#begging for her to stick around and be more present from now on or else I will lose it

[we-love-morioh-cho]

Yasuho and Paisley Park are insane I love them so much

[gotham-daydreams]

Not Tonight

[Platonic! Yandere! Neglectful Batfam × Gender Neutral! Sibling Reader]

[Warnings: Mentions of Neglect, Reader generally not having a good time.]

(Not proofread. Not too much Yandere shown. Mostly angst with Reader. Set up(?))

2nd chapter here. Chapter 3 Pt. 1, Pt. 2. [Series Masterlist]

๑۩۞۩๑————————————————————๑۩۞۩๑

How many times have you heard them say that? How many times have you tried to do something with them, to share your passion — or even just have some coffee with them, only to hear them say that phrase time and time again.

"Not tonight."

Well, what if you didn't ask them during the night? What if you asked them in the afternoon, or just when they were already up and about?

"Sorry! I can't right now, patrol reeeally kicked my ass last night. Besides, I have some other things that I have to get done, but maybe next time! For sure!"

Okay, right. That makes sense. Sometimes their line of work can be tough and draining, especially when someone is trying to run Gotham to the ground that night. So what if you just try to ask them when they aren't so busy? It may really limit the times you can ask... but you'd still try. Maybe it could also help if you asked for smaller things, like if they'd just like to spend a little time with you before going out again, or if you could just hang around them for a while? Nothing big, and anything was fine. Even if it was just sitting next to them, and having some small talk. Or maybe just the sitting part if talking was too much.

You'd take anything at all.

"I'm actually heading out right now, so I can't stick around. Go ask someone else."

"Can't you see that I already have enough compang with Titus here? Go bother Drake or something, I don't care."

All you could hear was snores past the door when you went to ask. So you moved onto someone else, hoping for a yes as your heart began to squeeze.

Someone had to agree eventually, right?

You begged the Gods as you traveled down the long halls. The chills of reality creeping up on you.

"Sorry, I'm going out to hang with some friends, but maybe next time!"

"..." She just looked at you before shaking her head, and taking her leave.

"I've got something to do at the moment, sorry, but hey, maybe you could ask your old man? Oh! Or maybe Alfred. That's a good idea."

Dick was out in Bludhaven, and you didn't want to bother Barbara considering how bisy she must've been the other night. So, you had no other choice. You asked, heart bleeding from how hard it squeezed.

"Not now."

Simple, to the point, and sharp.

Bruce's words were as cold as ever, and yet the echo in the cave only seemed to make the gap between you and him feel so much bigger. Even as you just nodded, eyes pointed to the floor. Taking your leave with a soft sigh that barely escaped you.

The elevator ride was longer than you remembered. The cold chill in the air grew freezing even as you stepped out, and now stood in one of the many halls in the Wayne Manor. Portraits and pictures decorated the walls, their painted and photographed eyes staring at you. Their gaze far from soft, but at least it was present. At least they, in that way, felt present.

You swore the only times they ever smiled at you that wasn't faked, or just for the sake of appearances was in those paintings and photos. Honestly, it was also probably the most times they've even looked at you too, and as sad as it is — you did say you'd take anything, right?

A 'no' or 'maybe' was part of that anything, technically. It's just not what you were hoping for.

Sighing again, you stared up at one of the portraits, eyes shinging under the lights as everything you refused to say made itself so clear for a moment. You didn't want much, and never asked for more than what you were given. You didn't think so anyway.

You always followed the rules, you did more than just excel in all your classes no matter how hard it was for you to understand certain things, and you even tried to get into things your family seemed to enjoy without pushing too hard.

You studied up on all the pets Damian had so that you could not only care for them properly, but maybe even take care of them with him some day. You played games and read reviews on games you saw Tim play just for a chance that maybe you'd get the opportunity to play with him. You picked up boxing and have even been practicing your aim with an airsoft gun, and have also been going to certain place when you could to practice using real guns and learn about them just so you'd maybe be able to have a conversation with Jason, and even connect with him in some way. You even read nearly all the books in the library just to have a sliver of hope for something, anything.

You learned sign language in three different languages and tried to find out what Cassandra was interested in, just to have some kind of interaction with her. Even writing on small note cards in serval other languages in hopes she'd give some kind of response, even if you forgot to put your initials and such more than several times. You participated in gymnastics in hopes of getting closer to Dick. You tried to find out what Barbra was into so you could also hold up a conversation with her if given the chance. You've tried to match Stephen's energy and do things she likes and have even taken up material arts as a means to maybe be a little closer with everyone!

Yet it never seems like enough.

Your schedule was so packed and filled with activities and extra lessons of all kinds, just so that you could feel like you had something in common with someone in this family. So that, when given the chance, you'd be able to form a connection with one of them and your efforts and sacrifices wouldn't be in vain. Though that still had yet to happen.

You weren't even a vigilante as you tried to persue your own passion and dreams, and yet that one single thing seemed to be keeping you away from everyone else. The one thing you were unwilling to do for them just seemed to make the gap between you and the rest of the family grow bigger. They're constant and continuous dismissals only seemed to further that point.

Just... what were you doing wrong? Was you not being a vigilante and constantly putting yourself at risk every night really putting that much of a dent in your relationships? Did your dreams really get in the way of that? Just because you didn't want to put yourself in danger? Just because you wanted to pursue music instead?

You took up art despite not being super interested in it before. You've been reading all of your life. Your stretched, ran, exercised, cooked, cleaned, organized, sang, wrote, danced, and even sculpted. You picked up almost any hobby someone could have under the sun, even if it began to feel like a chore and a job to you, just so that you could have something, anything in common with this family.

Though now you've gone through countless 'hobbies', and dropped many more since nothing seemed to be working, it... it still didn't feel like enough. Like you had to be doing something more despite having lost countless hours of sleep, just to go through the list of hobbies you had written down that you had left to try. You even took up some sports you were somewhat interested in, and yet nothing clicked.

Though is that really surprising when no one noticed how many times you snuck out for lessons and practice, or how long you were out? When you'd even forget to return to the Manor sometimes, and anyone still had yet to notice you were even gone in the first place?

... You couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped you. It was broken in every way, and yet empty all the same. Maybe you were finally taking after Bruce, but you wouldn't get your hopes up.

You looked up at the painting as if it'd give you all the answers, and yet dismiss you at the same time. The disappointment you felt was normal to you at this point, but the aching pain that came after was always the hardest part. Yet you still stared at the painted faces as if they were your real family, and the people close to them. Looked at the calculated and skilled brush strokes as if they'd give you what your family couldn't. What they refused to give you at every twist and turn, no matter how much you tried to accommodate to them. To do things for them. To just feel worthy enough to stand by their side. To be closer to them.

Though in the end, it is only that. A painting. A well crafted piece that, no matter how skilled the artist, could never truly capture how distant and vague they felt when you were the one standing to the side. No matter how much experience the painter had, they'd never be able to express and show how this poor excuse of a family felt to you, because they were only like that around you.

Maybe you'd feel special if it didn't make you feel like you were wasting your life living like this...

Eventually, you were able to tear you eyes away from the painting. The moon beginning to rise as you were sure the Manor was becoming more empty than it usually was, as more of its visitors and residents left.

The painting itself was nice even if it was one of many that didn't include you, with the number of photographs without you in them being much higher. Honestly, it used to be one of your favorites despite how bittersweet you feel about it now.

You still remember that day, but that would be implying that you forgot the others.

Regardless, you managed to pull yourself away from the spot you had been stuck in for the few moments you were trapped inside your own head. You tried to make yourself feel a little better, and give yourself some reassurance that maybe tomorrow would be different some how, and if not? Perhaps the day after, and the day after that.

Yet it all failed as you passed by more and more memories. Some were events you had participated in, sure, but the pictures made it look like you were never there in the first place. Heartwarming moments littered the halls, but you only recall seeing them from a distance — or being aware that the moment had even happened only when you saw the picture be put up.

It was like the very universe was trying to send you a sign with your constant failures and your family's persistence, intentional or not, to keep you at a distance. You didn't even know if it was appropriate to refer to them as your 'family', and maybe it wasn't considering things, but you still weren't sure.

You had been fighting for a chance to talk with any of them about anything at all for the longest time, because you wanted to be a part of this family. You wanted to spend time with them and really give this 'new life' of yours a chance, but now that 'new' part of this life had worn off. It was hard and honestly more draining than it was rewarding at this point, but you still wanted to give it a try.

Sure, it had been years at this point and now you were just about to go into college, and when you had first arrived here you weren't even middle school, yet little to no progress had been made — you never gave up. You haven't given up. So maybe you could try for a little longer? Just... a little bit, not too much this time, and figure something out?

You almost felt a little sense of hope return to you, no matter how redundant and helpless this situation felt and seemed. Yet it all came crumbling down again when you passed by one of the rooms, and saw something taped to the door.

It was a flier for your performance. One that would be happening soon.

Since your siblings began to pay less and less attention to you as time went on, with your conversations with them growing even shorter, you opted to just tape fliers of your upcoming performances on their doors. Though only the performances you'd thought they'd enjoy, and just hoped that they would show up, if they wanted to, when you stepped onto that stage and approached the instrument you'd be playing for the evening.

You tried texting and other forms of communication at first, but those quickly stopped working and so you just opted for this, and of course it was just as effective as the others.

Alfred was really the only one who listened to your music when you performed, and you only knew that because you caught him playing one of the live performances you had done on the television one day. He not only going out of his way to record the performance, but also trying to find the channel it was broadcasted on.

Ever since you've tried to give him the correct channel number when you do live performances, but that still didn't feel like enough. You loved and appreciated Alfred from the depths of your heart and soul, but what would it take for one of your siblings or close family friends to notice you like that? What would it take for your supposed father to even care to listen to your music? To watch a performance? To not turn you away?

It was only in that moment did a new emotion fuel you. Crawling it's way up your spine as you carefully took the flier in your hands, looking it over before ripping it off the door.

This. This one small thing was all you wanted from them. Over everything else, you just wanted to see one of their faces, one time when you looked out to the crowd when you performed — but every single time, all you saw were strangers.

Every charity event, every gala, every party- that's all you were surrounded by, strangers. Even when you caught small glimpses of them, they were always doing something else, and completely off in a totally different world than your own. That distance along creating a large void-like gap between you and them, and yet it only ever continued to grow. Even when they stood next to you, it was like you couldn't be further apart.

The reality of everything was crushing. Near deadly as you could feel your chest and lungs tighten, with your fingers digging into the paper enough to tear it apart, and reaching your palms as they formed crescent moons, soon drawing blood. Yet nothing could compare to the weight of your heart, and how heavy it felt to carry in your chest.

As you finally moved on from the door, your mind raced. Memories and flashbacks filling your head as every word and notion flashed before your eyes. Barely even paying attention to where you were going, but not caring enough to pay attention.

Every dismissal and excuse thrown your way. Every head shake and blank look. Every confused look, and realization that you were standing there the entire time. Every birthday that passed with the same wish never being granted. Every celebration spent on your own. Every message left on read. Every note ignored. Every time you were forgotten. Every time you were left behind. Every time you brought yourself home, and every time they never noticed. Every night wasted, trying to come up with different things to do only for all of them to turn out fruitless. Everyday that 'maybe' never cones true. Every time you looked out to that sea of strangers, hoping to see someone you recognized, only to find none. Every hour you wasted trying to do something for them while they never once thought of you.

Maybe you'd cry if you could. Then again, maybe not.

You already had spent too many tears over failures you recovered and grew from, and hardships you faced and fought. You've already cried just a little too much during those night you just couldn't handle being so alone, in such a big place anymore. Besides, you've cried enough over people who've never once thought of you. Who never once tried to make time to even see one of your performances, or even allow you to spend a few minutes in their space.

You've given them enough, you think. Especially since after you spent years trying to just make it two thirds of the way — they couldn't even reach that one third of the gap you couldn't. They didn't even try, at least not anymore, and after you had tried to make it easy. Yet, you only hurt yourself in the end.

They never cared about you, and maybe they did once upon a time, but good does that do now when you're trying to go out of your way to make things convenient and easier for them, only for them to skip out on you anyway. No text, no call, no message, no indication, nothing. Just pure silence.

Maybe you were asking for too much, but was it really so bad to want to be loved? And by the people who are supposed to be your family no less?

Hah, who are you kidding at this point. You've just been living in a house full of strangers, and you're the only one who hasn't seen it yet. They've already long since cast you out, and it's only now have you come to truly realize it.

Especially now, as you stand in front of the foot of the door to the music room. Staring at the knob as if it'll turn itself.

You weren't surprised, honestly. Playing music had quickly become an amazing outlet for you, and you had always come here to seek out what little your family couldn't give you; comfort. So it was no wonder that as you collapsed mentally, you had subconsciously brought yourself here.

And yet, only one thought entered your head in that moment.

'They don't deserve to hear my music.'

Perhaps it was now that you decided they had lost the privilege to do so. After all, ever since you had started having performances, even ones in front of wealthy crowds, your 'family' had seemingly been avoiding them like the plague. Never daring to even attend one, for whatever reason, and sure you could understand why they didn't attend the ones you performed at night — but they couldn't use that excuse anymore. You have strictly been playing during the after noon, and at sunset at a push, for over three years now. You've been playing in front of crowds and releasing music for four.

So, you turned away, walking off to your room as your thoughts still stormed. Anger fueling you as you barely remembered storming into your room, collecting any valuables and belongings you had and stuffing them into a bag or two. Not caring about clothes, and only what you deemed important and meaningful to yourself as you just grabbed and shoved everything into a bag if you could.

You could clearly tell now that you obviously weren't wanted, and that no one here even wanted to do the smallest things with you. That even asking to just spend a few minutes with them was too much. So you were doing the only sensible thing, and getting the hell out of here. Moving so quickly that your breathing became uneven, but you didn't stop until you had packed everything you needed, or was important to you in some way.

You only really had a second thought about all this when you were at your window, just about ready to jump out until you paused for a second.

Looking back at the door to your room, you couldn't help but hesitate. There was only ever one person in this entire Manor who treated you like family, and actually put in effort to not only be with you, but to indulge themself in your passion. That met you at the half way mark, and even went a little over sometimes. Since even if everyone else had ignored you — Alfed was there, even if despite all of his efforts you still couldn’t handle this, and maybe that was also your own fault in some way.

You still didn't want to stay, you couldn't anymore, but shouldn't you at least say goodbye? Maybe? After everything... at least he tried.

...

You settled for second best.

Quickly, you grabbed a flashcard and wrote down something before pocketing it and moving back to the window. You may not have any equipment for this kind of thing, but you still managed to scale and work your way around the wall, and managed to reach the window to Alfred's room.

You took a little peak inside, and when you saw that he wasn't there, you opened up the window just a bit, place the small note on the windowsill, and closed it. Then, you skillfully and carefully made your way down, and snuck off to Gotham City. Making your way to a friend's place as you crashed there for the night.

Never once did you look back.

Nor did you ever feel inclined to.

------

Later that night, when Alfred read the note, all it said was:

I'm sorry, Alfed. - Y/n

Just with that alone, it was like he understood everything despite the little that was said. All he could wish you was luck, and that you'd be safe wherever you went.

Suddenly, just like that. The nights where melodies would lull the residence of the Manor to sleep, and bring a temporary, mellow peace to all who heard such a tune, were long gone...

Guess they'll just have to find it, and bring it back.

--------

Kind of rushed at the end there, hope it isn't too bad for a first post. There's probably a lot of mistakes, so apologies for that.

