his body was almost unbearable at first but at some point Jungkook couldn’t even tell anymore where it was hurting. It was like he wasn’t even there anymore, instead Jungkook was gazing out of the window concentrating on the moon that was shining right through the curtains into his room. The hold around his neck tightened and Jungkook choked painfully, his body jerking with every thrust. When he closed his eyes again, there was another painful sensation in his cheeks, then a hard grip on his jaw to keep Jungkook focused on him. There was no concept of time anymore. Not for him. He just wanted this to be over.

Luckily the man was enjoying it so much to have control over Jungkook’s body like this that it didn’t take long for him to finish.

Though it still felt like an eternity to Jungkook.

When he finally came inside him, panting hard against the youngers neck he collapsed on top of him, effectively cutting of his airway as he was too heavy for Jungkook to breathe properly with that weight on top of him. Only when he started to gasp for air did the man push himself up on his elbows again. “Damn, that was good. You really are a rare gem. You could be a little less whiny but apart from that.. mh, delicious. I’ll make sure to visit you again on my way back. There are so many things I could do with you.. your body is just made to be taken. With that pretty little ass of yours it would be a waste not to fuck you.” He gave Jungkook a little slap on his ass before he pulled out. As he got up he took a few coins out of his pocket, some change that you could barely buy candy for before emptying it onto Kook’s nightstand. “There, for tying you up. And because you were better than I thought you would be.”

Jungkook didn’t react to his words anymore, only whining again when the man actually untied him from the bed and didn’t care about being careful to let his arms down slowly. His hands were still tied together though, when the man left the room and as soon as the door shut, Jungkook broke.

The customer was buttoning up his shirt outside of Jungkook’s room, raking through his hair as he sighed deeply, feeling completely satisfied. He had gotten what he wanted and only paid half for it. With a smile on his face, he walked towards the front, nodding towards Yoongi and whoever stood next to him and then made his way outside. As it was unusual for a customer to come out of the boy’s rooms alone Yoongi immediately looked out for Jungkook. But there was no sign of him.

Especially with a new customer he liked to get a report from the boys right after and that Kook stayed in his room had him worried. Tae, who had already finished his last customer and had found him to report noticed his worried expression. “What’s up?” He still wore the shorts and knee high socks that he had worn for his customer and that made him look incredibly young and boyish. Yoongi bit his lip before deciding to take a risk and tell Taehyung that he was worried. He didn’t want to go over to Jungkook’s room as they boys knew they had their privacy in there, just like Yoongi had his privacy in his own bedroom (if he didn’t let a certain employee in there despite his rules...) but Tae could check up on Jungkook without making things awkward.

“Could you do me a favor, please? Jungkook’s had a new customer and he hasn’t come to report. He said he’d take the weekend off and that he’s a bit tired so he might have just fallen asleep but... you know, you can never be careful enough. Would you mind taking a look if he’s alright? Just so that I can get that thought out of my head. I’m sure he won’t mind you knocking on his door. And I’d really appreciate it.” He gave Taehyung one of his rare smiles even though this one was visibly strained. With having been in this business for years he’s had his fair share of nasty incidents and injured boys but normally they came to him right after because they knew he would get help and a doctor and make sure that whoever customer did this to them would never set foot into the brothel again. He’s even had to throw someone out with help of his other employees. But Jungkook’s customer had just walked by calm and relaxed and with a smile, nothing indicating that it had gotten rougher than declared so he was probably just overreacting. Maybe Jungkook’s  just had enough of work for tonight.

Taehyung complied with a nod, walking back to Jungkook’s room with no worries, because it was late and the younger probably had just fallen asleep. He had looked already so exhausted this morning, so it wouldn’t be surprising to him if he just was in his bed. When he knocked, there was no answer and when he peeked inside to see if Jungkook was alright he found the room darkened and him tugged in under the blanket...and what seemed like asleep. With a fond smile, Taehyung carefully tip-toed away again, closing the door quietly before he went back to Yoongi. “It seems like he had fallen asleep. Don't worry about him, you can ask him tomorrow how it's been.“

Back in his room, Jungkook let go of the breath he was holding when the door had opened. His muscles stiff and eyes wide in fear, his back turned to whoever came inside. He didn’t want to see. And only when he was gone again, Jungkook allowed himself to curl in on himself, trying to ignore the fast beat of his heart or the way his body was aching.

…

The night was uneventful but there were the usual duties and routine that Yoongi had to follow to wrap up the evening successfully, so he completely forgot about how Jungkook hadn't reported. He trusted Tae’s honesty - and Jungkook’s trust in him that would surely have him coming to his office if anything was wrong. Still, although he was glad that Jungkook had finally gotten some rest he was disappointed that he hadn’t really talked that night with Jungkook. Just one evening without his smile and he already started to miss him...

All of them had thought Jungkook would come for breakfast, but once more the younger wasn’t seen. “He should definitely start taking better care of himself,” Hoseok was mumbling, munching on his food while he motioned for Jimin to give him some of the juice as the younger poured him a glass. “He always forgets to eat in the morning,” He added and Jimin bit his lip in thought. “Maybe he shouldn’t work this much. It’s obviously tiring him out and maybe he should step down from taking so many customers. Some can take it, some can’t,” Jimin said, sounding a little rougher than he intended so he put on a smile quickly to hide his own insecurity. Still it was him who said he would check up on Jungkook, while the others were either doing their morning routine, or go to the doctor like Hoseok, who was sporting some bruises to take care of. Jimin didn’t think anything about it, when he knocked on Jungkook’s door, calling out for the younger.

“Kookie? Are you okay? I wanted to ask if you want to come with me to the office. Maybe get some coffee after?” Jimin hesitated when there was no sound coming from inside, “Jungkook?” He reached for the door handle, pushing it down to get in but the door was locked. Still no sign from Jungkook. “Are you okay?” Jimin’s voice got a little high-pitched when an anxious feeling settle in his stomach making him feel sick. “Jungkook, please answer me! I need to know if you’re okay!” There was still no answer, so Jimin called out a little louder, his voice sounding more panicked, laced with worried. He was sure that one could hear his frantic knocks and voice down the hallway, and it made some of the boys peek their head out again in curiosity. Jimin cursed, trying to push against the door and knock a few more times but when Jungkook still wasn’t showing any signs of being alive or awake, Jimin turned to look at the other boys. “Get Yoongi,” Jin ordered right away and Jimin complied, his eyes wide as he ran down the hallway, storming into Yoongi’s office without a knock, panting and stuttering incoherent words.   

“Park Jimin!” Yoongi’s voice was sharp when he berated him “You do not run into my office like that, so you hear me?” Jimin either didn’t or whatever had driven him to run in unannounced like this scared him more than seeing Yoongi angry - which was a big, bright warning sign for Yoongi, and he immediately furrowed his brows. “What is it?”

Jimin just bit his lips, eyes wide and scared and you could practically see the gears turning behind them. “Jimin, what happened?!” Yoongi got up while his palm hit the surface of his desk and Jimin flinched, the little shock getting him out of his frozen state. “It’s.. it’s Jungkook. He wasn’t there at breakfast and at first we thought he’s been sleeping in again but there’s still no word from him and he hasn’t opened the door and I knocked and normally he at least yells for me to stop annoying him but.. but it’s completely quiet and I haven’t seen him since last night and he had a new customer what if something happened? Tae said Jungkook has been sleeping since yesterday what if he had been drugged or he’s in a coma or…”

Yoongi had felt his insides turn to ice when Jimin had told him that this was about Jungkook. He had left his place immediately, only half listening to Jimin’s rambling while going through his stuff to search for the master key. To hell with privacy if Jungkook might be injured or sick then he would rather risk the younger being angry at him for disturbing his sleep than Jungkook being alone or unconscious while his health was at risk.

A/N: Ah, I hope we didn’t scare you too much and yes we are mean for putting a chapter ending right there. But did you really think it’s going to be all butterflies? ;) It’s angst after all. We love you guys! Thank you for your constant support! It really means a lot to me and Cat!💕 Don’t forget to leave us a comment on how you liked it! :) 

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[nyanevil]

/Okay, Tumblr ate the ask about Mccree mind-reading werewolf.

Self-indulgent bar-AU, idea a little changed, the key is in the end. Critique and comments appreciated!/

It all started with pomegranate.

Mccree felt it on his tongue, as two entered his bar - one of them being Genji Shimada, owner of a kitchen utensil shop right across the road.

Mccree smiled. Friendly faces of others business owners (especially werewolves too) were always welcome in "Peacekeeper".

The other face, however, remained a mystery.

"Hey, Jesse!" Genji beamed, leaning for a hug across the counter and Mccree indulged him, inhaling banana-sweet wave of friendly affection and tinge of pomegranate - a worry of someone else.

