#black fraternal organization

[retropopcult]

"Charter members of Michigan State College's first Negro fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, pose with their charter after the founding banquet in the Hotel Olds." Photographed 1948 in Lansing, Michigan.

[youthchronical]

Fraternity Member Charged With Manslaughter in Hazing Death of University Student

The police in Baton Rouge, La., on Friday announced the first of a series of expected arrests in the fraternity hazing death of Caleb Wilson, a 20-year-old Southern University student who they said was repeatedly punched with boxing gloves at a warehouse last week and was unresponsive when he was dropped off at an emergency room. Caleb McCray, 23, a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, was…

[starconchs]

𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 (?) 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄— gojo satoru

pairing: racer!gojo x race engineer!reader genre: formula 1 au, fluff summary: he's insufferable (and wants to ask you out) and you're just trying to help him win the championship notes: formula 1 has ruined my life. probably lots of inconsistencies but i sped wrote this. this turned out a lot longer than i initially planned. gn reader but mention of wearing a dress. word count: ~3.2k

It's hot.

Your nose scrunches up in mild disgust as you feel a bead of sweat trickle down your neck, quickly making it's way towards the collar of your shirt before it's wiped away with a soft towel.

"Thanks," you mutter, looking up to meet a pair of bright blue eyes accompanied by a swoon-worthy smile. You huff lightly at the wink Gojo sends your way, turning away slightly to let your eyes roam over the rest of the paddock. Your lips turn up into a smile when you catch sight of Geto Suguru walking past your garage, and you return his greeting with a wave of your own before you hear Gojo grumble from his place beside you.

"Fraternizing with the enemy," he says, annoyance coating his words. He crosses his arms, unintentionally flexing and drawing your gaze towards his torso. His black fireproofs fit him snugly, and you find your mouth going dry as you try your best not to ogle him. You wonder if the temperature's gotten hotter. "That's not very nice of you."

"He's not the enemy," you protest, turning away to grab Gojo's helmet before thrusting it into his chest. "He's your best friend."

"Off track he is," Gojo agrees, holding onto the helmet. He pulls you in slightly, raising a brow when you don't immediately let it go. "But on track, he's my biggest competition. So you should be focused on me, not him. He's only a handful of points behind me."

"I'd hardly call one hundred points a handful," you mutter, turning to the side to grab a clipboard. "I think you're guaranteed to win the championship this year. Plus, Megumi's been doing great as well. Kid is in third place and it's only his second year! I think we've got the constructor's in the bag as well."

"All I need is a couple of bad races and next thing you know, Geto Suguru is the 2024 World Champion."

"Bad races," you snort, guiding Gojo towards his car and shoving his balaclava into his free hand. "Gojo Satoru does not have bad races. I don't know how you do it. I feel like you never drop below second place."

"It's all thanks to those genius strategies of yours," Gojo quips, watching in amusement as you shake your head in mild disbelief. There's a soft glint in his eye that you never seem to notice, and he finds himself wondering if maybe he should be a little more obvious about his feelings. (Everyone else on the grid and even the majority of the fans know he has the hots for you, so really, you're just the densest person to exist).

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," you say, waving him off as you start to make your way towards the rest of your team. "Pull your suit up and go get settled in."

Gojo watches you for a couple of minutes, leaning against a cement column with his arms crossed. He doesn't know how, but watching you organize the team and go over your notes has become his pre-race ritual. He's so lost in thought that he fails to notice the cameras pointed at him, broadcasting the lovestruck look on his face for everyone watching the race live to see.

"Ready to go?"

Gojo snaps out of his daze when his team principal, Yaga Masamichi, comes up to him. There's a faint smirk on his lips as he motions towards you, his sunglasses hiding the teasing glint that Gojo just knows is present. "Or is there something you need to urgently discuss with your beloved race engineer?"

Gojo rolls his eyes but chooses to remain silent before pulling his balaclava over his head. He's abnormally quiet as he settles into his seat, and when he catches sight of you giving him a thumbs up from afar, he decides to ask you out right after he beats Geto and wins first place.

"Radio check."

"I can hear you loud and clear," you respond, your voice carrying the same lilt that Gojo's does. He laughs quietly, settling into the second position after the formation lap. A glance to his left leaves him scowling when he sees Geto flip him off, and he sighs deeply before realizing that his radio is still on. "Something wrong?"

"Just Suguru being an asshole," he responds, his irritation fading away when you attempt to choke down your laughter.

"Radio is still on," you manage to spit out. "Mind your language."

"You can reprimand me later," Gojo says immediately, well aware that his radio has probably drawn the broadcaster's attention. "Over dinner, maybe? Just you and me in the candlelight at that little Italian place you like."

"Win the race and then maybe I'll consider it," you hum, amusement tinging your words as you shake your head. Gojo can't help but pout when he realizes that you're dismissing his words as a joke, and he merely huffs before turning his radio off and telling himself that he has to beat Geto to the first turn if he wants any chance of winning this race.

It isn't long until lights out, and Gojo finds himself reacting just quick enough to push past Geto's car and take the lead. He catches a glimpse of Megumi gaining on Yuuji, eventually passing him and allowing him to start catching up to Geto. Seeing that his biggest competition is now being distracted by his teammate, Gojo turns his focus back to the track, trying to put as much distance between him and Geto as possible. A few laps pass before he hears his radio crackle to life, and he hears you speak softly so as to not startle him with the suddenness of your words.

"You're seven seconds ahead of Geto," you say, earning a hum of acknowledgement in return. "You also currently have the fastest lap so please focus on managing your tyres."

"The tyres are fine," Gojo's voice trills through your headphones. You glance over at Yaga, grimacing when you see him shaking his head.

"There's been reports of graining," you respond nonchalantly. "Please take better care of your tyres unless you want us to pit you earlier than planned and switch to plan B."

"Alright, whatever," Gojo grumbles, going quiet for a few seconds before speaking once more. "Now let me focus on driving. The sooner I win, the sooner I can see your pretty face."

You roll your eyes at his words, raising an eyebrow in confusion when Yaga fails to muffle his amused chuckle.

"Something funny?" you ask, leaning back slightly to look at the older man. He holds his hands up in surrender, shaking his head as he turns his attention back to the monitor in front of him. You roll your eyes briefly before turning back to the pit wall as well, ignoring the words Yaga mutters under his breath about someone being oblivious.

The race progresses smoothly, and you find yourself feeling thankful that both you and Tsumiki (Megumi's race engineer) have had an uneventful race so far. It isn't until the race is about a third of the way through that you finally turn the radio on again, holding out a hand to stop Tsumiki from doing the same. "Gojo? We are boxing next lap, do you copy?"

"Copy," he responds immediately, his tone uncharacteristically serious for once. "Are we sticking with plan A?"

"Yes, you listened for once," you confirm, nodding your head even though he can't see you. "You have enough of a gap that we can comfortably put you on hards and have you back in the top spot in no time. The track is warm enough for those tyres."

"I always listen to you," Gojo replies without missing a beat. "Anything you say goes."

A deep sigh is all he gets in return, and he can't help the small chuckles that leaves his lips as he finishes his lap and prepares to pull into the pit lane. The stop is performed without a hitch, and you sigh in relief when Gojo emerges in third place, only a couple of seconds behind Megumi. You exchanged nods with Tsumiki, and you turn your attention back to the monitor in front of you as she radios Megumi to come in for his pit stop next.

"Okay, Gojo," you speak when you see Megumi head into the pit lane. "We're getting Megumi in and out as fast as possible. Geto is about ten seconds ahead of you, it's time to push."

"Perfect, but not as perfect as you" Gojo sings, swearing as he takes a turn a little too wide.

"Make that eleven seconds," you correct, biting your lips to hold back a laugh when Gojo swears again. "Go do your thing. I'll keep you updated."

There's no response as the radio clicks off, and you find yourself wincing when you realize that Megumi's slow pit stop has dropped him down to fifth place behind Yuuji's twin brother, Sukuna. You can hear hushed words coming from Tsumiki, and you can't help but feel bad for her predicament considering that Sukuna is the reason that Megumi hadn't been able to finish his race a couple of weeks ago after being pushed off track and into the barrier.

You watch with bated breath as the gap between Gojo and Geto begins to close, and you cross your fingers and hope that Shoko, his race engineer, will choose that moment to call him in for a tyre change. Your hopes go unanswered, and you're on the edge of your seat when Gojo managed to catch up to Geto after ten laps.

The air feels tense as you and Yaga watch Gojo get incredibly close to Geto, separating from him right as he turns a corner to avoid being hit. He's close to him— too close, you think— and you find yourself taking a deep breath to prevent yourself from turning on the radio to tell him to stop being so aggressive. A glance to your right tells you that Yaga isn't concerned with Gojo's driving, so you decide to let him be and see how the situation works out.

Your fingers grip onto your clipboard, knuckles going white as Gojo manages to swerve himself into the spot right next to Geto. You're slightly awestruck as you watch Geto and Gojo race wheel to wheel, their synchronicity impressive as they take tight corners and long straights in unison. There's a brief moment during which you wonder what it would be like if they were teammates, and you shake your head to clear the thoughts from your head. You fear that being teammates could damage their friendship beyond repair.

"There's been contact!" Yaga shouts, snapping you back to reality. You scramble for the radio button, a gasp leaving your lips as you watch Gojo swerve close to the edge of the track. You see Geto move in the opposite direction, and you quickly scan all the monitors before speaking to your racer.

"Gojo, there was contact but the car seems to be perfectly fine," you say calmly, watching as he straightens himself out and passes Geto. "That's P1."

"Great!" Gojo replies breathlessly, his voice sounding slightly strained. "How is Geto? Is he fine?"

You take a second to glance to the side, receiving a nod from Yaga before he motions to the pit lane. A soft call of your name has you turning your attention back to the radio, and you nod to yourself before updating Gojo. "He's fine, slight front wing damage so Shoko brought him in to get that changed along with his tyres. You're in the lead and we're waiting to see what the stewards will say about the incident. We think you might get a warning."

"Alright, better than a penalty," Gojo says, nodding to himself as he takes another turn. "Just a couple more laps and then I can take you out for that dinner."

"I said I'd think about it," you reply dryly, ignoring the giggle that leaves Tsumiki's lips. "Just bring it home. Geto had a bad pit stop so him, Yuuji, and Megumi are like fifteen seconds behind you."

"Whoa! Megumi made it past Sukuna? The kid's got balls."

"Language, Gojo," you remind him, sighing softly. "I'm turning the radio off now. Don't fuck this up."

"Language!" Gojo mocks, his laugh cutting out as you turn the radio off. You spend the last quarter of the race watching Megumi alongside Tsumiki, slightly impressed as Gojo manages to retain his now sixteen second lead. It isn't until Geto manages to break away from Yuuji and Megumi that you start to get nervous, and you watch as he begins to push the last few laps of the race.

"Gojo?" you ask, the radio crackling to life as you watch the monitors. "Just letting you know that Geto has managed to pull ahead of Yuuji and Megumi. I don't think he can catch up but there's still a couple of laps and he always manages to surprise us."

The silence you receive unsettles you, and you mutely turn the radio off and sit back to watch the end of the race. There's not much you can do but rely on Gojo to pull through, and you can vaguely hear Tsumiki talking to Megumi over the radio as he battles with Yuuji. You're on the edge of your seat when Geto manages to set the fastest lap in the race, and you begin to worry that he might be able to catch up to Gojo, only for your fears to be quelled when you realize that it is the final lap of the race.

"Last lap, Gojo!" you call out, turning the radio on in excitement. "Bring it home!"

"Last lap?" he asks, laughing breathlessly when he receives a hum from you. "How far behind me is the next car?"

"Fourteen seconds," you respond, bouncing your knee up and down in anticipation as he turns the last corner. The upcoming straight is the only thing between him and the finish line, and you feel your heart drop when Gojo's car suddenly starts to lose speed. "Gojo? Are you losing power?"

"Nope!" he chirps cheerily, humming softly to himself. "Are you feeling Italian? We can always choose a different restaurant for dinner?"

You do your best to ignore the anxiety creeping up your spine, watching as Gojo trails towards the finish line at what can only be described as a snail's pace compared to the speed of Formula 1 cars. Your eyes widen when you see the gap between him and Geto close, and you do your best to not let your nervousness creep into your tone. "Gojo, is really not the time to be talking about dinner."

"But you're going out to dinner with me right?" comes his immediate response.

"Gojo, please hurry up and cross the finish line."

"Not until you agree to go out with me!" he trills. Yaga shoots you a pleading glance.

"Gojo! Please! Just win the race!" you beg, swallowing harshly as your fingers begin to tap against your clipboard. You catch a glimpse of the amused look on Tsumiki's face, but you're unable to give her the scathing glare you usually would due to the fear you're beginning to feel.

"I can stay here all day," he replies smugly, giggling to himself as he speeds the car up just to slow down once more. "Well I can't, but I can stay here until I cross the finish line in P20."

"Oh my fucking god," you nearly shriek, watching as Geto takes the final turn and begins to head down the straight. "Yes! Yes, I'll go out with you, Gojo! Now please just cross the damn finish line, you dumbass!"

"My pleasure!" he teases, slamming his foot down on the accelerator just in time to cross the finish line a second before Geto. A loud whoop leaves Yaga's mouth as everyone in the pit wall relaxes, too relieved by Gojo's win to instantly realize that Megumi has managed to cross the finish line before Yuuji. The cheers surrounding you sound muted as you put your head in your hands, trying to calm your racing heart and fight off a smile as you realize that you now have a date for the night.

You barely process anything as Tsumiki drags you towards the now parked racecars, and you try your best to ignore Shoko's smug smirk as she whispers into Geto's ear. You think it's safe to assume that she's filling him in on what happened with Gojo during the last lap.

His loud laugh accompanies by a friendly wink thrown your way confirms your assumption.

You stand near the back of the crowd as Gojo stands on top of his car, holding his pointer finger up and posing for pictures before leaping back onto the ground and proceeding to congratulate Geto and Megumi for their performances. You manage to catch his eye after a few minutes, and you feel your face grow warm when a genuine smile spreads across his face, his eyes sparkling as he makes his way through the crowd towards you.

"Congrats on P1," you say quietly, trying your best to ignore the way he's looking at you.

"All thanks to your genius strategies," he quips, repeating his words from earlier. The smile on his face tells you that he wants to make a suggestive comment, and you do your best to redirect the conversation before he can.

"You should probably head into the cooldown room," you comment casually, tilting your head in the direction that Geto and Megumi had disappeared to. "Podium celebration is about to start. Don't forget to get weighed."

"Don't forget to wear that pretty, red dress I like," he responds confidently. A surprised laugh leaves your lips at his comment, and you can't help but shake your head fondly as you finally look up at him.

"You know, you didn't have to give me a heart attack during the race. You could've asked me out after the race like a normal person. I would've said yes," you confess, becoming hyperaware of all the attention the two of you seem to be drawing.

"What can I say?" Gojo responds, shrugging half-heartedly as he takes a few steps closer to you. He's close enough that you can see the varying shades of blue in his eyes, and you resist the urge to jokingly push him away when he loops an arm around your waist. "I tend to have a flair for the dramatic."

"Oh boy, don't I know it," you whisper, not giving him the chance to respond before you loop your arms around his neck and pull him down into a kiss. Both of you faintly register the whoops and cheers surrounding you, and you can't help but break apart from each other as laughter starts to bubble up in your throats.

It isn't until you fully pull away from him and usher him towards the cooldown room that you notice the sheer amount of cameras that have been pointed your way, focusing on the moment that has just been shared between the both of you. An embarrassed noise escapes your lips as you duck into your team's garage, giggling when you hear Yaga congratulating you loudly on your win. A smile spreads across your face as you settle into a seat to watch the podium ceremony, and you find yourself wondering if you and Gojo will manage to evade the press when you finally leave the track.

It's safe to say that the internet has a field day when the news of Gojo's end-of-race stunt and your spontaneous kiss breaks.

ty for reading!! rbs are appreciated <3

[julesinsummer]

like a moth to a flame - theodore nott

theodore nott x fem!reader | angst | in which theodore is everything he wishes he wasn't and wants the one thing he knows he cannot have

cold. subdued. emotionless. complex.

theodore was nothing if he was not written off as a loner, a nobody in a crowd of dazzling faces. he didn't amaze crowds with his beauty, or even particularly stand out among the people he'd been raised with.

theodore was nothing if he was not a disappointment to his father.

nott sr. was an impatient man, insolent and violent at times. he was fiercely loyal to his master, his lord above all else. when his master ordered his wife, a bride taken from another land to wed at an age far too apart from his to die, he did it. he did it without hesitation, without mercy, and without the thought of doing it away from his young son's eyes.

theodore was nothing after he watched his father brutally slaughter his mother in their drawing room. he was ten at the time.

it was that moment, he thinks, that he became who he was.

cold. subdued. emotionless. complex.

nott sr. ensured no emotion was shown from his boy. his heir, his only living relation, and his only chance at continuing the hate he'd been bred to feel.

it was in his bones, that hate. and it simmered and boiled over when he realized that hate did not grow in his young son's.

theodore was born to be sensitive. he was born to be an academic, with a wit like no other and a knack for knowing just what to do. he was born to be a good person, a person with solid morals and a fond eye for adventure.

but he never could be any of those things, could he? voldemort didn't like academics. he didn't like people who were smarter, witter, and brighter than him. he didn't like restless children who always wanted to know more.

and true to his nature, nott sr. began to hate everything that theodore truly was. he was determined to kill it and burn it to the ground, determined to shape him into a near mirror image of himself.

and once he was beaten down enough, mentally and physically, theodore began to relent. his father wanted cold, subdued, emotionless, and complex.

theodore became all he was meant to be in his father's eyes.

hogwarts became his only reprieve from the monstrous horrors that awaited him at nott manor. he felt comfort in the cold, stone walls of the slytherin dungeon. he would sit and watch the black lake on occasion, lounging lazily in an armchair moved to the precise position to catch the best view.

he felt a deep connection to the feelings of the giant squid that inhabited the lake. he too was trapped in a body of water, unable to move very far or do very much without being watched or being scrutinized. he felt that they were very alike.

sometimes his friends would join him to watch the window. draco took the most interest of all of them, much preferring theo's company to anyone else's. he'd known him since his birth, after all. they were as good as brothers, if you'd believe it.

theo was quiet while draco was loud. theo was meticulous and analytical while draco felt and felt and felt some more. they balanced and complimented each other nearly perfectly.

draco often wished he could save theo one day. save him from his father, from the life he'd been forced into. it was impossible of course, with nott sr. and lucius malfoy being brothers in a purely fraternal organization with the same goal in mind.

theo was grateful for draco's constant presence. he appreciated his thoughts and how he was comfortable just existing alongside theo.

draco began being interested in girls around fourth year. he could have any girl he fancied. he was an attractive boy, with sharp features and piercing grey eyes. theo wished many times he could understand what it was like to like someone, anyone, in a way more than just friendship.

it was hard for theo to even maintain his friendships most times. he was often afraid that his father would use them as leverage against him, or even worse, that the dark lord would make a point to have them killed in front of his eyes.

it was the yule ball that gave theodore even more reason to be terrified. even more reason to be a cold, subdued, emotionless, complex human.

he wore his finest, sent over from italy at the request of his father. he knew he was a handsome boy and knew why girls wanted him to be their date. he also knew why he couldn't and why he wouldn't let himself feel anything other than apathy towards them.

at least, he did. until he saw her.

she was dressed in the finest gown he'd ever seen, silk and shining under the enchanted lights in the great hall. her hair was styled perfectly, shaping her face in a way that had to be considered art. her makeup was complimentary to her face, not cakey and overdone like pansy's, or little to nothing like astoria's.

she was perfection personified, and he didn't even know her name.

"what are you looking at, mate?" draco asked with a slight laugh, trying to trace the line of sight theodore had locked onto.

"she's beautiful," theo breathed out timidly, his brain nothing but static as he stared at her. she gracefully spoke to her friends, a glass of punch in her hand as if she'd been raised to be the center of society.

draco eyed her meticulously, studying the human figure theodore was so entranced by. "y/n?"

theo looked at draco, shrugging, suddenly missing the sight that he'd been so focused on moments before.

"she's quite beautiful," draco agreed, sipping from the glass in his hand. he tipped it towards her direction, "a pureblood, too, i assume. she's too graceful to not have practiced this."

theo once again turned his attention to her figure. he was completely and utterly entranced by her, a feeling like none he'd ever felt before at the sight of a stranger. she turned around at that moment, her eyes sweeping the great hall before landing on his. she studied him for a moment, a small smile on her lips. she gave a polite and small wave of her fingers in his direction, her eyes never leaving his.

"oh god," theo breathed out, feeling as though all the air from his lungs had disappeared. she turned back around to her friends, seemingly laughing and joking around.

draco chuckled, putting a hand on theo's shoulder. "she didn't come with a date," he informed him, "so the option is there for you."

theo shook his head rapidly. "you know why i can't do that."