[simp-ly-writes]

hiiii im currently looking for spencer and Alex fics and i found your Page. Could you mabey write one with spencer? Mabey with the reader working in art Departement and reader and spencer are Engaged?? And they film a who memed it Episode with spencer cortney and Angela and reader is in the "crowd" and gave in a meme about spencer and he is the only one who knows that it was reader, because its like an inside joke and they are all cute and sweet when it happenes and after and all that :))))). (Sorry if its Hard to understand im writing this in a hurry)

Meet-Cute

─────── · · A Smosh FanFic

Pairing: Spencer Agnew x Fiancé!Reader

─ · · TAGS: gender-neutral pronouns, fluff, attempt at humour, meet-cute, pre-established relationship/engagement, feel-good.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 964

─ · · A/N: hope you all are having good weeks! 🫶 thank you for the ask, anon, this was was so cute and sweet! and I had way to much for doing that drawing XD

─────── · ·

You met your fiancé at work, most people would think that not to be the most romantic starting point for a relationship and they would be correct. On the first night you and Spencer met, an editor and sculptor both thinking to be the only one left in the office and needing a moment before continuing working. You decided to take a nap on the Games couch.

Bringing a blanket from your desk and a pillow from on of the offices, you set your alarm before practically throwing yourself onto what you thought to be just couch... but how wrong you would be.

(Charles) Spencer Agnew would find himself already on the couch, separate alarm set and forgotten about and fast asleep. That was until his now fiancé landed right into his arms with an abrupt thud before you both were jumping off the couch and screaming like little girls.

─────── · ·

You chuckle to yourself when a meme of that exact scenario flashes up on screen (of your own doing) and do your best to conceal your laughter at the memory while sitting behind camera. The fellow arts department staff also snicker to one another yet everyone else in the room had no clue why a couch and two poorly drawn, MS-paint stick figures with pink-tails were on screen. Everyone but Spencer.

Courtney and Angela, the other two contestants competing against Spencer for the title of winner today take to the crowd as you all neutralize your expressions and mask indifference when Angela's eyes catch your own and squint, trying to pry into your brain yet you only shrug and smile before knocking your shoulder against Shayne who appears equally confused as the rest of the cast members.

"Can we have our answers written on the boards, please," Tommy politely asks. Courtney taps her marker lid against the table, confusion if evident on her face as she looks to Spencer who looks all too content with his answer. "You know who it is, Spence?" She asks, raising a brow as this meme seemed obscenely obscure.

Spencer just shrugged, smiling towards the camera, his left hand tapping his board in a subtle hint that no one but you caught on to as you too started twiddling the fingers on your left hand before Tommy was calling time. "I DON'T KNOW, GIVE ME ONE MORE MINUTE," Angela begged, now standing up from the table before writing down her answer with a huff. Courtney looked positively stressed, "Spencer c'mon give me a hint, I've gotta feeling that I'm going to be made fun of for not knowing this one!" Courtney pleaded as Spencer's grin only grew and yours did too.

"I can't help ya," Spencer replied, now leaning onto the table, curious as to what the others answers would be. "Angela could you present first please," Tommy asked extending his hand out to point at her board.

Flipping it around, in small letters Angela wrote, Alex Tran. "I think its Alex... I guess? I mean Spencer wrote down his answer WAY too fast, so it has to be someone close to him-"

"See that's what I thought too," Courtney added, turning her board around now, and she had written down, SHAYNE, in big, bold capital letters. "I know they hang out a lot together outside of work and by the poorly drawn figures, I don't know on purpose or not, it could be him."

"And Spencer, reveal the answer please," Tommy asked, already knowing his would be the correct one. "I said, (name)."

"And do tell us and the viewers at home, why you choose them."

"Well, (name) and I recently got engaged, woohoo!" Spencer cheers as the office claps and whistles, you start slipping down your chair, embarrassed but flail your ring in the air like a white flag offering. "and this is a meme of our first time meeting each other. We both were staying overnight at the office and didn't think that someone else would also be staying and nevertheless using the couch so we ended up falling on one another and screamed like little girls in panic," Spencer continued yet barley, laughing so harshly in between and everyone seemed to as well as Tommy was knelt over, face red and gasping for air.

"Now that is a story, congratulations you two! And congratulations to Spencer for winning Who Meme'd It with that final point!" You stand up and cheer and Spencer points to you in the crowd, the cameras panning over before you shout. "Thats my man!" and everyone is in tears, clenching their stomaches of laughter.

─────── · ·

Once the cameras were all shut off and the office was going back to their offices and stations, you waited patiently by the door to greet Spencer before he had to direct a Games Video. "I'm surprised not many people knew how we met," he comments, wrapping an arm around your waist as you press a kiss to his cheek.

"I am too, but well, we are quite private about our relationship in the first place. So it would make sense," you say, walking over to the kitchen to grab water bottles for the two of you.

"Well, I'm sure thats going to change now," Spencer says, looking over your shoulder and you do the same. A wild group of cast members are all rushing over to you both as a thousand questions are being waterfall into your face and next thing you both knew, a thirty minute lunch had turned into a two-hour one. But when sharing a kickstarter and some snacks with Spencer's arm wrapped securely around you, his laughter in your ear as he whispered things only for you to hear, you wouldn't have it any other way.

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: 🥹

─ · · SPENCER AGNEW TAGLIST: @lisiliely @missflufffanfics @little-stitious-studios @thejourneyneverendsx @sibsteria @lizzylynch1 @babble2 @delaneyburghardt

[bitchesuntitled]

This is Halloween

Pairing: Frankie x F!Reader Summary: Frankie can't stand zombies but Nora wants to watch a scary movie. Warnings/Tags: Parents to Lovers universe but can be read as a standalone, Nora's a little shit, cussing, zombies, Frankie may be a little paranoid, Frankie hates zombies, scary movies, Goober gets her own Halloween costume, Humor, teensy bit of fluff, I think that's it. If I'm missing anything let me know! A/N: Everyone thank @whocaresstillthelouvre for letting me steal her idea. She unleashed one sentence and my brain went "OMG. NORA AND FRANKIE!" Thank you @beefrobeefcal for your eyes and for making me a moodboard! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Masterlist||Parents to Lovers||AO3

divider by @saradika-graphics

Goober perks her head up from your lap, hearing the garage door open.

“Are they home?” You ask her, scratching behind her ears. She gives a soft bark before using your thigh as a backboard to bounce off the couch to the back door, meeting the girls as they enter.

“Mom!” Nora says excitedly, digging into her bag, “Look what we found!” She pulls out a costume, proudly showing it off.

“A zombie?” You ask, “Since when do you want to be a zombie?”

“Since she saw it at the store,” Missy laughs, “She had to convince my dad to buy it.”

Nora having to convince Frankie of something isn’t anything new, but a halloween costume? That’s weird.

“What’d you get, Miss?” You ask, waiting for her to dig into her bag to present you with her costume.

“Beetlejuice!” You laugh, clapping your hands together, “That’s amazing!”

“Dad’s gonna be Bob!” Missy giggles, admiring her new costume.

“Oh Goober!” Frankie sings, laughing wickedly as he enters the living room, “We got you something!”

Goober wags her tail, listening to Frankie talk, flopping onto her side, showing him her belly.

“Missy wants to be Beetlejuice and then said I should be Bob,” Frankie says, kneeling to scratch Goober’s belly, continuing to talk to her like no one else is in the room, “And then guess what we found, Goob!”

Frankie looks to Missy who pulls out a Lydia dog costume.

“Poor Goober!” You groan, “You’re seriously going to put her in that?”

“Duh,” Frankie snarks, “That’s the whole point of buying it! Speaking of which, you need to think of a costume too!”

“I’ll go as a pregnant lady,” you huff, sticking your tongue out at him, rubbing your hand along the prominent bump of your belly.

“No!” Nora wails, falling to her knees, gripping her costume in both hands, shaking it, “You can’t just go as yourself!”

“Yeah!” Missy agrees, eyes widening with an enthusiastic nod, “You gotta dress up for Halloween!”

“I know!” Nora shouts, scooting towards you on her knees to the couch, “Frankie we should go back to the store and get Mom some of those fake zombie bite things and she could go as a zombie like me!”

“A pregnant zombie!” You laugh as Frankie stiffens beside Goober, “I think I’ve seen some of those costumes online.”

“Please Mom,” Nora begs, clasping her hands together and poking her lower lip out.

“Fine,” you smile, poking her nose, “Just for you, kid.”

—

“What do we wanna watch?” Missy asks, trading Nora the remote for the popcorn.

“What about this?” Nora asks, stopping her scrolling on the tv to some zombie movie.

“What’s up with you and zombies now?” Frankie huffs, laying his arm around behind you on the couch.

“What’s up with you and zombies?” You ask, smirking at his hesitance.

“Nothing.” Frankie quickly protests, shrugging, “I just think they’re dumb.”

“Dumb?!” Nora shrieks, whipping around to glare at him, “You’re dumb!”

“Nora!” You scold, “That’s not nice.”

“Yeah,” Missy scowls at Nora, “My dad’s not dumb.”

Things between Nora and Frankie have been less tense and they’re more civil now but they still have their moments. Nora’s sass and Frankie’s stubbornness like to buttheads every once in a while.

“Sorry,” Nora mutters, gently handing the remote to Frankie, “Here. You pick.”

“Thanks.” Frankie mumbles, taking the remote and scrolling through the selection of movies, “Any suggestions?”

“Maybe we should watch something scary.” Missy comments shyly, “It is close to Halloween.”

Frankie lets out a breath, “Okay.” He scrolls back to the zombie movie that Nora had found. “Do you guys really want to watch this?” He asks, clicking on the title to read the description.

“It’d help me and Nora know how to be zombies,” you nudge him with a small laugh. Nora nods her head looking at Frankie with those big round eyes of hers.

“You’re not gonna get scared?” Frankie asks, tapping against Missy’s shoulder with the remote.

“Nah,” Missy shrugs, “Zombies aren’t real.”

“Alright,” Frankie sighs, pressing play on the movie.

As the movie plays out on the screen, you can’t help but feel Frankie tense up every time a zombie is shown. His leg bounced as the growls and groans of the zombies intensified.

“You okay, babe?” You whisper in his ear, rubbing your hand on his thigh.

“Yeah,” he grunts with a nod of his head, leg stilling instantly, squirming as he watches a zombie bite someone, “Peachy.”

When one of the main characters of the film gets bit, Nora lets out a little cheer.

“That guy was mean!” She explains, when Missy gives her a funny look, “He deserved it,” she adds with a shrug of her shoulders.

—

Frankie jumps awake, breathing heavily. He glances over at you lying peacefully asleep, taking a deep breath. It was just a dream, he thinks, rubbing his palms against his eyes trying to rid himself of the images of you and the girls being torn apart by zombies.

He’s been on several tours fighting alongside his friends in wars he didn’t want any part in, seeing first hand what the government is capable of. His friends think he’s crazy for thinking the possibility of a zombie apocalypse happening is real.

He fucking hates zombies. Unpredictable, terrifying bastards. It’s the worst kind of horror Frankie could imagine. The helplessness on what to do, keeping the girls safe, keeping you safe, the list goes on.

The red numbers on the clock read 12:30am when Frankie glances over. The beating of his heart was not settling anytime soon. Half asleep despite what his heart decides to do he decides to get up and go get some water, making his way to the kitchen, he hears noises. Ticks of the clock on the wall, the breeze outside, Goober snoring from her dog bed, and a weird scratching.

Frankie grabs a cup from the cupboard, filling it with water before leaning against the sink as he takes a drink of the cool liquid. His heart rate starts to settle as he focuses on his breathing and drinking more water.

“Fraaaankie,” he hears a soft growl coming from the dark corner.

“What the fuck?” Frankie murmurs, squinting his eyes to see what’s there, the moon casting shadows in through the window of the kitchen, a lone figure is standing in the corner. His heart rate speeds up again, what the fuck is that. A snarl comes from the creature as it reaches its hand out.

Frankie lets out a high pitched scream, dropping the plastic cup in his hand to grab the towel laying next to the sink, throwing it at the creature. Goober starts barking and howling, hackles raised, with all the commotion in the kitchen. With the towel lying beside the creature on the floor, it starts to let out an ear piercing giggle.

“What the fuck?!” You boom, waddling into the kitchen, flipping on the light, “What the hell is going on?!”

Frankie stands next to the sink trying to catch his breath, while Nora continues to laugh, dressed fully in her zombie costume. Goober looks relieved as she registers it’s Nora, tail between her legs as she walks closer to her sniffing the fabric of the costume.

“Mom,” Nora laughs, “Did you hear his scream?!”

“Nora,” you yawn, trying to catch up on what possibly could have happened, “What did you do?”

“I thought it’d be funny.” She shrugs, taking a breath to try and calm herself, “Didn’t know he’d be such a baby about it.”

“I am not being a baby,” Frankie says, glaring at her. “I was half asleep and you scared the shit out of me, Nora.”

“What’s going on?” Missy mumbles, coming behind you, “I heard someone screaming.”

“I scared Frankie with my costume,” Nora giggles, twirling around so the ripped fabric of her costume flew in the air around her.

Missy starts to laugh, “That was you?!” She asks, looking toward Frankie. His ears and cheeks turning a bright red.

“Alright, everyone to bed,” you announce, ushering the girls out of the kitchen. Goober quickly followed behind.

“I cannot believe that happened,” Frankie admitted with a shake of his head, bending to grab the cup off the floor and swiping the towel over to soak up the water he spilled.

“It’s okay, baby.” You smiled, gently rubbing your hand between his shoulder blades, “Everyone’s scared of something. Yours just happens to be zombies.”

Frankie stood rolling his eyes, “Yeah, fake things that aren’t real.”

“Mmm,” you hum, making a face, grabbing arms to loop around your waist, “I don’t trust it.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, giving you a cautious look.

“You don’t think something like that could happen?!” You ask, flailing your arms.

“You think it could?” Frankie asks under his breath, squeezing your waist.

“Duh,” you laugh, “Anything could happen!”

Frankie smiled, leaning in to pepper kisses along your face as you let out soft giggles, he knew you were the one for him.

Tagging some people who I know like the series if you don't wanna be tagged just let me know!

@jay-zzle @soft-persephone @casa-boiardi @pastelpinkflowerlife @amyispxnk @desuidesu @yxtkiwiyxt @pinkypromisepascal @merz-8

[numinous-scribe]

Dp x Dc prompt

This is an old thought that I had shared with @stealingyourbones awhile back, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately so consider this:

Steph technically didn't fake her death. At least not all the way. She did code on Doc Thompson's table, but in a twist of events the good doc got her hands on vial of green goop with revitalizing properties that, up until this point she's been testing out on small wounds. Desperate to not lose another kid to Bruce's crusade, and with nothing else working, the Doc takes the vial and injects it into Stephanie.

Girl Wonder is revived, with a few ghostly perks in tow.

Now to expand on this: At this point, it would be likely that she isn't aware of the Lazarus Pits; Bruce withholding information? It's more likely than you think, and two can play that game, ergo why she resorts to testing it on her own rather than handing it over and letting him deal with the glowing mystery goop. But then that begs the question of how did the good Doc get her hands on this stuff? Was it a gift from a rather odd ghostly stranger? Was it something she slipped off of a kooky scientist couple after overhearing a discussion about its properties? Maybe it was part of a medical trial run presented to her through DalvCo— Dealer's choice.