Sombra politely turned away to other customer, providing him an angle of privacy, as much as possible in a crowded establishment.

"Hey. New faces in town?", Jesse raised his eyebrows and extented a hand, turning to a stranger.

"Jesse Mccree, nice to meet ya."

"That's--"

"Hanzo Shimada", said mysterious man, shaking his hand in response and allowing himself a modest smile. Confident and strong fingers - Mccree almost grinned. "My brother told me much about you, but seeing you in person is... another experience."

Across the pomegranate sour he felt a burst of red hot chili pepper, burning in his throat - he nearly coughed at the sudden taste, when looked into Hanzo's dark eyes.

Things were getting interesting.

"You told me you need a chef", dropped Genji innocently, interrupting improvised staring contest. Jesse shaked the stun off and nodded with quiet grunt. The drinks at "Peacekeeper" were top notch, but the clients prefered a little bite _with_ their liquors. The previous chef, Mako, went to the teleshow and surprisingly won a place in a much more respectable restaurant just a month ago - Jesse even had half a mind to call Ashe, the "Deadlock Confectionery" owner, and ask for a hand despite their previous conflicts. She would've helped, but not without her vinegar-bitter sarcasm and just a touch of marshmallow fondness. A little sickening mix.

"And you, I presume, have a candidate?"

Genji beamed again and did a jazz hands move towards Hanzo - the last one folded hands behind his back and a little shyly looked away.

"Five years ago I swore to never wield a kitchen blade again, but Genji has a way with words, when he wants to", explained he, while the youngest Shimada proudly straightened. "I actually send you my resume tonight."

Oh. Jesse didn't log in a corporative email in days.

As if remembering something, Hanzo rotated his shoulder.

"I also happened to have a Michelin Guide Star."

Half of the bar went completely quiet, including Sombra, Mei and even Hana, who was on a cleaning duty, poked her head into the hall.

Jesse never striked a deal so fast in his life.

And he never tasted so much pepper from one person.

***

Bar "Peacekeeper" was by all means a decent establishment: bright cocktails, nice music, attentive bartenders and surprisingly strict rules of "no brawls, no harassment, no shady business". That's why a good part of clients were not the usual bar people: barely-legal girls as much as women of near-climax age, and all sorts of members of LGBT+ community - no one was afraid for their security. Once you break the rules - you are banned from "Peacekeeper" forever.

And no decent human being would've wanted to be a person non-grata - to be in a High Noon list.

However, after a visit from brothers Shimada several months ago, things changed. Crowd became bigger, menu - prettier, and nice music was joined by a gorgeous scent of professional cooking, bringing saliva in hungry mounts and hefty numbers to the budget.

Pomegranate and spice were now Jesse's personal curse. Mooncycle was nearing new moon, so tastes were becoming stronger. When Hanzo was around (and it was pretty fair amount of time, Hanzo was a good listener and even better storyteller, and he smelled nice and had sharpest humor ever) Mccree could feel tight seeds bursting on his tongue, filling the heated void of his mouth. Wolf inside him wanted to taste it fully, to sink sharp teeth into burning flesh, to mark, to scent it onto himself, to reach the peak of sweetness.

Human was holding him down, but the wish to drink this affection up never fully vanished.

This night was not very crowded, so in the kitchen Hanzo was alone.

"So... five years?"

Hanzo turned away from the stove and looked at Mccree without fear, knowing his true nature - Genji has a way with words - quiet steps scaring him none.

"Yes, five years", Shimada turned to the counter, mistrust a mere glint in his eyes, and began to chop spinach. Mccree suddenly catched another note, almost non-existent. "It was... an incident between me and my brother. It was around one culinary award and... I turned his chef career down to shambles."

Jesse picked up that note: a dark chocolate, sweet just a little, refined treat for the dearest of people.

"After I reached a peak of my career, I saw my own loneliness", Hanzo a little abruptly shoved the spinach into a bowl and placed an onion on the desk. "As all of my accomplishments were turning to dust - I realised that without his support I was not the person I wanted to be."

The chocolate was melting, mixing with feathery light whipped egg whites - fondness and trembling worry in glinting eyes.

"I traveled all across the world, considering myself not ready to ask for forgiveness", whispered Hanzo under his breath, gaze dead on a desk, knife forgotten. "And he found me himself, offering it just like that. Just for a little help."

Jesse saw that defeat in slumped shoulders, heard that edging tremble in his voice and reacted immediately - pulled this mess of a feelings (mousse of a feelings) in a tight hug, allowing Hanzo Shimada, this proud warrior, to hide his face in a soft welcoming shoulder.

"I thought I lost him..."

"I know the feeling", whispered back Jesse, inhaling calming sweetness. Chocolate now was for him too - a precious gift for opportunity to talk, for opportunity to change his own fate.

After a few minutes Hanzo nodded and stepped out, hastily making himself presentable. Eyeliner was a little smudged, but the pomegranate was back, as well as the pepper. Notes of chocolate were surprisingly nice fitten into this wicked mix.

"Sorry--"

"It's nothin'."

"And thank you."

Jesse smiled and tipped an invisible hat. That was the nature of werewolves - all emotions on the palate and all the secrets after a single question.

Hanzo licked his lips. Jesse was suddenly and shamefully hot under the collar.

"You are always welcome."

***

At the new moon Jesse often took a day off. He almost never repressed his transformation - he did that a lot when he was younger. It was not healthy, to forbid his wolf a hunt in a nearby forest, to disallow a surge of restless energy to find a way out.

Today, however, was Valentine's Day.

The bar was full.

"We need more ice!"

"Coming!"

"Beer!"

"Blushing Bride for me and Bullet for my husband, please."

"White Russian!"

"Beer!"

"Did you bring me Old Fashioned?"

"El Diablo for me and Rusty Nail for my husband, punk."

"Beer!"

"Yo Jesse!"

Genji grinned from ear to ear, catching Jesse's attention. He passed the ice to Mei and turned to his guest.

"Business is booming, huh?" asked he, the little shit as he is. Jesse calmed his accelerated breath with a few gulps of fully stocked with tastes air.

"Yeah, much obliged", Mccree tipped his invisible hat again. The stetson was proudly hanged above the counter. "Did you really forgive your brother just because of me?"

Genji laughed and Jesse picked up these chocolate notes again - this time much sweeter, with a dash of bright matcha.

"Sorry, but you were just an excuse, really! I wanted to bring him back long ago! Well, it's not like he killed me or something!"

Jesse just shook his head, but smirked none the less. Brothers were brothers - they still not lost warm feelings towards each other.

"Anyway, I owe you one."

"Heh, that's simple", answered Genji cryptically, before flashing his eyes bright red. "Break his heart and I will chop you in half!"

Sometimes Jesse forgot, that Shimada is a werewolf too.

Wait.

"Is Hanzo--"

"Yeah! Sorry for not telling you earlier, I was hoping you will guess this yourself. Hey-y, can I have a Jack Sparrow while you are at it?"

***

"So... werewolves?"

Hanzo neatly folded his uniform on a kitchen counter and looked at the clock. Four at the morning. Nobody's in the building.

"I thought I was obvious enough", shrugged he, straightening himself. Jesse inhaled all the pepper, just to keep his wolf at bay. Restless energy surged through his muscles, intoxicating and wicked. "I am Shimada too, after all."

"So", Mccree waved his hand near his face. "The, the pomegranate and spice..."

"The chocolate too", nodded Hanzo, stepping closer and with absolute calm unsealing the buttons on Mccree's shirt. Jesse after a second of hesitation allowed that, placing both hands on a counter, trapping Hanzo between his body and a cold granite.

"This manipulation..."

"I didn't want it to be like that", whispered Hanzo, fingers restlessly petting and cupping Mccree gorgeous chest, soothing the beast under his skin. "But we both wanted it. I was, you... This--"

"Promise me one thing", interrupted Jesse, nose touching another. Shimada blinked from sudden gesture. "This is not one night stand, is it?"

A slap across the face was not the answer Jesse anticipated.

"Do I look like a common furry, lusting over every werewolf it sees?" hissed Hanzo in disgust. "Would I wait a few months just to jump on you? Would I talk my soul out if I did not trust you enough? I've seen enough of you, Jesse, to fall way past simple lust. And you?"

The next thing Jesse knew was taste of Hanzo's lips, warm and responsive; their bodies were tightly flushed together, hands wandering.

They were making a mess - tearing clothes away, roaring at each other, biting skin to the stars under eyelids, sharply inhaling, when their fingers closed around each other, tugging, tightening oh so sweetly; they kissed in a cloud of their own breath, swallowing each others noises, grunts and moans.