"i know," draco conceded, his expression falling as the weight of theodore's position settled in his heart.

theo spent the rest of the night sneaking subtle stares her way, eyeing her as she danced happily and laughed with her friends. he felt pangs of jealousy strike his chest when other boys asked her to dance. at the same time, he felt immensely relieved when she turned them all down.

it was the best night he'd ever had, in his mind.

it was fifth year before he saw her again. this time he spotted her in arithmancy sitting at the table beside his own. she sat with astoria and daphne, a slytherin green tie adorned around her neck. theodore wondered how he'd never seen her before the ball or after.

maybe it was better that way. if he didn't see anything he wanted, he could still be cold and subdued and emotionless and complex.

he was lost in thought during the lesson, his mind everywhere but in the classroom when he caught her looking at him. he locked eyes with her in an instant, almost out of instinct.

her eyes could draw him in and push him out like the tides, he thought. he'd never seen anything more beautiful.

she looked away as professor vector gazed upon the class once more. theodore felt the loss.

it went on like that for a few more weeks, with her catching his eyes during class, staring at each other with more intensity than theodore ever thought possible, and then turning away before they were caught. theodore didn't like it one bit.

he wanted more. he needed more.

he was like a moth to a flame just from her glances, wanting so badly to be close to her, to be close to something he could not have.

it was near all hallow's eve when he heard her speak for the first time.

she walked up to him in the library where he sat alone in a corner that was so unused that dust and cobwebs had taken over all flat surfaces and corners. he felt safe there, away from the rest of humanity. from the rest of his life.

"i like your eyes," she said to him, quietly but with a strength and fierceness that could not be more evident. she stood lengths away from him, her arms crossed lazily over her chest and her head cocked to the side. her hair fell around her face perfectly, enhancing the already ethereal beauty she contained in her body.

theo stared at her for a few moments, probably more than he should've. he considered going mute at that moment and saving him the trouble of what even speaking to her would start.

"i like yours, too," he finally told her, quiet and low as his tone usually was. he was a monotonous creature, something he was reminded of daily.

she smiled and theo felt his world crumble around him. he was falling down a pit he'd sworn never to fall down, the one that showed who he really was. the pit full of sensitivity, feeling, and everything he truly was made to be. the pit reminded him of his mother and all the ways she'd imprinted her very soul upon his.

she nodded and pushed her hair away from her eyes where it had fallen. she stood silent for a moment after that. when she did speak, theo knew it was full of quiet contemplation and consideration.

"i don't think you are who you try to be," she stated with finality. "and i would like to get to know the real you. not the cold and closed off bullshit persona you put on."

theodore nott was nothing if he wasn't acting. but in that moment, all of her words struck him in his proverbial achilles heel. in that moment, theo didn't feel like a failure. he didn't feel like a disgrace or a disappointment to his father. he didn't feel like the theodore nott he'd played for so long.

he felt seen.

theo took many deep breaths before he answered. he figured at that moment that y/n could be the most patient person he'd ever encountered. she held his eyes with a ferocity that would rival even the most courageous of lions and a determination that put all snakes to shame.

"you don't want that responsibility," he finally spoke, his words full of emotions he couldn't quite name, but ones he felt in the very depths of his soul. his hands had begun to shake.

y/n sat next to him in a dusty, ancient armchair. "i don't shy away from a challenge," she laughed timidly, "and i find that i'm drawn to you like a moth to a flame."

"moths will die if they touch the flame," he responded immediately, his face devoid of any named emotion.

y/n chuckled and touched theo's hand gently. "only if they're stupid enough to run into it."

theodore only bared his very soul to one person in his life. y/n was true to her word and refused to back down from his challenge. eventually, she was rewarded with theodore nott. he was sensitive and an academic, a witty, bright, intelligent boy who felt everything and loved fiercely and without a second thought. he was adventurous and fun and y/n loved him with a determination that was almost impossible.

theodore nott was once again cold, subdued, emotionless, and complex after the battle of hogwarts. his side had lost and the mark he'd taken on his left forearm to appease his father and protect the love he wanted and needed forever was fading.

he vowed to be everything his father wanted him to be after the battle. after he'd seen his only remaining family slaughtered at what he thought to be his safe haven. after he saw her, beautifully effervescent and ethereal, laid on the ground in a way that was so poetically tragic.

she'd died at the hands of his father and quickly thereafter, nott sr. was dead at the hands of his own son.

it wasn't long after the battle that theodore himself lost himself completely.

draco had found him, cold and lifeless in nott manor with only the bottles of firewhisky around him to blame.

draco knew in his heart that he could never have saved theodore from the end he was sure to meet. it didn't make it any easier.

-

this is my first piece of writing on here and i hope you enjoy it! i swear i can write happier things, but this has been on my mind for a while so i decided to get it out!

reblogs and notes very much appreciated!!!

[csprint]

ATEEZ AS FRAT GUYS

Ot8 x F. Reader Content warning: Sexual language

kookinglikeachef: Was originally writing this for “The Sex Lives of College Guys” ff but I don’t think I’ll be doing it anymore because of internal doubts🥲

Hongjoong:

Obviously the fraternity president

He runs shit in and out of the frat house

Takes gender and theory studies courses

And bagged a lot of partnerships with local businesses for fundraising

He had to convince the dean many times not to expel certain members

*Cough* SanGi *cough*

He can be a bit of a snob and a little uptight

Sets strict drinking limits and instruct that the house is intact the next morning

20 minutes in and he’s convincing everyone to climb the chimney

Can usually handle his alcohol but when he gets piss drunk

He’s Debby Ryan-ing at every girl that talks to him

Seonghwa:

Alpha nerd

He only cares about his LEGOs and turning his assignments in on time

Locks himself in his room when there’s a party

Because he just got his new Star Wars set

Eventually joins halfway through

Only to judge everyones never have I ever scandals

But they won’t ever get one out of him

“Never have I ever been to a sex party”

Please he HOSTED and ORGANIZED

Laughing in his head cause not a single soul will ever know about it

Not even his members

And if you’re wondering how no one will find out?!

Well he’s got a fallback plan that proves he was at his fraternity in his room

During said day and said times

BUILDING HIS DAMN LEGOS

He’s also the one that take care of his brothers after a huge party

Probably the only reason the entire house hasn’t gone to shit tbh

Yunho:

The one with the girlfriend

They’ve been together since the second year of high school

And got into the same college

Still going four years strong

He’s majoring in computer engineering

So his servers are not the only thing that can sustain a long uptime *wink, wink*

His hobbies are taking photos of his girlfriend

Or trying any and every kink in the book with her

MULTIPLE PREGNANCY SCARES

Beer pong king

If anyone tries to hit on him he will not let them finish a sentence without making it clear he’s taken

Doesn’t mean that he dislikes getting attention from people that aren’t his girlfriend, though

Sometimes he’d flirt back

Says it’s not cheating if nothing physical happens

Definitely disregards his girlfriend’s feelings about it

He can be a jerk sometimes

Yeosang:

1stly

He don’t wanna be here

He don’t even know how he got into a frat in the first place

Yet he unexpectedly fit in well

Truthfully, he’s the one that’s attracting all the ladies to the frat house

Like roaches

The sorority girls LOVE him

And I mean they want him so bad

As a sister AND to get eaten out by him

Even though he only ever hooked up with one girl

She spread the news like jelly on bread and he’s suddenly that Pod the Rod type (game of thrones lmao)

Pretends to not understand why girls are in love with him

When his members ask him about it,

“I don’t know her” he’ll shrug

It’s always the quiet ones

San:

He’s definitely a legacy

Comes from generations of mischief

I solemnly swear that he’s up to no good

Also comes from money but doesn’t like to brag about it

He’s getting a Bachelor of Arts degree

And is a strip poker enthusiast

Never has a shirt on

He fucks every other week but not-so-secretly just wants to fuck his best friend

Bro bonding time is his favorite time

He loves to talk feelings and makes sure his members are okay

And actually enjoys the charity events

Even volunteers as the mascot

And daydreams about what it would be like to fuck his best friend in it

He and Wooyoung are infamous for their coma-inducing

“Frat punch”

The recipe is only known to them

But anyone who attends their parties are deeply warned about it

He forces people to listen to his drunk rants about how much he’s in love with his best friend of 12 years

Then blacks out under the table hugging a bottle with her picture taped to it

It’s not creepy

He’s just down bad

Still shows up early to morning lectures in blacked out sunglasses

And gets scolded by his best friend

Then he remembers when he told someone that he’s in love with his best friend

Thinks it may have been her

Mingi:

Mingki is the shy one

Or at least that’s what he wants people to believe

No guy on campus likes bringing their girl around him because

HE. WILL. TAKE. THEIR. BITCH.

And he doesn’t even mean to

But he’s ultimately sweet and will never turn down sex

He sleeps around a lot as well as sleeping through classes

Missed and failed his exams

So his grades aren’t as hot as him

Gets told a lot that if he really applied himself

He’d be a great business major

But he doesn’t really gaf

Everyone thinks he’s failing

But he passes with flying colors

Did I mention that he fucked the dean’s wife because she promised to convince her husband not to expel him?

Wooyoung:

Everyone on campus knows about this mother fucker right here

Friends with literally everybody

He majors in history

And is THE life of the party

If he’s not there it’ll be lame af

Good thing he never misses one, though

And still manages to keep up clean grades

He gets invited to other fraternity parties

Thinks he’s going to die at every party

Genuinely believes that the hash slinging slasher is out to get him

That’s just a result of the “Frat Punch”

He does not do relationships

Only has friends with benefits and brags about his favorite ones

Texts “hey big head” whenever he’s horny

And would tag them in fwb memes

He’ll still invite them to hangout with his members

Even after being balls deep in them like five minutes ago

Jongho:

Will deny being in a frat unless you show up outside his door to prove it

Only joined because he heard the rooms are bigger

He does EVERYTHING

From theater to sports to board games with elderly residents

So you know he’s pulling the theater kids and athletes and a classmates auntie

He majors in one of two subjects

Computer Science or Architecture

You see what he does to those apples and watermelons?!

Those hands are God-given

Ask the swim team

At parties, he’s in charge of the playlists

And he sneaks some Wicked in there when everyone’s too drunk to notice

He’s banned from ordering kegs because he kept ordering wine instead

Beats everyone’s ass at pool

Wooyoung likes to hustle people into placing bets on him but he’d just give the money to any charity the sorority might have

[omgthatdress]

Historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has called the Harlem Renaissance "As gay as it was Black."

With the convergence of the great migration and the jazz age, Harlem became a new center of cultural life for African-Americans. It brought together Black artists in a way that had never been seen before and saw an abundance of new music, theater literature, and art.

Chief among the new art being created there, of course, was drag.

While drag houses and drag balls had previously been put together by the likes of William Dorsey Swann, they reached a level of unprecedented vibrancy and popularity in Harlem in the 1920s. Famed poet Langston Hughes called them "The strangest and gaudiest of all of Harlem's spectacles."

The most celebrated of these balls was the one organized by the fraternal organization The Society of Odd Fellows at the Hamilton Lodge.

As told by writer George Chauncey in an article for Columbia News, "After I published Gay New York I met a gentleman who grew up in Harlem whose parents would dress up to go to what they called the “faggots’ ball,” and come home and talk about how fine this one looked, and how wonderful it was. He said, "My mother was a very ladylike lady. She was a very prominent woman in Harlem society. This is just something you did.""

[jayflrt]

𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝟕𝟖𝟔 40. pledge week

content warnings: hazing (for those who don't know, hazing refers to initiation "rituals" that can be humiliating, degrading, and potentially dangerous. hazing can be physical, mental, or psychological; it can happen not only in fraternities and sororities but also sports teams and social or professional organizations). also they steal a goat (don't do this)

JAY WAS FAST ASLEEP FOR THE EIGHT HOURS ON THE PLANE BACK TO CONNECTICUT, WHICH WAS ALSO A GREAT EXCUSE TO KEEP HIMSELF FAR AWAY FROM YOU.

He had you on his thigh only hours prior to the flight, and he could barely meet anyone's eyes while he spent the entire time brooding at the terminal. No one seemed to notice his strange behavior, though; most people were yawning and rubbing their eyes from the hectic weekend.

Vivid flashes of your face kept popping up in his head whenever he let his mind wander. Jay desperately tried to steer his head to think about more important matters—the mission, for one—but all he could recall was how you moaned his name in a way that set his nerves on fire.

It was a mistake. He wasn't acting responsibly at all about this, and Jay was so disappointed in himself that he couldn't bring himself to tell his friends about what had happened.

If only he didn't let his emotions get in the way of his work.

That matter aside, Jay had been far too distracted this weekend. He was getting so carried away with the glitz and glam of the trip that he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to talk to Chaewon more. She was your roommate, for Christ's sake; it should've been easy for him to strike up a conversation.

But then there was some resistance starting to build up. He didn't want to do this anymore, and he knew that for sure after he had walked away from your hotel room. Even if Jay had to leave Yale forever and never see you again, he would rather do that over continuing with an investigation that would inevitably hurt you.

It wasn't like he had any choice, though—not when Unknown knew the ugliest truth about him that Jay hadn't even told his closest friends about.

He woke up to the overhead announcement about the plane landing. It must have been the early hours of the morning still, and Jay was dreading this part the most. Jennie told them that they would head straight to the Athenaeum first and foremost. She didn't elaborate, but Jay glanced over at Sunghoon, who raised his brows with a grim look on his face, as if to say, We're screwed.

"We're getting hazed to hell and back," muttered Heeseung, who had been standing next to him with two suitcases that he didn't bring along on the way to Monaco.

It took around two hours for everyone to regroup at the Order's house. They had to wait an extra thirty minutes for Giselle, who had been left behind again, to get an Uber from the airport. Jay could hardly wrap his head around the fact that he was in a completely different continent just the other day. Having to go back to school was jarring, even though he appeared to be skipping his afternoon classes today.

They were all gathered in the dark basement with only Jennie standing in front of them. She had them all line up against the wall in order of how everyone's names were listed on the official announcement.

You happened to be first, and Jay was only a few people away from you. He noticed that you sent him a few cautionary glances, but he kept his gaze down, his heart thundering just from the sight of you.

"Alright, you've all had your fun now," Jennie said in a sterner voice than usual, "so let's just get right into it."

The remaining fourteen members filed into the basement in black robes and white masks with faces molded to look like Greek statues. Jennie kicked a box that was set down in front of her; Jay initially thought it was empty, but upon closer inspection, he saw several badges with the emblem of a golden owl.

One-by-one, each Order member took a badge each. Their hoods were up, so Jay had a hard time telling who was who, but he quickly realized that Jeonghan was the one standing right in front of him.

Jennie went around handing each pledge a candle. She helped you light your candle, and then instructed everyone else to help each other light their candles. You shared your fire with Yeonjun, who shared his with Giselle, who shared hers with Jay, and so on.

"I'm going to recite our society's oath, and you guys are going to repeat after me," Jennie said once all of the candles were lit, and she started:

"In the presence of the unseen and the holders of ancient wisdom,

"I—say your name—commit to pursuing the answers from our universe with an undying thirst for knowledge,

"recognizing that the quest for truth is eternal;

"cherishing and valuing the sacred bond of brotherhood in our delegation of fifteen;

"and upholding the principles of what the Order of Kryptos stands for—integrity, unity, and discretion.

"With this oath, I pledge myself as a new member of the Order and devote myself to a lifetime pursuit of knowledge and success."

In broken harmony, the fifteen of them repeated after each of Jennie's pauses, mostly getting all the words she was saying and occasionally falling apart. Everyone was far too jet-lagged to even think straight, let alone recite an oath in a dark basement.

After they were finished, everyone wore sheepish grins and crooked smiles once the older members started clapping for them. Jay, on the other hand, was much too clueless about what was going on. Most of the people here knew of these situations through friends or family who had experienced similar rituals, but Jay didn't grow up in such an environment.

The older members stepped forward and fixed the badge with the owl emblem over their hearts. Jeonghan pinned Jay's shirt rather quickly while Wonwoo seemed to be taking forever to stab his badge through Giselle's coat. Jay peered over at you, and he couldn't help but frown a bit as he watched Sungjin place the badge on your shirt.

"Alright, you guys can go now," Jennie said. She was behind everyone, appearing to get something out of her bag while the rest of the members were filing back out. All of them had given the pledges cheers of support and good luck, but Jay had a bad feeling about all of this. "Let's sit down and go over Initiation Week together; last year we had someone pass out while they were standing."

Jay and Heeseung, with four people between them, craned their necks to check on each other's reactions—horrified, to put it simply. Heeseung bent down to sit with his legs crossed almost immediately after. Everyone else followed suit, sitting knee-to-knee where they had lined up.

"For the next week, you guys will be living here together," Jennie said plainly. Jay met several people's eyes and everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing, which was no way in hell. "You'll all sleep here and share that one bathroom in the corner. You can still attend classes, but you should keep your nights free for the next seven days. We'll be having our, uh, usual practices."

Xiaoting raised her hand. "Can we go back to our places to bring our stuff here?"

Jennie approved the idea before continuing, "As pledges, you also have to do whatever a member wants you to do; if an Order member says they want a coffee, then you need to be there to get them that coffee; if a member wants you up at four in the morning, then you should be awake and ready."

That's so fucking stupid, Jay thought, although he mumbled a "yes" in tune with everyone else.

"You guys need to wear those badges at all times," she continued. "If someone catches you without your badge, then there will be consequences." She then pulled out a thick envelope full of papers, setting it down in front of her. "This packet is full of information on our society. All of the writing here is extremely confidential, and you're not allowed to take pictures of anything or repeat anything here to non-members."

"Are we supposed to memorize that?" Sunghoon asked.

Jennie smiled in response. "Oh, good, you're catching on. The theme for tonight is scholarship, so we want you guys to memorize our history, our oath, our motto, and our roster—names, majors, and birthdays—in order. We won't ask for any more than that since initiation is only a week, but you should be ready for any of the Order members to ask questions during our... activities."

The fifteen of them, still exhausted from the trip, nodded blankly in response.

She went on, "And, most importantly, remember that you can't speak a word of anything that happens to someone outside of the Order or your pledge class. By becoming a new member, you must promise to maintain full confidentiality."

Then, she had everyone sign several forms pertained to joining the Order. The confidentiality form, which Jennie made everyone read aloud, sounded rather threatening in fine print. The punishments ranged from meetings with the society to being blacklisted from every organization on campus.

They were then allowed to head back to their apartments to freshen up and pack anything they needed for the next week. Jennie told them they needed to be back at 8 p.m. for their first event.

Although Jay hardly had a clue of what being hazed would be like, he made sure to prepare himself for this turn of events. After some conversations with Heeseung and a deep-dive into Reddit threads, Jay had a suspicion that something like this would happen. He couldn't say he was glad he was right, but he was relieved that he had separate phones and laptops for his detective work. He would lock those up in his apartment, and then he would only take the phone and laptop he used for school.

Jay made sure to inform his client of the situation he was in. He was very transparent about what was going on; after all, he needed to ensure his client that he was taking his work seriously, and this was something that was crucial for the mission.

He also had to tell his friend group about what was going on. Jay was sure Jake, Jungwon, and Riki would lose their minds if they didn't hear from their friend for an entire week. He figured he could simply go without telling his parents, too, but Jay ended up giving his mother a call before he packed for the week.

"What do you think they're gonna make us do tonight?" Heeseung asked. The two of them were walking to the Order's house together (after Jennie specifically instructed neither of them to bring their cars). It was already dark outside because Jay had to wait until Heeseung's class ended. "I bet this is all fun and games for Yeonjun. He's already been hazed by the baseball team."

"The baseball team hazes?"

"Yeah—beer-boxing, eating a goldfish, the polar plunge—all that fun stuff."

Jay had no idea what any of those entailed, but he hoped and prayed that Heeseung meant the snack that smiled back.

After they arrived at the house, the fifteen pledges were lounging in the basement, passing the time by doing homework or talking to each other while Jennie was thirty minutes late. Everyone was speculating what was going on because there seemed to be a lot of noise upstairs. Jay caught your eye across the room and could tell that you wanted to talk to him, but he begrudingly turned his attention back to whatever Yeonjun and Sunghoon were going on about.

When Jennie finally arrived, the door handle slammed against the wall and the room fell into silence almost immediately. A few nervous murmurs were shared as she descended the staircase and stood in front of them.

"The Order doesn't wanna see you guys yet," she said bluntly. "Maybe later tonight."

Everyone was startled, and you were the first to clear your throat and start, "Oh... so should we—"

"We're going out for dinner, but the house needs cleaning. There's cleaning supplies in one of the closets upstairs and trash bags under the sink. Make sure it's done before we're back." She gave the mortified juniors a pleasant smile before adding, "Oh, and you're only allowed to sleep tonight if you get a secret from everyone here by the time we're home."