And then there's Steph, freshly revived, healing faster than anyone she's ever personally tended to. And she's glowing. Phasing through objects. Parts of her are turning invisible. She's even levitating in her sleep! (Talk about a heart attack walking in on that one.)

Doc Thompson was already going to convince Stephanie to go underground once she was stabilized, as part of her plan to drive a point home to Bruce, but now it's become a must with all of these new, supernatural powers coming to the forefront. And for once, Stephanie doesn't put up an argument. As much as she wants to stick around and get back into the swing of things, those few minutes where she was actually dead have put a new perspective on life for her. And now she's got powers coming in? Yeah, she needs to get that shit figured out before jumping back into the scene.

Steph's not familiar with a lot of her extended family, has barely ever stepped foot out of Gotham over the course of her life. But she sorta remembers her cousin, Star, from this middle of nowhere city out in Illinois. It's not much of a plan, but it'll be a place to stay off the radar for awhile and practice getting her new powers under her control.

Now imagine her surprise when she finds she has a lot more in common with some of the residents than she could have ever expected....

[passivenovember]

don’t leave me waiting with all this love

--

A two-bedroom apartment falls out of the sky and into their laps because with the pooled weight of their hush money, they can afford it.

Steve’s lived in a castle since the day his parents brought him home, swaddled in blue fleece from Hawkins General, and Billy’s never had a room that felt like his own, and a two-bedroom apartment is a one-way mirror. It’s a shroud, it’s protection. A spiny defense to hide behind when their landlord raises an eyebrow and asks if they’ve got a girlfriend. 

Not two girlfriends. A. 

One.

Split between them, or something. As if the landlord knows they’re conjoined, down to their roots.

Steve tracks the way Billy’s shoulders pull tight, how his smile is a bit too sharp, his laugh so thunderous that their landlord doesn’t wonder why they have six months' rent upfront. Steve knows it’s a pacifier stuck between Mr. Morrison’s front teeth so he won’t ask any more questions.

They move their furniture that night, huffing up three flights of stairs in the July heat. 

Steve yaps about ordering a pizza. He floats the idea of renting a video and they christen their apartment, their shiny new life, with letters addressed to the burning past. The worst is over. Billy’s lips and tongue and sweat-slick skin roll over Steve like fresh dirt, baptizing him.

Steve comes apart imagining home.

He sees blue eyes. Blonde curls tied back as the kitchen fills with the robust, lingering smells of Tuscany and his Nonna’s house in Indiana. Billy thrusts harder, faster, and in this dream world, their home smells like them. Sun-warmed blankets that never get washed, bathroom mirrors spackled with hair spray. In every luminous version of the future, Billy’s laugh runs through the very core of the Earth, rattling the tracks of the last train Steve will ever wave goodbye to, and it’s Graceland.

It’s bliss, until Billy offers to sleep on the couch.

He says it’s because he doesn’t have a mattress.

Steve hangs off the door jam in his fruit of the looms, “You can sleep with me,” He says, thinking he shouldn’t have to say that. His stomach shouldn’t clench with worry that for the first time in two years, Billy might so no.

It’s warmer in the living room right now than Hawkins ever was.  

Billy’s hair sticks to his neck. He wipes at it, and Steve opens his mouth to insist he’s not above begging. Billy came inside him. Billy’s teeth sunk into his neck as if Steve were made of ripe fruit, and this is their house. This is their home. The second bedroom is just collateral. 

I want to be with you, Steve imagines telling him, I want you next to me, inside of me.

“I’ll be alright,” Billy says, as if hearing every unspoken word. He turns away, he. Stares out the window with the same cold, empty expression he sometimes got when the night was closing in Hawkins. Steve thought they had washed their hands of that, and yet when Billy realizes Steve’s frozen to the floor, he grins. “I promise,” he says. 

It’s empty, too. Horrible.

Steve goes. 

Sleeping alone is like trying to make love on a burlap sack full of bowling balls. Steve tosses and turns and swears the door was shut when he went to sleep without a blanket.

Still, he wakes before dawn wrapped in the ugly knit Max threw at Billy’s head when he told her they were leaving.

–

“He’s probably an evil clone.”

“He’s not an evil clone.”

“Are you sure? He hit his head pretty hard on the tile. Banged his everything else against the fist of a space monster–”

“You’re not actually helping.”

“I’m just presenting the facts. He’s probably a government spy,” On the other end of the line, Robin’s slurping on something. Really taking her time with filing every single one of Steve’s nerves down to the cartilage. 

Steve shivers. It’s the middle of the day in September, and he’s shrouded in darkness. “Bills couldn’t be a government spy.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Steve says, twirling the phone cord around one hand, “Because he still wants to shower together. He still likes Hershey's chocolate and little marshmallows in his peppermint tea. He’s afraid of the dark.”

“All of that’s just shit the clone learned from Billy’s personal file.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Billy doesn’t have a personal file.”

“Don’t be thick, we all fought monsters so we all have a personal file in the event that we decide to air Big Brother’s dirty laundry,” Robin tells him. “I don’t give a shit what you say, if he’s not fucking you anymore it tracks.”

“You’re an idiot, Buckley. ”

“Why, because I don’t believe that thing is really Bills?” 

“You’re an idiot if you think even a robot version of Billy would stop fucking me.”

“God, that’s so gross. You’re so gross–”

“So you admit that I’m right?”

“No,” Robin Snaps, “Evil clones are not the strangest thing that’s happened to us. Not by a long shot.”

“--Robin–”

“And if you’re suggesting that the government isn’t homophobic, you should read more.”

“Robin.”

“I’m serious. The feds planted crack-cocaine in disco balls because that’s where all the gay–”

Steve scrubs a hand across his forehead. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Okay, fine,” Robin groans, finally stopping to take a breath, “Billy’s not an evil clone and all that hush money wasn’t just a ploy to get you out there. Alone. So they could finish the job.”

Steve wants to laugh. 

He aches to roll his eyes and call Buckley a bonehead before hanging up the phone and getting back to the three loads of laundry sitting on his-and-not-Billy’s bed, but. “What do you think the deal is?” Steve frowns, “Evil robots–”

“--Clones–”

“--Notwithstanding?” Steve asks, ignoring her. He perches the phone against his shoulder so that his hands are free to sort through the lights and darks. 

There are a lot of lights here. Apparently, this Billy wears beige. And sea-foam. And that lovely shade of periwinkle from Billy’s senior picture that makes his freckles look like a million spattered treasure troves. Steve hates it. He loves the color and hates the change. Hates the meaning. 

He’s so stupid for thinking this move would spell silver linings. 

He’d never imagined in a million years that it would change Billy to the core, even though it used to be all he hoped for. That Bilyl would fall asleep and stay that way for a hundred years, and when he finally woke up again all the hurt inside him would gone. 

But now. Steve’s wishy-washy. He’s a big fat washing machine man.

Robin hums, sucking at the dregs of ice in her piggly-wiggly cup. “Honestly, I think he’s happy.”

Steve drops Billy’s underwear as if it’s caught fire. “You don’t think he was happy before?”

“In Hawkins? I think he was trapped and miserable,” Robin says, “I think he was happier when he got you. You’ve always been his window into the outside world but now he’s got a doorway, you know? Being home again.”

Steve gets that. 

No one’s meant to be anyone’s everything, and.

Steve could accept it, were it not for the other stuff. The huge shift in dynamic even though Billy’s the same as always, at the root of him. Laughing at Steve and wagging his tongue and fucking Steve nasty all over the apartment. 

Avoiding the bed, though.

Shying away from any real intimacy, and all the domesticity that comes with waking up next to someone every day.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Steve grumbles, feeling like the last three years never happened. They’ve gone back in time, landing on the doormat of their relationship when Billy was still consumed with fear.

“Have you tried talking to him about it?”

“A few times,” Steve admits, “Mostly he just kisses my cheek and tells me he’ll be fine in the living room.”

“That is weird,” Robin says thoughtfully. “Listen. Don’t freak out, but. Right before my parents thought they were gonna get divorced–”

“Don’t.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Doesn’t matter, I don’t want to hear anything about divorce or separation–”

“You guys aren’t even married.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve insists, bile cracking like an egg behind his breastbone, “If you’re going to sit there and talk about endings, I don’t wanna fucking hear it.”

“Alright.”

“We’re not your parents. This isn’t the first big sign of a falling out–”

“--Okay, Harrington, I believe you–”

“--Billy loves me,” Steve snaps, “Billy loves me so much.”

But the more he says it, the more it sounds like a swan song. Steve admitting, over and over and over again, that he would rather die than see the credits roll. That he’ll break his fingers before he lets go of Billy again.

“Don’t cry, Steve.”

“I’m not.”

“My parents never got divorced,” Robin tells him gently, like that’ll slap a bandaid on it, “Billy’s always slow on the take-up. He’s probably still adjusting to the move. His whole life has been one big change after another, you know? And all that shit with the Mind Flayer–”

“It’s just,” Steve tries, chin wobbling dangerously, “The first night we moved here and he said he didn’t want to come to bed I couldn’t remember the last time I slept somewhere without him. I know I have before, I just. Couldn’t remember. I still can’t,” Steve wipes his nose on Billy’s favorite pair of boxers, feeling dramatic and comical and lame. “Maybe I should call it quits. Give him an out–”

“No,” Robin snaps, so harshly that Steve’s tears crawl back inside his skull to hide. “Steve, if you break up with him–”

“God, I’m gonna split my skin. I’m crazy.”

“You’re not,” Robin assures him firmly, “It’s completely valid to wonder what brought on such a big change but it’s not what you think it is, and if you try to give him an out he’ll think it’s because you don’t love him. You know that.”

Steve nods, groaning when more tears slip out from behind his eyelashes. 

“Billy’s as batshit crazy about you as you are about him, the feeling’s mutual,” Robin says. “Besides, he probably wants to come to bed but They haven’t programmed it into his memory board yet and he can’t recall the purpose of a mattress–”

“I’m gonna kill you with a brick.”

“Hey, there he is,” Robin chirps. Steve imagines her flying high above the trees and then swooping low, angry pigeon style, to bomb his head with the truth. “It’s going to be alright, Dingus.”

“I know it is.”

“You don’t sound very convincing.”

“I’ll be okay,” Steve snaps, clutching Billy’s dirty underwear to his chest like some disgusting, demented teddy bear.

He hopes, down to the pads of his bare feet, that Robin’s right about this. That things will turn out okay. Because if they don’t and this spells the end of the best thing that ever happened, Steve will sink into darkness and he won’t be able to find his way out again.

Call him dramatic. It’s just the truth.

–

Darkness leaks out of him, through snags and tears he wasn’t even aware of. The only plus is that once the crescendo happens and Billy’s strapped down, swallowing mouthfuls of the rot he’d been dribbling for years, he lives. He can imagine a world where all the shadows are cast out. 

Maybe the ichor doesn’t seep out through harsh words, anymore, because there’s nothing left.

He’s empty. Wrung dry.

There’s all sorts of shit that comes along with that: hurt, pain, and guilt rotting inside him, growing teeth until they feed on each other. Billy’s nothing. He’s a non-issue.

Owens says it’s not productive to think of himself that way.

“What would your sister say if she heard you talking like that,” The Doctor says. In Billy’s memory of him, Owens always smokes black and mild cigars in a white jacket. “What would Steve say?” The Doctor asks, and it becomes like a chant, the evil cheerleaders in Billy’s mind playing both sides of the field.

Gloom, following him like a shadow.

What would Max think if she saw the way your eyes light up at the possibility of crashing your car into the gulch. What would Max growl at you under her breath if she heard the half-drunk promises you make to your teddy bear that the age-old dream of skipping town to find your mom would be an adventure? What would Steve think, crying big fat crocodile tears, if he heard you scream into the sky that you’re a devouring worm who’s going to eat and eat and eat through everyone’s love until they, too, are shining emptiness?

Owens always circles back to that. “You’re not a black hole, Billy,” He says, with so much feeling it almost seems like he believes it, “Your sister loves you. She’s happy you made it back to her. Steve loves–”

“I know,” Billy says. Doesn’t understand it. Never understands it–

“Do you?” The Doctor asks, cloaked in a milky haze so Billy can never tell if he’s leeching joy from Billy’s scarce reserves.

When Billy tells the doctor that he’s moving to California and Steve’s coming, too, Owens says it’s good. It’s something to celebrate. “You’re not a black hole. You’re a room waiting to be filled with dayglow,” The Doctor tells him, lighting his customary cigar, “California Dreamin’, right?”

Their sessions never make it past the thirty-minute hand.

–

On Wednesday, the phone rings. “Robin said that Steve said that you said–”

“This isn’t high school,” Billy relaxes into child’s pose and watches a bead of sweat fall, lazy as dew-drop rain, into the yawning hands of the carpet. “Might be a bit of a shocker, since that’s where you’re at in life but if you’re gonna do this telephone, he said she said bullshit–”

“Telephone?” Max interrupts. 

“Yeah, you know. The game where you whisper into the ear of the person beside you, and they whisper into the next person’s ear, and then that fucker whispers–”

“God, you’re so old.”

Billy’s sweat is absorbed and digested into the putting green of the spare bedroom’s floor. He hikes himself into downward dog, willing his arms to stop shaking in their sinuous hold. “Just tell me what Robin said.” 

“Not Robin,” Max clarifies, chewing on something crunchy, “Well, Robin told me, but really she heard from Steve that you said you aren’t in love with him anymore.”

Billy’s arms give out. 

And really, gun to his head, it’s probably because there’s no future, no alternative timeline, no possibility in all the infinite choices and lifetimes Billy sometimes imagines when he gets too high, that he would ever stop loving Steve Harrington. 

But, he’s also in recovery.

His hands don’t work quite as well as they used to and his stamina, in all things but especially in the demented world of his teenage sister, is for shit.

His forehead stings, “Ow, godammit–”

“What happened,” Max barks.

“It’s fine, just,” Billy rubs between his eyebrows, “Just give me a minute.”

“It’s not true, right?” Max demands because she can’t follow instructions. Because since the very beginning, even before Billy knew what to call this thing with Steve, she was rooting for them. Stapling pompoms to her hands to muster happiness when Billy said I’m going home and Steve’s coming with me.

For Max, anything involving Billy is better if Steve’s beside him.

It’s sweet.

It’s a thorn in Billy’s ribs, too, a dagger-tip poisoned with worry that when Steve realizes he’s too good for the life they’ve built together, it’ll break her heart just as much as it’ll shatter Billy’s.

Max isn’t crunching on the other end of the line, anymore. “You still love him,” She says, “Obviously, you still–”

“Why would Steve say something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Max says, in exactly the sort of stretched, wavering voice she has when she does know. When it’s her doomsday tale, come to fruition.

“Tell me what you know,” Billy demands.

“I already told you, dipshit, I don’t know anything. I only know what Robin heard from Steve who heard from–”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Billy tucks his feet under him, muscles sore and loose. His tendons trip over each other, clenching painfully to hold the rising tide of worry threatening to seep from his bones. “I don’t understand. Is he pissed that I threw out the boxed pudding last week?”

“You threw out all the boxed pudding,” Max repeats, and Billy imagines coppery horror dawning bright across her freckles.

“Owens said I need to cleanse my body, just like I need to cleanse my mind.”

“Yeah, that was a bad move,” Max reports glumly.

There’s not much Steve gets up in arms about. He’s as deep and as calm as a river, he’s moss-covered boulders and wisteria growing through cracks in the rubble of ancient buildings. He doesn’t simmer and boil over like Billy does, but Steve’s serious about dessert.