They ended up on a kitchen counter, panting hotly, basking in an afterglow of orgasm supernova - Jesse above, kissing pale bitten shoulder, Hanzo below, close-eyed, enjoying cool granite against his spine. The absense of response made him worry just before he picked the tastes again and calmed down.

Sour of green apples, coated in a tender sweet crust, with just a tinge of spicy cinnamon - taste that Hanzo would gladly drink and bask in.

After so many years of searching.

A water of love.

/Key: sweet - love, fondness, all things good enough; sour - worry for loved ones, for dear things in life, for true intentions; bitter - betrayal, sarcasm, grief; spice - deep desire, lust./

[somalester]

you let me walk alone

Superfamily Post-Civil War AU

It’s been a year since the Accords. A year since Steve left his family and Peter saw his father for the last time. 

Read it on AO3

Peter’s heart is slamming against his chest as though it’s trying to escape from it.

He barely notices it though; his head feels like it’s wrapped in cotton, and he sees everything from very, very far away. Which is probably because that’s his preferred choice of location right now. As far away from where he currently is as possible. Standing in a narrow street in the outskirts of Washington, forcing himself to ignore his nervousness and enter the coffee shop that his father will be waiting in.

It’s stupid, because he had the choice, and here he is anyway. But then again, if he he’d stayed away, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself, period.

Steve’s sitting in the back of the small café. His face is covered by a cap and sunglasses, but that ‘disguise’ is almost more familiar to Peter than his parent’s actual faces.

He feels Steve's eyes on him as he makes his way through the rows of chairs and tables.

It’s terrible.

Any other day a year ago, he would have run up to him, would have hugged him and, most importantly, wouldn’t have felt such anxiety at meeting his own father. But now, after the Accords, after Steve choosing to leave him and Tony, after not seeing him since Germany, since Tony came back with bruises all over his chest -

He keeps his head down as he slides into the chair opposite Steve and barely manages a mumbled greeting.

“It’s good to see you,” Steve replies and Peter can tell he’s being earnest from his voice alone, but it doesn’t feel like that changes anything. “How have you been? Everything okay at school?”

Peter frowns. Something in him rebels against the absurdity of discussing his homework while his life’s been in shambles for months -

“Peter?” There’s a definite frown in his father’s voice.

Right. Participating in conversation. Like a normal child.

“Boring, mostly,” he says. It’s the only alternative to the truth. “I’ve started to do my own experiments in chemistry class.”

Steve chuckles. It sounds forced, but also fond. “Be careful not to blow anything up, will you?”

Peter just nods. He doesn’t know what to say, the words seem stuck in his throat, and so he stays silent.

After a moment, Steve clears his throat and asks, “Anything else you want to talk to me about? Is there someone you like, maybe?”

Peter stiffens. He can’t play this game, he won’t. His family’s been ripped away from him and now Steve's sitting here, asking Peter, because he wasn't there to see it for himself.

“Actually, yeah.” He raises his head and smiles wryly. “But then her father tried to kill me, so that didn’t work out.”

Peter can see Steve’s eyes widen behind the sunglasses. “Are you okay? Did he -?”

“Hurt me?” Peter supplies coldly.

Steve swallows, nods.

“You could say so.” He doesn’t feel like laying out his nightmares and Tony’s pacing in the medbay after he returned home from fighting the Vulture. “Why do you care?”

Steve looks stricken. “Why do I- Peter. Of course I care.”

“You weren’t there,” Peter says, fully aware of the fact that he sounds like a petulant child. “You left us.”

This time, it’s Steve who avoids his eyes. “Peter... Can we not do this? I’ve missed you. I’ve missed being your father.”

“Well too bad.” And it’s a real challenge not to let his voice raise above a normal conversational level. “I miss having a family.”

Steve’s whole body flinches. And it doesn’t matter how long it’s been, or how much pain Steve caused - it hurts, seeing these words affect him like this. But Peter’s not sorry enough to apologize and take it back.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says roughly. “I never wanted it to end like this.”

Peter has to bite back all of the retorts that immediately spring to his tongue.

Tony’s told him, over and over again, that Steve was caught up in unfortunate circumstances, like they all were. He’s told him that while his hand was shaking and the shadows under his eyes grew bigger. While he locked himself away from Peter and yet still pushed him to give Steve this chance.

“Peter?”

He’s shaking, and he didn’t even notice.

“Come back.”

Steve stares at him. “What?”

“Come back,” Peter repeats, quieter this time. He’s fully aware of how ridiculous the request is, especially since his anger’s still clinging to him.

Steve sighs. “You know I can’t do that Pete.”

“Tony got you pardoned!”

“It’s not that easy, kiddo.” Steve smiles sadly. “I don’t think he’d want to see me, anyway.”

Peter thinks of Tony losing weight, of the booze reappearing in their kitchen and the quiet that’s taken over their life and silently disagrees with him. But he also thinks of Tony turning his back as soon as he’s gotten the official pardon for the rogue Avengers, and never once getting involved in the subject again, and Peter can’t argue with Steve.

“So,” Peter says, a bit lifelessly, “Nothing’s gonna change, huh?”

Steve sighs. “Peter, I’m sorry. I really am. I never intended to hurt you, or Tony. And you’re right to be upset with me. But, I’d... I’d really like to be a part of your life again.”

Peter swallows. “Just mine?”

“Yeah,” Steve answers tightly. “I don’t think... Tony and I aren’t ready to talk just yet.”

Peter nods and stares at a dark smudge on the table to avoid crying. It’s stupid. He knew that things wouldn’t be like they were before.

But still, he couldn’t...

He couldn’t help hoping...

(He’s rarely felt so much like a helpless child than he did in the last year.)

He also can’t help asking. “Are you still mad at Dad?”

“I think what’s going on between me and your Dad should stay between us for now,” Steve says gently.

Peter lowers his head. “Okay.” (Tony hadn’t given him an answer to that question either.)

“So, what do you say?” Steve smiles, visibly nervous. “We could see each other more often. Me, Bucky and the others have a place a little out of town. You’d love it.”

“I-” Peter catches himself. It was tempting, to give into his hurt and say he’d need more time to decide, to then never do it and turn his back on the shambles of his family. In fact, he doesn’t even know if he can do the alternative. But then he thinks of evenings spent curled up to Steve’s chest, of their playful training sessions and the way his father always listened to what he had to say.

(He also thinks of Tony skipping meals and refusing to talk, about the coldness of the compound and the way he feels like he lost both of his parents.)

“Yeah, I think we could do that.”

And Steve’s face lights up in that way Tony’s never does anymore.

[michaelmalloryfanfic-blog]

fic: o thou, destroyer name

they are like two wounded animals circling one another, waiting to see who will strike first

. millory au . 

post links: chapter i // chapter ii // chapter iii // chapter iv // chapter v // chapter vi // chapter vii // chapter viii // chapter ix //

ao3 links: chapter i // chapter ii // chapter iii // chapter iv // chapter v // chapter vi // chapter vii // chapter viii // chapter ix //

a/n: so maybe I didn't actually watch the show beyond episode three....in any case. I started writing this before I heard about the finale and so I'm just gonna pretend that only up to episode three exists. sue me.also I made up a last name for mallory. don't come at me with any canon compliance stuff. I am a dumbass. I don’t know what canon is.

The figure of a mother and a child come shambling into his path on his way to Outpost 3. There had been a slew of outpost failures at the beginning. At least ten had fallen in the initial chaos of bombfall. The rest held for a little while but soon enough more reports of fallen outposts came pouring in. The first outpost to fall after the initial blast was 12. When the news had come in, only two week after the bombs fell, Michael had barely taken notice. The outposts were never meant to last all that long anyway, a year maybe two. Just mid-tier new-money assholes who thought they were buying security but really they were throwing money in a pit. The next to fall was 23 and then 30 after only month. Then 31 through 44 in one fell swoop. Spread across ten countries and thousands of miles, their lights all go out at once. That's when someone starts noticing. They send a couple squads out. They either come back with nothing or they don't come back at all.

By the time concerns about the outposts fall to Michael, he's practically jumping at the chance to get away from the insufferable rich assholes he’s had to endure for the last year. As it turns out, the apocalypse is a lot less unholy sanction and more...red tape. Michael is young but he wasn’t a fool. He knew what ending the world would entail. He had been more than prepared for the pain and the screams of anguish. He had never been squeamish about blood or violence, those things all had come so naturally to him. But what he hadn’t expected was the sheer boredom once the dust fell. Surely the apocalypse should be a little more fun. He's not quite sure what he expects to find in Outpost 3. It's the only one left that still consistently attempts contact with the Cooperative. At the very least, it should provide some entertainment.