Everyone was silent for the first few minutes of Jennie disappearing upstairs. Then came the complaints.

"We have to clean?" Xiaoting whined. "But they already have someone doing it for them!"

"How bad can it be?" Eunseok asked. "It didn't seem like it was messy when we got here. None of them seem like they'd be messy people."

"Jennie was thirty minutes late, remember?" Sunoo offered. "They must've been making it messy on purpose while we were waiting down here."

There was a collective sigh of disappointment. Jay, on the other hand, couldn't be happier. He was under the impression that he would be doing grueling tasks or physical punishments, but cleaning wasn't a big deal. As for the secret part, he was sure he could come up with a good enough lie.

"Should we clean first and then regroup after?" Ryujin suggested with a gleam in her eyes. "I think it'd be fun doing the secret sharing one together."

There were murmurs of approval throughout the circle, and then Chaewon said, "Then we should get started now."

To everyone's dismay, Sunoo was right. After they heard the distant chatter and giggles from the seniors' pregame fade out after the door slammed shut, Jay headed upstairs with Chenle to check on the state of the house. He felt deeply sorry to disappoint everyone with the news that the house was, indeed, a mess.

Not just a mess, though. It looked as if it was suffering from the aftermath of a party. There were solo cups littering the ground, tissue paper everywhere, and most things had been knocked off the shelves and cabinets.

They split into teams to tackle each area of the house. Jay and Giselle were assigned to the kitchen where they discovered they had to throw out most of the expired food. Giselle was insistent on keeping everything back where they seemed to belong, but Jay couldn't see the point of keeping inedible food lying around. He figured that Giselle had a better idea of this activity than he did, though, so Jay trusted her gut feeling.

Afterward, the fifteen of them gathered back in the basement. You and Changmin made a trip back upstairs to put the rest of the cleaning supplies away while Jay finally felt the exhaustion start to settle in.

"Do we know when they're coming back?" Changmin asked, nearly flinching when you opened the door to the basement. "Jesus, Y/N, I thought you were Jennie."

"Not Jennie," you affirmed, "but she could get here soon. There's no way any restaurants around here are still open this late."

"Well, then we need to come up with something now," Heeseung said. "I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

"Secrets..." Yeonjun hummed as he pondered. "I don't know. I don't feel like I have any good ones."

You snorted. "Yeah, dude, you're basically an open book."

"There was the chlamydia incident," Giselle offered.

"Yuna took care of that one, didn't she?" Yeonjun grimaced before leaning back on his elbows. "I'm sure everyone here knows I tried selling coke to a professor, too."

"We did not know that," Yizhuo said.

"Oh," said Yeonjun, pleasantly surprised, "well, that's my secret, then."

Everyone started taking turns from there, thinking in silence for a few moments before springing up to share their secret. Jay didn't think people were going to get too deep, but the amount of oversharing made him nervous. How was he supposed to come up with something that could compare to any of their secrets? A prince from a foreign country paid for a VIP booth and bottle service for Chaewon; Xiaoting lost her virginity during one of Cara Delevingne's Fourth of July parties; Eunseok accidentally crashed four cars in high school; Karina's parents didn't know about her girlfriend; Ryujin slept with a lead singer from a rock band after meeting him backstage; and Giselle begrudgingly admitted that she once bought sneakers that cost nearly forty thousand to impress Jung Sungchan, who apparently didn't pay any attention to them.

Sunghoon, on the other hand, decided to keep his tame. So tame that Jay wasn't quite sure whether it was real or not. Even you and Sunoo looked slightly uncomfortable with the whole activity once the spotlight was on them. Jay didn't let your shifting eyes before Sunoo's turn go unnoticed.

The group started getting anxious about time after Heeseung spent ten minutes reiterating how he blacked out on the deck of a cruise ship. Thankfully, only Chenle and Jay were left to share.

"My turn now?" Jay asked after Chenle confessed to buying over thirty replacements for his AirPods from an Apple vending machine. "I feel like I don't have any interesting secrets."

"Wait!" Heeseung blurted out excitedly. "You should tell them about that one night we went to the bars and passed out in a bush. Remember? Last quarter—right before Dead Week—"

"Oh, no, we all know about that," Ryujin said quickly, waving down the idea. "Yeonjun made sure everyone and their mom saw that picture."

Xiaoting grinned. "Yeah, we need something good for you, Jay. You've gotta have stories from Seattle."

He wasn't sure how to tell them that his life was relatively boring. All the exciting bits that they would have loved to hear were the ones he couldn't tell them about.

But when Jay thought about his one and only secret that he swore to never tell anyone about, his mouth started to go dry. He couldn't think about anything but the way he felt like tar was spilling into his throat, all thick and suffocating. His head started to spin, and he wasn't quite sure how many minutes of silence he had lapsed into. All he knew was that a room full of people were gawking at him while he could hardly speak.

Say something, he told himself, anything!

"I..." Beads of sweat were running down his back; it was no help that there was hardly any proper air circulation in the basement. "I, uh..."

"Wait," you spoke up loudly, looking at Jay earnestly like you were hoping he would play along. "You never told me the whole story but remember that thing with Jake? The car?"

Clearly, you were grasping at straws for some way to get Jay out of the hole he had dug himself in, but your knowledge of Jay's hometown friends was convincing enough for the rest. They all leaned in closer at the mention of the car, which you spouted out off the top of your head, but it thankfully gave Jay enough time to come back to his senses and start lying smoothly.

"Oh, yeah... I didn't know if that was a good enough secret." He smiled sheepishly before turning to the rest of the group. "I, uh, might have stolen a car with my friend, Jake, when we were fourteen. It was his dad's car, but we made it, like, thirty miles before we got caught."

Amidst the chorus of laughter and outbursts from others about how Jay didn't seem like the time to steal a car (he wasn't), Kim Chaewon let out a giggle that sounded rather forced.

"I thought you were gonna say that you and Y/N fucked during our last night in Monaco," she said in a sugary sweet voice.

The basement went pin-drop silent.

Something was bubbling up in Jay's chest, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or plain exasperation. He looked at you first, wondering if there had been some sort of miscommunication between the two girls, but you looked just as outraged at the declaration. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Yeonjun whispering something in Karina's ear, and Sunghoon's hand was tightly curled into a fist.

Amusement twitched at the corners of Jay's lips and he fixed Chaewon with a confused look. "What? Where did you hear that from?"

"I just figured." She shrugged. "You two were the only ones who didn't go out for drinks with us."

"That doesn't mean we fucked!" you exclaimed.

Honestly, Jay wouldn't have been as pissed about the question if he hadn't been part of the group that helped break Chaewon out of jail the night before. This was how the favor was being returned? He should've just informed the embassy about her detainment if she was going to make absurd speculations about him.

"No, I was just wondering," Chaewon complained, reaching over and fussing with your hand when she saw how upset you looked. "You two got so defensive, though."

"Let's just not make baseless assumptions about each other," Sunghoon chimed in, and Jay could sense the venom in his tone as he spoke.

"Yeah, Jay told me he was tired," Sunoo lied coolly, though he gave Jay an odd look, as if he was curious himself. Jay was thankful that his friends were getting him out of such an uncomfortable situation, but he hated that this was being made known to their entire class now. "He wasn't even awake when we got back from dinner."

"Ah." Chaewon hummed, a simpering smile playing on her lips. "My bad, then."

"Friendship, guys," Yizhuo said lightheartedly, nodding along to her own words. "Men and women can be friends without sexual relations. Jay and Y/N are living proof."

Considering you were moaning his name the day before, Jay wasn't exactly sure the two of you were the right candidates for that one. He appreciated Yizhuo's support, though.

Yeonjun held up the Lysol cleaning spray he forgot to put away in solidarity. "To friendship!"

"To friendship," the rest of them parroted in broken unison.

After Eunseok changed the topic to Jay's heart supposedly only belonging to Heeseung (which stirred up an entire breakdown and analysis from the girls), almost everyone had acted like the misunderstand with Chaewon hadn't happened. Jay met your eyes across the circle and swallowed hard when you were the one to turn away first.

Then, they all fell silent upon hearing the front door open upstairs. Chenle clung onto Jay's bicep with trepidation hanging in his brows.

For a while, they overheard the Order talking amongst themselves in complete silence, hoping to catch them hinting at something about their seven-day process. However, they only seemed to be talking about something funny that Jeonghan did before all of them went quiet, too. Jay exchanged a wary look with Chenle.

Jennie opened the door and walked down the stairs to the basement after a couple of minutes. Everyone straightened up and turned their attention to her.

"They still don't want to see you," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "Did you guys have a good talk?"

"Yep," Giselle spoke up. "We learned maybe a little too much about each other."

She clasped her hands together. "Good! You guys can sleep now, but make sure to keep your ringers on. You never know if anyone's gonna need you."

Jay raised a brow. It couldn't be that easy. She wasn't even going to ask them about each other's secrets? There had to be a catch.

Before anyone had time to grouch, the door swung open again and Wonwoo came downstairs with several bluetooth speakers. He placed one in each corner of the basement as Jennie continued to address the group.

"Uh, so what about the cleaning?" Karina asked. "Was that all good?"

"I guess we'll find out," was the anxiety-inducing response they received instead. "Get some sleep. You guys must be exhausted from the trip still."

Although her words were genuine, Jennie didn't sound sincere in the slightest. Jay was already dreading what the night would bring. Would they call them out and make them run errands? Start making them drink until they puked everything out? Hit them with paddles?

When Jennie and Wonwoo walked back upstairs together, everyone let out a collective, weary sigh.

"I think we should have someone on stand-by in case anyone calls one of us," Giselle suggested. "We can take turns. There's fifteen of us, so we can rotate through, like, two-hour shifts."

"Then we should leave all of our phones on the table," you said. "Whoever's on shift should just pick up the first one that rings."

Everyone was in agreement of the plan. They decided to go in order of where they stood when lined up, so you were first to stay awake. After everyone had gotten ready for bed and laid out their sleeping bags on the floor, they turned off the lights and settled in for the night. The only light in the room was from the glow of your phone screen, but you did your best to make sure it wasn't bothering anyone.

About ten minutes in, when Jay was starting to feel the creeping hands of sleep seize him, a song started playing loudly—unbearable in his ears.

Doses and Mimosas by Cherub. Usually a great listening experience, but Jay felt like clawing his eardrums out right now.

"Y/N, please turn that shit off," Yeonjun called out over the noise. "I literally can't sleep like this."

"Dude, it's not me," you replied. "It's coming from the speakers."

Another collective sound from the fifteen of them; this time, it was a groan. Perhaps all that bonding they did tonight really did pay off.

"It could be worse," Heeseung tried. "At least it's a good song."

No one ended up getting any decent sleep.

Moreover, Heeseung's short-lived optimism pissed Giselle off so much that she ended up taking out her frustration on him by whacking him repeatedly with her pillow.

The worst part of it all was that they received zero calls from the older members, so they were clearly just being toyed with. Jay was sure he would bleed from his ears if he heard Doses and Mimosas one more time. At some point during the night, it got to the point where Sunghoon tried to take the speakers and leave them outside the basement door, only to find out that they had been locked inside. They wound up wrapping several blankets around the four speakers until the music was slightly more muffled.

Jay decided he would attend all of his Tuesday classes because he wanted to spend as little time at the Order's house as possible. He and Eunseok spent virtually the entire day together, only separating when they had to go to class. Someone from the Order must have seen them together because Jay received a text that he and Eunseok needed to get Joshua a bagel.

When they arrived at the house later that night, Giselle had her nose deep in her laptop while she typed away furiously, and everyone else was trying to get some rest in before tonight's activity began.

Jay spotted you curled up in your sleeping bag, your hair falling in your face. Since Sunoo was nearby, typing away on his laptop where his sleeping bag and luggage were stationed, Jay went over to talk to him, asking about his classes and schoolwork while his eyes swiftly drifted to your figure whenever he got an opportunity. During a period of silence between the two, Jay reached over to push your hair out of your face. As soon as his hand neared your forehead, however, the door swung open and he pulled back in an instant.

The fifteen of them scrambled to line up in order. Heeseung had to keep nudging Yizhuo to keep her from nodding off.

"So, there's a few conditions for tonight's activity," Jennie started. "The Order wasn't very impressed with your work yesterday, so tonight's activity is sort of a... scavenger hunt, I'd say? You're gonna be working in pairs of twos and threes—some Order members are gonna take your group to a room in the house, or you might have to go somewhere a little farther off. All you have to do is work together to find whatever it is that you're asking to look for."

Jay saw this coming. He knew that there would be some sort of scavenger hunt at some point. Kryptos was Greek for hidden, after all, so it was only fitting.

Jennie had members of the Order walk downstairs to select two pledges for the activity. After their phones were taken, they disappeared upstairs. Somewhere in the middle, Jeonghan entered the basement alongside Minghao, and Jay had a bad feeling that he was going to be selected.

But, oh, if only that was the extent of his misfortune.

He tried not to pull a face when Jeonghan called for him, of course, but Jay didn't expect for Minghao to call for you, of all people.

He gave Xiaoting his seat, so what was this? Honestly, it didn't matter who chose who, but Jay was sure this was the most disastrous pairing they could have gone for.

With little instructions, Jeonghan and Minghao led the two down the hallway. They made light conversation with each other, laughing at the occasional joke, but you and Jay were utterly silent. If the Order didn't kill him this week, then the tension between you two certainly would. It was strange that he hadn't talked to you much despite sleeping under the same roof, but keeping some distance was for the best. If he got any closer after what happened in Monaco, who knows what would happen.

When they reached a room at the end of the hallway, Jay was surprised to see that Minghao and Jeonghan's faces had turned stony and impassive.

Jeonghan, unsmiling, started, "Alright, recruits—"

"Recruits?" Minghao sneered. "Why would you call them recruits?"

"We recruited them, so they're recruits. It's PEMDAS, Hao."

"Recruits makes it sound like we're training them for the military or—"

"Some of us actually have to go to the military, you insensitive bitch."

"You're not even going to the military, dude. You're going to law school."

"That's basically the military with a six-figure debt."

"Okay, we're getting so off-topic right now." Minghao huffed. "Do you have the handcuffs?"

"Handcuffs?" asked Jay, who was having a much better time when they were bantering and not talking about their activity. "You're handcuffing us?"

"Yeah, but don't get up to any funny business in there," Jeonghan said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs that had your eyes practically bugging out of your skull. If he had a paperclip on him, Jay could probably undo the latch within a few minutes, but he knew that it would be troublesome to explain where he picked that up from. "This is a strictly professional activity; don't get kinky."

Minghao was pinching the bridge of his nose. "I doubt they were even thinking about that."

"You don't know that."

"Are you even supposed to be talking to us this much?" you asked.

Jeonghan and Minghao exchanged a look.

"Probably not," they replied in unison with Jeonghan sounding flippant and Minghao bordering on worry.

"Anyway, your task is to find a book for us in our library," Minghao started, "but we won't tell you what book it is."

Jay frowned. "Then how're we supposed to find it?"

Jeonghan took on a more serious tone when he said, "I'll give you one hint for the code: The discrepancy is intentional."

Jay had no clue what that was supposed to mean. He was better off not asking for help.

"What if we get it wrong?"

"Jennie will decide what happens to you after that."

"Also," Jeonghan continued, holding out a bottle of lychee-flavored soju, "you two have to finish this before we handcuff you."

Jay looked from the bottle, to Jeonghan, to Minghao, and then back to the bottle.

"Hell no," he retorted.

There was no possible way he would be able to think properly after downing half a bottle of soju. Jay was well aware that he needed as much brain power as possible if he wanted to figure out that hint Jeonghan gave him.

His senior laughed, taking the initiative to unscrew the cap before he held out the open bottle in Jay's direction again. "Unfortunately, you don't have a choice." When Jay still refused to take it from him, Jeonghan grimaced in a just-do-it sort of way. "Dude, the other pledges are drinking Hennessy. You should actually be thanking us for getting you lychee soju."

Jeonghan simply didn't know the magnitude of the situation. The last time you and Jay got drunk together, it ended with the two of you falling asleep with your limbs entangled. Jay wasn't particularly enthusiastic about repeating history.

"Why don't you go first?" Jay offered, gesturing for you to take the bottle. "I'll drink whatever you can't finish."

"What a gentleman," Jeonghan gushed, nodding appreciatively as he handed the soju bottle to you.

"Yeah, the complete opposite of you," Minghao spat. "You made me drink the entire bottle last year!"

"And you were fine."

"I blacked out and woke up in the middle of a lake."

This time, you tried handing the soju bottle back to Jeonghan, who refused to take it back from you. There was unmistakable fear in yours and Jay's eyes, and Jay was trying to visualize the distance from the Order's house to the nearest lake.

"What Minghao meant to say was that he woke up on one of those inflatable mattresses in the middle of a lake," Jeonghan clarified.

"That doesn't make it any better," Jay deadpanned.

"It was perfectly safe. They even gave him a life jacket."

"You guys aren't doing any of that, don't worry," Minghao added quickly with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I promise that you'll only have to stay in the library."

Jeonghan sounded impatient when he said, "Now drink."

You reluctantly held the bottle up to your lips and started chugging the liquor down without missing a beat. Jay could see bubbles rise to the top, and he was almost worried that you would finish the bottle in one go if no one stopped you. When you handed the bottle off to Jay, he could see that there was a little over half left. Before you could even wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, Jay started downing the rest of the contents. When the last few drops landed on his tongue, he almost felt like his body was in autopilot.

Before he knew it, the empty bottle was taken away from him and Minghao had handcuffed you and Jay together. His left wrist was linked to your right one, and albeit uncomfortable, he was more focused on making sure his fingers didn't brush against yours.

"Good luck in there. We'll check in every hour," Jeonghan said. He opened the door to the dark room where Jay could barely make out the silhouettes of the bookshelves. Before he closed it, he dropped something cool and solid in Jay's palm; it felt like metal when his fingers closed around it. "You're gonna need that, by the way."

"Uh, the lights aren't turning"—before you could finish, Jeonghan and Minghao slammed the door shut—"on."

"Well," Jay started with a heavy sigh, "fuck."

You felt along the wall for a moment before flicking the light switch on and off over and over again before accepting that the lights weren't going to turn on. They must have cut the power before starting, which must have been to replicate how most other pledges were toughing out their tasks outside.

Before Jay could even think about the task at hand, there was something that had been on his mind for the entire day, and he was pretty sure it was the reason why he still felt so awkward around you.

He started, "What did you tell Chae—"

"Nothing—absolutely nothing about that night," you cut in fiercely. It had clearly been bothering you, too. Jay remembered that you and Chaewon grew a little closer during Monaco; you must have felt just as betrayed about the ordeal. "You know I wouldn't do that."

He sighed. It was a clear misstep on his part. Obviously people would draw all sorts of conclusion when you both were the only ones sitting out of a fun event to stay in the hotel. If Jay had known better, he would've just gone along with the rest of the group to avoid suspicion.

"I believe you," he said sincerely, "but what she did was fucked up."

You frowned. "Yeah, I don't know why she did that. She apologized to me this morning, but it still feels weird. Karina thinks she's being fake."

Jay wasn't one to talk about fake people, so he kept his mouth shut.

"You've been ignoring me," you said, averting your eyes.

"I haven't."

"You have. You ignored me at the airport, you ignored me when we landed, and you ignored me yesterday. You think I wouldn't notice?" When Jay didn't respond, you pressed on, "I can handle you not wanting to get into a relationship or whatever—mind you, I've been led on in my own relationship before—but I thought we were at least friends. Are we not?"

"We are, it's just..." Jay trailed off, sighing out of frustration.

He knew it was his own immaturity pushing you away. He knew he was the one who set the rules, but it was too difficult for him to pretend like nothing had happened. Even now, as you were fuming at him, he could only think of how pretty you looked.

Jay didn't know how to go about this. Getting closer to you was hurting you; staying away from you was hurting you. What the hell was he even supposed to do?

"It's just what?"

He couldn't let you know how he truly felt, otherwise he would be letting you in deeper than he'd let anyone else in. Jay had to push it down—push all the feelings and insecurities beneath the sand—and pretend like he was content with friendship.

"It's nothing," he said, but you didn't seem quite satisfied with that answer. "I just didn't know how you'd feel after that night."

"That's for me to decide," you told him. "You don't get to guess how I feel and act on that."

He looked down. "I know, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, just... don't act like I'm invisible. I don't want things to be awkward between us."

"No, yeah, of course not. We're cool."

You decided to change the topic to the task at hand and ask, "Anyway, what are we even supposed to find? And what did Jeonghan give you?"

Jay turned the object around in his right hand before realizing what the grooves on the top were for. He flicked his thumb across it until he saw sparks, and then he did it more forcefully until a small fire was lit.