He’s got a sweet tooth the size of Mississippi that’s only gotten worse since Billy escaped death. They’ve got their ways of coping.

“He’s probably gonna kill you in your sleep,” Max tells him.

“Yeah, probably.”

“You’d deserve it,”

“I’d deserve it,” Billy tells her. For the pudding and for so many other nameless, faceless things that lurk in the past. Billy picks at the fiber of the carpet, “Still doesn’t seem right, though.”

“You think he’s worried about something else?” Max chuckles, “Wait, don’t answer that. It’s you he fell in love with, there’s always something to be pissed about.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m just saying, you do things all the time without thinking about it.”

Billy resists the urge to cross his arms and pout. “Like what?”

“You want me to name them?”

“Yeah,” Billy spits, losing the war, “I want you to name them so I can be better. For everyone, but. For Steve. And you.”

Max groans. Long and low and Billy’s grateful, somewhere past his resolutions, that some things and especially some little sisters, never change. Billy tries not to smile, “Look, tease me all you want, okay? Owens says–”

“Owens is a quack.”

“He’s not a quack,” Billy insists, and now his hands are shaking.

It’s a drop of a dime, these days.

It’s out of his control.

“I know, he’s a partial quack. He’s got quack-like tendencies.” Max works to make her voice kinder. Softer. It means the world that she would try.

It means even more that she doesn’t baby him. 

Billy sits back against the wall in the guest room, tucking his knees up to his chin. He rifles through the last few months, unpacking every moment he’s shared in this apartment with Steve. They’ve cooked dinner together every night. They grocery shop and split the chores on Sundays, and Steve reads out loud to him from any book Billy picks up from the library, and.

“I thought everything was good,” Billy mutters, “I thought it was perfect. Steve is, and. I thought I could be.”

“You’re an idiot if you think anyone’s perfect.”

“I could try, Max. For him.”

“Look, is this about your survivors guilt, PTSD whatever?” Max demands. Billy hates the way he can’t hide from her. “We’ve already done the twelve-step apology bullshit, Billy. Everyone forgave you.”

He didn’t deserve it. 

Billy bites down so hard on his cheek that he tastes blood. He shakes his head and can’t admit that he never deserved a second chance. Not happiness, not love, and not steve.

Billy clears his throat, “Not everyone.”

“Well, everyone who counts,” Max says quietly. “Bills. You need to forgive yourself.”

It stings, like the reopening of a wound. 

Salt and rubbing alcohol burning in his nose when he breathes just like the Doctor taught him. Inhale joy, exhale pain. Inhale mercy, exhale–

“You have to forgive yourself,” Max tries again. Her voice wavers a little around the edges, fuzzy like it gets right before she starts to cry.

Billy hates himself, but. He hates that even more. 

For so long he wanted to believe that he was on the road to keeping his head above water. That soon enough he’d be able to think of the dark ages and not give into its way of life. 

Billy had thought that things were different.

In California, under sunny-bright skies, he’s a man made new.

Billy’s done everything right. He changed the way he eats. He does yoga. He sleeps on the mat on the floor to attone for the sin that still stain his hands like blood, he holds Steve far enough away that he’ll be safe but so Billy, selfish as he is, can still warm himself by the glowing light–

Billy sits up so fast that his head starts to swim. “I will,” He tells her.

“You mean it?”

“I’ll try,” Billy says. 

It’s all he can do.

–

Friday night, Steve comes home from work and falls into bed with his shoes still on. 

He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow. Billy hovers in the doorway for ten minutes to watch him sleep. Steve will wake up with a sore neck. His skin will ring itself red, indented with the seams of his pants.

Billy wants to enter the room. Feels like a sinner pacing the carpet outside confessional. 

He’s seasick and guilty about that. It’s a line of thought that leads nowhere, it careens madly off the edge of a cliff. 

Billy chews his nails and tells himself everything’s fine. 

He can cross the threshold without invitation. He can make sure his lover is comfortable. 

He can do this.

Just like this morning. Just like yesterday.

Billy gnaws at his thumb. Steve’s always more comfortable with his shoes off, soft and pliant with one sock clinging stubbornly to his foot. He can’t decide if it’s worth it to wake Steve or if getting the shoes off while he’s knocked out cold is even possible.

And once the shoes are gone, there’s the matter of Steve’s pants. Tight and scratchy denim and covered in drying finger paints and Billy knows even if he can manage to get Steve undressed, Steve will whine about the paint tugging on his leg hair, and then he’ll want to shower, and.

Well, Billy never could deny him.

–

The change in Steve’s breathing is like the first wave of a thunderstorm arching into the slow, lethal way the shadows in their room change shape and grow teeth. 

“Billy?” Steve calls, thick and groggy, edging toward panic, “Bills, where–”

“I’m on the couch,” Billy says. 

The whole house adjusts around the weight of Steve’s body. He runs down the hallway, appearing startled and out of breath, hair wild and cheeks lined.

“Jesus. I rolled over, and.” Steve runs a hand through his hair and Billy almost melts into the couch when those eyes slip like cool water over him, ringed with relief at the sight of him, tired and whole in their living room. “Nice to see you’re migrating closer to our bedroom.”

Our. 

Billy shifts, freezing cold without a blanket.

Steve watches him for a long, quiet moment. “You scared the shit out of me,” Steve grumbles, padding toward the coffee table with his sneakers still on. Billy makes room between his legs without a second thought and Steve curls like a cat between them, burrowing his face into Billy’s stomach. 

He sucks a mouthful of Billy’s stomach between his teeth, letting it fall doughy again before he presses a soft, firm kiss right above the worst of Billy’s scars.

Billy tangles his fingers into Steve’s hair, scratching and tugging at his scalp until Steve’s shoulders drop, until he’s breathing like he’s worried each inhale might be his last.

Billy wants to promise he’d give his own last breath to keep Steve alive. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. You smell good,” Steve says, his tongue dragging lewdly over Billy’s happy trail.

Billy doesn’t deserve this. “I haven’t showered yet today.”

“Doesn’t matter, taste like vanilla bean,” Steve chews on him a little more, and Billy an feel every inch of his smile. “There is no more ‘yet,’ fyi. Today’s almost over.”

“Do you want me to clean myself up?”

“No,” Steve flails around, rolling and tucking his knees until Billy’s got a clear landing to his mouth, to the folded, unhappy lines of Steve’s forehead.

“You sure?”

“I like the way you smell,” Steve grumbles, carding his fingers through Billy’s leg hair. “It’s like aromatherapy for my trauma.”

“You’re a dork.”

“I was having a nightmare.”

Billy falters. He doesn’t know what to say, so he kisses Steve’s forehead, over and over again until the skin smooths itself out. Knows that even after all these years, Steve‘s gotta be smothered back to Earth when he wakes up screaming. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Billy asks, tracing a thumb over the perfect swell of Steve’s mouth. 

Steve kisses his finger. “You were gone,” He says softly, eyes unfocused and far away. “I pulled you out of a frozen lake and took all my clothes off so you could be dressed in something warm again, and I blinked. When I opened my eyes you weren’t there. You were gone.”

Billy should’ve been there. Next to Steve, in their bed. If he had swallowed his fear and just been there–

“You know I’m still in love with you,” Billy blurts suddenly. He holds tighter to Steve’s chest, fingers digging into the muscle around each one of his ribs. “No matter what you told Robin I did or what Max said you said Robin told–”

He may as well douse the fire. He may as well throw a blanket over passion, and a bucket of cool water on the night. 

Steve frowns at him. He searches Billy’s face and he says, “I was worried,” like the knife is finally being pulled form his stomach. 

Billy hates himself. “You never have to worry about me.” He swears, like a white-knight. A King.

Steve’s forehead wrinkles again. “You don’t touch me anymore.”

He wants to.

Billy aches, constantly, to the very atoms that make up the marrow of his bones, to touch him.

“I can’t. Because,” Billy tries. “Because I don’t deserve–”

“You’re wrong,”  Steve says harshly. 

Billy flinches. His throat closes up and Steve can tell, lurching into action so Billy doesn’t suffocate to death.

“Hey,” Steve says, sitting and twisting until his forehead tacks itself to Billy’s, “Breathe, c’mon.”

Steve demonstrates how to do it.

He patient. He’s beautiful.

“There you go, big guy.”

Bill holds onto the wrists that frame his face. Comes back to Earth, again, back home. Where he belongs. 

He feels Steve’s pulse through every inch of his body, thumping Billy’s blood when he can’t do it himself. He looks into those eyes, honey-pools that followed him into the dark. “I’m trying to do better.”

“You are better.”

“I’m trying to be perfect,” Billy says, “For you. Before I start this new life in our house, I want to be–”

Steve kisses the rest of it out of him. 

Everything, gentle licks and nips until all that’s left is fresh ground. 

“You’re done apologizing,” Steve says bluntly. He tucks a piece of hair behind Billy’s ear, eyes gentle on Billy’s face. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you had to.”

“I needed it.”

“I know. But it’s not necessary anymore.”

“I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t want you anymore. I was worried that if I didn’t take this pilgrimage, something bad would happen and I’d hurt you.”

Steve kisses him. “You won’t.”

“I couldn’t take the chance before.”

“Let’s take it now,” Steve says. He sits back on his haunches, voice strong and true and bursting like dawn through the night. “The whole point of a fresh start is that we don’t have to crawl on our knees anymore, Billy. We get to be happy, now. We get to be together.”

Billy searches for the words he always thought were better left unsaid. 

He quiets the shadows that whisper there’s no going back. If he opens himself up to this, for real and forever, he sacrifices control. 

But if Steve’s the one he’s kneeling to–

“Can we go to bed?” Billy asks, small and uncertain. 

He braces himself for the sneer, for the unkind word, for reality to come crashing like a furious wave. 

Instead, Steve smiles. 

When he takes Billy’s hand, a door is opened. And light pours through.

--

for the lovely @chrisbitchtree for Harringrove for Turkey!

I hope you like it and I’m sorry it took forever and ever.

all my love,

Jaz

[moonyasnow]

What would my OCs' tsums be like

The main thing is like a stripping away of facades and artifice, right? Basically like they have no filter

Also gonna be quite a bit of OC x canon stuff in this bc when you're like 'what would this character be like if they were 100% honest' and that character has a crush on someone, of course that's gonna be very relevant

( @beneathsakurashade ARE YOU HAPPY NOW— /j )

Tomoe

Tomo-tsum will not stop itself from literally treating Ace-tsum, Deuce-tsum, Irina-tsum and their corrosponding humans like its literal kids. Includes Grim too, of course. Protecting them like a big mother hen. If you hurt any of them, it's going to give you a glare, and lecture you. And it will literally sit them all down and have study sessions with them, making sure they complete their homework. Helping them whenever they struggle, of course. Will do what regular Tomoe wishes she could; literally just go up to regular Leona and lay down next to or on top of his chest and nap with him. Regular Tomoe is both too busy and a little too stuck in her careful consideration of societal and situational appropriateness to let herself do that. It'll also kiss his cheek in his sleep. And it WILL go on long rants at Crowley about how irresponsible of a headmage he is and that he should be ashamed and has no right to call himself an educator.

Irina

When neither Malleus or Malle-tsum are present, it's restless

And the second Irina-tsum sees Malleus it is GLUED TO HIM Even better if it's Malle-tsum~ (Irina-tsum is literally half of Malle-tsum's size)

Irina-tsum REFUSES to let go and starts literally crying when Malle-tsum is out of its sight for even a moment If another tsum, or another person who is not Malleus- with a special exception to Lilia and Lilia-tsum- is being too affectionate with Malle-tsum, it will give them a DEATH GLARE, then literally push them away so it can cuddle more with Malle-tsum

But if Malle-tsum wants it to join in on whatever activitity it and the other tsum were doing that made Irina-tsum jealous, it will, pouting a little bit and sticking to Malle-tsum like glue, still frowning at the other party but no longer AS upset. Like it's giving the other a silent warning.

If it's separated from Malle-tsum it will literally bite whoever is holding it and speed away, running around trying to find Malle-tsum again

Spike

Spike-tsum also isn't all that different from regular Spike

Will not hesitate to pick up its friends (tsum equivalents, I mean) and give them bone-crushing hugs

If it sees an image of Neige it's turning into that 'I miss my wife tails' meme, and will be all sad until it can see him (though granted this also isn't too terribly different from regular Spike)

It headbutts people a lot though! If it's startled, or upset, or if you made any of its friends startled or upset

Junia

Junia-tsum is literally no different from regular Junia

Lisle

NEEDY WANTS. ATTENTION. AND. PRAISE. AND IT WANTS IT NOWWWWWWWWWWW Praise it and thank it and say it was really helpful and very pretty~ Or else it's gonna pout and throw a fit until you do The little diva it is, it will find a way to insert itself into ANY situation, and make it all about it. Will pull of plans with the complexity of a rube goldberg machine just so it can be the star WILL create scenarios that gets someone in trouble and then swoop in and save them and immediately start begging for praise like a puppy who just performed a trick. Will give people lists with things needed to throw a big parade for it

Veronica

SHY. If Vil-tsum is around Veronica-tsum will follow it around like an excited puppy, following its every instruction to the letter. If Vil-tsum praises it, it'll look super duper proud. It'll try to give Epel-tsum a little kiss on the forehead now and then, and get things for it from hard-to-reach places If Rook-tsum is around it'll get super flustered and shy and just wanna hide if Rook-tsum starts being very affectionate. But if Rook-tsum thinks it wants to be alone and leaves, Veronica-tsum gonna get mad at it for trying to leave Similar thing if Cater-tsum is around, and Veronica-tsum will also get upset if it at any time tries to leave without her. And it'll follow Cater-tsum around, no matter what it wants to do. If Cater-tsum tries to be affectionate with it, it'll blush so much, and look like an anime school girl with a crush, but won't do anything to try to stop it. If both Vil-tsum and Cater-tsum are present, Veronica-tsum will feel really troubled, not knowing who to follow, sometimes almost looking on the verge of tears, as though needing to decide between the two is a decision that could end up haunting it for the rest of its life. Even worse if Victor-tsum is also there SUPER protective of Victor-tsum, even more so than regular Veronica is of regular Victor Even LOOK at Victor-tsum while not smiling and you're on thin ice

If it sees too many people it likes in the same room, not fighting, it's going to be close to tears because it's so happy.

Also be ready to have it roasting evey single part of your outfit and makeup, and literally dragging you to your or regular Veronica's room to give you a whole makeover. It will not be satisfied until it's made you look the best you possibly can.

Victor

It will give you dead birds (cat energy)

Isn't as menacing as regular Victor, though, simply because it never TRIES to be menacing. If you upset it in any way, it's gonna go to Veronica-tsum to get it to do something about whatever upset Victor-tsum. When it sees Jack-tsum, it'll run up to it and give it the biggest, softest hugs imaginable. It'll follow along Jack-tsum if it wants to show Victor-tsum something, but be in general a lot more soft, gentle and mild-mannered than regular Victor. All its smiles, in stark contrast to regular Victor, are genuine.

Victor-tsum is still just as reserved as regular Victor, but acts it out in a very different way, not being afraid to show how timid it actually is. It'll often end up hiding behind Jack-tsum or Veronica-tsum If ANYONE who is not Jack or Veronica picks it up, it will start squirming and look like it's crying. And then you will have two angry tsums (Jack-tsum and Veronica-tsum) after you. It likes sitting with Idia-tsum and watching it play games in a comfortable quiet.