He had seen the three figures through the haze, had known what they were. Lost causes. Practically dead already. But still, he stopped and once he steps out of the cabin, the woman immediately crowds in. She is saying something to him, pushing the child at her feet toward him. He had to give her credit. Towering nearly six feet tall in his dusty, pitch black bio suit, he must look like the Death or the Devil himself and in a way he was both. Still, she pushes her kid forward.

“Please, we have nowhere to go, no way to survive,” she pleads. “Have mercy.”

He looked down at the child. Even from above it was a horror. Angry, red patches of skin covered most of its head. Bald, blotchy and painful. It kept its head down, perhaps too weak to even lift its face to look him in the eye.

“Please,” whispered the woman, pushing the kid closer, even still. “Mercy, have mercy.”

She had no problem looking him in the face. And though she too is a horror to behold, the eyes are still good. Great, big, mournful eyes, dark brown. Strategic. He can respect that. And perhaps if he had been any other person, any other creature he would have taken pity and put them out of their misery.

He crouches down until he’s face to face with the woman. He doesn’t need to ask, doesn’t need to tap into any kind of supernatural force to see that this wretched, ugly creature would offer not just herself but her last living child up for slaughter. No hesitation. If only so they could finally find release.

He reaches out one, heavily-gloved hand and places it gently, almost affectionately on the kid’s ruined head. He then moves to curve his fingers around the mother’s jaw. She closes those doe eyes and breathes out a sigh. Of relief? Of pleasure? Or maybe she’s just tired. He doesn’t care.

He stands. The woman’s still got her eyes shut with that stupid look on her face like she's so grateful. With his other hand he pulls a knife from a pocket in his bio suit.

“Help us,” she pleads.

He throws the knife at her feet.

“Help yourself.”

Her screams vibrate through the air long after he’s climbed back into his carriage and carried on. The anguish echoing into the mist makes him feel more alive, more himself than he’s felt in a while.

Outpost 3 turns out to be a delightful little pocket of chaos that he’s happy to nestle his claws into. He’s pleasantly surprised when he sees her again, his Ms. Mead. She doesn’t recognize him and she’s stuck to Venable’s side but it isn’t a problem. She will know him again. Less pleasant, though equally entertaining, is the presence of the confusing little puzzle that is Mallory.

Michael is loathe to admit that she catches him off guard. Her interview starts off as predictable as possible. She’s an open book to him and he doesn’t need to read her file to figure her out. She’s from some small town in Colorado. Moved to the big city only to find out that she’s destined to be nothing more than a minuscule parasite doomed to suck on the teat of vapid idiots like Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt just to survive.

But the longer the interview goes on the more it becomes apparent. There’s something missing. Something is amiss with little Miss Mallory. As she tells him about how her parents split when she was young, her first boyfriend, how she began working for Ms. Vanderbilt, she begins to sound less like a person giving an interview and more like someone reciting rote memorization. He can’t put his finger on it but something just isn’t right. It’s not that she’s not pathetic and so disgustingly human . It’s not what she is but rather what she isn’t. It’s more like someone has hollowed her out. A pumpkin that’s been scrapped clean of all its insides.

“She needs me,” Mallory says with the slightest, bland smile and it’s honestly a little weird, unnerving even. The lights are on but nobody's home.

Still he keeps going. She’s visibly uncomfortable as he gives his speech about the fruit and the fire. He’s only half disingenuous. He’s being more than a little honest and he has no idea why. Her eyes look darker in this light and when he reaches out to touch her, she starts to cry.

And the next thing he knows the room is on fire.

Mallory stays low after that and he’s content to let her. There’s still a plethora of juicy morsels to taunt and toy with. He lets her go, lets her crawl on her belly back to the shadows. The next time he sees her she’s a corpse. The fun runs its eventual course. Venable got a hole in her chest the size of his fist. Mead is his once more and Michael feels severely rejuvenated. So maybe that’s why he pauses at the sight of the inhabitants of Outpost 3 splayed out on the floor like broken toys. Maybe he’s just feeling himself a little too much at this point and that’s why he finds her among the wreckage and crouches down besides her. He breathes into her.

He’s prepared to see what comes next, knows that death needs crawl out of her like a beetle and life will claw into her. It takes a few moments but soon enough she’s heaving but besides that she’s oddly silent when she stares up at him, jaw slack, death still coloring her lips. She looks like shit.

Michael had often wondered why it is that people have children. And the conclusion he has come to is that it’s ultimately an act of vanity. At some point in people’s lives they realize things are screwed up beyond repair and of course they are right. So they decide to start again. Wipe the slate clean. Start fresh. They have children. Little carbon copies they can turn to and say, "You will do what I could not. You will succeed where I have failed." Because they want someone to get it right this time. But not him. Not Michael.

Personally speaking, he was more than content to watch his new world eat these maggots alive. But there’s something about the girl’s eyes as she tears her way back into consciousness. Her eyes are liquid in the firelight, red-ringed and glittering. She finds his eyes and he feels something pull at him, a cord tied to something within him that had been slack this whole time now pulled taut. Then she screams and Michael wonders if this is what it’s like to see a child be born.

“Welcome back, Mallory.”

[notcaycepollard]

those screengrabs from dear white people w/ tessa thompson you just reblogged are sam & bucky in a college au

WOW YOU ARE NOT WRONG

It’s not that Bucky thinks Steve’s roommate is a dick, or anything. Hell, he seems like a good guy, especially given he’s helped Steve rescue Bucky from misguided decisions and poorly thought through situations at least three times. Four if you count the time Steve and Sam got into a fistfight with the president of Hydra Kappa Phi while Bucky was throwing up in the frat house bathroom in nothing but his underwear and some silver body paint. And yeah, Sam’s probably got more than enough reason to hate Bucky now, given that whole thing ended with Bucky puking on Wilson’s shoes while weakly insisting that it wasn’t hazing, the frat was totally cool, he was gonna keep pledging like it was his damn mission. Once you throw up on someone’s shoes, Bucky thinks, you’re probably not gonna be cool with each other. 

It’s just. It’s just, if he’s being truthful, Sam Wilson is super fucking great, the kind of great that’d make you spit if he weren’t also such a nice fucking person. It’s not enough that he’d got the 4.0 GPA and double major in psych and polsci and fuckin’ track scholarship, he’s gotta go and be the kind of person who runs the LGBT students’ association and volunteers down at the VA for extra counselling experience, and on top of all that he’s really goddamn beautiful. Bucky’d already noticed him before the whole Hydra Kappa Phi debacle, had furtively checked him out across their mutual Eng 201 class, but he’d really noticed Sam was beautiful, had gotten up close with the curl of his lashes and his smooth brown skin, about the same time he was heaving the last quarter of a forty of grain alcohol all over Wilson’s nice white sneakers, and ever since then, well. 

He’d woken up the next morning feeling like something unutterably terrible had happened to him, squinted at his surroundings—Steve’s suite bathroom floor, cool—and staggered into their room, wondering if maybe he was dying or maybe had in fact already died and was just a shambling corpse, and Sam fuckin’ Wilson had glanced over at him, scowled a little, said man, you owe me some new kicks, and Bucky had thought, bleakly: well, fuck me.

Ever since then they’ve kind of maintained an awkwardly distant relationship, Steve’s two best friends who don’t quite get along, and now it’s like six years later and Bucky knows Sam Wilson is a good guy, more than just a good guy but someone who Bucky’s accidentally kind of fallen way too deep for even as Sam politely but barely acknowledges his existence. Bucky wants to mend that bridge, smooth it all over, say hey how about we forget what a fuckin’ disaster I was in undergrad, we’re adults now, let’s start fresh, and then maybe, how about we get a drink sometime, but it all, when Bucky’s being bleakly honest with himself, seems more than a little like an entirely lost cause.

He’s sitting in Steve’s office one evening, waiting for him to finish grading; honestly the TA offices are more like depressingly tiny cubicles than actual offices but it’s a better spot than the grad lounge if only because the couch doesn’t feel too gross to sit on, so Bucky’s got his laptop out, is working on his Comparative Lit paper while he waits. He pulls up iTunes to switch albums, notices something odd in his Mac library.

FALCON, it says, and Bucky clicks on it, because Dostoevsky is fine but he’s been working on this paper for about three thousand hours, and someone clearly hasn’t turned off their Mac library sharing permissions.

It’s Sam Wilson’s music library. Bucky figures it out pretty quickly—Janelle Monáe, Vince Staples, Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean, Sam’s got as good taste in music as everything else. There’s a bunch of Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura which Bucky’s willing to bet is something Steve passed on and Sam politely listened to once before forgetting it exists, a bit of Marvin Gaye, and Bucky scrolls through, tries out Erykah Badu, a little Anderson .Paak. And then he spots it, right at the bottom, like Sam’s trying to hide it even from himself.