"Very generous of them," he said dryly. "I think this is supposed to make up for them cutting the lights."

You tried walking in the opposite direction of Jay, which ended up making you both wince from the pinch of the handcuffs. Jay grabbed your forearm with his free hand and pulled you back to his side, which was probably the only comfortable way they could be situated.

Maybe it was the alcohol starting to make your limbs feel like jelly, but Jay had to grab your shoulder to hold you upright when you nearly stumbled into him. He was starting to wish he and Eunseok got a bagel for themselves because he hadn't eaten enough to absorb the soju.

Jay lit the flame again and held up the flickering light to illuminate part of the bookshelf in front of them. Just as he thought, all of the books were ordered alphabetically by author name, so all they needed to do was figure out the title. But how were they supposed to do that without any clues? Well, technically they had Jeonghan's hint, but Jay had no idea what that meant. The buzz he felt swimming through his veins wasn't helping his case, either.

"What did Jeonghan say again?" he asked you, frowning.

"The discrepancy is intentional," you answered. "Whatever that means."

"No, before that. He said something, like... something like hint for the clue? Hint for the—"

"Code," you finished for him. "Hint for the code."

"Code? Why the fuck would he say code?"

While you were more focused on trying to riddle out the hint itself, Jay was still stuck on the senior's wording. Jeonghan could have very well left it at 'hint' but he specifically used the word code along with it. That had to be some sort of clue that he just wasn't seeing.

"Do you think it's related to Kryptos?" he asked. Suddenly, the fuzziness in his head started to clear up just enough for him to make reason out of his thought process. Jay couldn't see your face very clearly (which was probably a good thing because being this close to you wasn't good for his heart), but, even in the dark, he could see your eyebrows draw together. "The sculpture outside the CIA headquarters—the encryption. It has to be some sort of book that references Kryptos or has that line that Jeonghan gave us, which makes sense why they chose it. They wanted us to find something related to the Order."

Your voice came out in a breath when you said, "You're literally a genius."

"You don't have to stroke my ego."

"No, I'd actually be fucked if you weren't here." Then, your excitement seemed to deflate. "But do you know any books that reference Kryptos?"

"I don't."

"We'd have to read through this entire library to find it. There's no way we'll find it by morning." You let out a groan. "I wish we had our phones on us."

They sat in silence for a while. Jay thought long and hard about how he was going to go about this. You were right; there was virtually no way for either of you two to get through every book and find the exact one that Jeonghan and Minghao were referring to.

Frustrated, he willed the gears in his head to start spinning. There had to be something he could do. There had to be something he could work with.

Jay used the lighter again to illuminate the area in front of him, nudging you to follow him around the room. Nothing was very promising, however; bookshelf after bookshelf, desks with chairs, and two computers in the corner.

Next to the table with the computers was a utility closet, and the shelves were full of tools and miscellaneous items when he opened it. There was even a skull, which Jay hoped was a Halloween decoration. When he looked through some of the boxes, some of them were full of various hardware equipment that was probably left as a resource for whoever was an engineer.

There was nothing that could help him read through all of the books in the library, though.

But what if he didn't need to do that?

When Jay looked from the monitors to the closet, an idea started stirring in his head. After handing you the lighter, he grabbed one of the boxes of tools and dropped it on the ground with a thud. He did the same with the box of hardware, pulling you down along with him when he moved to sit on the floor.

"What're you doing?" you asked, but, despite your confusion, you sounded like you had confidence in whatever Jay was scheming.

"You're right; this would be way easier with our phones, right?" he started to explain, and his tone had an edge of excitement that only happened whenever he pieced something together. "But we have computers."

"That are... dead," you finished for him, uneasy.

"Right, but what if we created our own power bank? We only need to make it functional to last us ten or fifteen minutes. If we have the right materials, then we should be able to pull it off."

Jay, realizing that you were still holding the flame, turned to look at your expression, and his heart did a pathetic flip when he saw the grin on your face.

"Now you're making me feel useless," you teased.

"You're not useless," he insisted firmly. "Here"—he moved the two boxes so that they were in front of you two—"we can figure out what we need together. We're gonna need a, uh... any battery strong enough to power up a PC, a battery charger, a, uh... lithium ion batteries, and a circuit board for the battery management system."

"Jay," you said, "I have no idea what any of those are supposed to look like."

"No problem, I'll just show you." He picked up an electrical brick that was laying on top of the other equipment. He pressed a button to see that it still had some juice left. "Portable battery charger. Let's just hope it has enough power."

He rummaged through the boxes, eventually finding a slightly-damaged circuit board and a car battery that must have been someone's senior project at some point. Jay nearly celebrated, but they were still missing the lithium batteries.

"Are they that important?" you asked.

"Kind of. They power the CMOS chip on the circuit board here, and I don't know if it'll run properly without it."

"So... they're in the PC."

"Yeah, but we can't just take it out of the—" Jay stopped once he realized what you were getting at. "Oh."

Your eyes lit up. "We have two, so we could just open up the second one. It should be fine since the power's cut."

"Oh, you're perfect," Jay breathed out, trying not to pay much attention to how you bit your lip at his compliment. "Help me move the computers to the ground."

With your help, you two managed to haul them to the ground, and Jay organized the tools on the ground. With your assistance, he had you hold the lighter for him to see as he attempted to pop open the hardware with one hand. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise, but he wasn't useless in the realm of CPU architecture.

After removing the screws from the bottom panel and detaching the piece, Jay used the edge of his screwdriver to pry open the battery pack. He spotted the circular battery fixed to the circuit, and he grinned up at you as he pointed to it.

"We got it."

"Excellent work," you praised. "You should seriously reconsider your major."

Jay didn't reply to that. Although he was a fairly good liar, there was nothing he could say that would make him sound genuinely enthusiastic about economics.

Once they had everything they needed to build their makeshift power bank, Jay got right to work. He requested tool after tool from you, struggling at times to fit the hardware together. Thankfully, he started to get the hang of it once you two had a working system. You followed his instructions flawlessly and acted as Jay's left hand for him, so it became a much smoother process.

Jeonghan and Minghao knocked on the door at the top of every hour, which was supposed to be to check if you two had completed the task, but all it did was stress Jay out even more. Moreover, without a proper sense of time, the knocks came out of nowhere—so loud and jarring that Jay caught himself from letting his eyelids droop several times.

"I feel so useless," you complained.

"You're not useless," Jay replied, although he could hardly spare you a glance as he was completely focused on the task at hand. "Hold the lighter a little closer please—thanks."

"I'll just sit here and look pretty."

"You're always pretty."

This time, he made sure not to look at you because he knew that the expression on your face would make him lose whatever sanity he had left.

After a few hours of trial and error—or possibly longer, considering they had no idea what time it was—you and Jay finally seemed to have a functional power bank.

"Moment of truth," he muttered before turning on the power button.

The light glowed blue.

"Yes!" you cheered, letting the fire from the lighter die once the screen glowed white in both your faces. "You did it!"

"We did it," he corrected. A knot in his chest undid itself, and Jay could finally feel the tension letting up. "All we have to do is just find that stupid quote."

It turned out that it wasn't a quote. They typed it out verbatim, and after scrolling through several pages, you pointed out something promising.

"Seriously? It was The Da Vinci Code?" He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and sighed. "Okay, good, at least we got something."

"Look! It says here that the coordinates on the back cover is a reference to the coordinates in one of the encryptions on the Kryptos sculpture," you said excitedly. "The degree digit was off by one, and when they asked the author about it, he said the discrepancy is intentional. This is it!"

"God, Y/N, I could kiss you right now."

"You could," you murmured shyly.

"Wait, no, I'm not kissing—you know what, I'm kissing your cheek." He leaned in and planted a chaste kiss on your cheek, getting a sappy smile out of you. "There. Now let's find that stupid book."

Thankfully, Dan Brown wasn't hard to find. You pulled his novel from its spot on the bookshelf, stifling a muffled cry of joy with the palm of your hand, nearly jumping up and down from how relieved you were.

"How long has it been since the last time Jeonghan and Minghao checked in on us?" Jay asked.

"Uh, actually—" You flinched, interrupted by the rapping at the door. "Perfect timing."

"We're done!" he called back this time (which felt great to say after all of the "we need more time" requests), and the two seniors went silent for several minutes on end before he heard the door creak open slowly.

"Seriously?" Jeonghan asked, peeking through the crack in the door. "You found the book already? It's only, like, three."

"In the morning?" you asked, horrified.

"No, three in the afternoon," Jeonghan returned, voice laced with sarcasm. "I thought you guys were gonna need the whole night. How did you guys even find it? We thought we made it nearly impossible." He fully opened the door at this point, and his and Minghao's eyes landed on the mess of hardware laying on the floor. Jeonghan looked concerned for a moment before saying, "I know you guys are having a hard time, but you can just talk to us about how the hazing's affecting you instead of breaking our equipment."

"Uh..." Jay looked back over his shoulder. "I can fix that."

"He wasn't breaking anything," you defended him with a might that Jay didn't even have for himself. "It was, like, the most insanely genius thing I've ever seen. He made his own power bank out of whatever was in the closet."

Minghao raised his brows, impressed. "Actually?"

You nodded fervently. Jeonghan folded his arms across his chest and looked from you two, to the hardware on the floor, and then to Jay again.

Jay flushed under the weight over your praise. "It wasn't that big of a deal. I can clean it up now."

Instead, Minghao held out his hand, demanding, "Book."

You handed over the book. Minghao and Jeonghan looked at it with an unreadable expression on both of their faces. For a moment, Jay was afraid that they did all of this for nothing, but then Jeonghan cleared his throat.

"You two are good to head back downstairs," he said. "Don't worry about cleaning up; we need to replace those computers, anyway."

You and Jay held up your wrists that were still linked together, and he asked, "Can you free us?"

"Oh, right."

After you and Jay were finally separated, you both were permitted to go back downstairs to the basement and get some rest. Jay rubbed his sore wrist, but he was too tired to process the pain and irritation.

Jennie was sitting against the wall downstairs, knees pulled to her chest. She had a clipboard at her side and looked as if she had been fighting the urge to doze off.

"Oh, you guys made it!" She gave you both small, celebratory claps that were quiet enough to not wake the others who were sleeping. "You're the third group to finish. You can go wash up and sleep now."

Jay didn't have the energy to inquire about where everyone else was, and it didn't seem like you were either. Karina, Eunseok, Sunoo, Chenle, and Changmin were in their sleeping bags, sleeping soundly. Jay wondered what they had to do, but he was sure everyone would be talking about their tasks tomorrow.

Jay let you use the bathroom first, but he was exhausted beyond belief. His sleeping bag felt like a bed for royalty once he finally laid down. Normally, he needed a few minutes to unwind before he could fall asleep, but his eyes felt heavy as soon as he laid his head on his pillow.

Sometime later, Jay opened his eyes, still groggy and half-asleep, to see Heeseung and Giselle talking to Jennie. They must have just returned as they were both drenched and shivering. He looked around to see that everyone else was tucked in their sleeping bags and fast asleep, so they must have been the last group to return.

Heeseung allowed Giselle to use the bathroom first and trudged over to his sleeping bag, which was right next to Jay's, with a scowl on his face.

Jay smirked at him. "Lake?"

"Lake," Heeseung confirmed with an incomprehensible grumble, which Jay figured was just a string of curses.

"You swam? After drinking?"

"We drank a little, but we dumped most of it out while they weren't looking," he said. "They made us swim to find a fucking pool noodle in the dark, and Little Miss Swim Team told me to go far out while she looked around the shallow water!"

"To be fair, she was in the swim team in, like, middle school."

"Yeah? Well, I learned how to swim today."

"You couldn't swim? Did you even tell her that?"

"No, dude, I was so embarrassed. I just waited for my survival instincts to kick in."

"You could've died!" Jay whispered harshly.

"Yeah, or worse," Heeseung replied grimly, "failed."

Jay was about to tell Heeseung that his priorities seemed to be very out of order, but then Doses and Mimosas started blasting through the speakers that had been moved to the corner of the basement. Several people started waking up and groaning out of frustration.

Heeseung let his head hang, defeated. "I should've just drowned."

Jay wasn't quite sure if the next several days of pledging were easier, or if he had just gotten used to the hazing after the past two days. He also had a feeling that his sleep deprivation was keeping him from processing how stressful and grueling the entire process was.

Wednesday seemed to be more of a professional event. Jennie told them in the morning that they were supposed to complete and prepare a slideshow about their future aspirations and career paths to present to the Order at 8:00 p.m. sharp.

Throughout the school day, Jay and Sunoo were bossed around by several members; Sungjin had them bring him a coffee (which he didn't like the taste of, so he sent them back to fetch another), Seulgi asked them to attend the gardening club's meeting in her place (where Sunoo kept sneezing the entire time because of his allergies), and Taeyong kindly requested a calculator to use during his calculus exam (which felt less like hazing and more like Taeyong simply being forgetful).

Somehow, they managed to finish their slideshow in the time that they were running around for the members. During that night's event, Sungjin took the reigns and had Jennie sit off to the side while he picked on pledges at random to present.

Everyone was so tired that they were hardly paying attention to each other's presentations, but when the projector displayed Sunghoon's slides, which had a picture of Park Pharmaceuticals, the atmosphere grew incredibly tense. Most of the pledges were looking away or ducking their heads to pretend like they weren't witnessing the two brothers feuding.

After Sunghoon gave his presentation, elaborating greatly on how qualified he was for the role, he received polite applause and uncomfortable coughs from everyone. Sungjin plastered on a mocking smile and clapped rather loudly, waving him off to move on to the next person.

"I'm sure the future of Park Pharmaceuticals will be in great hands," Sungjin said at the end, giving Sunghoon a knowing smile, to which he raised a brow at.

When Jay gave his presentation, he detailed how he was unsure of where he could fit in, but he knew that he wanted to help people, so he indulged in a role as a healthcare consultant to develop strategies that improved patient care and reduced financial burdens. While this was a noble reason, it wasn't exactly what Jay actually wanted to do, but since he knew that the Order could potentially help him get placed in an internship with Mercy Health to work alongside your father, he needed to play his cards right.

Everyone clapped at the end of his presentation and Jay even received plenty of compliments from the seniors, but Jeonghan sat there with a frown on his face. Jay was afraid that he would say something risky, but Jeonghan just stayed silent as they moved on to the next person.

That night, Doses and Mimosas plagued them once more.

On top of that, it was freezing in the basement that night. Jay was sure he would get hypothermia by the morning, and it seemed like everyone else thought the same, too, because Yeonjun was complaining for what felt like an hour. Sunghoon had left the basement half an hour ago after being called on by Sungjin to run some trivial errand, and Jay was honestly feeling jealous that Sunghoon got to be somewhere that wasn't the sub-zero basement.

Several of the girls tried huddling together for warmth with chattering teeth. Heeseung, who had enough, unzipped his sleeping bag and sat up.

"Jay, let's cuddle."

"No," he replied gruffly.

Heeseung shoved Jay's shoulder with his foot. "C'mon, let me in your sleeping bag."

"No. You're cold as shit."

"You're cold, too!"

"You're gonna disrupt the warmth I've generated in here."

"That's disgusting. Just let me inside."

With a reluctant sigh, Jay unzipped his sleeping bag to let Heeseung inside. His friend zipped it up again to the best of his abilities and proceeded to wrap an arm around Jay.

"Gay as hell," Yeonjun remarked.

"We're wearing socks," Heeseung and Jay replied together.

The next morning, Jay found out that no one had been called by any of the seniors except Sunghoon, who had been targeted by his older brother all night. It was unfair, but everyone knew better than to call out the president himself.

Jay's Thursday had been going smoothly until he returned to the house after his classes. It was then when he realized that his badge was missing. Changmin helped Jay look for it all around the basement and offered to go back to campus to look for it. They only had an hour left until they were required to be back, but Jay and Changmin made a run for it.

"We need to retrace your steps," Changmin said. "Tell me all the places you went to today."

"I went to class," Jay started, looking up as he tried to recollect his morning, "and then I went to the food court... then the library... then the golf course... then I went to my other class."

"Fuck were you doing at the golf course?"

"Uh... golfing."

He liked to take advantage of the recreational activities that Yale offered to its students.

They searched each area thoroughly, but there was no sign of his badge and Jay's hope in finding it was wavering. With ten minutes left until they had to be back, they were forced to give up on the search. Changmin offered to back him up when Jay was going to receive his inevitable punishment, but Jay told him that he would take the full blame since it was on him, anyway.

Strangely enough, when he told Jennie about losing his badge, she simply jotted something down on her clipboard and nodded. That somehow worsened the dread Jay felt.

The rest of the night was oddly enjoyable. They had a game night with the seniors, which consisted of several bonding activities and icebreakers that lightened the tension they felt around the Order members. Jay was so glad that he wasn't being ordered around for a night that he forgot about how anxious he was over his missing badge.

To top it off, they got to sleep early and didn't have to listen to Doses and Mimosas throughout the night, too. Giselle even cried tears of joy as she complained about her newfound hatred for the song.

Then, it was finally Friday, but the past four days felt like they were a month long to Jay. He hoped the next three days would fly by, but the day was already feeling long as he and Karina had been nagged by Taehyung and Baekhyun to clean the living room. Jay decided not to go to campus for the day so that he could sleep in a little longer, but he regretted his decision soon after.

He tried to come up with an excuse to head back to campus with Karina, but they wound up cleaning the entire first floor before they could even get the chance to complain. Eventually, the seniors started targeting Sunoo and Chaewon, so Jay slipped away to catch up on lost hours of sleep.

Later, when it was time for their activity that night, Jennie's instructions were so vague that all of the pledges were too befuddled to ask for clarification. Thankfully, Sunghoon took the initiative to question her.

"You want us to find something to impress the Order?" he asked, brows furrowing. "Find what?"

"Anything. You just have to be back in two hours." Jennie shrugged. "We'll split you guys into two groups. How about just the boys versus the girls? Whichever group gets the most votes from the seniors gets to sleep upstairs in the living room."

Everyone knew what that meant: no ceaseless repetition of Doses and Mimosas throughout the night. There was a competitive fire blazing in most of their eyes now.

"So, there's no limitation on what we can bring?" Yeonjun asked.

Jennie shook her head. "Nope, and you can go anywhere you'd like, as long as you're back within the time limit. Jeonghan and Jaehyun have offered up their cars for each team—just don't crash them."

Jay, the self-proclaimed car-stealer, was deemed the driver for the boys' team. They were instructed to leave at 10:00 p.m. at the same time, but Sunoo and Jay were starting to feel nervous because the girls seemed so much more prepared than they were. Apparently, the girls knew exactly what they were going to retrieve while Jay had just been watching Eunseok and Heeseung play chopsticks for the past fifteen minutes.

"I wanna go ask them, but there's no way they're gonna tell us what they're gonna bring back," Sunoo mumbled to Jay. "Maybe we should just bring back ear plugs and pray we can sleep through another night of that damn song."

Jay's eyes went wide for a moment before he glowered. "How did we never think of ear plugs until now?"

'I doubt they'd do much. The speakers are so fucking loud."

"We should just buy hammers and smash them."

"We could do it in front of the seniors, too. That'll be sure to impress them."

When it was time for them to leave, Jay was starting to worry about how eight people would fit in Jeonghan's car. To his relief, Jeonghan owned a 7-seater SUV, so they just needed four people to squeeze in the middle row.

Heeseung claimed shotgun, so Changmin, Yeonjun, Sunoo, and Eunseok took the middle row while Chenle and Sunghoon took the two seats in the back. Still, even though the clock was ticking, no one had even come up with a proper plan on what they were going to bring back for the seniors. They sat in the parking lot and watched the girls drive off in Jaehyun's car in complete silence before Yeonjun spoke up.

"Let's steal a goat," he said.

The rest of them turned to gawk at Yeonjun with incredulous looks on their faces.

"A goat," Sunoo echoed.

"I was gonna suggest a cow, but I don't think we have space for a cow."

"And you think we have space for a goat?"

"Well, we have more space for a goat than a cow."

"I don't think that should be the deciding factor here."

"It is a valid deciding factor. Also, University of Connecticut has goats. Wouldn't it be sick if we stole something from another campus?"

They all stared at each other for a moment before Jay reluctantly put in the directions for University of Connecticut.

Chenle laughed, astonished. "We're actually stealing a goat? From UConn?"

"We'll just borrow it," Yeonjun reasoned. "I mean, who's even gonna notice?"

Despite Yeonjun sounding borderline insane, everyone was on board because, to be perfectly honest, it would be funny if they stole a goat, and they were sure the seniors would appreciate the sentiment. Whatever the girls did wouldn't compare to the entire mission the boys were carrying out to kidnap a goat. But if they failed, it would just remain a good memory, at least.