Artemisia

If other people or tsums are doing something, it'll follow along with them because it wants to be included. It won't necessarily do the same activity as them, but it'll watch, just sitting close and listening.

It'll give Jamil-tsum roses and love poems and literally act like they're in a classic romance novel. It will become visibly sad if Jamil-tsum doesn't give it poems in return. Even if it gives Artemisia-tsum a super short one like 'roses are red, violets are blue, cats are cute and so are you' it'll be really happy. If Jamil-tsum has to leave, it's going to hop up to it and give it a kiss before it does.

It sometimes likes to sit on top of regular Malleus' head, in-between his horns, and read a book, which often earns the ire and jealousy of Irina-tsum.

[frogofalltime]

25.02.2024

ough. this day was so hard. i debated even writing this, but i think keeping a daily diary has been helping me process stuff, so i'm sticking with it.

i got up around 10am and ate breakfast. i was procrastinating washing my dishes and getting dressed, when i received a sudden message from my mother.

it was extremely long, basically an essay. she had found out through her sister that i've been identifying as trans. and she was extremely upset. i won't go into details because it's very transphobic and probably triggering for anyone to read. but yea. it hurt a lot. probably more than anything else she's said in the last year.

then she called me and when i picked it up she was just sobbing into the phone. i had no idea what to say or do. she kept asking me why, saying it didn't make sense, that i was and always will be a girl. she was so happy that she had a daughter and now she feels like she's lost me. she said she doesn't know me anymore, the way i dress isn't "me", and i am making myself look ugly and trying to be something that isn't real. she said i have stepped away from islam by surrounding myself with queer non muslims who are pulling me away from the right path, and i had rejected God's guidance. that made me cry too.

i tried to explain that these things aren't black or white. my therapist told me that growing up and figuring out who you are involves trying different things and seeing if they fit or not. so when i was younger i tried to cure my gender dysphoria by presenting femininely, since i thought it was the best option i had, but it didn't fit. so now im trying the opposite, and it does feel a lot better. but she said i am being so extreme, why can't i just be Me, why do i have to have a label or call myself a boy. and i had no idea how to answer that.

she told me i can't trust how i Feel, feelings are just feelings, so i have to have faith in God. like how she doesn't feel comfortable in hijab either, but she wears it anyway because she believes it's what is Right, and that where she will end up the next life is more important than how she feels in this one.

in the end she said she had no choice but to talk to my father about this, and i begged her not to. he is a million times more homophobic and transphobic than my mother so if he finds out it will be so much worse. she told me that he would definitely find out sooner or later if i don't change my ways. so i decided to remove the pronouns from my instagram bio, block even more people, and change the captions on some posts to appear less queer.

finally she put down the phone and i was left feeling Horrible. i messaged @etherealspacejelly and my best friend from school and my childhood best friend (who is also trans). it helped me to calm down a little, although i was still panicking very much.

eventually i managed to eat some lunch and get changed out of my pyjamas, because i couldn't stand being stuck in my room alone with my thoughts. i went to my friends' house at around 4pm and they asked what was wrong so i showed them my mother's message. they were sympathetic and supportive, but i still couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said. from her perspective, everything my friends and therapist and doctor etc tell me is wrong because they don't have islam as a guide. maybe she's right. i'm terrified.

to cheer me up my friends made sure i ate, and played some games with me. i did some sewing, and we watched my neighbour totoro which is one of my comfort movies, but i couldn't concentrate.

robin said i need to be more careful because things like this keep happening. and he's right, i should've stayed closeted, but it all feels so unfair. my friends can all explore their gender identities and sexualities and express themselves in different ways, so why can't i ??

i finally left the house at 1am, because i was so tired and robin had already gone to sleep so i couldn't stay the night. also they're burnt out at the moment, i didn't want to add to that with my own burdens, so i went home. i prayed, got into bed, and tried not to cry. i think i fell asleep around 2am.

i feel so alone. honestly, it looks like my only option is to detransition. i will just have to make the best of an awful situation and live as a woman forever. i see no future where my parents will accept me being trans. even if they disowned me i don't think i could live like that. and i am so scared because my mother is right. this is not compatible with islamic teachings. and i dont know how to reconcile any of it.

[taylorkellyreporting]

i hope no one minds if i liveblog this bitch: ted lasso from 2x02 to 2x05

jamie’s such an asshole 😭

“…oh.” skfjgjvjfjs

the sad music playing in this jamie scene is taking me out

i hate jane, beard deserves so much better

maybe frank sinatra was the problem

nate and his asshole attitude is getting really old

“why’s it smell like my nana’s house in here?” i don’t know why but the line delivery is sending me

“you ain’t even speaking spanish” CACKLING

“evidently she doesn’t eat sugar” “what a fucking asshole” 😭😭

the littles being absolutely thrilled when roy swears is so funny

we all have our kinks i guess skfjgkvkns

“when it sucks and i hate it, i’m gonna hire a bunch of children to follow you around and scream ‘told you so, told you so.’ for centuries” “i look forward to the attention” i love keeley 😭

“old people are so wise. they’re like tall yodas” WHATKGKFJFJS

dani finding it funny that ted and jamie look like they’re sitting in the guys hand while everyone else is upset is so on brand 😭

jamie better get on his hands and knees and beg sam to forgive him, that’s all i know.

sam is so precious, i freaking love him

higgins keeps showing up in the most random places 😭 someone get that man an office

nate talking about how jamie being back would ruin morale by belittling everyone then having him immediately doing it to will was such a smart move

ted got through to dr fieldstone 🥹 i knew she’d grow to love him eventually

oh shit, this is gonna be a disaster

- 2x03

sassy!! i’m so glad she’s back

“you finished on my-“ YELLING

“did he talk like that-“ “the whole time. and so eager to please. it was fabulous.” 😭

genuinely forgot about their hookup til now

“uncle roy, can we have ice cream for dinner?” “no, that’s dumb” “you’re right, thank you for helping me set boundaries” pls

“wow, she really loves you” “i know, it’s fucking annoying” 😭

i really hope we see more of rebecca and nora’s relationship, i’m loving it so far

nora being a sam girlie is so real of her

what the fuck did i just witness?!76(;;$(85&

“charles edgar cheeserton the 3rd” wake up babe new chuck e. cheese name just dropped

“sincerely, boss ass bitch” this whole scene has me in tears

“jamie tartt is a muppet and i hope he dies of the incurable disease of being a little bitch” that’s actually a really good insult 😭

so proud of sam!!

that entire scene with the tape was so powerful

IT’S ABOUT SUPPORTING YOUR TEAMMATES EVEN IF IT MAKES OTHERS UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!

THEY’RE A FAMILY 🥹

- 2x04

colin and moe aww

i’m not gonna lie, this look is really doing it for me

did jamie just bless HIMSELF??? 😭😭

keeley sticking her tongue straight into the chocolate fountain was sooo me coded

God, it’s me again-

a mini dartboard 🥹 henry is so precious

ted is all alone :(

“i think you might be dying” FUCKFKGJFJDJS

“i brought friend chicken!” “is that a christmas tradition in holland?” “no :D” 😭

“i just walked into your neighbors house! oh my God” idk why but this ep is making me lose it

“let’s get drunk!” pls he sounds so happy

rebecca’s look of disbelief at ted being called a wanker dkfjgjgjs

that nerf scene I’M CRYING

“mom! there are two white people at the door and they’re smiling!” BYE

the guy wanting a selfie with keeley instead of roy skfjfjsdjgkd REAL 😭

PLEASE

losing it at dani and mrs higgins drinking together, they looked so happy skdjgjvkd

ted and rebecca spending christmas together and delivering presents to kids 🥹

“you want me to drive?” “the…steering wheel is on the other side” “right, i’m the one with the accent here” 😭

NOT THE LOVE ACTUALLY REENACTMENT

THIS IS SO SWEET

i love rebecca’s voice so much

this was such definitely my fave ep so far and i desperately need a holiday episode every season

- 2x05

ted laughing when nate said he’d talk to isaac was fucked up but so funny

“so can i like give this back to you and you give me cash? is that a thing or…?” “no.” lmfao

“i don’t drink coffe, my mother says i was born caffeinated” she’s not wrong 😭

nate is taking hit after hit this episode and i can’t even feel bad for him after how he’s treated will

God, i love the way higgins talks about julie 🥹

alright, who wrote ‘yum’ on roys picture? cause i know it wasn’t him lmao

i don’t care if it was just brett almost breaking character, i’m gonna believe that there was a slight smile on roys face cause he was happy to see ted

“you’d look well fit with pigtails” “i do 😁” petition for rebecca to wear pigtails at least once before the show ends…for science.

roy asking ted if he did alright with coaching isaac is something that can be so personal

isaac stopping in the middle of the game to tie that girls shoe just made me love him more

roys reluctant friendship with ted is everything

when harry met sally 😭

every time i believe i can’t love roy more than i already do he goes and proves me wrong

roy seeing the impact he had on isaac 🥹

HIGGINS AND JULIA ARE SO CUTE

keeley looks so proud of roy aw

don’t know if i’ve said this before but isaac has such a beautiful smile

“shut up. just shut up. you had me at ‘coach’” and if i said this is the funniest show on television?

[bestbonnist]

Chapter 166.2

The doll is laying back in a chair like the nameless boy during its first appearance.

The person with the blindfold also first appears in a chair. The all-white lighting of this scene and the way they struggle forward are also reminiscent of when Fushi first used the nameless boy's body and struggled to move in it.

And then the poses in these panels also mirror each other. Just a guess, but this person is probably the reason the doll is so determined to become human, just like the nameless boy was for Fushi.

I'm never going to shut up about how Fushi spent the last two arcs feeling like they weren't allowed to be happy unless they were constantly helping others and now no one can be happy unless the people around them decide that they've helped enough to earn a good rating. Everything is so much worse now. With all my love to Mizuha and Yuuki, they fucked up big time.

I really like that we're looking at what lies outside of the star system along with the people inside it. The star system is presented like it's fair because it gives everyone an even chance. You don't get human rights unless you have stars, and how much of a human you are is dictated by how many stars you have, nothing else. Every human gets an equal opportunity to earn stars once they turn eight. But then characters like the doll and Kanitarou don't have a hope in high heaven of being human, because they were never part of the system.

Just spinning my gears here, this is all hypothetical but if human beings are being mass produced and tailored to each customer's specifications like we saw in Chapter 166.1, then they're no more "real" than Kanitarou and the doll are. Toys are made up of wires, not flesh and blood, but human society only functions with the chips inside each person's body. Both rely on technology to live. People can even end up looking less and less human as well, if they get a low rating. They might eventually end up looking like a toy, given that the ramen store owner and others assumed the doll was just a person who had one star. The qualifications for being human are very specific and very arbitrary, aren't they.

On a side tangent, it struck me that the powers ordinary humans possess are more like the Beholder's than like Fushi's. The ability to make things that weren't already preexisting, the ability to give vessels life, the ability to replicate tiny details like grains of sand and such, even the ability to stretch lifespans indefinitely. Together, humans and knockers have reached a new height where anything is possible, and it's terrible. It's true that if Fushi had taken on the Beholder's abilities, they might have been able to present this from happening, but it's because they were unwilling to exert control over others like Kaibara Cybernetics does that they decided not to. You can't be a good person while holding onto that kind of power. For Fushi, they wouldn't have been able to be a person at all.

Which begs the question, what kind of state are the five star people working at Kaibara Cybernetics in? Just food for thought.

Kanitarou and the doll have the start of an interesting character dynamic. Kanitarou is polite and logical where the doll is brutish and intuitive, but by the end of the chapter it's apparent that he's just as hard-headed as it is. I think it's interesting that he insists becoming human is a pipe dream but despite that, still has a strong sense of justice for toys and wants them all to be treated well. A little sad how he basically repeats what the boy who was torturing him said, that he and the doll are just programs. It's not any less hurtful if he says it nicely.

Overall, he seems very kind, and his attentiveness to the doll seems to bring out her kindness as well. They're goofy, I hope they become friends and stick together.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #17 + #18 + #19

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

Originally posted 11/9/2022

Winter came and winter went. Princes went into the woods; some came back. Every now and again one made it into the palace; the occasional nightmare would plague Adam long into the years of his life of Alaric, snatching up a bread knife and rushing at the Dowager during a celebratory breakfast, screaming in a language that hurt the ears and the mind. He found himself in the incredibly odd situation of no longer being the youngest prince, as more boys were sent to the palace by their parents. Most did not want to come, but the lure of the crown, of being named heir, of the wealth and power that would fall upon their families if they should succeed where so many others had failed and died, guaranteed that the Queen Dowager never ran out of potential princes.

No one doubted the curse anymore. Master Leminy’s sparse hair had gone completely white. He refused to train a replacement, though, and Adam found some degree of respect for his old enemy, because the Master of Scions simply refused to drop someone else into the mess, refused to burden anyone with the nightmares he already carried. He alone would bury the princes until he could see a King chosen.

It became impossible for Adam to hide the fact that he had friends no one could find in the palace grounds. On his thirteenth birthday the Dowager kept him for three torturous hours over tea only she drank and cakes neither of them ate, and every question was  a trap. Some were subtle, some were more obvious, but each one begged him to betray Linden. He could scarcely breathe when she at last excused him, her mouth pressed into a thin line of disapproval, her blue eyes gone to ice with anger that wouldn’t betray through her gracious tone or her kind words. Adam was told she would write to his parents, asking why no one had come to visit, why no presents were sent for his birthday or for the many holidays, why he was not asked to visit home. After all, he’d made it clear to all and sundry he didn’t wish to become King, did he?

It felt like a threat, and he couldn’t have said why. He spent those blustery, chilly days after his birthday, while he waited for Linden, sneaking around trying to figure out if she’d put someone to follow him. He had far less faith that he could turn an agent of the Dowager to his side.

But she did nothing, and he met his friends when spring at last truly and fully arrived. To them he confided everything as they traded coming-back and waiting-for presents, much to Needlemaw’s amusement, not that she minded the gift of a beautiful pearl and silver button stolen from Arditty. Certainly not from a defeated enemy, but too pretty for her to reject, she’d added it to her girdle. She convinced the others that Adam had a rightful concern; while all their experience might be with their own Royals, there was no reason to believe an old crone perched on a throne and throwing young boys at the woods in the hopes one would stick was any better.

They taught him to disappear. Hiding the prince under a plain woolen shawl, Boulder taught him to become little more than a stone on a field, a tumbled-down wall in the garden, a weathered stump in the woods. While he still couldn’t understand the language of the trees (or even hear it), Linden still taught him to take their hand so they could take him around one vast craggy trunk and out from behind another. They had to be trees that liked him, but then, Linden assured him that most of the trees in the Royal Woods did.

Needlemaw taught him to stalk. To creep up along walls and ceilings, to climb using the most slender of cracks in mortared stone, the finest  of fissures on a beam or a pillar. To turn the tables on anyone who might be following him, to become their shadow instead. She didn’t escalate those teachings to what she actually did when engaged in such sport, but she did let them practice on her. They failed to surprise her every time, and their punishment was usually that of any youngling of her clan: being pinned down and tickled until they could scarce breathe.

She reminded them that growing up didn’t have to be unkind.