“Oh my god,” Bucky mutters to himself, gleeful. “Oh my god.”

“Hmm?” Steve asks, distracted from his class’s papers on fuckin’ mid-century American politics or whatever it is Steve’s tutoring this semester, and Bucky shakes his head, waves Steve off. 

“Oh my god,” he whispers again. Pulls up a browser window, runs a search, looks at his bank account. Fuck, this is— it’s stupid, he doesn’t really have the money, his savings are low and his grad stipend’s gotta last for another month, but it’s too good an opportunity, and before Bucky really thinks about it, he’s clicked book now.

He goes back over to the TA offices the next day when he knows Steve’s got a three-hour lecture across campus. Knocks on the door of Sam’s cubicle, and Sam looks up from his trauma psych notes, squints at Bucky through his reading glasses.

“Steve’s not here, man, come back later.”

“No, I know. I, uh. I came to talk to you.”

“To talk to me,” Sam repeats, obviously perplexed, and Bucky shrugs, already regretting everything that’s led him here. Sam gestures at his own couch, slightly less ratty than Steve’s, and Bucky sits down, wipes his palms on his jeans.

“Yeah. Well, I mean. To give you these, actually.” He hands the envelope to Sam before he can make it any damper, clutching it in a sweaty hand, and Sam blinks at it for a minute. “Well, open it,” Bucky says, even more awkward now, and Sam blinks again, opens the envelope and pulls out the tickets.

“What,” he says, flat. Bucky grins. 

“I figured, right, we could go.”

“What,” Sam repeats. Looks from the tickets to Bucky and back again. “Am I hallucinating? Is this a stress dream? Did Maria put her secret study formula in my coffee again to test it out on me?”

“You have a thing for Taylor Swift,” Bucky says, undeterred. Sam shakes his head. “You do. I know because my Mac picked up your music library.”

“No, man, that was from Steve,” Sam tries, “I never even listened to it, it just got added in the last compilation he gave me,” and it’s Bucky’s turn to shake his head.

“It ain’t. You think I don’t know Steve’s music? Besides, he won’t download her, you know he thinks she’s a succubus. And anyway, I checked your number of plays. You’ve listened to 1989 like four thousand times, sweetheart.”

“I cannot believe this,” Sam mutters. “Fuck, I was so careful.”

“You gotta change your privacy settings,” Bucky tells him, magnanimous now. “And you gotta go to Taylor Swift with me.”

“I am not going to Taylor Swift,” Sam says. “With you or otherwise, Barnes.”

“Come on, those cost me almost three hundred bucks,” Bucky says. “I’m gonna have to eat ramen and dining hall coffee for the next month. Besides, who’s gonna know? Nobody will see us. Your cred is safe. Just shake it off, baby.”

“No,” Sam says. “No, Barnes, we’re not doing this.”

“Look what you made me do,” Bucky offers. One corner of Sam’s mouth crooks upward, like he’s willing himself not to smile. “You’re so gorgeous, I can’t say anything to your face.”

“No,” Sam says again, “nuh uh, stop this,” and reaches out, tries to cover Bucky’s mouth with his hand. Bucky grins at him, shifts out of range.

“I’m so furious at you for making me feel this way,” he says, deadpan, and this time Sam flings himself at Bucky, wrestles him down against the couch to press his palm over Bucky’s mouth.

“You are the worst,” he says, glaring at Bucky. “I hate you.” And then he’s grinning outright, leaning in, hissing in Bucky’s ear. “I knew you were trouble when you walked in.”

“It’s a love story,” Bucky says, muffled against Sam’s palm. Grabs Sam’s wrist and pulls his hand away, strokes his thumb over Sam’s warm pulse point; Sam’s in his lap looking furious and aroused and right on the edge of laughter, and Bucky didn’t really think this was possible, but— “Baby,” he says, solemn, “just say yes.”

“Fuck you,” Sam says, with feeling, and slams his mouth against Bucky’s, kissing him hard. “Yes, fine, yes, I’ll go to fucking Taylor Swift with you, my entire life is an embarrassing lie.”

“Uh,” someone says fifteen minutes later, and they quit furiously making out to discover one of Sam’s students standing in his office doorway looking vaguely embarrassed. “I can come back later?”

“I,” Sam says. Clears his throat and visibly tries to pull himself together, which is absolutely fucking unacceptable given that thirty seconds ago Bucky had his mouth on Sam’s throat and Sam had both hands up Bucky’s shirt, and Bucky has been pining over this for like six fucking years.

“Yeah, no, this is a bad time. Come back during his office hours,” Bucky says firmly, getting up to close the door.

“This is my office hours,” Sam says, only a little reproachfully, and Bucky shrugs, locks the door.

[pearls-of-patton-moved]

Adronitis

Takes place in the Fata Organa AU.

Words: 1131

Pairing: Platonic analogical

The first tickle of his throat hits in the morning, and Logan worries for a moment before getting lost in his first class of the day. By lunchtime, he seems to be coughing a bit more than usual, but he’s already focused on a new research project he wants to start, and decides to skip lunch in favor of the library. It comes as a shocking realization to Logan, later that evening, when he glances up from the book he’s reading, to realize that he’s horribly cold and his head is pounding. Shocked at this sudden onset of illness, Logan quickly packs his things up and leaves the library, but by the time he’s reached the dorm, he barely has the energy left to set a water bottle on his nightstand and huddle under the covers. He curls up, but sleep proves difficult to come by, and every time he manages to drift off, he inevitably wakes himself up with yet another coughing fit.

By the time Logan wakes, the next morning, Virgil appears to have come and gone, and with a start, he reaches for his phone to check the time. The glaringly bright screen echoes 11:30 back at him, and Logan struggles to get up, having already missed one of his classes, and determined not to miss the rest. He feels sore and moves sluggishly around the dorm room gathering his things, but just before he can leave, the door bursts open as Virgil returns.

“What are you doing?” Virgil demands, glaring at Logan with a surprising ferocity.

“I overslept. A better question is why didn’t you wake me?” Logan growls back, irritated and still ridiculously tired.

“Overslept?” Virgil barks back. “You kept both of us up half the night with your coughing fits, and you’re worried about oversleeping?!” Logan tries to formulate a response, but Virgil is already stepping forward, crowding into his personal space and herding him back towards his bed.

“Get back in bed, idiot. Hell, you didn’t even eat the breakfast I left you, before trying to book it out of here!” Virgil steps to the side, as soon as Logan sits back down, and picks a tray up from it’s resting place on his nightstand.

“What-” Logan tries to ask, but Virgil is already interrupting him.

“You need to eat something. And drink the tea, too.”Virgil offers him the tray as soon as he’s settled, and Logan examines its contents. Fruit, oatmeal, and a cup containing the tea Virgil had mentioned.

“I can’t just skip my classes, Virgil, I might miss something important,” Logan argued, though he still picked up the spoon.

“Seeing as I already spoke to your teachers about it; yes, you definitely can. You haven’t missed a single day of class yet, and in case you haven’t noticed, you’re sick.” Virgil responded evenly. “The sooner you take the time to get better, the sooner you’ll be able to go back to class.” Silence descends on the two of them for a moment, as Logan eats, and Virgil rummages around in his backpack.

“You spoke to my teachers?” Logan quietly asks a minute later.”Why?”

“I mean, you’re sick.” Virgil looks back at him warily. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Ignore me? You’ve never displayed an interest in interacting before. I just find it -odd- that you would choose to take an interest in me now when I’m ill.”

“I guess I’m just used to taking care of sick people. I’ve got to go to class.” With that, Virgil leaves Logan alone in their room once more. Carefully, he settles in to finish eating his breakfast, though it’s much closer to lunchtime now, Logan supposes.

The next day is Friday, and if anything, Logan feels even worse, so he stays in bed once again, annoyed with his body but unable to argue in the face of Virgil’s confident assumption of control. It reminds him of being back home, with Aunt Lacey fussing over him the moment he catches a cold. He tries to read his textbooks, to study and at least pretend to be productive, but his eyes can barely stay open, let alone focus, and mostly he ends up just sitting in bed, staring at the wall in front of him, waiting for time to pass. Virgil finds him like that, when he returns from his classes, staring straight ahead with unfocused eyes.

“Jeez, you look like you’ve been given a prison sentence. I’m surprised you’re not studying, actually.” Logan started to shake his head in response but aborted the motion immediately as it set his head spinning.

“I attempted it. My eyes seem to be having trouble maintaining focus on the words.”