Since University of Connecticut was relatively close, Jay only had to drive for ten minutes until they reached the campus. They just barely managed to get through three songs during the drive, all of which were being sung off-key by the men. As Jay drove along the edge of campus, he finally spotted the livestock that were fenced in.

Yeonjun, Heeseung, Eunseok, and Changmin agreed to be the ones to bring back the goat. The rest of them stayed in the car and kept an eye out. Jay was glad he stayed in the car because, aside from not wanting to be anything more than an accomplice to this crime, he finally got the chance to rant about how grueling their initiation had been so far.

Chenle was the first one to bring it up, and as soon as he did, Sunoo and Sunghoon started complaining, too. Jay joined in after, but he had been thinking the exact things they had.

Thirty minutes later, they saw the four boys walking back to the car with the animal in Yeonjun's arms. Jay honestly didn't want to know how they managed to get inside the pen, but he ended up finding out anyway after Eunseok gave them the whole storytime.

Then, Jay took a closer look at the animal.

"Dude," he said flatly, "that's a baby sheep, not a goat."

The four of them froze before leaning closer to the sheep to get a better look at it.

"Oh, fuck," Heeseung muttered.

Eunseok shrugged. "I mean, a sheep's still fine, right?"

"No, no, no," Sunghoon warned with a firm shake of his head. "Stealing a goat is funny, but a baby sheep's just fucked up."

"You gotta return it, dude," Chenle said. "Bring back an actual goat."

It took another thirty minutes for them to reunite the sheep with its flock and steal an actual goat, which Heeseung claimed they cross-verified several times before carrying to the car. The goat, which they named Rectangle (because of the pupils), bleated at random throughout the car ride, which they speculated was it trying to socialize.

Since they had a good forty minutes left until they were supposed to return, they tried teaching Rectangle tricks until it was time to head back to the Athenaeum. Unfortunately, the goat did not seem to possess the mental capacity to follow their commands.

When they pulled into the parking lot, the girls were already back. They were all gathered around Jaehyun's car, and the seniors were making conversation with them as they waited for Jay's group to come back. After they parked and got out of Jeonghan's car, the seniors requested for them to present what they brought.

"We wanted to find something that symbolized the Order," you started, turning to pull something heavy out of the trunk, "so, we pulled some strings and made this plaque with the owl of Athena. We designed it ourselves, too, since Yizhuo's dad owns a steel company, so you guys can keep it for the house."

The boys exchanged horrified looks. Their faith in Rectangle was slowly diminishing by the second.

The seniors looked incredibly impressed with the girls' present as they ran their fingers over the pattern and gushed over how perfectly it matched their society. Jennie looked incredibly proud from the sidelines, and Jay could only think about how the boys were gonna wipe that expression off her face once she saw the goat they stole.

"Alright, it's your guys' turn," Sungjin said with a light laugh. "This is gonna be a hard one to beat, though."

"Oh, uh... so," Sunoo started sheepishly, looking back at where Rectangle was chewing on a seat belt. It let out a pathetic bleat that had some of the seniors trying to peer into the car. "We got you guys a goat from UConn."

Changmin picked up Rectangle and placed him in front of everyone, letting it trot around and make low, muttering sounds. For a while, everyone just stared at the goat in disbelief until a few seniors burst into laughter at the sight of the animal. A few of them started petting it affectionately.

While no comments were made to praise them for bringing back a goat, Jay was satisfied that they weren't scolded, at least. The Order turned away to discuss who would be the winning team while the girls started cooing over Rectangle. Jay was certain that their goat was going to be the only real winner tonight.

"Alright, we've made our decision," Sungjin announced. "We appreciated that both teams took different approaches. However, there can only be one winner, and while the goat was funny, we feel that it's only fair that the girls are rewarded for the effort they put into this task."

While Jay was disappointed, he, too, thought it was only fair that the girls won. He would've felt a lot worse if the guys won for something that required much less effort.

Thus, they were sent back to the basement while the girls got to sleep in the living room. Before that, though, they were sent back to return Rectangle. This time, all eight of them got out of the car to say their goodbyes to the goat. Yeonjun was tearful when he realized that Rectangle's friends would never believe what just happened to it.

When they were back in the basement and washing up before bed, Sunghoon supplied, "They technically liked our goat, so maybe they won't torment us tonight?"

Heeseung grimaced. "Hopefully."

As if on cue, Doses and Mimosas started blasting through the speakers, like it was taunting them, and the eight of them groaned in broken harmony.

The girls were sent back downstairs early in the morning, and Jay pressed his face deeper into his pillow so that he wouldn't have to see them and feel jealous about how they got to sleep peacefully.

There were only two days left, and Jay was ready for everything to be over. When they all went out for lunch together, Jennie texted the group chat that they would get to have a free Saturday with no activities planned for the night. It was music to everyone's ears, of course, but they couldn't help but feel that tomorrow would be worse.

The seniors weren't around the house much, either. Jay dragged Sunoo to the library with him in case they came back and started hazing the pledges again, but he never received any texts telling him to head back to the house.

That night, however, Doses and Mimosas was turned up higher than ever before. Jay didn't even think it could get any louder, but the sound was amplified to the point where he felt the bass buzzing through his body, creeping up his legs and traveling to his skull. He felt like his ears were going to split, but it was their last night. He could make it through one more night. He just needed to close his eyes and tune out the noise.

Jay hardly got a wink of sleep, probably passing out for thirty minutes out of pure exhaustion, but he kept jolting awake whenever the bass got louder. He felt like a shell of a person at this point, so he just rolled over onto his stomach and put his pillow over his head.

Sunday was chock-full of the Order members calling and texting them to run useless errands. Jay had to take Sehun's laundry to a laundromat despite the house having its own room with five washers and five dryers. That wasn't even the most ridiculous of busy work; Eunseok, Karina, and Heeseung were tasked to scrub the second floor with toothbrushes, you and Giselle were sent out on a scavenger hunt (to look for items that Jay was pretty sure didn't even exist), Yeonjun had to transcribe a thirty minute long voice recording that was hardly comprehensible with multiple voices overlapping; and Yizhuo, Sunghoon, and Ryujin had to wash everyone's cars.

By nightfall, Jay was just glad that they were in the final stretch. He was ready to be done with the entire process, and he was banking on his body holding out for tonight before he collapsed from exhaustion.

"Tonight should be fast, depending on how well you guys do," Jennie told them with an inauspicious edge that had half of the pledges looking fed-up already. This time, all of the seniors were gathered behind Jennie, too, and all of them wore expressionless faces. "Have you guys heard of a Centurion?"

Before Jay was about to rattle on about its historical context in Rome, Chenle had already answered. Jay was glad that he didn't say anything because it happened to be a drinking game—not whatever Jay was prepared to explain.

"We're gonna be doing something a little different," Jennie continued. "Since there's fifteen of you, we're going to be doing a double Centurion, so you have to drink two hundred shots of beer within one hundred minutes." Before anyone could grouch, she added, "And you have to answer our questions as you drink. I hope you guys have been studying."

He figured Jennie had been referring to the information she gave them a week ago. The problem was, although Jay had memorized everything, he wasn't sure how well his memory would serve him after how tired he was.

Sungjin and Joshua carried over the table that they would be playing the game on. Jennie and Doyeon started pouring beer in the cups that Jisoo and Jaehyun were setting out on the table. Some of the cups looked a little more than a shot, but what worried Jay was if he would be in the right state of mind to answer questions toward the end of the game.

"We should just go in order," you suggested. "That's like—what?—thirteen shots between all of us? One shot per thirty seconds, so we're gonna have, like, an eight minute break between shots. If someone can't drink any more, one of us can drink for them."

It was a solid plan, and everyone was fairly optimistic about it until the game began. As you downed the first shot, Jennie had asked the first question, looking at you specifically for an answer. You stammered for a few seconds, looking at her blankly as you floundered for words. Since you were drinking, you were hardly paying attention to what she was saying, expecting someone else to answer her question while you downed the shot. Eventually, the answer seemed to come to you, but Jennie simply waved her hand to silence you, and she noted something down on her clipboard before moving on to Yeonjun.

Yeonjun managed to get the question about the Order's motto wrong as well, and then they moved on to Giselle without missing a beat, who also got her question wrong. Jay didn't even hear his question, and when he asked if they could repeat it, he was ignored and they moved on to Changmin.

This continued on and on, with everyone getting more and more tipsy with each round. It didn't help that all of them were running on way less sleep than they should have gotten this week, so nobody was in the right state to be answering questions at rapid speed while downing shots of beer.

Closer to the last round, they had gotten under half of the questions correct, but the Order started asking random questions in place of their society's history. They seemed to have run out of things to ask, so they were asking obscure questions that threw the pledges off before they had time to think of an answer.

"What car does Wonwoo drive?" Jisoo asked, rousing snickers from the rest of the members.

("Honestly," Jeonghan muttered from beside Joshua, "I don't even know what car Wonwoo drives.")

"A Mercedes," Ryujin, who had been tasked to clean the cars earlier in the day, answered breathlessly as she was twelve shots deep.

"Model?"

She pressed her lips together. "I don't know."

Incorrect.

By the end of the activity, everyone was spent and tired. All of the pledges were tipsy, holding onto each other to keep upright and leaning their heads on each other's shoulders. You and Giselle had your heads on each of Yeonjun's shoulders, who had his held tilted back and his eyes closed.

"Alright, you're done," Jennie announced loudly, giving them a glimmer of hope for a single moment before her next words had the pledges crumbling apart again. "Time for punishments."

"Punishments?" you asked scornfully.

Jennie started listing off various things that the pledges were getting punished for one-by-one; Heeseung and Eunseok got twenty push-ups for not leaving the floor spotless, all of the boys got fifty sit-ups for losing to the girls, everyone got five sit-ups for each question they got wrong during the Centurion activity, and several other petty reasons that Jay couldn't even find reason in.

"And," Jennie said in a clipped tone, "one hundred push-ups each for Yeonjun, Giselle, Eunseok, Ryujin, Chaewon, Y/N, Jay, Heeseung, and Sunghoon."

Heeseung gawked at her. "For what?"

"For your little run-in with the police in Monaco."

"You knew about that?" Yeonjun asked, his voice pitched an octave higher as he had completely sobered up at her words.

"Of course I did. Now get started, and please do it together so no one has to start over."

They collectively agreed to get the push-ups over with first, which went smoothly for the first thirty or so, but then a few of them were starting to get tired. Jay was glad that Sunghoon, Heeseung, and Yeonjun had been dragging him to the gym every day, but even he couldn't keep up once they hit fifty.

On top of his fifty push-ups over the goat debacle, Jay still had to do another hundred for the Monaco incident, so he had to keep going even after a few of the pledges were finished. His wrists felt like they were burning by the time they were counting off numbers so high that he couldn't think straight anymore. His elbows quivered as he lowered himself to the ground.

Clearly, he wasn't the only one struggling. Giselle was almost crying through her push-ups and he could hear Heeseung's winces of pain from his left.

"I can't do it anymore," Karina rasped once her limbs gave out. "I'm done. I can't do this."

Jennie looked extremely worried, but before she could say anything, Sungjin calmly said, "If you want a seat in our society, you have to keep going."

They pushed on with burning lungs and heavy pants. The only reason Jay knew which number he was on was because Sunghoon was counting them off, but his voice was starting to sound distorted and far-off. Jay just wanted to let his elbows buckle so that he could feel the cool ground against his cheek and let his sore limbs rest.

He then felt someone's shoe wedge itself between Jay's feet to keep them from slipping. Jay looked under his arm to see that it was Sunoo, who had finished his push-ups and was waiting against the wall for them to finish. Grateful, Jay lowered himself to the ground again with trembling arms.

When Jay was finally done, hardly managing to keep himself from toppling over, Jennie fixed him with a curious look and said, "Oh, right. Jay, you have an extra hundred for losing your badge."

Jay's heart dropped.

He already felt like he was going to die. How could they make him do more when he was already on the verge of passing out?

"Another hundred?" he squawked out. His shoulders sagged and his chest was heaving. "I can't—I feel so... there's no way."

"We tried to find his badge, but we couldn't," Changmin tried defending him, but it didn't seem like a reasonable enough excuse for the Order. "We retraced his steps and everything."

"He shouldn't have lost it in the first place," Sungjin replied calmly and unsympathetically.

Jay was getting into position again when you spoke up, "I'll split his push-ups with him. I'll do fifty."

He whipped his head around to look at you, shocked. You looked like you were on the verge of fainting yourself, so why would you put yourself through that? Still, your resolution was unwavering, and the Order didn't seem to have an opposition to the pledges helping each other out.

"I'll split the push-ups, too," Changmin offered. "I was the one who went with him and still couldn't find the badge."

"I'll do it, too," Sunoo said, dragging himself up to get in formation again. "I went to class with Jay and didn't even notice his badge was missing."

A tide had turned. Even though no one had anything to do with Jay losing his badge, every pledge started offering to split the push-ups. Everyone, despite being pushed to their limit, offered to help him with something that was completely his fault.

And Jay felt a warmth in his heart that spurred him to keep going. A dangerous sort of affection, really, because he was touched beyond belief. Never did he think that he would feel such closeness to people he was only supposed to consider as subjects of interest.

Now, they only had to do six each. Jennie hid a smile behind her clipboard as she watched them line up once more to power through their last interval of push-ups.

"Okay, you're done," Jennie called out afterward, and all of them crumpled to the ground at once. Jay felt like his chest was about to explode. "Time for sit-ups."

Jay got seven questions wrong during the Centurion round and several other demerits from the Order members for various offenses, so he had a good number of sit-ups to do, but it would be much easier than the push-ups. However, he was already so exhausted that he was sure his body would give out soon. Sunoo clapped him on the back to signal that they were doing their sit-ups against the wall, and Jay turned around with great effort to lay on his back and press the toes of his shoes against the wall.

Sunghoon counted them off again, his voice no louder than a breath, and Jay heard several grunts of pain as they raised themselves up. Jay's core ached even from the first one. His blood was rushing in his ears and his pulse was so intense that he could feel it pounding in every artery.

Jay thankfully didn't have as many sit-ups than he had push-ups, so he was finished relatively sooner than most. His sweat-matted hair was all over his forehead, and he pushed it back once he was sitting upright again, leaning back on his elbows. Several pledges were still going in slow, painful efforts. Jay got to his feet and went to stand off to the side, but he noticed you struggling and looked over at Jeonghan, who grimaced at him in an if-you-must sort of way.

He then sat behind you, ignoring your bewildered looks, and he placed a hand on the small of your back to help you raise your body with each sit-up. The other pledges who completed their sit-ups decided to help the others, too, after seeing what Jay was doing. At some point, Jay was practically pushing you upright, as if you were some lifeless doll, and you just went along with his motions.

"Finished?" Jennie called out once the last person, Yizhuo (who had the most sit-ups racked up), had finished. "Get up. You guys are gonna do wall sits until you can say our oath in perfect unison."

Jeonghan sent Jay a sympathetic look and a nod that seemed to tell the junior that this was it. They would be done after this.

Jay held onto that.

Everyone was sluggish and exhausted, both physically and mentally, but they all dragged themselves to their feet like zombies and got in position again.

"Man, this is so fucked up," Heeseung got out, moaning feebly from how his muscles ached.

"Support each other, if you need to," Jennie said, looking away quickly when she saw how several of them were doubling over to catch their breaths.

Jay noticed that Giselle put her leg under his to support his weight, so he did the same for Changmin, who was to his left. Down the line, everyone seemed to catch on and get in the same position. Each pledge had a leg under the person next to them to keep them upright, except you, who was unfortunately the first in line.

Each time someone said the wrong word or fumbled over their words, they were yelled at to start over again. Jay felt like they had been there for nearly an hour, and his legs were starting to give out. You and Karina fell to the ground at some point, and they were simply asked to stand up and keep going.

Eventually, by some stroke of luck, the fifteen of them managed to recite their oath in perfect unison with even their labored panting syncing up.

Jennie burst into tears by the end, so Sungjin had to speak up in her place, "You're officially our newest delegation. Welcome to the Order."

Jay heard several of the seniors clapping and cheering for them, but Giselle's leg gave out under him, and he collapsed to the ground along with her. Everyone else seemed to be on the floor, too, and plenty of them were crying with what Jay suspected was partly their joy over being done and partly because they were so spent from the physical exertion.

Jeonghan helped Jay up to his feet and asked, "You good?"

Jay nodded dumbly. "Just glad I never have to listen to Doses and Mimosas again."

Jeonghan laughed, and when he handed Jay a bottle of water, Jay chugged it so fast that the bottle was empty in seconds. His limbs still felt like they were buzzing and sore, but he could at least stand upright without falling over.

Jennie was still sobbing into her hands, being comforted by Jisoo and Irene, who were also secretly recording the sight with amusement drawn across their faces. She seemed more distressed over the whole ordeal than Jay was, but what he hated the most was that he genuinely felt a sense of fondness toward her and the others after the entire experience. As the juniors pulled him in for a group hug, he knew that their one week had pulled them all together so close that Jay was going to feel miserable when he would eventually have to betray their trust.

"I'm gonna sleep forever," Giselle said loudly, mostly to drown out how Heeseung was making fun of her for crying earlier. "I'm gonna go home and sleep forever."

Jay looked around to find you, and then he walked around the others to tap your shoulder. You immediately turned around, and he asked, "Are you okay? You were the only one who didn't get any support during wall sits."

"Yeah, I'm fine," you said with a shaky grin. "My legs feel like they're on fire, though. But, apparently, my dad had it worse when he joined, so I can't complain that much."

Jay didn't see much reason in that. To what extent were you expected to live up to your dad's standards? He knew it wasn't the time to press you for answers, though, so Jay simply mustered a smile for you and rubbed your back in soothing circles.

Now that he was in the Order, your father was his next target.

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SUMMARY ▸ private investigator jay park just wants to complete his mission quietly and move on with his life. you, his new assignment who keeps consuming his thoughts, don't make that very easy for him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ▸ okay Wow i got a little too ahead of myself here but if you made it to the end, thank you for reading this 15k word chapter !! i did Not expect it to get this long and although it might Feel a little filler-y, it was necessary trust !

TAG LIST ▸ @zdgx1 @smouches @heesdazed @teawithbucky @leep0ems @peachpie4you @niniissus @kgneptun @jaeyunluvr @zerasari @sophiko22 @iselltulips @hoondiors @baekhyunstruly @jays-property @woninluv @heerinnie @fakeuwus @yizhoutv @theothernads @y4wnjunz @dammit-jjk @en-happiness @mari-oclock @soonyoungblr @jakeslvt @taetaenic @jebetwo @fairysungx @hsgwrld @shmooooo @ineedsomezzz @mrowww @enha-stars @seongclb @lockburn-castle @alyssajavenss @enczen @calumsfringe @w3bqrl @luvyev @uhsakusa @luvnicho @wildflowermooon @navsnct @hooniesuniverse @enhalov @enhypens-baby @isawritesss

[daisynik7]

In Between

Pairing: Eren x f!reader x Reiner

Genre: college au, one-shot

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: ~4.5k

cw: threesome, cunnilingus, nipple play, blow job, vaginal sex (doggy), creampie, horny reader (I mean, who isn’t), pet names, use of the term ‘big brother’, but there is no actual incest here I swear and I’m so sorry. This is just filth. 

Summary: Your “big brothers” from Alpha Tau fraternity take care of you for a night. 

Notes: OKAY, so I’ve had this in the back of my mind for a while now. Fun fact for those of you who have read my other series Rush: I originally wanted to make it an Eren x f!reader x Reiner fic but was intimidated about writing a love triangle, so I axed it. Instead, here’s porn with little plot to satisfy this itch. Enjoy! Likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated, I would LOVE to hear what y’all think! 

Additional Notes: This might be the smuttiest one I’ve written so far, idk, you be the judge. As always, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. Also, think of this as an alternate universe to Rush, I’m using a lot of details from it, but there is no correlation. Okay, I’m done talking, have fun.

It’s a Sunday night and Sigma Nu Kappa begins their first chapter meeting of the spring semester. Petra Ral, your sorority’s social chair, stands at the podium, a delighted smile on her face. “Good evening, sisters! I have very exciting news: Alpha Tau has agreed to pair with us this semester! This means we’ll be joining them to collaborate on charity events and most importantly, social gatherings.”

There’s a collection of giggles and pleased hums. Mikasa, your big sister and best friend, nudges you. “This should be fun.”

Although the two of you are the same age, Mikasa rushed SNK as a freshman, you joined as a sophomore this past fall. She picked you to be her “little sister” when you were a pledge, adopting you into her family line called The Angels. Since then, the two of you have been inseparable. 

Petra continues. “A neat thing we’ll be doing is combining families! We’ll be assigning each of our family lines to one in Alpha Tau. Consider them your ‘big brothers’. FYI, these were assigned at random.” 