For a while everything was as it had always been. The only notable event came when spring and summer hung perfectly in balance against one another. Adam and Linden had gone to check the nests under the many eaves of the palace - there was a cat roaming about, and Linden did not approve. They liked the finches, chatty and fearless, the ferocious sparrows with their chests always puffed out and ready for a fight, the swallows that spoke of distant lands full of strange wonders. When they returned, they were informed that someone had indeed come looking for the young prince, but he’d not seen Boul, and Needle had made pleasant enough conversation with him.

“Nice as bread in milk,” she described him, and Adam had to turn to Linden.

“Bland, she means.”

“Is that… good?” he asked hesitantly.

Needle laughed a little. “Good enough. Bland hardly ever asks questions. Don’t neither of ye worry about it, I’ll be dealing with him if he’s for poking his fine an’ elegant nose in our little pie.”

Adam made his own minor inquiries, through Culli-maid and a few of Arditty’s suitors, with whom he’d made friends after they’d be cast aside by the fickle young woman. He had to, because as summer gained strength they began to see less and less of Needlemaw, and more and more Boul would report that she’d gone off to distract the lurking presence.

Bread in Milk, he found out, was Prince William of Astings, about to become sixteen when autumn arrived that year. He had to agree with Needlemaw’s opinion: William was intelligent enough, smart enough, funny enough, capable enough. He was a whole of ‘enough’ without any single exceptional point to his favor. Even his looks were appealing enough and little else. He welcomed Adam’s overtures of friendship, the younger boy once again having the advantage of being 'safe’; Richard knew he faced no competition for the crown there.

For the life of him Adam couldn’t tell what Needlemaw saw in William that kept her from making the older prince disappear. He didn’t fool himself as to what she was and what she could do; he’d had plenty of time to learn that she was the least patient of them all, and that by a very broad margin. He’d half expected her to come back from one of her forays with William chewing on one of the older prince’s limbs, the rest of him gone into the blackness of the maw beyond the needle-like teeth. But William was alive, and she kept going off with him at least once a week.

They missed her, and Adam was the first to tell her so, just as the first leaves began to turn. It brought the redcap to perfect stillness.

“It’s not in a silly way or anything,” Linden hurried to add as they stood, stalwart as ever, by Adam’s side.

“Very little of what ye all do has ever been silly,” Needle replied, her voice low and full of unknown currents.

“Even the kelpie?”

“Dealing with the kelpie were dangerous,” she replied. “But never silly. If yui’d been silly then, none of us would be here and the water-horse would be awful well fed.” She dropped to a crouch before them; both Linden and Adam were beginning to shoot up, the first more than the latter, day by day growing further away from childhood. But she was still taller than both; only Boul outstripped her in both height and mass. “Why would ye miss me? There’s a handful, a dozen, a hundred like me that could take me place tomorrow if aught came on me head.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t be you,” Adam replied. “They wouldn’t have come climbing with us, they wouldn’t know the secret ways into the caves, they wouldn’t have done and said and shared all the things we’ve done with you. They wouldn’t be Needlemaw, they’d just be someone else.”

Linden shrugged. “And don’t say they’d be the same if they called themselves Needlemaw. They’d just be someone called Needlemaw, they wouldn’t actually be Needlemaw. Bit confusing, that.”

“In a grove of linden trees I’m nae sure yui’ve a call to be talking about confusing names,” Needle replied, reaching out to ruffle Linden’s gold-tipped hair. “I didnae mean for ye to miss me. I’ve not been missed ever before, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Just hang around a bit. When you can.”

“Adam…” She tugged her cap low, kissed the tips of her fingers and touched their chests. “I’ll do what I can.”

She kept her word. She lingered on long after Linden and Boul couldn’t come, as summer turned to autumn and then to winter, cold and dry, the air crackling with the season. Part of it, Adam guessed, was because she wanted to see William. But she spent a great deal of time in Adam’s quarters as well, much to the initial unease of the young prince’s companions. She charmed Dane by teaching him wrestling moves the masters of the palace didn’t know, and she allowed Beli to teach her letters, though she couldn’t be bothered with numbers, betraying her narrow interest when Adam shared with them both primers on tactics and strategies, and books on battles of yore. But mostly she was found sprawled at Culli-maid’s feet, helping with her knitting and her mending, fascinated by the way thread became fabric became cloth, and making a friend of Culli by her honest admiration.

For a while Adam fretted that someone would barge into his rooms and see her, the conversation with the Dowager looming large in his mind once again. Until Arditty actually did barge in, and Adam realized she couldn’t see Needlemaw. He wasn’t sure what the lady-in-waiting saw, it was a blur, a shadow behind Needle’s real shape, the shape of a big cat or a lanky hound, or something in between. It hurt his head and made his eyes burn if he tried too hard to focus on it.

But eventually she, too, had to leave. “The doors close, Adam. 'Tis the season of parties in the court, and she would have the guts and gizzards of any as didn’t show up. We all throw a party for the twins, each clan and burrow and nest and wee court. They hardly ever show up, but one cain’t risk the time they do decide to come, aye? So there’s parties and competitions and challenges and all sorts of posh and politics…” She stuck out her long black tongue and made a disagreeable sound.

“Will you be alright?” Adam was trying not to feel forlorn, and he knew he wasn’t doing too good a job of it.

She reached out to brush back his hair. “Well as can be. Will ye?”

“I always try to be. Winter seems longer and longer each year.”

“'Tis not,” she assured him. It wasn’t. It was actually growing shorter, because during winter the Folk in the Woods couldn’t have the full measure of their cruel sport. They had been applying a fair measure of their immense power to bridge that gap, and it was beginning to show. “We’ll all be back before ye ken.”

With that, Adam had to be satisfied.

***

It was spring nearly fully fledged the next year when his birthday rolled around again, and once again the Dowager Queen closeted herself up with him. This time there was a parcel from home, a basket of sweets he’d not had since he’d left, and a belt with a silver buckle - gifts for a child. The Dowager pursed her lips, her disapproval mute as she presented the gifts, and Adam found himself torn between his fear of the old woman and her questions, and some measure of appreciation that at least one person knew he was being treated unfairly by his own family.

To be fair, he never really thought of his parents anymore. He seemed to recall his mother had wept when his father had set him in the coach that had brought him to the palace, but it seemed so long ago sometimes that he didn’t trust the memory. It was hard to love people who had forgotten him so thoroughly, who never wrote, who thought he was still nine years old. Even Lemony-Leminy found a more apt peace offering for his vexing charge, gifting him access to the Dowager Queen’s library, which was usually reserved only for those princes sixteen and older. It was given to him under the excuse of saddling him with more studying, but Adam knew that the years had taken a great deal of Leminy’s spite out of him. To some degree, he suspected the Master of Scions was simply glad that Adam had managed to stay alive so long.

William came to him on a foggy afternoon. The encroaching darkness was warm and full of promise, and Adam felt nearly sure he could hear the whispering of the trees after all, even ensconced in a big chair in the library, a treatise on architecture on his lap. Spring would end winter’s reign that night, and morning would bring his friends back to him.

“Adam,” William’s formality had the younger prince instantly on his guard.

“William.”

“I heard your birthday just passed. Fourteen, is it?” When Adam smiled politely and nodded, the older prince added. “And still standing by your choice?”

“I don’t see that the Queen gets any joy of her crown,” Adam shrugged a little. “I don’t know why anyone should want it so badly when she’s our example.”

At that William did laugh, surprised more than anything. “The things you say!” he chided. He drew a deep breath and looked out the window. “It should be spring proper soon.”

Adam felt even warier. “A day or two.”

William nodded. “I…” He hesitated, and then stretched a hand out to Adam, who nearly threw himself out of the plush chair; just because all the others knew he was no competition didn’t mean he’d not learned to be cautious of them. He stopped when he realized there was a small parcel on the older prince’s hand.

“Just… I mean.” William worked his lips into a thin line. “Would you?”

And Adam understood with a crashing, shocked sort of disbelief. “William.”

“I know it’s not much,” the older prince stumbled hurriedly over his words. “We’re not wealthy, my family. But I wrote them and they know I’m seeing someone and I didn’t… tell them much.” He ran out of words and rocked uncertainly on his feet. “And they didn’t mind.” A little sheepish chuckle escaped him. “They didn’t care. Shows what they think of my chances, ah?”

“William, I’m sure it’s not like that,” Adam protested, because he desperately wanted to believe on William’s behalf that it wasn’t like that, even though he was terribly certain that it absolutely was.

“Anyway!” The older boy rallied. “I just, if you could just… let her know that I think well of her. That I missed her.”

Adam took the small wrapped parcel gingerly, feeling a hard, tiny box inside the fine paper.

“I’m not elf-touched, you know. I went to the priests and checked,” William declared almost defiantly.

“Elf-touched?”

“Yes. When they put their power on you, on your heart, and you can’t think or say or do or breathe anything but them.”

“She wouldn’t,” Adam protested before he knew what he’d done.

William stared at him, then looked away at the world beyond the window. “Well, I suppose you’d know. But I checked. And I’m not. Just in case she’d think the present was for - Anyway. Would you get it to her? Please?”

Adam stared at the little gift, feeling as if something, some immense trap, were hovering over both William and Needlemaw. But he also knew he couldn’t refuse. The choice of what to do with whatever might be inside the little box went only to one being. “I will,” he assured William.

“Thank you.”

***

Against his best judgment, Adam kept his word. The foggy weather turned into pouring rain the next day, but the day after it was a rainbow-kissed drizzle, and he launched himself out to the woods, feeling as if the palace were trying to strangle him. When he met Linden and the others they all fell in a heap of glad laughter under the gracious linden tree, covered in early green buds. They all took time to admire the tiny mushrooms growing out of Boul’s shoulders, a mark that the young troll was, too, leaving childhood behind. They exchanged coming-back and staying-and-waiting presents, much to Needlemaw’s quiet amusement. Adam shared out the candies he’d been given, and they all rolled gleefully on the damp green grass, simply glad to be free of the cold season, glad to be together once again.

Adam almost didn’t give the redcap William’s present, but it would have weighted on him like a knot of briars around his heart. In the end he washed his hands carefully so he could present it without smudging it with mud. “William sent this for you.”

In the silence that descended over them, only the drizzle whispering over the new green could be heard.

“He didn’t,” Needlemaw had gone very still.

“He did. He checked. He’s not charmed or anything. He…” Adam sighed. “He missed you.”

“What a foolish thing it is, to miss the likes of me,” she whispered, picking up the small bundle with the very tips of her black, deadly talons. “To hurt on my behalf.”

“You’re our friend,” Linden replied simply. “It comes with everything, that. The good and the bad and the everything else. Wouldn’t you miss us, if we were gone?”

Needlemaw couldn’t answer. She shouldn’t, she knew. Her people were legion, an uncounted mass, a horde that overran and drowned. No one counted them one by one except their own kind, their own kin.

Except for one young mortal boy, an even younger troll, and a wild fey sapling, first in centuries sprouted by the Green Court.

“What is?” Boul asked.

“Who cares!” Needlemaw declared tartly, and threw the little parcel in her mouth, swallowing it in one gulp and tackling Linden in one arm, Adam in the other, picking them both up and running wild through the woods, howling like a moon-drunk wolf.

It was the longest time she’d spend with them that spring. From then on, nearly as soon as Adam met them she would disappear, returning only when it was time for them to part for the day. Linden could call for her, and she’d always unfailingly come, but it was obvious she didn’t appreciate being summoned so, and Linden grew as loathe of doing it as Boul and Adam were of asking.

They ended up following her, of course. Much later on in life, Adam would nurse a suspicion that they’d only succeeded in the end when the fairy maid had at last become too distracted to balk her pursuers, or when she’d simply stopped caring about hiding from them.

One early summer day, with Boul gone to rest for the day, Linden and Adam caught up with her in a gazebo that sat half over the waters of a still, gracious pond on the older side of the palace grounds. The pond had sat there long enough to grow shallow with the silt of many years, home to the occasional heron and family of swans. An ancient wisteria twinned heavy, powerful vines around the pillars of the gazebo and its deep violet blossoms made a nearly perfect curtain between its occupants and the world. For the first time Adam saw what William saw, a lovely young maid with wild and curly red hair pinned at her back in a rough braid, the predatory yellow of those bright eyes gone to a sharp hazel that seemed dull in comparison, Needlemaw’s mouth small and plain and boring.

He couldn’t look very long; his head began to pound if he did, because flickering under that sight he could still see Needlemaw, deadly and alien and dangerous, even as she combed long black talons through William’s curling brown hair, even as the two shared a bottle of berry cordial and a tray of grapes and cheese tidbits, laughing and speaking in quiet tones he’d grown to recognize from Arditty and her many beaus.

Neither Linden or Adam said anything, of course. They didn’t know what to say. Adam only knew that Linden was upset, and he couldn’t quite figure out how to ask why without asking why. They slipped away to the shady, cool space beneath several rows of ancient peonies and laid down, head to head, backs on the cool dark ground, staring up at the patches and pieces of the pure spring sky.

“It’s not forbidden or anything, is it?” Adam dared at last.

“No,” Linden replied curtly. “But it’s very stupid of her.”

“Oh.” Adam popped his lips soundlessly until Linden smacked his shoulder for it. “They seem to be fine.”

“Adam, do you really think Needle’s for marrying a princely sort?” Linden demanded tartly.

“Well, no. She’d be bored to death five minutes in.”

“Yes.” Linden shifted to rest their weight on their elbows, and Adam canted his head to stare at those angry, shattered, many-colored eyes. “Do you need me to explain what happens when someone like Needlemaw gets bored?”

Adam bit his lip. “Oh.” When he tried to pop his lips again Linden swatted him once more. “Well, she doesn’t look bored is the thing! Maybe William’s nice, maybe she really does like him, and he likes her.”

“Not her. Not the real her.” Linden seemed to think, chewing on their lip, and finally dropped their head to their hands with an impotent, impatient sound.

“Yeah, I’m not telling her, either,” Adam agreed.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Barry: yikes/bestest place on the earth (4x01/02)

We're back for the final season!

Cons:

When there's a show this good, I feel myself unequal to really talking about it or explaining the ways in which it's brilliant. If I had to delve into what isn't working for me so far in these first two episodes, the first thing I'd say is that Sally running home and then immediately coming back to LA was sort of odd. I guess I expected her to stay put with her awful mother for a bit longer. Would have been interesting to see how that played out.

I also think that Barry can go a little too hard on the meta stuff for my taste, and I know that's what the show is going for, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just... personal preference means that watching Cousineau play out his history with Barry in the form of a one man show felt a little more time-wasting than it did comedic to me personally.

Pros:

Over the course of the last season and now especially here, we see the way Barry has fully settled into this creepy, almost child-like serial killer persona. It's like he's just entirely shut down and is approaching everything from this place of... fun-house-mirror innocence, that I find super fascinating and very well acted. His call to Mr. Cousineau, where he asks if he's mad at him. His begging of Sally: "do you really feel safe with me Sally?" And the flashbacks we see of him as a young boy, meeting Fuches for the first time. It all creates this sense of child-like creepiness. And then you see his ruthlessness, filtered through this sense of how little he sees any choice he makes as being his own responsibility. He knows he's done bad things, and yet he's still twisting himself up to become the victim again, like when he baits a guard who was trying to be kind to him, into beating him up. And now, Barry has turned his back on Fuches's loyalty and decided to take a deal.