“Oh, well you could watch some Netflix or something? It’s honestly creepy, you just staring at the wall like that.” Virgil placed a tray with more food beside Logan, before shrugging of his backpack.

“I do not have Netflix. It seemed an inadvisable expenditure when I should be spending my time studying.” Logan frowned, focusing on the food Virgil had brought him.

“Okay, that’s just sad. Where’s your laptop?” Logan pointed at his backpack, where it lay beside his bed, wondering what Virgil wanted with it.

“Ugh. password?” Virgil asked once the machine had successfully booted up.

“Mmm,” Logan mumbled. “Tomato.”

“That didn’t work, Logan. Are delirious too?”

“Not-” Logan frowned. “Not literally tomato. The scientific name. Solanum Lycopersicum.”

“Sola- what?”

“Solanum Lycopersicum. It’s the scientific name for the tomato. Just google it.” This time, Virgil had brought Logan some kind of soup, so he sniffed at it. It smelled like chicken broth.

“Right. Of course, that’s your password.” Virgil pulled out his phone and started typing.

“What are you doing anyway?’ Logan blew into the soup, watching Virgil out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m logging you into my Netflix account. You need something to do, and it has plenty of documentaries. I’m sure one of them will interest you.” Virgil typed into the computer for a moment more. “There, your own profile and everything. Enjoy. I’m going for a run.” And once again Virgil was out the door, leaving Logan adrift in Virgil’s complete shift in personality over the past two days.

Logan’s feeling marginally better the next day, and by Sunday afternoon, he’s feeling well enough to leave their room for his meals. Logan worries temporarily that Virgil’s been infected with whatever caught hold of him, but that fear proves unfounded, and Virgil remains as healthy as ever. With Logan’s returned health, Virgil’s attitude returns mostly to normal, but Logan finds his curiosity about his aloof roommate has only been heightened after this most recent incident. He only wishes he had an idea of how to properly thank Virgil for his help.

tags taken from the fanders taglist

@sanders-sides-thuri @logically-asexual   @hissesssss @lacrimosathedark @sarcastic-anxious   @completelyclevername @watch-me-introvert  @tree4life25 @emokittenlikesgore @neko-ereri @happypappypatton @confinesofpersonalknowledge @urtrashhq @thegirlwiththedragonheart @fandergecko @too-random-for-me @deathbyvenusftw @ill-interested @just-another-transblog @tsfanart @fangirlsanonymous @ams-parker @inkyroo @staticsanders @callboxkat @allthemetalsoftherainbow @depressed-alone @theroyalramen @rileyfirstname @hikariyukino @magicmapleleaf   @pieces-of-annedrew @saphirestrike @asalwayss @anxiousoddish @romanssippycup @virgils-anxiety @redundant-statements-for-400 @skylagamingfea @clueingforblogs @ladynikitablack @dominantnellele @dibleopard @vampyrsarah @haikyuupaladin @all-these-trees-stealing-mah-o2 @migraine-marathon @samidaboss3 @proudhufflepuff @alextheodd @sandersfanders @pansexual-cat @hanramz-the-fander @anastasialestina @darude-sanderstorm @anarchx-kestrel @sanders-sides-shambles @royallyanxious @thestoryofme13 @silentwhistlingwind @i-will-physically-fight-you @a-blog-just-for-sanders @the-optimism-of-the-ostriches @kurna-kovite @221biotchplease @pattonly-absurd @starry-eyed-haiku-dreamer @digitally-analog @pattykrabbies @shygirl4991 @sides-of-a-sunset @musicphanpie-b @superintrovertfangirl @sugarblob0 @silversunshine2012 @lockolocka @nightly_illustrator @virgils-hoodie @makemeaplant @today-only-happens-once @madelynnaa @rainbow-sides @koalaaquabear @deep-ocean-blues  @icbatocomeupwithausername @catsandrandomness @rose-gold-roman @virgil-has-a-houseplant @aliferous-ly @musicsavedmefromdeath @devastate-my-space @anachronistic-cat @heythereprincey @yourhappypappypatton @sanders-trash-4ever @siriuswhiskers @thenerdycube @pinkeasteregg @an_anxious_gay_mess @virgilisaneternalmood @multi-fandom-trash-x9000 @kirsten-the-freak @justabookworm39 @thepusheenqueen @artistictaurean @funsizedgremlin @pal-im-not-clever   @logan-exe @thecrimsoncodex @unknownsandersfan @yourmomsafalsehood @robanilla @dementeddracon @ive-given-up-on-it @v-blue-writer @sassy-in-glasses @blazeimagines101 @sanders-fam-ily @trashypansexual @toujours-fidele @grey-lysander @sehtah @paxtonlovestea @lowkey-logicality @do-rey-me @hottopicvirge @rptheturk @urte1108 @nottodaylogic @ffsas-side-account @shadow-walker-1201 @milomeepit @fricksonsticks @baileystarsketches @yura-brokeit @ace-of-hufflepuffs @voices-and-stardust @deadinsidebutliving @acechirou @ocotopushugs @lynisnotamused @datonerougecookeh @lana--22 @poundland-twoface @kentato-kenart @yourhappypappypatton @logically-sided @slothicity @osnapitzbc @areyousirius-noheisdead @ruuworld @aikogumi @kickthecel @floatyghosty @theworldismysupernova @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @mercythemermaid @etherealweekes @memesanddreamsinc @jade-dragon226-fan @jesusonafrickinboat @mollycassmith @nightmarejasmine   @black-and-blume @ace-v-p-d   @acrobaticcatfeline @thomas-must-get-to-sleep @sesame-icecream @dreamerhowelll @nyxwordsmith @stars-in-mine-eyes @roman-is-a-gay @reba-andthesides @thesilentbluesparrow @angered-turtle @fanatic564

[god7072therescue]

The Crow AU Fan Fiction

Hey guys! This is an idea that I have had for a while now, and I am finally going to try and make a multi-chapter fic!! This going to be based on the ninety’s cult classic “The Crow”. Now this is going to be a rated Mature fic and I will tag every chapter with a trigger warning that is appropriate to that chapter!! I hope you enjoy!! Here you go, @reifromrfa!!

A/N: I am going to start out the movie a lot like the original plot from the movie but I am going to change the main characters backstory and the plot later on. I hope you all enjoy!!

Trigger warning: Heavily refers to rape, explicit language, and gore 

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.

Jumin took a deep breath as he stared down at the mangled body being investigated about four stories below him. The window he looked out of was shattered, most likely being the window the man fell out of. The sky was tinted with a red hue by all the commotion happening throughout the city, “Devil’s Night” is what they called tonight. Like it was some sort of sick holiday for all the arsonists around the area.

One-hundred and forty-three fires had been reported so far, and the depressing aspect of that statement is the relief some of the officers were feeling about the matter. Because last year, there were more. However, the night was still young and there was plenty of time for them to add to the list.

Jumin could hear the whimpering of the woman behind him, her voice was barely audible as she called out a name over and over. She was calling out his name. The paramedics were trying to calm her down as they placed an oxygen mask over her beaten face. She hissed in pain because there were so many injuries inhibiting the mask from fitting correctly. He glanced behind him,  he watched the paramedics put the mask on her, but he looked back to the scene below him as soon as he got a glimpse of her face.

She was barely recognizable.

He looked back down to the man that she was calling out to. Blood streamed down his face from where he was beaten before being thrown out the window.  His silver hair was tinted red by the amount of blood he had lost prior to his fall. There was so much, it was matted into knots because of the length of it. If they were going to make it look decent for the funeral, they would have a better chance cutting it all off. His eyes had the same hollow look that he saw at every homicide.  Poor bastard. The men down at the investigation were done taking pictures so they began to cover him with a sheet to shield him from the prying eyes around the crime scene.

“Hey, come look at this.” Another officer on duty gestured towards a wedding dress that was hung up on the door of a closet. Jumin stepped closer to observe the dress with a grimace because he noticed the blood splatters on the hem. On the night stand beside the bed, there was a shattered picture frame that was laying on its back. He walked closer to the frame, so he could further investigate it. He wiped the stray glass fragments off the frame, so he could get a better look at the wedding invitation that was inside. Jesus Christ…

“They were supposed to get married tomorrow,” he muttered under his breath as his eyes scanned the invitation.

The officer scoffed and waved off the entire notion of the wedding date, “Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyway?”

Jumin’s eyes snap up to the officer as he states, “Nobody.”

The officer promptly shut his mouth under Jumin’s intense gaze before he wandered to another area of the apartment.

Jumin was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard one of the paramedics call out to him, “Officer, we have got to move her.” Jumin could hear the underlying frantic tone in his voice as he looked down at the woman on the floor.