She passes a stack of papers to each row. When you get yours, you try to find which family you’re being paired with. Before you can, Mikasa scoffs. “Of course.”

Next to The Angels is The Warriors. You turn to her with a questioning look. “The Warriors?”

“Guess who?”

You pause to think, then answer, “Eren?”

“Yup. Random my ass,” she jokes. 

Eren is Mikasa’s actual brother, older by a year. You’ve never met him in person, but you’ve heard plenty of stories about him from her. Petra notices her reaction and grins. “Okay, maybe yours is not so random. It just makes sense!” 

“So, what are we supposed to do with our assigned family?”

“It’s just for fun. It’s a nice way to get to know the brothers and build a strong connection with them. They’ll look out for you and take care of you, especially at the parties.” 

Since joining last semester, you haven’t properly bonded with anyone in the other organizations, too busy acclimating to sorority life as a new member. Now, with a bit more exposure to Greek Life, it’s time to build your own relations, make new friends. Maybe even find a boyfriend. It’s been a while since you’ve had sex, and you find yourself desperate for it. This new partnership with Alpha Tau is a good opportunity to find potential candidates. 

And, with the help of your new big brothers, you might be able to achieve this.  

~~~

The first exchange between Sigma Nu Kappa and Alpha Tau happens on Friday night, inside the fraternity house. The theme for the party is Game Day. Everyone is required to wear a sports jersey of some kind. You and Mikasa come in oversized basketball jerseys paired with black bicycle shorts. When you arrive to the house, it’s packed with your sisters and Alpha Tau brothers. Immediately, your big sis leads you into the kitchen where the drinks are. 

You help yourself to a serving of Jungle Juice, the common frat party concoction. Mikasa, already on her second, mentions, “I texted Eren. He’s finishing a game of beer pong with Reiner, so they should be meeting us soon.”

You chug the rest of your drink, excited to finally meet The Warriors. Several minutes pass, in which you spend time chatting with your sisters and refilling on more Jungle Juice. You turn around once you hear Mikasa yell, “Finally!”

In front of her are two well-built men, one with dark, brown hair wrapped in a stylishly messy man-bun, wearing a sleeveless jersey, showing off his tone arms. The other has a shorter, blonde cut, standing a few inches taller in a football jersey, displaying his broad shoulders. 

“Sorry, the game went longer than expected. Neither of us could sink a shot,” the brunette explains. You assume this is Eren, based on family pics Mikasa has shown you. “So, where’s our new little sis?”

You step towards them, hovering beside Mikasa to introduce yourself. They both smile at you, shaking your hand. “Welcome to the family.”

You exchange small talk, asking the standard questions to break the ice. Reiner, Eren’s big brother in the fraternity, is a senior, scheduled to graduate this spring with his bachelors in psychology. He hopes to eventually become a therapist. Eren is a junior, majoring in education to become an elementary school teacher. You were expecting them to be intimidating and arrogant, the stereotypical frat boys. Lucky for you, they are surprisingly easy to talk to.

In the midst of your conversation, Mikasa checks her phone and announces, “Jean just got here. I’m going to hang out with him for a bit, is that cool?” She seems to be directing it at you, specifically. 

“Don’t worry, Mikasa,” Eren says. “We’ll take care of her. Right, Reiner?” 

He nudges his big brother, who smirks. “Yeah, we’ll take care of her, alright.”

As soon as Mikasa leaves to hang out with her boyfriend, the energy shifts. Maybe it’s your imagination, but there’s a different vibe being alone with your new brothers. They have polite expressions on their faces, but behind it is something…sinister? Wicked? Naughty?

You refill with more liquor, your nerves getting the best of you now that Mikasa is no longer there to protect you. Before you tip the drink into your mouth, Reiner intercepts and covers the lid with his palm, stopping you. “Don’t drink that anymore. All that Jungle Juice will give you a hangover. Let’s take shots instead.”

“Yeah, we got some vodka in the fridge.” Eren opens the door to the refrigerator, reaching in to retrieve a brand-new bottle of Grey Goose. “Big brother here works for the Psych department so he can afford top shelf.”

“Yeah right, like you can’t afford it with daddy’s money,” Reiner retorts. “Did you know his dad is a doctor?”

You nod. “Yeah, Mikasa has mentioned that.”

“I’m not getting a cent after undergrad, though. He’s pretty disappointed that I’d rather be a teacher than take over his practice. At least Zeke’s going to do it.”

“That’s your half-brother?” you ask. Mikasa’s briefing of her adopted family, the Jaeger clan, is coming in handy.

“Yup,” he confirms, pouring the liquor into three cups, poorly estimating a shot’s worth in each.

“Being a teacher is just as important a job as a doctor,” you comment. “Maybe even more, considering the impact you make on the students. It’s a crime how underpaid they are. That’s my opinion.”

He offers you the shot with a small smile, watching you carefully. “What other opinions do you have?”

“Huh?”

“I’m sure you have lots of opinions in that pretty head of yours.” He passes the third cup to Reiner without taking his eyes off you. 

You’re unsure what to make of his comment, so you don’t respond, pretending to be fixated on consuming the shot. The buzz is starting to kick in, cheeks warm, head pleasantly airy, inhibitions loosening the slightest bit. Luckily, you’re being taken care of by your big brothers so that you don’t do anything reckless tonight.

The other two throw back the alcohol easily, Eren quick to refill their cups. He waves the bottle at you. “Want another?”

You refuse. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Can’t hold your liquor?” Reiner asks, moving to stand next you at the counter. 

“I know my limits.” You lean into him, comfy against his large physique. You play with the hem of your jersey, observing the other party goers in the living room, dancing to the music blasting through the speakers. Mikasa and Jean are nowhere to be seen, most likely doing it in his room upstairs. You spot a few of your other sisters dancing alongside the Alpha Tau brothers, having a grand old time.

“Should we dance?” you suggest, hoping they agree. You want to join in on the fun. 

Eren chuckles. “Reiner doesn’t dance.”

He stands up straight, setting his cup down. “That’s not true. I can dance.”

“I didn’t say you can’t dance, I said that you don’t. I have never, ever seen you dance, dude.”

With a mischievous grin, he looks at you and says, “Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

In an instant, Reiner is leading you to the living room, Eren following close behind. It’s crowded, the small space not accommodating for the size of this party. The three of you squeeze in the middle, surrounded by other warm bodies, too intoxicated to care about being smushed. Someone shuts the lights off and only a dinky strobe illuminates the room. You start moving to the music, bobbing your head back and forth, swaying your shoulders to the melody of whatever top hit is playing. Eren is in front of you, copying your motions, a lazy smile on his face. Reiner is to your rear, close enough that you feel the fabric of his jersey brush against you. 

Eren leans forward, lips grazing your ear. “You’re so pretty, you know that?” He shuffles closer to you, still dancing to the music. 

From behind, Reiner drifts towards you, hands at your waist, his husky voice hot on your other ear. “You look so good dancing like this.”

It’s sweltering now; from the lack of air in the cramped capacity, the alcohol taking its effect, the swing of your hips in tandem with the bass. Or the situation you currently find yourself in, sandwiched by two extremely attractive men, breathing compliments in your ear, exploring your body. They trap you, Eren’s chest basically pressed to yours, your back flat against Reiner. His hands are still at your sides, while Eren reaches for your nape, pulling you in to kiss along your neck. 

You should stop it. That’s what you should do. Whatever this is, it’s wrong. These are supposed to be your quote unquote big brothers. What would Mikasa think? 

But something snaps in you. It’s curiosity. The need to know. What would it be like to be fucked senseless by them? It has your imagination running wild. How can you deny this opportunity? It’s basically being served to you on a silver platter.

“Let your big brothers take care of you,” Reiner whispers, nipping at your ear lobe, grinding his hips on your ass. It’s so wrong. So wrong, you keep chanting in your head. 

Eren fondles your breasts through your clothes. “You want to feel good tonight, right baby? We can help you feel good.”

Is it the pet name that pushes you over the edge? Or is it the allure of being pleasured by two guys at the same time? Either way, you reach behind you to run your fingers through Reiner’s hair while you take your other hand to tug Eren forward into a sloppy kiss. 

“Fuck, I think she wants it,” Reiner murmurs, licking a stripe behind your ear. “Let’s go.” 

“Follow us, baby. We’ll take care of you tonight.” Eren grabs your wrist, leading you upstairs to follow Reiner into his room. It doesn’t seem like he has a roommate, considering the beds are combined to create one that is nearly king-sized. Too busy inspecting the interior design of a typical frat boy, which so far consists of flattened boxes of beer packs hung up like posters and a large Alpha Tau flag strewn across one side of the wall, the sound of the door shutting loudly brings you to your senses. 

You’re very aware now that it’s the three of you, alone in this bedroom, air dense with sexual tension. Suddenly, you’re nervous. You’ve never had a threesome. It’s certainly been a fantasy of yours, but to experience it first-hand, you start having self-doubts if you can really go through with it. 

Eren, sensing your trepidation, puts his arm around you, rubbing your shoulder. “Hey, you okay? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Reiner, who’s already sprawled out on the bed in his boxers, clothes promptly stripped off, adds, “Yeah. We can just chill here. It’s all good.”

They’re not pressuring you, which you appreciate. You’re hesitant, sure. But you haven’t changed your mind. You want this. You want this bad.  

“I want to do it,” you state, removing your shorts and tossing them aside. 

Reiner laughs, sitting up to watch you, shoving his own boxers off. “You’re eager. She’s eager, Eren.”

“Yeah, she is,” Eren muses, tugging at your wrist. “Let’s go to the bed, sweetie.”

Reiner scoots over to make room for you, palming his growing erection, watching Eren strip you nude. When you’re naked, you turn to Reiner to kiss him. He smiles before shoving his tongue into your mouth.

“Lay down for us, baby,” Eren purrs, now naked, boner stiff against his sculpted abs, kissing your stomach. He peers up at you with twinkling eyes, almost innocent, knowing for a fact he’s about to wreck your pussy apart.

Reiner lies beside you, cupping your cheek, large tongue working its way deep inside your mouth. His hand trails down to your chest, squeezing at your breast. “Do you like having your nipples played with?” he asks, lips glossy with spit.

You nod, eyes glancing at Eren, his head positioned between your legs, palms spreading your thighs wide, staring at your pussy already sticky with arousal. Reiner refocuses your gaze on him, muttering, “Pay attention to me, princess.” Another nod and you close your eyes, kissing him, enjoying the soft caress of his hands on your tits. 

Below you, Eren, the fucking menace that he is, doesn’t start slow. He wraps his lips around your clit, swishing his tongue against it until you’re whimpering from pleasure.

“Oh fuck, she likes that, Eren. Keep doing that. I want to see her come all over your face,” Reiner smirks, brushing his rough thumbs on your hardening nipples. He moves down, facing your chest, sucking on your breast until it’s hard and plump. “Fuck, your tits are amazing,” he rasps, flicking his tongue. 

Eren gives you a break, slowly licking your sensitive bud a few times before latching on once more. It’s almost too much, body instinctually jolting from his touch. You endure it, though; the sensation too divine to stop. 

“Finger her, Eren,” Reiner demands, as if reading your mind. The desire to be filled is overtaking everything else.

Tongue flat on your clit, he hums in the response, middle finger teasing your slick entrance before slipping inside, knuckle deep. Still, it’s not enough. Even Reiner knows it.

“Put another,” he growls, eyes focused on your pussy being wrecked as he continues to play with your tits. “Fill her up.”

Eren obeys, sliding his ring finger along with the middle, pumping his digits inside you. You’re a whining mess, unable to control the lewd sounds escaping your mouth. Drool leaks out from the corners of your lips, your tongue lolling out from being fucked out. Reiner chuckles, releasing you with a loud pop. “You’re a loud one, aren’t you? You need something in your mouth to keep you quiet.” He grazes your tongue with his thumb, staring at you hungrily. “Suck on these like they’re my dick.”

All you can do is nod dumbly, grabbing at his thick wrist to stick his three middle fingers down your throat. He pumps them into your mouth as he suckles at your nipples, like an animal desperate for milk.

You’re overstimulated, from having your mouth and pussy stuffed, to your most erogenous zones being consumed by lips and teeth. Your toes curl from the pleasure, throat dry from the endless moaning around Reiner’s rough digits, skin damp with sweat and saliva. The orgasm hits you like a wave of electricity coursing through your veins, exciting every nerve in your body. You whimper on Reiner’s fingers, tickling the back of your mouth, causing you to gag slightly. 

“Fuck,” Eren muffles below you, still lapping at your clit. The wet squelches sound even more lewd from your noticeable orgasm. He flicks his tongue on your sticky mess, smearing it over your puffy bud, repeating the action several times until he’s satisfied.

“Ah, Eren. Fuck,” you breath out, mouth relinquished from Reiner. He has been relentlessly working your tits, swollen and sore from his efforts. When he’s done, he slides back up the bed beside you.

“Look at the mess you made.” He grips at your chin, directing your gaze at Eren, who’s face is glistening, smirk coated in your shiny cum. 

“You did so good for us,” Eren says, crawling up the bed to join you on your other side. He gently pinches your tit, sucking on your neck. Reiner kisses you on the mouth, massaging the other breast. You grasp their hard cocks, stroking them simultaneously, resulting in both of them moaning. 

“Fuck, baby.”

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

“Fuck yeah, she’s such a good girl.”

“So fucking good for us.”

The three of you stay this way for a while, erections growing unbelievably stiff in your fists. One of their hands, at this point you’re not sure whose, is at your clit, tapping it and rubbing fast. You’re convinced that you can come like this if they let you. 

“Think she’s wet enough?” Reiner asks his brother.

“Yeah, she’s really fucking wet, dude. It’s going to feel so fucking good.” Eren answers. “Can you take it, sweetie? Can you take Reiner’s fat cock?”

“I can take it,” you breathe out, needy and aching to be filled again.

Reiner moves to the bottom of the bed. “Are you on the pill?” 

You nod, humming against Eren’s mouth, occupied with kissing him. 

“Good. I want to fuck you raw.”

“Come inside her, Reiner. Give her a fucking creampie,” Eren murmurs, kissing your forehead affectionately, despite the filthy words coming out of his mouth. The way they speak to each other, instructing one another on what obscene act to perform on you next, spurs you on. Makes you feel like you’re in fucking heat, ready to be bred. 

“You want my cum inside you, princess? Want me to fill up that tight cunt?” Reiner spits into his hand then strokes himself, teasing your slit with his tip. 

“Yes,” you respond, voice shaky.

“That’s not enough for him, cutie,” Eren whispers to you. He massages your clit gently as Reiner slides his cockhead up and down your folds. “He likes it when you beg for it.”

You’re too desperate to care about pride. You’re going to beg for this, no matter what. “Please, Reiner. Fuck me, please.”

“That’s more like it,” he grunts, stroking himself faster. “Get in front of her, Eren.”

Eren gives you one last smooch before sitting up and kneeling at the top of the bed, tossing a few pillows to the floor to make space. 

Reiner taps at your hips. “On your hands and knees, slut. And stick that ass up for me.” His voice is raspy, demeanor rougher than a few minutes ago. Something has taken over him; it’s his carnal desire to fuck you into the mattress. 

You do as your told, arching your back to give him a nice view of your pussy, wet and fluttering, ready for cock. Without warning, he smacks your ass cheek, laughing. “I’m going to fuck you so good. You have no fucking idea.”

Eren kneels in front of you, erect and oozing with precum. “You’re so cute, you know that? So pretty.” He caresses you delicately, thumb brushing against your cheekbone. “Can you suck my dick, baby? Pretty please?”

You’re beginning to understand the dynamic that’s going on here. Eren is sweet, tender, and considerate. Then there’s Reiner: rough, harsh, and greedy. Opposites of each other, working together to tear you to pieces, rip you into shreds. Two sides of the same coin. 

You wrap you fingers around Eren, leaning forward to spread the bead of precum along your lips like gloss. He smiles at you, still cupping your face. “So fucking pretty.” 

Reiner continues to tease you, gathering your slick onto his cockhead to rub it on your bud. “I’m going to fuck you now, princess. Let me take care of this pussy.” Aligned with your entrance, he slowly slides in, your walls stretching to adjust to his girth. You hear him suck in a breath behind you, cursing. “Fuck, you’re tight. Such a good girl.”

“You are a good girl.” Eren pushes past your lips. You take him into your salivating mouth, surrounding him with your wet heat, tongue tracing the prominent vein running along his shaft. “Our good girl. Our good fucking girl.”

You bob your head on his dick, further and further until he’s deep down your throat. You keep him there, swallowing around him, resisting the urge to gag on his cock. Through teary eyes, you peer up at him, looking for approval, wanting him to be proud of the way you take it. He meets your gaze, breathing heavily, eyes wild with lust, staring at your stuffed mouth. His kind disposition from earlier is crumbling; he caresses your cheeks tenderly, but his expression gives him away. Still, he stays still, hesitant to take control.

Reiner, however, is on a different level. He starts fucking you, pulling his cock out halfway only to slam it all the way back in, pace picking up gradually after each thrust. The force causes you to plunge further onto Eren, nose buried in his dark pubic hair, spit seeping from the corners of your mouth. Your muffled whimpers vibrate around him, causing him to moan from the sensation. 

“Fuck, you’re doing such a good job,” he praises, holding your head cautiously. 

Reiner holds you firmly at your hips, fucking you hard and fast, grunting. “Take my cock, princess. Take it like the fucking slut you are.”

You pull off of Eren just enough so that only his tip is engulfed by your mouth. With your fist jerking his shaft, you blow him, swirling your tongue on the slit. “Fuck, that’s it, baby. Feels so good. Gonna make me come.”

“Make Eren come,” Reiner huffs. “Make him nut in that slutty mouth.” He’s found your sweet spot, barely pulling out to hit it over and over. You’re soaked around him, convinced that your arousal is dripping onto the sheets, making a mess of his bed.

“I’m coming,” Eren warns, stomach tight, eyes shut. His warm cum shoots into the back of your throat as you suck him off, swallowing every drip. He slumps against the headboard, catching his breath. “Thank you, baby,” he murmurs, bowing down to kiss your puffy lips. “Thank you.” 

“I’m gonna come soon. Gonna fill you up with this load,” Reiner growls. Your ass smacks against his groin, his heavy balls tapping lightly onto your clit. You’re close to your second orgasm, but you need just a little bit more.

“Come here, Eren. Play with it while I fuck her.” It really is as if Reiner can read your thoughts, aware of exactly what you need to push you over the edge, get you closer to that peak. 

Eren crawls down the bed, kneeling beside you, hand reaching between your legs, finding your swollen bud. When he does, you cry out, “Ah! Fuck!”

They both laugh, Eren brutally rubbing it as he watches Reiner fuck you from behind. 

“Look how creamy it is. That’s all her. She fucking loves it.”

“Our pretty girl loves getting fucked.”

“Pinch her little clit. Make her come on my cock.”

Eren squeezes your clit gently between his thumb and forefinger. It’s too much. You let go, the orgasm so intense, you’re trembling, fists bunched in the bedsheets below you, whining in ecstasy. 

“Holy shit, I’m coming.” Reiner thrusts into you a few more times before his cock spurts inside you. 

“Fuck,” Eren swears, loosening his grip on you.

Reiner stays in you for several seconds, coming down from his high. He slowly pulls out, his cum and yours leaking out of your fluttering hole. They both breathe out a satisfied fuck, staring at the flow of cum dripping out of your slit. Someone, you’re not sure who, plants a smooch on your lower back. Most likely Eren, the more affectionate of the two. You lower your torso onto the bed, relaxing into the mattress, exhausted and satiated from the insanity that just occurred.

Once again, you find yourself sandwiched between them, both facing you, smiling. You turn on your back to stare up at the ceiling, glancing at each of them, unsure what to say.  

Eren is the first to break the silence. “Did you have fun, cutie?” He turns your head towards him, nuzzling his nose with yours.

“Yeah, I did,” you answer, grinning. “That was amazing.”

“You came so much, princess,” Reiner adds, chin grazing the skin of your shoulder, palm tracing languid circles on your breasts. Eren kisses you on the lips while Reiner works on your neck. The three of you stay like this until a phone starts ringing. 

“Shit, that’s probably Mikasa,” Eren mutters, breaking away. He hops off the bed to retrieve his phone on the other side of the room. Reiner quickly turns you toward him, taking this opportunity to kiss you passionately as his brother answers the phone. His arms are snug around you, cozy and comfortable in his warm embrace. 

You don’t pay attention to Eren’s conversation, focused instead on making out with Reiner. It ends as soon as Eren comes back into bed.

“What did Mikasa say?” you ask.

“She’s looking for us. Specifically, you. She’s worried.”

“About what?”

“Probably about us corrupting you,” Eren laughs, nestling his face into your neck.

“I guess she’s on to something,” Reiner responds, copying Eren. 

You snuggle them. “She doesn’t have to know about this. It’ll be our little secret.”

“You’re okay with sneaking around next time?”

“Next time?” In your head, you already decided this would be a one-time kind of deal. Not because you want it to be, but because you assumed they wouldn’t want to do this again. 

“You don’t seriously think this is the last time we’re doing this, do you? Baby, you’re too cute,” Eren says, grinning.

Reiner chuckles. “You’re stuck with us now, princess. You’re way too good to let go. Right, Eren?”

“Yeah. I think we’ll keep you for a while.”

End Notes: Happy birthday Eren!

[usoinked]

Study With Me Instead (Jimmy Uso X Black Reader)

Summary: You had a biology mid-term tomorrow and you were stressing out to hell and back, so you call your boyfriend Jimmy over since he knows what stressing out over an exam is like all too well. You’d think he wants to calm you down…well he does but not in a way you’d expect 😉

CW: 18+ MDNI, Sexual Content, Missionary, He Talks You Through It, Big Jim (literally), Foreplay, Unprotected P in V, Creampie, He Takes Good Care of You, Happy Ending ꨄ

Word Count: 4.9k+