The scenes with Sally and her mother were chillingly awful. It made me sick to my stomach (in a good way?) to see her mother dismiss her pain and talk about how awkward it was going to be to have to explain to Sally's abuser's family about the TV show and the depiction of the abuse present in it. And her father awkwardly offering her affection and support without really being able to connect with or understand his daughter... it was really something else. The moment that sticks with me most is the mom not understanding the TV show and how it's based on Sally's experiences. "You don't have a daughter. Who wrote this?" Just like... her utter inability/unwillingness to study the piece for its emotional resonances, or maybe to examine why Sally felt like telling a story about a complicated mother/daughter relationship to begin with.

Then we've got Hank and Cristobal. I've gotta say, the scene where Hank has a bad dream that he's still locked up, made me gasp out loud and say to the screen, "oh, fuck no," because for half a second I thought maybe Hank killing everyone and rescuing his boyfriend was all a delusion, and he was still back there. And then he looks over and sees Barry and it's like "ah, okay, this is just a dream." This show plays around with perception a lot, we see it with Barry too as he imagines Sally and Cousineau there in the prison with him, but then it's Fuches who shows up, and he's the one who's real, but then we're also slipping through Barry's memories of him and Fuches in the past... it's so cool.

But back to Hank and Cristobal, I find their relationship so charmingly bizarre, and I like how they immediately want to get back into a life of crime. They just can't help themselves. Nobody who gets involved in this can ever successfully extricate themselves from it. We've also got Hank's moving and yet ultimately quite pathetic loyalty towards Barry, who probably wouldn't extend him the same courtesy. Hank wants to rescue Barry and Fuches from prison, but the minute he learns from Fuches that Barry is working with the feds, he ends the second episode declaring: "we have to kill Barry."

And we're off to the races! I already feel insane about all the stuff happening here. Fuches crying and cradling a bloodied Barry in his arms, apologizing and saying I love you? Oof. Not getting over that any time soon.

9/10

[adelheidvonschicksal]

Idk if this would be something your interested in 👉🏻👈🏻 if not feel free to ignore <3

Alpha!Dad!Bakugou helping his sweet leettle Omega Daughter through her first heat? And he ends up knotting her in the process <<///33

Pairing: Bakugo x Female!Daughter!Reader

Content Warning: Graphic Incest (daddy/daughter), Dubious Consent, Omegaverse, referenced cheating

There’s a lot of things that Bakugo Katsuki hates.

People who show up late to appointments. People who don’t turn their phones off during movies. People who chew with their mouths open. However, the thing he hates most is seeing his little angel in pain.

Oh, if your mother woke up and saw this right now, she’d definitely kill him, but what else was he supposed to do when you were begging for him, your shaky arms up and around his neck to pull him against your sweat clad body, your damp nightgown sticking to his bare chest. Your head was swung back, your beautiful neck completely stretched in front of him and ready to be bitten.

“Please, daddy. It hurts so much,” you croaked, tears streaming down the side of your face and disappearing into your hairline. You twisted your legs, widening them as you squirmed for the friction of his thigh above you. It worked to fill the room with the smell of sweat and desperation, the smell of heat.

“H-Help me, daddy. Just the tip, please.”

Katsuki couldn’t deny that you were an attractive sight. The slow swelling between his legs at your sobbing face was proof of that, and he cursed for feeling such a need towards his daughter even if you're in heat. So, he told himself he’s going to do this to help his sweet little baby out.

“All right, all right. Just the tip.”

“Thank you, daddy, thank you,” you repeated as he stood to his feet.

Without hesitation, you scooted to the edge of the bed and shrugged your panties off. Leaning onto your back, you slid a hand between bent legs. Impatiently, you spread your labia apart for him. Bakugo squared his shoulders and tightly swallowed to hold in the heat rushing through him when you presented your cunt to him, your middle finger going down to slowly stroke over your opening as if beckoning him to put it inside.

Bakugo grumbled (as if he could get harder at this point).

Katsuki chucked his pants past his hips, barely freeing himself before he guided his cock to your entrance. He sucked in a quiet breath as his tip kissed your opening, and he hesitated.

“Don’t tell your mom about this, got it?”

“I won’t. I promise, daddy.”

You lifted your finger upwards, pressing up to your clit to make more room for him to penetrate your virgin cunt. Even with only the head, he could feel how soaked you were as your heated core sucked around the little bit he gave you.

You whined loudly, lower body wriggling for more pressure. Katsuki pinned your hips tight onto the bed to keep you from sliding further along him than need be. Stay in control was the constant mantra he kept in his head as he continuously teased your cunt with the sliding of his plump head in and out of your straining ring.

“N-Ngh, da-daddy,” you cried, straining your hips against his large hands. “Need more.”

“Shush, you don’t want to wake up your mom, do you? You won’t get anything if that happens,” he warned you, gripping onto you tighter as his tight, narrowed stare focused on watching your pussy engulf his tip, just to stop short of pleasing the growing throbbing of his shaft. He knows you’re yearning for more because he feels the exact same. What he wouldn’t give to fuck your heat-engorged pussy full hilt right now instead of teasing you and himself with the forbidden.

“But it aches, daddy!”

Katsuki growled and shoved his palm over your mouth.

The whimper you released was subdued as your tears seeped against his hand. “I can’t take it. Need you inside me,” you begged into his hand, voice warmly collecting into the small gap between it and your mouth.

Katsuki groaned, debating in his head, but the desperate squeezing around his sensitive head and your pitiful pleas destroy all rational thought left in his mind. “Fuck it,” he cussed and slotted himself all the way into you with one strong thrust. The scream you released would have woken the neighbors if not for the hand holding down your rattled cry.

The force he took you was brutal, but you handled it so well, his cock easily sliding into your slippery folds. Your wetness clung to his curly blond hair and squished with every thrust of his fat cock bludgeoning into you. Katsuki couldn’t help but watch every rut, every compression of your puffy folds when he braced his pelvis against you.

Your cries were a muddled mess as your eyes rolled back, and there was saliva building on his skin as your tongue inadvertently slid against his fingers, making him growl possessively.

He hasn’t felt like this since he was a teenager. Your insides were silk and heat, tight and gush all at once. You were even better than your mom.

Katsuki removed his hand from your mouth, deciding it was worth the risk to see that pink muscle hanging from your lips as you panted. Your legs hooked right above his ass, driving him in deeper, and he grasped onto your hips to thrust into you at full strength.

His cock never left your squeezing cunt, and the speed of his movements picked up as you began to bounce against the thick knot that swelled at the base of his dick.

“Daddy, daddy, I-aha-I feel funny. I can feel it,” you moaned happily, your pain finally burning as pure pleasure. You dug manicured nails into his forearms, but it did nothing to slow him down from bruising your tight little pussy.

“Mm…are you going to cum for daddy?” he asked, panting harshly between parted lips, eyes dilated and trained on your drooling face.

“I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum. Wanna cum around you.”

“Cum then. Cum around daddy’s cock,” he growled, rutting one more hard time. You finally had relief around him, an orgasm so strong that you actually arched and trapped him to you with the vice your thighs have around his hips.

“S-Shit, (Name),” Katsuki snarled before pursing his lips to hold in a moan at the way your cunt sloppily slicked over his knot.

“Da-Daddy, I can’t, too much, mm, it’s too much, I can’t stop. ‘m sorry, daddy,” you babbled, jamming your hips up against him.

Katsuki tilted his head back, rutting on instinct rather than rhythm as he recklessly jackhammered into you. Shit. He shouldn’t have let it escalate this far in the first place; but at the same time, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop now when you’re melting around him so aggressively, not when you’re filling the room with your heat, not when you’re getting weepy-eyed when you can’t listen to his commands like his good little daddy’s girl. Definitively, he licked his lips and rolled his hips. “It’s okay, baby. You’re going to sleep much better with daddy’s cum inside you anyways,” he said, not fighting the way you bounce at the summit of his swollen bulb.

“I love you, daddy, I love you,” you cried, closing your eyes in pleasure at the promise of his knot plugging inside of you. “Mm…best, daddy.”

“Daddy loves you too,” he hissed out before fully sheathing himself inside of you, spurting his seed, cooling you down from your heat despite how hot it is inside of you. His hands clutched around your side, thumbs pressing towards your stomach as he shoved deep against your cervix. You twitched in his hold, your pussy happily clenching around his knot, milking more cum than you can hold.

His knot keeps every drop sealed inside of you, and your hand slides over the area of that warm sensation that has you full.

Katsuki huffed, still trying to collect himself during the minutes you’re knotted to him. He breathed deep, already piecing together the excuses he’d tell to convince himself that all this was okay. Then, he groaned as you ground, stirring his dick and knot in your heat.

Luckily, his knot had swelled down enough for him to pull out of you, but you refused to unclench your legs around his waist. Wincing, he watched you rolled your hips up. Were you trying to overstimulate him when he just came?

“Daddy,” you cooed sweetly, your hands drawing up to encouragingly massage his arms, and he met your needy face. “Want pups with you, daddy…please?”

Katsuki swallowed down a curse as he felt his cock twitching again.

[therealvinelle]

Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

[seijorhi]

Inexorable ♕

My birthday present for my beloved wife @iwaasfairy​ and my contribution to her birthday bash collab you can find here. I love you, you’re incredible and I hope you like this i even wrote smut for you smh

Iwaizumi Hajime x female reader

tw: dub-con, stalking, unhealthy relationships, very questionable decision making, smut, nsfw, um... implied murder?

He’s sitting on the steps outside your apartment when you get home from work, a lit cigarette dangling between long fingers. He brings it to his lips, the bright cherry red tip glowing as he takes a nice, slow drag and you scurry on past.

Not a word passes between the two of you, but olive eyes follow you up the stairs regardless, just like always. His name is Iwaizumi – Iwa – but you only know that because you’ve heard his friends yelling it down the hallway. In the three months since you’ve moved in, you haven’t so much as introduced yourself to the guy, but like most strangers crammed into the same shitty place there’s some kind of a routine between the two of you.

Why he religiously chooses this time of night to take his smoke break is beyond you, but like clockwork you’ll arrive home, having walked back from the bus stop and Iwaizumi’ll be there waiting for you, cigarette in hand.

Well, not waiting, just… there. Black leather jacket with a hoodie underneath, there’s a cut above his eyebrow tonight that he hasn’t bothered to clean, a purpling bruise colouring his jaw. Whatever dealings Iwaizumi’s tangled up in, you don’t like to think about too much, but you know it can’t be anything good. His friends dress like him, all have the same ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe. You’ve seen their scrapes and bruises too – the weapons that stick out from the waistband of their pants – though you’re always quick to avert your eyes when they catch you staring.

You’ve heard them snickering about it when you hastily dart past, all but slamming your front door shut. 

And it’s not that you’re scared of him. There are people who play at being dangerous, and ones who are. Iwaizumi doesn’t strike you as somebody who enjoys playing, and while you don’t doubt for a second that he is dangerous, he isn’t to you. He wouldn’t go out of his way to hurt or scare you – you’re not even a blip on his radar – but what Iwaizumi is, at least as far as you’re concerned, the reason your step quickens and you can’t bear to meet his eyes, is intimidating.

Tall and broad shouldered, with those piercing green eyes. You’ve only seen him smile once, though it was more a quirking of his lips than anything else – usually he just stares, his expression halfway between impassive boredom and a scowl. 

No, Iwaizumi doesn’t scare you nearly as much as the bouquet of flowers you find sitting on your doorstep, a handwritten note tucked in between the roses.

—

The calls come next. You block one number and he rings from another, followed by endless texts. Cute little messages you suppose are meant to brighten up your day. 

Hi baby, love the skirt you’re wearing today. You know blue’s my favourite on you, always look so damn pretty. It’s like you’re trying to drive me crazy haha

Morning babe, I was thinking about you last night. You remember that trip we always said we were gonna take in the summer down to the lake? I can’t wait to bring you there.

Why won’t you answer my calls? I just wanna talk to you, hear your voice again. Let me make things right. I love you.

Don’t you miss me? I miss you. So, so much… You look beautiful today, by the way.

Baby, I love you, but you really shouldn’t be staying out so late with your coworkers for drinks. I just want you to be safe.

They’re not all soft and sweet though. Sometimes he just sends you pictures, and those creep you out most of all.

You change your number, and it doesn’t make a difference.

—

It’s hard for you to try and convince yourself that you’re imagining the prickling sensation on the back of your neck as you go about your day. You know he’s watching you – the messages and the voicemails just drive that home, but what else are you supposed to do?

You can’t just pack up and run again, and what good is a restraining order when you have no proof he’s violating it – and by the time you do, it probably won’t help you.

Kazuma’s always had patience, but only up to a point.

The final nail comes the day you arrive home to find one of Iwa’s friends heading out from his apartment – the tallest, with the curly dark hair. Barely spares you a glance until he seems to think better of it.

“Didn’t realise you had a boyfriend, sweetheart.”

He says it so casually, but the words make you falter, a sinking feeling in your stomach. “What do you mean?”

And for a moment, he looks half surprised that you’ve bothered to reply – so far you’ve done nothing but pretend to ignore him and Iwa and every last one of their friends. But the mirth slips from his expression quickly enough once he gets a good look at yours, “Blonde guy with a shitty dye job, tall-ish. Saw him leaving your apartment an hour ago.” 

But to walk out of your apartment, he had to have first gotten into it.

“Guessing he wasn’t your boyfriend then,” he says, eyeing you with an odd look. But you don’t respond and after a short pause, he simply shrugs and continues on his way. 

You couldn’t care less.

Kazuma was in your apartment.

Leaving flowers at your doorstep is one thing, but now he has a key. 

And it feels like there’s somebody else moving your body as you stumble towards your apartment, your hand shaking so badly that you fumble and drop your own keys twice before you finally manage to slide them home and push your way inside.

It’s waiting for you inside your bedroom, sitting atop your pillow; a pretty blue box wrapped with white ribbon.

Your phone flashes to life a minute later; an incoming message from an unknown number. 

Did you like your present, baby?? I hope you don’t mind, I kinda borrowed a little something too… 

With your heart in your throat you watch those three bouncing dots as the image comes through. 

A pair of red lace panties – yours – scrunched up in his fist, wrapped around his–

Your stomach heaves, and you barely make it to the bathroom in time before you’re hurling your guts up.

—

You’ve always had an impulsive side, and more often than not it’s landed you into trouble.

So you force yourself to calm down and think before you do anything rash. You head to the police station the very next morning to file a report, fresh off a sleepless night. The officer seems sympathetic, but you know before she even opens her mouth that there’s nothing they can do.

There’s no proof of a crime committed; nothing was taken (nothing you can prove, at any rate) and because your door wasn’t tampered with and the windows weren’t smashed, there’s no evidence of a break in. She suggests changing your locks and going to stay with some friends or family for a few days and you don’t know whether you want to laugh or burst into tears.

And instead of going back to work, you call in sick.

Iwaizumi isn’t sitting on the front steps when you get back home, and why would he be? You’re not supposed to be home for another few hours – so instead you head to his apartment door and mustering every last ounce of courage you possess, you raise your fist and knock.

Silence greets you. 

You wait for a moment, a heartbeat, not daring to breathe, but there’s no answer. Which, really, shouldn’t be that surprising considering it’s mid-morning on a Tuesday, but you can’t help the crushing sense of disappointment that washes over you. The thought of trudging back to your apartment to sit and stew alone for the next few hours while you wait for him to come back makes your skin crawl. You can’t just sit still and twiddle your thumbs, not when–

Abruptly, the door in front of you swings open, and you find yourself face to face with a glaring Iwaizumi. His expression falters, momentary surprise flickering across his eyes at the sight of you standing in his doorway.