The paramedics had covered up the lower half of her body with a white sheet out of decency because the assailants ripped her clothes to shreds. He could barely tell the sheet was supposed to be white by the amount of blood soaked into it. Her skin was pale from the amount of blood loss she had endured from the beating. She was even more beaten than her lover that was lying dead on the pavement.

He could only imagine the hell the assailants put her through. He didn’t even need to imagine what she looked like under the sheet based on the murmuring of the paramedics surrounding her body. He continued to stare down at her body under the sheet as he weighed his options. The head of this investigation had not arrived yet, he could seriously get into some deep shit if he told them to move her.

But she’ll die.

She reached out her hand towards the window as she uttered a name with a soft whisper, “Ryu..” he could see the tears rolling down her face, piercing through the dried blood.

“Move her,” Jumin sighs.

The chief would have to complain to him later. The men already took the pictures they needed. He was not having this innocent woman die because of a goddamn crime scene.

Jumin looked away from the woman as the paramedics lifted her onto the stretcher so he could continue to observe their apartment. Jumin scanned the room for further indications of who the hell could have done this to the couple. But at that moment, all he could see were their memories scattered in pieces. Their pictures were spread out all over the floor from someone deliberately ripping them off the walls. The books that were on their shelves were dumped onto the floor; some of the pages ripped out. Most of their furniture was in shambles. The place was nearly unsalvageable.

The paramedics were able to get the woman onto the gurney with no complications, so they immediately began to wheel her to the stairwell because the damn elevator was broken. Jumin followed suit so he could be near in case they needed any help getting her down the stairs. Once they arrived down stairs without any disturbances, he could already hear his chief bitching out the paramedics.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my crime scene?” the chief spit out as he watched the paramedics push the woman towards the ambulance. “There is a procedure we have to go by. You need to clear shit like this,” he gestured to the battered woman on the stretcher, “with me.”

The paramedics just ignored him because they were too focused on the woman in front of them to care about some pissed off cop.

The chief turned to Jumin with a glare, “What the fuck happened here?”

Jumin continued to keep his eyes on her as they began to load her into the ambulance as he said, “Her name is MC, she-“

“I don’t give a fuck what her name is. The fact is, you moved her without my permission.” The chief took out a cigarette from his pocket and stuck it in between his lips.

Jumin was appalled at how nonchalant the man was being in front of a dying woman and he was about to voice that opinion; but he was interrupted by a frantic, “MC!”

His head snapped to the side upon hearing the voice and saw a blonde young man, he looked like he was in his late teens. Jumin turns back to give his chief a stern looks to signify that they were not done having this conversation. The chief gives Jumin a threatening glance before he turned on his heel to walk into the apartment to investigate. Jumin knew he was going to be written up for “misconduct”.

He could care less.

He felt a hand suddenly grab his arm and he turned swiftly so he could see who it was. The woman was looking up at him with desperate eyes as she gasped for breath to try and get out, “Where’s Ryu?” She had ripped off her oxygen mask so she could get the question out to him.

Jumin was looking down into her pleading eyes and was about to try and say some comforting words but she interrupted him by forcing out, “Tell him to take,” She hacked out a cough, which caused blood to run down her lips, “care of Yoosung.”

The young man has now reached the gurney and is gripping the side of it as he calls out, “MC!” His voice broke from the panic of seeing MC in such a state. Jumin could see tears forming in the corner of his violet eyes.

Shit… this must be Yoosung.

The paramedics had to pry Yoosung’s grip off the gurney as they forced the oxygen mask back onto the woman. Jumin nodded down to the desperate woman and said with the straightest face he could manage at the moment.

“I’ll tell him.”

The woman loosened her grip when she heard Jumin’s words and allowed the paramedics to finally lift her into the ambulance. Jumin could hear her groaning in pain just as they slammed the doors.

Out of instinct, Jumin put his hands lightly on the young man’s shoulders to move him away from the ambulance and crime scene. The young man’s eyes never left the ambulance that was speeding down the street until Jumin asked him, “Are you Yoosung?”

The man just looked at Jumin with worried eyes for a split second.

“Yeah.”

After he answered the question, his eyes went straight back to the ambulance.

“Your sister?”

Jumin wanted to be clear on the relationship between the two of them before he discussed the matter further with the young man.

“She’s not my sister. She just helps take care of my family,” Yoosung’s bottom lip trembled at the end of his statement. He gnashed his bottom lip between his teeth to try and steady it but it did not work.

Jumin tried to keep his personal feelings out of his job, but it was on nights like this he wondered how in the hell it was even possible. The young man in front of him was obviously about to have a breakdown about his two friends and Jumin did not know what to do.

“She is going to be okay.”

Jumin patted his shoulder lightly as he said that, trying to make the situation look optimistic. It was the first thing Jumin could think of saying, even though he knows that it was a half-assed attempt to ease his mind.  

“You lied to her about Hyun.”

Yoosung turned to give his full attention to Jumin since the ambulance was out of eye sight. The tears that he had been fighting to hold in were now flowing freely down his face.

Jumin felt a twinge of anguish as he watched the young man try to keep his composure as he said to him, “Because I had to.” He really did have to. He knew, that if MC would have known Ryu did not make it, there was no way in hell she was going to fight to survive.

“Just like you lied to me, right?”

Yoosung questioned as the tears started to flow faster down his face, his voice getting more hysterical by the moment, “she’s going to die, isn’t she?” Yoosung bit his lip once again as he tried to contain his emotions.

All Jumin could do was just stare at the young man in front of him as he slouched from the force of the sobs leaving his lips. Jumin put his hands on both of the man’s shoulders as he said with a forced, comforting tone, “It’s going to be okay.”

Yoosung brought his hand up to cover his mouth as he tries to contain the cries leaving his lips, he didn’t want to seem weak, but he was so utterly lost at the moment. Where in the hell was he supposed to go now?

Jumin just pulled the young man to him awkwardly so he could show him some form of comfort. Jumin stood in the middle of that street for what felt like hours as he let the young man sob into his shirt. He stayed there until the fires died down and all that was left was smoke and ashes. When Yoosung had finally gained composure, Jumin stepped away from him, trying his best not to focus on his tear stained uniform.

“How about I take you to visit MC in the hospital?” Jumin offered to take the man to the hospital because he felt terrible for the previous night and he could tell he had no other way to get there.

Yoosung looked at the cop with grateful eyes that were still puffy from the amount of crying he had done just moments before, “Yeah, please.”

Jumin escorted Yoosung to his cop car then sped to the hospital with his lights flashing to avoid all the traffic. Once they arrived, Jumin and Yoosung stayed in the ICU waiting room for twenty-seven straight hours until the doctor came back with the results of her condition. Yoosung was able to contain his emotions as he listened to the doctor. But, as soon as the doctor turned away, he collapsed into the nearest chair while holding his head in his hands.

Jumin didn’t know what else to do except sit beside the man and place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Jumin stayed in that position for the remainder of the night.

[odogaronfang]

[[ @clumsybooknerd hi Tala!!! i was assigned to be your secret santa this year, and after looking through your blog to get an idea of what to do i came across your vampire au! so i thought i could write for that for the @imaginefourswords secret santa gift! i didn’t see too many details on it, so i hope this is okay- merry christmas, happy hanukkah, or just happy holidays!]]

Vampires were, for the longest time, thought to be the stuff of legends. Myths made by the ancients to explain the phenomena they didn’t understand- stories told by disenchanted parents to frighten children into behaving themselves- tales to tell at campfires under a new moon, with the certainty of a jumpscare to punctuate. And every so often someone would go missing, off the streets of a bustling city or from the gold-wheat fields of the rurals, and it would be chalked up to humans; so sick, so terrible, the human trafficking, awful things going on in our world, but oh well, what can you do. Some of them were even found, with little paired pinpricks littering their bodies, pale and gray, wrinkled and lifeless, sunken-eyed with skin too large for their bodies. Snakes, it’d be dismissed as, so often, too often- went to close to a nest, got bitten, venom did them in. Or bats, a swarm, a moon-snuffing flock, overwhelmed them and fed off them.

The latter was far closer to the truth, as people later discovered. A few of the newer-turned got careless, too sloppy with their schedules and their choices, and got caught in the act. Not caught, never taken into custody, but seen and sometimes filmed, and as much as authorities wanted to keep it under wraps, the truth came out eventually. There was panic, fear, accusations, riots, a general chaos that for quite some time disbanded all sense of trust and order among the people, comparable to the witch hunts of old. But from that rose the new profession of hunters; vigilantes at first, but soon a trusted and revered group, only the most diligent and skilled accepted into their ranks.

“I just don’t understand,” Zelda says, rolls up the map and throws it to her companions, “They’re supposed to be following some sort of pattern. And they’re not.”