The low hum of your desk lamp illuminated your cluttered desk. A pile of biology textbooks and notebooks surrounded you like an unrelenting sea of knowledge, all threatening to swallow you whole. You had barely glanced at the clock in the last hour, but when you did, your heart skipped a beat. Midnight. You had less than twelve hours before your biology mid-term, and you felt the weight of it press down on you like a ton of bricks. The outlines of genes, alleles, and Punnett squares were blurring together in a mess of confusing letters and symbols. You should’ve felt at least a little confident. You’d been studying for days—highlighting the textbook, scribbling notes in cursive, organizing your flashcards. You had everything planned out. But tonight? It felt like you were drowning.

You pressed the back of your hand to your forehead, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed in the late-night heat of your room. You hadn’t even realized you’d been staring at the same page for the last 10 minutes. Your natural hair, once neatly pulled into a bun, had started to fall out of place, curls escaping in every direction. You didn’t even care about fixing it. You were way past caring about your looks—hell, you could barely focus on your notes at this point.

Your notes were a masterpiece in their own right. You’d taken the time to write everything out in smooth bubble letters and regular arial, every word flowing neatly and consistently, highlighting key points in neon green, mint green, and some dark green here and there. Your handwriting was your pride and joy, a reflection of your discipline. You had always prided yourself on being a good student, organized, thorough, and dedicated, but right now, none of that seemed to matter. It felt meaningless, like you were trying to hold water in your hands. Your mind was all over the place.

The clock on your phone read 12:30 a.m., and panic gnawed at your insides. You had a biology exam in less than 12 hours, one that would cover everything from basic genetics to the difference between identical and fraternal twins. That last section was the kicker—the one that made your brain seize up. It wasn’t just about genes and alleles. It was about understanding why people like Jimmy’s twin brother, Jey, were so different, even though they shared the same DNA at birth.

Fraternal twins, you thought. But what’s the actual difference?

You tossed your pen to the side in frustration, rubbing your eyes. You hated that you couldn’t remember the difference off the top of your head. The question had been nagging at you all night: What made identical twins share the same exact genes, while fraternal twins didn’t?

That’s when your phone buzzed on your desk. You glanced down, a smile tugging at your lips when you saw the message from Jimmy. “How you doin’, babygirl? Need me to come over?”

You exhaled in relief, feeling the familiar warmth of his words spread through your chest. Your fingers hovered over the keys as you debated what to write back. There was no point in pretending you had it together. Jimmy always knew when something was wrong, so you might as well tell him.

“I’m stressed as hell. This bio exam is kicking my ass. I need help, but I can’t seem to focus on anything.”

You pressed send and then bit your lip, hoping he would answer quickly.

Seconds later, your phone lit up again. “I’m on my way. You know I gotchu. I’ll be there in 15.”

You didn’t waste a second. You stood up from your desk, stretching your arms over your head as you paced for a moment. The nervous energy you’d been holding in your chest started to simmer down at the thought of Jimmy. You always felt better when he was around. He was more than just your boyfriend; he was your rock, the person who always knew how to pull you out of your stress, even when you didn’t ask for it.

When you heard the familiar sound of his laugh outside your door, you couldn’t help but smile. He was here.

You opened the door to find Jimmy standing there, looking every bit as laid-back as ever. His dark, curly hair pulled back neatly into a low ponytail, his dark jean jacket with black sleeves and a white hoodie to accompany it underneath only added to his style along with his jeans underneath, his beard was a little shorter than usual and trimmed neatly, and his Samoan-American features—strong jawline, deep brown eyes—always seemed to light up when he saw you. The whole outfit gave him that effortless vibe you loved. Even at midnight, he had that calming presence, the kind that made everything feel okay.

“Hey, bae,” you greeted him softly. You didn’t even try to hide the exhaustion in your voice. “I need help. This bio stuff’s got me all twisted.”

He grinned, stepping inside without a second thought. “Of course, you do. You always wait ‘til the last minute.” He shook his head affectionately, though there was no judgment in his tone. “Don’t even trip. I gotchu, okay?”

You led him over to your desk, where your notes were scattered across the surface, along with textbooks and sticky notes. Jimmy raised an eyebrow as he took in the sight of it all. “Damn, girl. You really went in on this, huh?”

You shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed by the mess you’d created. “Yeah, but none of it’s sticking. I can’t wrap my mind around this genetics stuff. You know—alleles, genes, and twins.”

“Twins? You trippin’. You know Jey and me are fraternal twins, right?” Jimmy said, dropping down onto your bed and making himself comfortable, a teasing smile pulling at his lips.

You raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but I don’t get how you and Jey can be twins but still be so different. Like, what makes you fraternal?”

Jimmy stretched out on your bed, one arm behind his beanie, looking up at the ceiling as he thought for a second. “Alright, so check this. Identical twins come from one egg and one sperm. They split in two, so they got the same genetic makeup. That’s why they look the same—same genes, same everything.”

You nodded along, catching the gist of it. “Okay, that makes sense. But what about fraternal twins?”

He grinned, sitting up a bit, clearly excited to explain. “Fraternal twins come from two different eggs and two different sperms. So, while they’re born at the same time, they don’t share the same genetic makeup like identical twins. That’s why me and Jey look different as hell. We might have some similar traits, but we don’t look exactly the same. It’s all about how our genes mix with the environment. We got different alleles for different traits. That’s why he’s built like a linebacker and I’m more like a point guard, ya feel me?”

You laughed at the comparison, finally feeling like the information was sinking in. Jimmy always had a way of making things so much clearer when he explained them, even if he had to use humor.

“So… Jey and you could have different alleles for things like height, hair texture, skin color, right?” you asked, leaning in a little closer, your fingers tapping lightly against your notebook.

“Exactly,” Jimmy replied, his voice a little quieter now, as if he wasn’t just explaining genetics but something more personal, something that made him feel close to you. “Even though we share the same birthday, same family, we could still have different gene expressions. We just ended up with different genetic mixes. It’s like a cosmic lottery, honestly.”

You smiled, feeling a lot more relaxed about the topic now. “Okay, okay. I think I got it. You and Jey might share the same genes, but the way they express in each of you is different.”

He nodded, giving you that easy, comforting smile that made everything seem possible. “Exactly. And don’t even sweat the exam, babe. You’re gonna ace it. I’m here for you—always.”

You exhaled, feeling the tension in your chest loosen just a little. You weren’t sure what it was about him—whether it was the way he cared or the way he made things easier to understand—but you couldn’t help but feel a lot better. You weren’t sure if it was just the biology talk or the way he made you feel like everything was going to be okay, but you knew he was right. You did have this. With him by your side, you felt your stress start to melt away.

Jimmy sat up fully now, moving closer to you as he gently brushed a curl behind your ear. His touch, warm and familiar, sent a little jolt through you. He always had a way of making you feel special, even in the middle of a late-night study session.

He leaned over your desk, his eyes scanning the notes in front of you before he reached for the highlighter, tracing over a few words you hadn’t gotten to yet. His arm brushed against yours as he worked, and for a moment, you forgot about the exam altogether.

“So,” he said softly, his gaze flicking up to meet yours, “besides your exam stress, how you feelin’?”

You blinked, surprised by the sudden question. You hadn’t really given much thought to how you were feeling emotionally. Physically, your body felt drained, but emotionally, you realized you were more than a little worn out.

“I’m alright, just… a lot on my plate, you know?” you said, your voice quiet.

Jimmy turned his body towards you, his expression softening. “You sure? Because if you need anything, you know I’m here, right? Like, if you want to take a break, or… get your mind off all this.” He paused, that familiar smirk playing on his lips. “I can think of a few ways.”

Your stomach fluttered at his words, your pulse quickening. He was always so laid-back, but there was a depth to his words, a warmth in his tone that made you feel… seen. He didn’t just want to help you study; he wanted to make sure you were okay in every way possible. And, as much as you tried to fight it, the thought of taking a break with Jimmy sounded a whole lot better than the pressure of the exam.

You chuckled softly, trying to regain some composure, but your voice was laced with a hint of teasing. “You really think I can just forget bout this exam?”

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing your ear as he whispered, “I think… a little distraction might be exactly what you need.”

The air between you thickened, the chemistry between you undeniable. His scent, a mix of cologne and something deeper, filled your senses, making it hard to think straight. Your heart raced, and for a moment, you wondered if this would be one of those nights where you finally let go of the stress, letting him distract you as he always managed to do so well. The space between you seemed to shrink with every passing second, and though the biology textbook and your notes lay untouched, your attention was on him—on the way his deep voice resonated in your chest, on the way his hand brushed against yours once more, this time lingering, a subtle touch that sent a shiver down your spine.

You glanced at the clock on your phone, the seconds ticking by faster than they ever had before. Maybe it was the exhaustion or the warmth of his presence, but you didn’t feel like facing another moment of pressure tonight. The exam was tomorrow…well technically later on today, but right now? Right now, all you wanted was to let go of it, just for a little while.

“Jimmy…” you whispered, almost unsure of what you were about to say. You wanted to break the tension, but your voice faltered as your gaze drifted from his eyes to his lips. He noticed, of course, noticing everything about you, the way your chest rose with each breath, the way your body had softened against his presence.

He didn’t let you finish. Instead, his fingers moved softly, gently over your hand, and he leaned forward, his breath warm against your skin. The connection between you both was so palpable that it almost felt like an invisible thread was pulling you closer to him. His lips brushed against your temple, a tender kiss that only added to the heat building between you.

“You good, mama,” he murmured, his words almost like a promise. “You don’t have to stress no more. I’m right here.”

The calm reassurance in his voice settled something in you, as if you didn’t need to carry the weight of your exam, your grades, or even being perfect on your own anymore. He was right. You’d been struggling with the stress of the exam, trying to shoulder the pressure of it all alone. But here he was, offering you not just help with the material, but a release, a moment where you could stop thinking and just feel.

You took a breath, your hand finding his, squeezing it lightly, silently accepting the escape he was offering. “Yeah… I guess you right.”

Jimmy didn’t need another word. His fingers slid through your hair, tugging it gently as he moved even closer, leaning in until there was no more space between you. You could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, against your own. His lips hovered just above yours, a teasing distance that made your heart race even more.

“I gotchu,” he whispered, the promise in his words grounding you. “I’m here. You don’t have to do anything but be with me right now.”

The words sank deep into your chest. You didn’t need to worry about the exam anymore. For once, you just let go and gave in to the feeling of being cared for, to the warmth of his touch.

Your lips met his softly at first, a gentle, almost hesitant kiss, testing the waters. But that hesitation quickly melted away as the kiss deepened, the warmth of his mouth against yours like a balm to the tension you’d been carrying for days. His hands roamed gently, sliding down your arms, pulling you closer into his embrace as if he wanted to remind you that, in this moment, there was nothing else but the two of you.

You melted into him, your body responding to his touch as if it had been waiting for it. His scent, his warmth, everything about him felt like home—a place where you could be free from the worries that had been clouding your mind. He pulled back slightly, his forehead resting against yours, and for a moment, the only sound was the gentle rhythm of your breathing, mingling with the distant hum of the city outside your window.

“Tell me if you wanna slow down,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your skin as he pulled away just enough to look into your eyes.

You met his gaze, the intense connection between you both undeniable. You shook your head, your fingers gently threading through his hair. “I don’t want to slow down,” you whispered, the words coming out more breathlessly than you expected. “I just wanna be with you. I don’t care about nothin’ else right now.”

A slow, knowing smile curled at the corners of Jimmy’s lips, and he nodded, his thumb tracing along your cheekbone as if memorizing the feel of you. He’d always been so in tune with your needs, reading you better than anyone ever could. Tonight, that was exactly what you needed—someone who could remind you that, despite all the stress and chaos of life, you were enough. You were worth more than the grades, more than the late-night studying.

He kissed you again, more urgent this time, as if he couldn’t wait any longer. His hands moved to your waist, pulling you closer until you could feel the heat of his body pressing against yours. You responded just as eagerly, your hands tracing along his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips. Every touch, every kiss, was like a promise of something deeper, something more meaningful.

“Do you trust me?” he asked softly, breaking the kiss for just a moment to look you in the eyes.

Your heart skipped a beat, but you nodded without hesitation. “I trust you.”

“Good,” he whispered, his lips curving into that playful grin you loved so much. “I’m gon’ take care of you. Just let go, aight?”

You nodded again, feeling the last remnants of stress fade away. The tension that had been building in your body dissolved as you leaned into him, letting yourself be fully present in the moment. There was no exam, no late-night studying, no pressure. It was just you and him right then and there. and that was more than enough.

He pulled you closer, his hands guiding you gently as he led you to the edge of the bed. The way his hands roamed over your skin, so gentle and reassuring, made you feel like you were the only thing that mattered in the world. As his lips brushed against yours again, the kiss was more passionate, a little less urgent now—no longer just about comfort, but about something else entirely, the sheer need between the both of you slightly intensified with each roll of your tongues.

Jimmy’s hands gently guided you backwards onto the bed as your hands grabbed onto his arms and slowly came up to his wrists. His voice was so comforting, you two had sex before but you always got so nervous when you both first initially started. But Jimmy was always there with you to make sure you were okay and comfortable any time you two were intimate. His hands gently snaked their way up your white tank top before making his way to your neck and leaving a trail of kisses down your neck toward your collarbone. “You’re so beautiful mama”, he cooed against your chest before taking off your tank top slowly, the fabric rubbing against your skin as it came off over your head. The semi-cold air hit your dark nipples as Jimmy’s warm hands acted as a heating pad. The friction from him kneading your breasts together, causing your skin to warm up and a soft moan to slip from your parted lips. Jimmy’s lips also parted as he took one of your nipples into his mouth coating it in his saliva causing a moan to erupt from the back of your throat and your hands to end up on the back of his beanie which you slowly pulled off after a moment and tossed toward a random corner in the room.

“J-Jimmy” you pleaded as he turned his attention to your other nipple but you were getting desperate. Your hips couldn’t stay down and your legs wouldn’t stop moving, the sharp jolts of electricity coarsing through your breasts each time Jimmy’s tongue hit them was so pleasurable but you needed more of that stimulation…elsewhere. Jimmy noticed too because he slowly pulled away while his eyes locked onto yours.

When he looks at you like that, it’s a gaze that feels like it’s cutting through all the noise around you. They didn’t have any urgency or desire, but with something much deeper—tender and protective. The intensity was there, but it wasn’t forceful. It’s like he’s silently saying, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.

His pupils were soft, you could feel the weight of his attention, as he placed soft kisses down your stomach and snaked his fingers around the bridges of your green sweatpants before slipping them off and tossing them to the floor. It was like he was absorbing every piece of you, with just his gaze along, the actions were just an added bonus.

That warmth in his eyes, it was such a a care that wrapped around you even when he wasn’t saying a word. His hands slowly massaged your legs, his rough hands contrasting against your smooth melanated skin before he leaned down and caught the helm of your panties between those perfect white teeth as he pulled those off of you too leaving you completely exposed to him.

His grip around your legs suddenly became apparent as he pushed them aside, exposing your pussy to him further. “Just relax, okay?” He said before leaning between your legs and pressing his tongue against your folds, the skin tissue in between your legs being disrupted by the muscle between his lips. A tiny gasp escaped from you before you felt his tongue began to move up and down the slit in between your legs, his eyes staying focused on yours completely, your hand eventually grabbed onto his and he caught the memo because his intertwined with yours at that moment.

His tongue dived deeper in between your folds before finding the opening to your entrance and immediately exploring it causing your other hand to make its way onto his head, your fingers running through his scalp as another gasp escaped from you. The more his tongue moved, it was like your body became less rigid, your hips grew a mind of their own, and your breathing became more and more sharp. The jolts of electricity that coarsed through you with each roll of that muscle was exhilarating.

Feeling some of your liquid pool around his tongue, Jimmy decided to take it up a notch and move his tongue upward towards your clit before suddenly attaching himself to the tissue. His tongue skillfully rolling around it as he began to suck on it causing more of your wetness to spill from your opening and your hips to move upward once more and one of your hands to grip onto his while the other gripped onto his scalp. You no longer let out gasps, they were full on moans because of how good it felt. The feeling of his beard rubbing against the bottom half of your pussy contrasting with his tongue giving all of its attention to the top half did something to you. It was insane.

“I’m g-gonna c-cum” you breathlessly stated before all you got in response was a moan from Jimmy who took it upon himself to flick his tongue at a faster pace and moan against your clit on purpose knowing the pleasure it caused. Your core was tightening and your pussy was already spilling, but it was nothing compared to the orgasm that suddenly hit you like a truck when Jimmy flicked his tongue again. Your hips bucked themselves forward as your hands pulled away from his scalp and gripped the sheets under you. “S-Shit!” You moaned out as your chest rose and fell rapidly as you rode out your high, the exam becoming a background thought to the pleasure you just received.

Your body shook as Jimmy kept going, making sure to lap up every bit of your wetness which caused you smile from pleasure and amusement. After he was done, you used your other hand to pull him toward you before kissing him, tasting your aftermath on his tongue and some of his beard but your hands handled that for you. Both your hands gripped the sides of his cheeks as your thumb rubbed over his beard getting some of it on them too, but that wasn’t a thought either because the moment you pulled away from the kiss you stared at Jimmy before licking both your fingers clean before smirking.

“You are somethin’ else f’real girl” he said as he took off his clothes tossing them to the floor before smiling and pinning you to the bed as you chuckled slightly. “But you love me.” You said kissing his nose. “You damn right” he said before planting a soft kiss on your lips to which you returned. His cock hit against your leg as you bit your lip the moment he pulled away from the kiss before looking up at him. He slowly positioned his mushroom tip at your entrance but not pushing in yet because he wanted to make sure you were okay before doing anything further.

You could feel how big he was by the tip alone, the exam was the last thing on your mind, it was to a point where you damn near forgot that it existed. “Lemme know if you need a moment, alright?” He murmured before stroking his dick a few times and slowly pushing into you slowly expanding your walls, earning a gasp of pleasure with a hint of pain from you. You two hadn’t had sex it in a while due to how busy you had both been and it was more so pleasurable than painful, but damn he was still big and your walls had to recalibrate and get use to the feeling all over again. And it was amazing.

Jimmy paused but he wasn’t even halfway inside of you to which you weren’t surprised but still, he was so big and you knew the more he pushed, the fuller your insides would feel. “You okay Y/N?” God he was such a caring boyfriend. “Y-Yeah, you can p-push the rest of i-it in.” Jimmy saw you stutter and knew how stubborn you were but that was one of the things he loved about you. “Hold onto me” he commanded which you happily obliged as your arms wrapped around his neck, his hands gripped your waist as he pushed into you further, his dick eventually sinking into you all the way to the base earning a loud moan from you as your legs trembled once. “I know, it’s in there now, you’re okay.” He reassured but didn’t move till you told him to, which didn’t take long because boy did you wanna feel that Samoan dick creating a stress free environment inside your mind and outside. The moment Jimmy received the okay, your legs wrapped around his waist for more stability as he pushed and pulled out of you. Your walls moving back and forth each time his dick entered and exited, you couldn’t help but make eye contact with him knowing that it was him who made you feel like this.

The world around you two melted away the moment his lips met yours as yours reciprocated, both your tongues meeting one another in a heated tongue battle while Jimmy made love to you. Because this wasn’t just sex, this was your boyfriend who was showing you how much he truly cared about you and was willing to do anything it took to make you feel better. As you pulled away from the kiss, your soft moans turned into much more louder ones the deeper he got, there was so much passion behind how his hips met yours that you couldn’t even wrap your mind around it. “J-Jimmy” you pleaded, your arms wrapping tighter and tighter around his neck and your legs wrapping tighter around his waist; his tatted muscles contracting each time he gripped your waist or the sheets that were currently getting messed up under you.