This time you don’t avert your eyes. Your heart’s pounding, your hands clammy and trembling by your side, but this is the only choice you have left. And so as a single eyebrow cocks and Iwa falls into a lean against the doorframe – the only invitation you’re gonna get – you steel your nerves, take a deep breath, and speak.

“I-I need a gun.”

To his credit, Iwaizumi doesn’t snort. “You planning on shooting somebody, princess?”

They’re the first words he’s ever spoken to you, and they make your cheeks burn, your stomach twisting into a knot. It’s not a dismissal, but there’s a tinge of amusement colouring his tone and you can’t help but wilt a little under the weight of his gaze. 

Better sense would tell you to turn around, walk back to your apartment and curse your own idiocy for entertaining this stupid idea to begin with But Iwaizumi’s staring at you like he’s expecting an answer and all you can think about is the fear that gripped your heart last night, how you couldn’t bear to turn the light off, half terrified that at any moment Kazuma would come back – and this time he wouldn’t be satisfied with just some panties.

You can’t live like this, and you can’t just pack up your life and wait for the same thing to happen in the next place, and the one after that. Kazuma won’t stop, you know that. 

“I…” you chew on your bottom lip, dropping your gaze so that you’re staring at his chest instead of those piercing green eyes. “I don’t, I-I’m not–”

“A killer?” he interjects, and you almost flinch at his bluntness“Yeah, no shit.”

Taking another breath in through your nose, you force yourself to meet his gaze, even as your nails bite into the palm of your hand and your heart skips a beat. “I just want…” but you can’t even bear to say the words aloud, not without your voice shaking like a leaf. “It’s for protection. I don’t know who else to go to. Please,” you beg.

Iwa exhales heavily, a crinkle appearing between his brows as he frowns, “This got anything to do with the blonde asshole that’s been sniffing ‘round your place?”

Your bewilderment must show, because he snorts, finally stepping back to let you inside. “Mattsun told me,” he says, answering your unspoken question. 

The unmistakably hard edge to his words takes you a little by surprise, but you nod anyway, gingerly taking a seat on the couch when he jerks his chin at it. “Oh, uh, yeah. He’s my ex, kinda. We… didn’t end well.”

It’s the understatement of the century, but you somehow doubt a man like Iwaizumi gives two shits about your past relationship with a stalker. Your fingers play with the hem of your skirt as the imposing man settles down beside you. “So does this mean you’ll get me a gun?” you ask. “I can pay you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have some money–”

Iwa scoffs, cutting you off. “If you think I’m letting you anywhere near a loaded gun, pretty girl, you’re dumber than I gave you credit for.”

You reel back as if he’s slapped you. But Iwaizumi’s staring at you with that steely expression and blood rushes to your cheeks. Why are you surprised? Did you actually think he was going to help you – a veritable stranger – just because you have some sob story? Why even bother letting you in if he was just gonna make you feel like an idiot? And for a moment you forget the gnawing terror that’s kept you up all night, letting yourself become awash with indignation. You have no control over the hurt noise that leaves your throat, but the ‘Fuck you’ that follows; that one’s intentional.

You don’t have time to regret the insult as you jump to your feet; his hand shoots out to wrap around your wrist, jerking you to a halt the moment you try it. 

“I didn’t say you could go,” he tells you, and you can’t fight the shiver that rolls down your spine at the unmistakably commanding tone. “Sit.”

Wordlessly, you comply.

“Look at me.”

Again, there’s that harsh undercurrent in his voice that tells you he’s not asking, and you lift your gaze with a tense swallow. Iwa still hasn’t released your wrist, the warmth of his calloused palm searing against your skin. 

He doesn’t speak for a moment, olive eyes studying your face intently as you force yourself to sit still under the appraisal. “I said that I wasn’t going to give you a gun, not that I wasn’t going to help.”

Your eyebrows draw together in confusion, “What–”

“I’ll take care of it,” he snaps, cutting you off once again. And as you inhale sharply, you realise that it’s not anger you see burning in those pretty eyes, but sheer, unrelenting fury, an icy rage that you don’t understand, that terrifies you as much as it enthrals.

Because you feel like it’s on purpose. Like he’s finally letting you get a glimpse of what silently seethes beneath that impassive mask of his. Are you scared now, sweetheart?

“H-how much?” you ask breathlessly, eyes wide and heart pounding. 

“I don’t want your money,” he says quietly, his voice low and husky. And just in case there was any confusion as to what he does want, his other hand comes up to your face, a broad thumb tracing along your bottom lip as he cups your cheek.

Iwaizumi leans in slowly, as if he’s giving you time to shove him away and tell him that you’re not that kind of girl. Part of you – the part that’s terrified, frozen stiff and regretting the very moment you decided to step into his apartment and cross that line – wants to. Even now, as those hooded olive eyes drink you in, his warm breath ghosting across your skin leaving goosebumps in its wake, you’re afraid that it’s too late for that. You’ve opened a door that should never have been opened and there’s been a fundamental shift between you and him. There’s no going back for either one of you.

And the other part of you revels in it.

“Don’t kill him,” you murmur the second before his lips meet yours. “Not unless you have to.” You don’t even know if he heard you, and as Iwa deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding against yours you find that you don’t care. You lose yourself to Iwaizumi as he leans closer, gently pushing you to lie back on the couch.

He isn’t satisfied with just your lips for long, planting hot, open mouthed kisses along your jaw and down the column of your throat, sucking on the sensitive flesh. His teeth nip at your collarbone as he busies himself unbuttoning your shirt, but your gasp sounds more like a needy whine than a plea for him to stop. 

He laughs a little at that, his chest rumbling against your stomach, but he makes no moves to slow down. Instead he turns his attention to your bra, his hands far less gentle with the delicate lace than he was with your shirt, and then his mouth is on your tits, licking, sucking, biting. Tomorrow, your skin will be littered with pretty red and purple marks, and judging from the single minded focus glinting in his eyes as he stares up at you, that’s exactly his intention. Iwa drags the flat of his tongue along the swell of your breast, circling it around your nipple before he sucks it into the wet warmth of his mouth, and the whimpering moan you give him in response is a thing of beauty. 

“Good girl,” he croons. “Such pretty, perfect tits.”

Your back arches when he cups the other in his hand, and you cry out when he roughly tugs the sensitive bud. He waits until the sting fades and you relax, sagging back against the cushions with relief before he does it again, harder this time. The sharp, searing pain ripples through you, your breath seizing in your chest as you try in vain to writhe away from his touch, but it’s followed by a flood of pleasure so strong it almost makes you dizzy. The fleeting kiss Iwa bestows on the supple flesh a moment later could almost be taken as an apology – if not from the satisfied smirk curling at his lips. He has no desire to be gentle with you, not today or any other day. That’s not who he is. 

Large hands ease down your side, reaching for the hem of your skirt. Iwa doesn’t bother trying to pull it off of you, merely flips it up, exposing your soft thighs and the delicate panties lying underneath. 

In an attempt to be helpful, you lift your hips to allow him to drag the lacy scrap of fabric down your legs and discard it, but Iwaizumi seems perfectly content with leaving them where they are. Even so, it takes you by surprise when his mouth descends on your cunt, the wet, pink muscle laving along the seat of your panties. You shiver in response, one hand instinctively reaching out to tangle in those spiky brunette locks, but if you’re about to tell him to stop teasing, the words are robbed from you when Iwa pushes the fabric aside and buries his face in the heat of your pussy.

His nose nudges at your clit and you jerk at the first lap at your folds, already shamefully wet for him. There’s no rhythm or rhyme to the way he eats you out, letting a long, thick finger slide into your cunt while he suckles and licks at your clit, but you can’t deny that it’s working. Your thighs tremble and quake beneath his hands, every second of his attention dragging you closer to unravelling entirely. And you’re awash with pleas, little whimpers and moans as he chuckles, the low vibrations making your fingers tighten in his hair as another burst of pleasure flutters through you. Your hips rise and fall against his face, desperate for more when he finally slides his tongue inside of your heat, eager to taste your cunt properly. You want more, you’re desperate and aching for it; but Iwaizumi’s grip tighten bruisingly against your thigh in warning. 

You’re at his mercy, and he’s in absolutely no hurry.

The first time you cum, it takes you by surprise. It feels like an endless build-up, Iwa’s tongue lapping at your pussy like it’s heaven sent, his mouth working diligently to drive you insane. Every touch feels unbearably good, from the long, slow strokes to the way he drags the tip of his tongue along your clit. Your toes are curling, your tits heaving with the desperate breaths you choke down, and all of a sudden his mouth latches onto your clitoris and he sucks hard at the swollen nub. You almost black out right there and then, stars bursting behind closed lids as pleasure wreaks havoc over your body. But as good as that feels, it’s not until you open your eyes and catch sight of the hunger blazing in Iwaizumi’s eyes that you tip over the edge, cumming into his waiting mouth with an earth shattering moan. 

At some point he must have let you go to rid himself of his own clothes, and your panties, but you’re boneless, basking in the afterglow as he shifts you once more, lifting one of your thighs up to hook your leg over his shoulder as he settles back onto the couch.

You just watch through hazy eyes as Iwaizumi gives his thick cock, already hard and flushed an angry red, a few cursory pumps. And his eyes are fixed on yours as he leans down, guiding the tip to your sopping cunt. 

“Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming of this, princess,” he grunts out. 

Warning bells sound in your head once more, your gut clenching uneasily, but any protests you might have voiced fall by the wayside as he slowly presses into you. It’s the girth, more than anything else, that takes you by surprise. It hurts, stretching out your poor, oversensitive cunt as his cock fills you up, inch by agonising inch. 

Iwa hisses from between clenched teeth and your eyes squeeze shut, trying to breathe through the pain. It won’t last long, you know that, and until it does you just have to grin and bear it.

You can feel it twitching inside of you, every ridge and vein, the way your slick walls hug his cock. His thumb strokes along your hip, soothing you as your face screws up and another whimper slips out. You think you hear him say something, praise maybe, or encouragement, but all you can focus on is the way his cock throbs inside your pussy when he finally bottoms out and stills.

And for a moment, he doesn’t move. A small kindness, letting you become adjusted to his size before he fucks you the way he’s dying to. 

“Look at me,” he says, and while his tone isn’t as sharp this time, it’s no less of an order.

Your eyes flutter open as Iwaizumi turns his head just a fraction without breaking eye contact, pressing a soft kiss against your calf. His eyes are glazed with feverish lust, pupils blown wide, almost swallowing up that thin ring of olive green entirely, and you wonder whether you should feel afraid right now.

You don’t have the words to describe it, the distant unease that seeps through you as you stare into the eyes of a man who’s clearly not in control anymore. If you screamed right now, tried to fight back or stop him, would it make a difference? 

Do you actually want to?

“You’re mine,” he growls out, drawing his hips back and slamming them forward ruthlessly as you choke on a scream. 

He’s relentless, hissing out curses as he fucks you like a rag doll, filling your wet, tight little cunt again and again and again. It’s all you can do to fist at the edge of the cushion, one hand wrapping around his back, your nails raking down his skin, drawing blood in their wake.

And Iwa doesn’t care, tossing his head back as he pounds his cock into your needy cunt, his balls slapping against your ass with every thrust. “Iwa,” you plead between gasping breaths, clinging to his broad frame. You don’t even know what you’re begging for, not as he grabs you by the hips and lifts you up, hauling you closer so he can fuck you deeper. And you can feel his cockhead rutting against your cervix with every vicious thrust, the painful stretch of your cunt as you’re forced to take his fat cock. It hurts, it does, but holy fuck you can’t focus on that when his fingers slip between your legs and he starts to rub at your puffy, oversensitive clit.

You’re whining, mewling, hips shifting as you rock against him, desperate for more friction. “Please, Iwa,” you moan.

The sound of it, the lewd slaps of skin against skin, the wet squelching as he drives his cock home again with an unforgiving pace would be enough to make you burn with embarrassment, but you don’t care because you’re quickly losing yourself to mindless pleasure. Every stroke fills you completely, it’s hot and thick and the drag of his cock against your plush walls, the way it kisses that sweet perfect spot with every thrust is driving you to insanity.

“Fuck!” you cry, clenching tightly around his length as you hurtle over the edge for a second time. You’re gushing, convulsing, back arched up off the couch, lips parted and–

Iwaizumi stops with a growl and you barely have time to process it before he’s flipping you onto your front, yanking your ass up into the air and hammering his cock back into your swollen, abused little pussy. It’s a bruising pace he sets as he chases after his own end, your name falling from his lips in harsh, breathless grunts. 

It doesn’t take long for his thrusts to become sloppy, your cunt sucking him in and pulsing around his cock. And you don’t have the mental capacity to beg him to pull out, not as his muscular chest collapses against your back, his arms wrapping around your waist and he pumps you full of his seed.

Neither one of you move straight away, both fighting to catch your breath and calm down in the afterglow of your orgasms. Your eyes flutter shut as he presses soft, sweet kisses to the back of your neck, your shoulders, anywhere he can reach. It’s an intimacy that doesn’t belong here, but you find yourself arching into it, a small, tired smile curling at your lips as Iwaizumi lavishes you with affection. 

And you can only whine softly when he finally pulls his cock out and stands, lifting your boneless form up into his arms, chuckling quietly when you bury your head into his chest. Your head’s empty, your thoughts a jumbled mess as he carries you into his bedroom, depositing you carefully onto the bed. 

Iwaizumi leaves you there like that, and when he returns a few minutes later he’s dressed again. He doesn’t smile, but there’s something oddly content about his expression as he stops by the doorway and takes in the sight of you; naked and thoroughly fucked out, curled up amongst his covers. 

“Iwa?” you ask sleepily, stretching your aching body to make yourself more comfortable as you nestle further into the soft mattress.

He doesn’t answer you as he strides in, but you watch through half lidded eyes as his expression hardens. Stopping by the bedside, Iwaizumi reaches for you. You think he’s going to cup your cheek again, maybe run his fingers through your hair, but instead his hand slides between your thighs, gathering up some of the cum that’s seeped from your pussy with his fingers and slowly pushing it back inside of you, humming when you whine and shift under him.

“I’m leaving for a bit,” he tells you, your gut clenching as you remember why you’re in this position in the first place. “You don’t leave this apartment until I get back. You don’t answer the door, you don’t tell anyone you’re here, you don’t leave this bed unless you have a goddamn good reason. Understand?”

Weakly, you nod.

“Such a good girl for me,” he breathes, and this time when he leans over he does kiss you, sweeping your hair back from your face before his warm lips meet your cheek. He lingers there for a beat longer than necessary before pulling away with a sigh.

And as the door swings shut, the sound of the lock clicking into place behind him, you begin to question whether you’ve made a mistake. You don’t doubt for a second that Iwa will follow through with his promise. Whether it’s tonight or tomorrow or a week from now, he’ll find Kazuma; him and his friends, and they’ll make sure he stays away. And until they do, you won’t leave this apartment.

There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach that despite your pleas, Iwaizumi’ll kill him. 

Not because that’s the only way for this to end, though you realise that that’s always been a possibility, but because of what you glimpsed in his eyes today. Stupidly, you’d thought you had Iwa pegged. But there’s something that lurks beneath that facade, something more dangerous than you could’ve possibly imagined and the moment you opened the door to Iwaizumi it sunk its teeth into you and now you’re not sure if it’ll ever let you go.

And as you lie back in Iwaizumi’s bed, covered in the marks he left behind you wonder whether you’ve merely traded one monster for another. Perhaps it was inevitable. Inexorable.

[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.)

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