“They are, down by Kakariko, I think.” Red takes the map, looks over the dots marked down, color-coded and varied in size. “From the reports I’ve read, at least. This is like, an isolated thing. Whatever’s going on down here isn’t the norm.”

“It might be a shift in tribes,” She suggests, shuts her laptop and rests her head in her arms. “I’ve heard of that happening before.”

“Maybe we could send someone in to see.” Green’s taking shots at the wastebasket with paper balls and has yet to make one.

“Really? Do we have anyone that can shapeshift?”

“No, but Green can teleport! As soon as it’s lunchtime he’s gone.”

“Hey, tracking vamps is hungry work.”

“Half the time we’re just staring at maps and guessing at things. The other half of the time it’s paperwork.”

“You’re forgetting the half where we hunt.”

“Green, how many halves are in a whole?”

“None. It’s a hole.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Whatever,” Zelda interjects, before they can start up an argument, “We haven’t actually gone hunting in months. We have to stare at maps and guess at things and guess them accurately before we can risk that kind of thing, and everything we’ve predicted has been way off.”

“I hear Valensuela’s thinking of calling some out-of-district help.”

“Uh, no thanks, those dudes are complete as-”

“Annoying. Very annoying. They don’t know how we operate here.”

“Not at all, apparently.”

“We just need to figure out what’s going on with them!”

“And how are we supposed to do that? It’s unpredictable!”

“Then maybe we just need to station lookouts.”

“Green, no way are we doing stakeouts. We have lives.”

“And we also save lives, and this is what we need to be doing to do that!”

Zelda would very much like to argue with that, but it’s a valid point, and if they don’t get something done it’s going to be a serious threat to job security. “...I’ll bring it to Valensuela in the morning.”

-

Vampires were, for the longest time, thought to be the stuff of legends, and it was this that kept them secure and hidden in their hunts. Something that was not real could not be combatted, and something that was not real could not be killing anyway, therefore it clearly must be something else, one among themselves. Those times were the easy ones. Pick off the wanderers deep in the forest at night, sneak into a house or two in the abandoned months, slip in and slip out smooth as silk and quiet as a shadow. Societies were loose and informal, and skill preceded age in the hierarchies that colonies tended to fall into. The longest fangs, the sharpest claws, the most bloodthirsty, those were what won the seat as ruler.

Then greed overcame prudence, and form became sloppy, and the turned were more in numbers and less in skill, and it wasn’t long after that they were found out. And so prudence had to win out over greed, and the life of ease and lavish became the life of covert and secrecy, and a rigid order under which all turned were governed. The stealthiest shifters, the seductive, the efficient, the largely normal, those now filled the roles at the top, and dictated the code of the colonies. Those who disobeyed were staked and left to the sun’s whims. There was no other choice.

“D’you know who’s supposed to be out feeding tonight?”

“I have not heard. The elder said nothing of it to me.”

“He’s not saying anything.” Shadow huffs, settles irritably into his hammock. “He gripes about schedules and policy and then doesn’t issue anything. So now we’re getting twenty kills in a night and then radio silence for a month. ‘N I’m hungry.”

“You ate two days ago.”

He points a finger at Vio. “Technically I didn’t. Well, not much. I gave most of it to you ‘cause you’re new. You’ll see, once you’re older you’re gonna need more.”

“I am older than you were when you say you were turned.”

“Okay, well, I have years on you. Like, decades at least, so you need to respect your seniors or whatever that human phrase is and listen to me.”

“You are required to see to my well-being. I am under no such obligation to you.” He smiles caustically at Shadow. “Already some have noted that I am more skilled than you were.”

“It’s ‘cause you had a good teacher.”

“You turned me and did not show your face for two months.”

“I thought I’d just killed you! You weren’t supposed to turn, I didn’t know it was a new moon, the clouds were too heavy.”

“I am ever indebted to you,” Vio says, sardonic as ever, “How merciful.”

Shadow rolls his eyes, turns over to see whether the elder’s ledge is occupied. It’s not, of course; he’s been gone days now, with no signs of when he’ll return, and the colony has started to grow restless.

“Oh, screw this. C’mon, Vio, we’re gonna hunt. I’m gonna starve to death at this rate.”

“That may be an improvement.”

“Shut up and shift, idiot. You’re coming whether you like it or not.”

Vio, reluctantly, does. And Shadow insists on leading, as he always does, and chooses the target, as he always does. Shadow chooses an alley, perfect, of course, for its darkness and seclusion, perches on the ledge of a narrow rickety overhang and leaves him to find his own.

“They pass through here all the time,” Shadow says, by way of explanation. “Eager to get home, I think. Not so worried about getting killed as getting back in bed.”

“A sentiment I share.”

“You’d rather me starve?”

“Sometimes I think so.”

They share in the silence for a while, companionable if a little tense, watching pedestrians cut through their alley to the avenue on the other side, waiting for a likely candidate, waiting for a good time. It’s a while before they get it, and even then that’s questionable; Shadow’s hungry, and makes it abundantly clear that he is getting a meal and getting it tonight.

“Him,” Shadow hisses, points at a man shorter in stature, earplugs in, paying no attention to his surroundings.

Vio isn’t so sure- but he hasn’t got time to protest, because Shadow’s dropped before he can manage a word.

“Easy,” Shadow says, with a terrible fanged grin, “Won’t know we’re here ‘til we’re on him.”

He creeps up behind the man, reaches a hand out to grab his neck-

-And the guy nearly breaks his arm getting him away.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, pal?!”

Shadow makes a noise that’s half a growl; that’s all the time it takes for the man to realize what kind of situation he’s in. He turns, to make a break for it, if he can get to the church down the street he might be able to make it, churches are supposed to keep them out right- but Vio’s there, cool and largely apathetic, arms crossed and gaze icy.

“Make this easy for yourself,” He says, with a softness that contrasts sharply to literally everything else going on, “This is nothing personal.”

“You screw off right now,” The man yells, and looks around for something, anything to fight with, throws a hard fist into Shadow’s face as he advances. He turns to Vio again, sees he isn’t approaching, chances a moment to turn around to scan the area and when he looks back there’s Vio, a dagger gleaming in his palm.

“I am only trying to make this simple for everyone,” He says, and with a shrug, plunges the blade into the man’s stomach.

Had it been anyone less resolved it might really be over then. But it’s Blue, and Blue isn’t very well going to hand over his life to a couple of bloodsucking parasites. He can’t just rip the knife out- he knows that from his late-night binges of crime fiction.

“Get him,” Shadow hisses, nose bent unnaturally, blood oozing far too slow from the wound, “What are you waiting for you useless piece of garbage-”

“I am not the hungry one. Fetch your own meal.”

Shadow stalks over, shoves him out of the way to chase after Blue, who’s managing a (relatively) fast shamble away, taking advantage of the distraction. He makes it to the end of the alley, is barely out in broad moonlight before Shadow shoves him to the ground- the impact only buries the knife in deeper- hovers over him with the reddest eyes he’s ever seen, and he’s sure that it’s over then but he hears a shout, and then the blare of a siren, brief and sharp and loud.

Shadow swears, drags Vio off into the darkness cursing a blue streak as he goes, and all Blue can manage is a half-sigh of relief as the officer rushes over.

“Sir,” Says the officer, gun in hand, as he runs up, “Sir, what’s going on?”

He could say vampires (and likely be mocked for it) or he could lie. “I don’t know,” He says, a half truth, because really he doesn’t know, not for sure. “One- One minute I was walkin’ and the next I got stabbed.”

“I’m sending for an ambulance,” Says the officer, “Where is the wound?”

“Stomach,” Blue answers, and feels himself starting to slip, and it takes considerable effort just to turn so the ground isn’t pushing the knife in further.

“Sir, stay awake, the EMTs are on their way. What’s your name?”

“Blue.”

“Where were you headed tonight, Blue?”

“Jus’ home. Long day at work.”

“Any plans for the day?”

“Emergency room, apparently.”

“Well, Blue, at least you’ve got a story to tell now.”

A story indeed, he thinks, miserable and angry.

He’s out of it beyond that, too dizzy and light-headed from blood loss, can hardly manage to lift a finger as the EMTs assess his condition and haul out the stretcher. He’s out for a while- later he suspects they drugged his IV en route- wakes in the cold white sterility of a hospital room, stomach good and bandaged with a needle stuck in his arm. What he wouldn’t give for a Hollywood exit, to rip it out and collect his things and be off, but he’s weak and tired and above all hungry. A few nurses are in and out, give him a plate of terrible hospital food that tastes like soggy cardboard and sawdust. Before the morphine kicks in he resolves to call Erune about bringing him some real food, and maybe see if he can get in contact with the local hunters’ legion.