He hummed in response before soon enough you felt his lips and his beard connect with your neck, you could feel his tongue glide across the skin earning another moan from you as your fingers glided through his hair. Leaning your head back to give him more room, your moans suddenly became louder as you felt Jimmy brush up against that one spot you knew he’d eventually find. The shivers that sent through your body, you needed that again desperately and you begged for it. “R-Right there!” You pleaded to which he responded thrusting forward again directly towards that same spot all while his tip was currently diving towards your cervix. “Right there huh?” He said before pulling away from your neck and going back to making eye contact with you which made you melt into a puddle underneath him, your insides becoming a mess from how Jimmy was passionately turning your insides every way but loose. “Y-Yes!” You moaned out raising your hips slightly knowing your orgasm was getting closer and closer. “I’m c-close! Don’t s-stop!” You begged as you tried your best to keep eye contact despite your eyes rolling back. Your insides desperately gripped onto Jimmy’s cock as he kept hitting that spot before contracting as you came undone under him. “That’s right mama, let go.” You couldn’t help but scream his name as your insides became a puddle underneath him but you knew it wasn’t over because he hadn’t came yet. As risky as it was, you didn’t want him to pull out and you begged him not to.

“D-Don’t pull it out, c-cum inside me.” Jimmy looked a bit taken back but that expression quickly changed to one of satisfaction, your arms and legs still remaining locked in place around him. But Jimmy wanted it that way, having you wrapped around him where it was just you two, your mind not focusing on anything but him in this moment which he got. That combined with the fact that you were begging for him to let his seed out inside of you, and that you had just came undone because of him was enough to push him over the edge as his eyes didn’t leave yours. A loud moan escaped his lips as his hips kissed yours one last time before you felt that warm semi-thick liquid pool inside of you causing your head to fall into your pillow as Jimmy’s head fell into your neck, both of you panting from the events that just occurred.

After coming down from your highs, Jimmy planted a soft kiss on your forehead the moment you looked at him. “Still stressed out?”

“With the sex I just got? Hell no” you said before chuckling as he joined in.

“Nah f’real though. I love you, don’t stress so much alright?”

“I’ll try not to. I love you too.”

ꨄ

Authors Note: Don’t worry I didn’t forget about Jiimmy neither 😉

Authors Note #2: This was suppose to be a double upload with Jey but that Jey one was too good not to post I’m so sorry😭 hope y’all enjoy this one too though!

Taglist: @empressdede @luvrgirl4roman @luvrsluxe

@punksyeet @uceyliyahh @sheaabuttaababyy

@partypoison00 @binnieaddict @marsstyles @mselenalovebug

Divider Credits: @dollywons @cafekitsune @enchanthings-a

[morallysuperiorlips]

Building an Antagonistic Cult/Gang/Organization for Your Story? Here's Some Help!

I interrupt your daily doomscrolling with 1.) a reminder to go fucking write something and 2.) some unsolicited advice on how to write a horrific villainous group for your story!

Gangs can do a lot of shit. Sell drugs, weapons, etc. Many gangs also do far more nefarious things like run prostitution rings, engage in the buying and selling of illegal contents on the black market (yes, like organs), run dog/cock fighting rings, etc. Many gangs have also taken on things like identity theft, mortgage fraud, and even illegal immigrant smuggling. It really depends on how deep you want these gangs to get, but simply put, shit can get fucked.

Gangs can also deal with turf wars, which would involve them gaining control of certain “territories” where they operate essentially doing any or all the above. They can go as easy as just having fist fights, or as far as straight up kidnapping and killing each other. Again, comes down to how violent you want it to get.

Where it can really start to get fun is coming down to how dedicated members get. What’s the cause? What are they always doing? Why are they always doing it? What are they getting out of it? Where is most of their activity located? How motivated are the members?

Drawing from my personal villainous gangs, the cult in my WIP novel, known to the characters as Enigma, is a cult that has the criminal underground, and as a result, most of the world, in a chokehold. They’re a “gang” in a sense, doing “gang” things on a global scale. I’ve essentially modeled them after some sort of rendition of the Illuminati—some conspiracy shit that a hidden organization runs the world without anybody really knowing it. So their aesthetic isn’t at all standard street gang stuff—it’s suit and ties, it’s trillions of dollars at stake, it’s the worlds worst criminals fraternizing with each other over champagne.

So, my rambling aside, some things you would want to ask yourself:

Are we talking street gang, or are we talking rich bastards in suits/mafia-like gang?

A subset of this question would be, say, for a street gang: are we talking a bunch of troubled teenagers banning together and doing shit, or are we talking some VIOLENCE like the Crips v. Bloods? For suits, are we talking a small time mafia? Or a big time mafia? Or a sinister cult fueled by the rich members?

What do they do? What is standard gang activity for them?

Are they passing out dime bags of cocaine to stupid kids or are they kidnapping people off the streets and harvesting their organs in Red Rooms for money?

What’s the leader’s end goal?

What are they trying to accomplish by running a gang? How do they recruit their members?

What are the internal affairs like?

Are they big enough/organized enough to warrant different “levels” of titles? What happens when/if they start getting bigger? How do they handle it? What do they do to people who want out? What do they do to traitors?

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday!

Our fine press selection this week comes out of the summer “High Jinks” of The Bohemian Club – an elite and exclusive social club for men based in San Francisco. In the summer of 1940, surrounded by redwoods, a group of prominent white men put on an original play for other prominent white men. Saul was written by Benjamin Allen Purrington (1894-1960), and draws from the struggles between Samuel and Saul in the Old Testament – struggles, he suggests, “analogous to those of our own unhappy times.” The book contains notes on the music by composer Charles Hart, as well as several illustrations by Albert J. Camille (1904 - 1981). San Francisco’s Grabhorn Press printed and bound the book in a limited edition of 1,300 copies. The typeface is Lutetía and the text is printed in black with red marginal captions. The decorative board binding displays a pattern of male figure in blues and purples.

In his biography of the Grabhorn Press, Roby Wenz indicates the high honor it was when Edwin Grabhorn was elected to The Bohemian Club – and how this meant the Press was now part of The Club’s establishment. Printing each summer’s “High Jinks” was now a yearly responsibility, though it was “seen usually as a piece of annual drudgery, seldom if ever worthy of the Press’s best efforts” (102).

The Club was formed in 1872 by a small cadre of newspaper men, who, according to a 1980 profile in American Heritage, “imagined themselves, on no substantial evidence, to be the artistic elite of a provincial city.” Before long however, the organization “succumbed to an irresistible urge” to admit capitalists, and was soon “led by men who would never before have called themselves ‘bohemian,’ much less have fraternized with newspapermen.”

Saul contains an extensive list of credits, highlighting all the men who performed the play, danced or sang in the chorus, played for the orchestra, assisted in constructing sets or designing costumes, or contributed in numerous other ways. One woman also appears! A Miss Betty Horst is thanked for help with choreography, though it is unclear if she was welcomed at the production.

Occasionally select women are invited to attend or become “honorary members” of The Bohemian Club. After a lawsuit, the company was forced to allow women to work for The Club, along with all the other employees allegedly falling victim to wage theft.

Recent guests and members include Sam Altman and Harlan Crow.

Read more about The Bohemian Club and its significance through an extensive study by UC Santa Cruz Emeritus Professor G. William Domhoff.

View more posts on the Grabhorn Press.

View other Fine Press Friday posts.

-- Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[thecreaturecodex]

Sumbreiva

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[I almost skipped this one. As far as extraplanar Predator analogs, I prefer the astral stalker, which I have already converted. But making your Most Dangerous Game species native to the Negative Energy plane is interesting, and I do love dealing with Pathfinder's logic of the economy of souls.]

Sumbreiva CR 16 LE Outsider (extraplanar) This humanoid giant has blue-black skin and a vaguely leonine cast to their face. Tendrils of shadow writhe around their hands, and the creature carries a cruel blade.

Sumbreivas are hunters of souls, beings native to the Negative Energy Plane. Their society is centered on collecting souls as trophies and displaying them for prestige. Most sumbreivas belong to a Night Lodge, a fraternal organization that is the closest thing they have to families. The Lodge itself is a repository and showroom for souls that have been collected by its members—the more formidable the soul, the brighter it glows. The greatest ritual of a Night Lodge is the Night Hunt. All of the sumbreivas of a Lodge travel to another plane for one night, competing to collect the most powerful souls. The winner of these competitions becomes the leader of the Lodge until the next Night Hunt, and especially powerful souls may be submitted to the Twilight Lodge, the ruling organization of the lodge system, for potential inclusion.

Sumbreivas are remarkably stealthy despite their size, and usually attack from ambush. Sumbreivas favor long knives, which they refer to as huntblades, as their primary weapon. They also can extend tendrils from their own shadows in order to grab prey and drain their souls. When a sumbreiva makes a kill, it howls in triumph, striking panic into other creatures and making them run—the better to chase. A lone sumbreiva is dangerous, but they are much worse in combination, flanking and feinting prey in order to make even more lethal strikes.

Sumbreivas view their soul-collecting hunts as part of maintaining the balance of the planes. They care little for the alignment or religion of their victims, just the power, and so keep powerful quintessence from flowing back into the River of Souls. A few sumbreivas are willing to bargain with their soul trophies for magic items or information, but being caught doing so is grounds to be ejected from a Night Lodge. Sumbreivas are composed of quintessence themselves, unlike their neighbors the sceaduinars, and are thus capable of imagination and creativity. Sceaduinars view sumbreivas with envious contempt, plagiarizing their designs while simultaneously trying to avoid their direct attention.

As sumbreiva hunters gather souls, they absorb bits of quintessence from their victims. Over the centuries, a sumbreiva’s body physically transforms to mirror the forms of its most powerful trophies. The greatest sumbreivas are titanic in size and consider creatures like kaiju and demigods to be appropriate prey. When advancing a sumbreiva by Hit Dice, grant it a new universal monster ability, a new natural attack or a new movement speed for every CR increase it gains. For every two points of CR higher than 16, increase the sumbreiva’s size category by 1, to a maximum of Colossal at CR 22 or higher.

Sumbreiva CR 16 XP 76,800 LE Large outsider (extraplanar) Init +9; Senses darkvision 120 ft., Perception +26, scent, see in darkness

Defense AC 31, touch 19, flat-footed 21 (-1 size, +9 Dex, +1 dodge, +12 natural) hp 243 (18d10+144) Fort +14, Ref +20, Will +15 Immune death effects, energy drain Defensive Abilities negative energy affinity

Offense Speed 50 ft. Melee +1 short sword +26/+21/+16/+11 (1d8+9/17-20), shadow tendril +20 (2d4+4 plus grab) or 2 shadow tendrils +25 (2d4+9 plus grab) Ranged +1 short sword +27 (1d8+9/17-20) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with shadow tendril) Special Attacks claim soul, constrict (2d4+9 plus energy drain), energy drain (2 negative levels, Fort DC 23), howl of triumph, huntblade brutality, sneak attack +2d6

Spell-like Abilities CL 18th, concentration +22 3/day—deeper darkness, dimensional anchor

Statistics Str 26, Dex 29, Con 26, Int 23, Wis 20, Cha 19 Base Atk +18; CMB +27; CMD 47 Feats Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Dodge, Greater Feint, Improved Critical (short sword), Improved Feint, Improved Vital Strike, Stand Still, Vital Strike Skills Bluff +25, Climb +26, Intimidate +25, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, nature) +24, Knowledge (planes, religion) +27, Perception +26, Stealth +34, Survival +34, Swim +26; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth, +8 Survival Languages Aklo, Necril

Ecology Environment any land or underground (Negative Energy Plane) Organization solitary, pair, band (3-6) or lodge (7-12 plus 0-3 superior sumbreivas) Treasure standard (Large +1 short sword, other treasure)

Special Abilities Claim Soul (Su) As a move action, a sumbreiva can claim the soul of a creature they killed within the last minute. This functions as a soul bind spell as a supernatural ability, except there is no saving throw and requires no focus object. Instead, the soul is transformed into a Diminutive luminous object called a soul trophy. A soul trophy cannot be destroyed by damage, but by touching the trophy and speaking the word “freedom” in any language, the soul can be released to the afterlife. Howl of Triumph (Su) When a sumbreiva knocks out an opponent, it may howl as an immediate action. All creatures within 30 feet that can hear the sumbreiva must succeed a DC 23 Will save or be panicked for 1 minute. Sumbreivas are immune to the howl of triumph of other sumbreivas. This is a mind influencing fear effect and the save DC is Charisma based. Huntblade Brutality (Ex) A sumbreiva treats all short swords as if they were thrown weapons with a range increment of 30 feet. They also can use their sneak attack ability with a short sword against enemies with the shaken, frightened or panicked conditions, or enemies with a negative level.

[yurikosinterlude]

HI BFFL YURIKO‼️‼️‼️ I WANTED TO GREET YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR (im not sure if its today or tomorrow for your timezone eym sorry☹️) BUT ANYHOW I HOPE U HAVE GOOD FORTUNE THIS YEARRRRRRR!

ANYWAY would you write hitoshi shinsou as a frat guy and reader as someone who is apart of the honor roll for me THANK UUUUUUUUUUU HEARTS HUGS AND KISSES ><

-❄️

HIII TYSM!! AND YES OFCC!!!

⋘ brain-dead 👾 hitoshi s. ⋙

pairing: fratboy!hitoshi shinsou x honorroll!gender neutral reader summary: two presidents, one game of "seven minutes in heaven", and one very annoying ex boyfriend. cw: college!au, mentions of alcohol, profanity wc: 1.5k words nawt proofread! T-T

'why did I even come to this..?' was the only thought you had in your brain as the sounds of people laughing and talking mix with the edm playing from the incredibly bass booted speakers. you stood in a corner of the ridiculously crowded living room, holding a red solo cup filled with whatever the hell was in that punch bowl. this was one of alpha delta phi's "famous" house parties you always turned down invitations to. you weren't here out of choice though.

you were recently elected class president after tenya iida resigned and took your place as class secretary, and the other members of the student council thought it would be a good idea for the president to explore more of the activities that the student body of U.A. university partook in, and to your misfortune, attending one of these parties was at the top of the list. although you had an aversion to the parties they hosted, you weren't unfamiliar with the fraternity itself.

you had a very public relationship with one of its most popular members, eijiro kirishima in your first year of college. he was attractive, yes, but also incredibly stupid and hyper-focused on his masculinity, which ultimately led him to breaking it off with you because your relationship didn't make him feel "manly enough". whatever that means.

since then, you've avoided relationships and the fraternity all together. but all that avoiding was for nothing seeing as you're standing in the exact same building, on the exact same date your hatred for this organization was born two years ago.

you take a sip of the unknown drink only to immediately spit it out. 'gross.' you head to what seemed like the kitchen and scanned around for a diet coke or something to keep yourself sane for the next two hours you had challenged yourself to stay.

while searching for something actually drinkable, you notice a tall figure in the corner watching you. he held a cigarette in one hand, and a red solo cup in the other, routinely taking a puff of the cigarette or a sip of his drink. as you subtly inch closer, you make out his features. he was tall, but no taller than 5'10, he had messy, wavy indigo hair pulled slightly back in a backwards cap. he wore a black sleeveless shirt and some khaki shorts, typical for a frat boy.

"take a picture, it'll last longer." you say to the figure, pouring a can of soda in a clean cup. he chuckles, taking another puff from his cigarette. he steps closer, coming into the light. he had prominent dark circles under his eyes, made visible by the light. he appeared slim through his shirt, but his arms were muscular and really defined. this must be one of those "sleeper builds" everyone talks about. you continue to examine this strange man when suddenly, he clears his throat.

"now you're staring." he says, slightly smirking. he looks you up and down, analyzing you. "why haven't I seen you before?" he asks, this time throwing his cup in the trash and continuing to take puffs of the cigarette. "I don't normally come to parties." you say, taking a sip of your soda, "I was kinda forced to this one." you explain your situation to him, telling him about your challenge from the student council to stay at the party for at least 3 hours to "mingle" with the student body at this, according to your words, "stupid party". "damn." he says, "class president, huh, you're y/n l/n then, right?" puff. "I've heard a bunch about you, people don't seem to like you very much." puff. "I guess my reputation precedes me." you say, filling up your still half full cup with another can of soda. "on the topic of names," sip. "what's yours? maybe I've heard of you." sip. "hitoshi shinsou." says the purple-haired boy. shit.

unfortunately for you, hitoshi just so happened to be the newly-elected president of the fraternity after the former president graduated your freshman year. hitoshi was also the one in charge of throwing the parties hosted on campus grounds.

"I am so sorry oh my gosh. I promise I don't mean what I said about the party, I-" "It's fine." he chuckles, "I hate parties. I didn't even want to be the one in charge of them, I'd rather be in bed watching tiktok or something." hitoshi said, which sent a huge wave of relief over you. "Is that why you're not out there with the rest of your brothers partying like an animal?" you said, pouring yet another can of soda. he chuckles again, "yeah I'm not really the people type, and besides, all these guys do is just hump on each other and think it's hot." you laughed at this.

it's funny because it's true. come to think of it, the night you met kirishima, the first thing you saw was him twerking on his friend denki. "I wasn't planning on going back out, but I will if you join me." you offer, kind of happy you found someone normal at this stupid thing. "fine." he says, "but, you have to play at least one game with me." puff. "deal." you say, and you both walk to the crowded danger-zone of a living room.

games? did they play games at things like this? you'd always pictured college parties to be a bunch of people groping each other and pouring alcoholic beverages all over the place. it brought you some comfort to know that they played games. monopoly maybe?

you walked into the living room, where a bunch of people were sat down criss cross apple sauce in a big circle. perhaps duck duck goose? no. it was a stupid game with a misleading name. "seven minutes in heaven", bullcrap. it felt like hell. the moment it was your turn to spin the bottle, it just about landed on kirishima. if it weren't for some angelic force that inched the bottle a little over, you would've been seriously screwed. instead, it landed on...hitoshi?

you didn't think that hitoshi would be the type to kiss a random person he'd met, so you were fine being trapped in a room with him for seven minutes. immediately there were "ooohs" and "aaahhs" from the rest of the people in the circle, and your face started to feel hot. hitoshi suddenly grabs your hand and runs upstairs. his hands were cold, slightly bigger than yours, but his grip was firm. he opened the door to a room and locked you both inside it.

the room was nice, there were LED strip lights decorating the tops of the walls. they were purple, like hitoshi's hair, as was most of the decor of the room, so you assumed it was his. you sat down on his bed, analyzing the room. he sat down on a black and purple gaming chair, his arms behind his head, and his eyes closed. "now, we wait." you couldn't help but stare at him, his arms, he really was built.

"take a picture, it'll last longer." he said, eyes still closed. "whatever.." you scoffed, rolling your eyes. you could hear the people outside of the door, giggling and shushing each other, when you heard kirishima tell someone to shut up. your jaw clenched and you felt your face getting hot. it was stupid, just hearing his voice seemed to have such an affect on you, like nothing else mattered, like you were brain-dead. suddenly, an idea popped in your head.

you get up from the bed and race toward hitoshi. "kiss your hand." you whisper. "huh..?" hitoshi asks confused, "are you drunk? I mean you did have a lot of white claws.." he asks. "wait, white claws aren't sodas..?" you ask. "no.." he responds. "just do it." hitoshi begins planting kisses on his palm, still looking at you confusedly. "louder." you say, typing something on a doc on his computer. and he kissed his hand louder, loud enough to where the people outside of the door could hear. the giggling became louder.

you had finally finished writing on his computer and signaled him to look.

"Look, I know we just met, but I have a huge favor I wanna ask, I don't want to actually kiss you, which I'm sure you also don't want to do, but I was wondering if just maybe you could help me get back at my ex?"

hitoshi grins, "sure, what were you thinking-" you shush hitoshi and put his palm back to his lips, starting to type again. you finish typing on his computer again, and wait for him to look. he looks at the screen and pauses, and then a devilish grin paints his face.

the timer goes off and you hear knocks from outside of the door, "okay love birds, you can come out now!" hitoshi grabs your hand again, opening the door. he takes you downstairs to the living room with the crowd still following you. "did you guys actually kiss?" you hear a girl say behind you. "of course we did", he says, "why wouldn't I kiss the person I'm dating?"

.

.

.

a/n: I really hope you enjoy this! I've never really watched mha so I don't know if this is in character for shinsou or not, but I still hope you enjoy! pt.2 maybe?

yurikosinterlude ©️ 2024 ❁ pls don't plagiarize, copy, repost, or translate my works at all ❁ (or atleast without creds :3)

[eretzyisrael]

Two weeks ago I urged the UNC fraternity brothers who stood up to pro-Hamas rioters at their college by protecting Old Glory from desecration to use the half million dollars raised for them for something more worthwhile than a big party.

Why not use these funds instead to create a database that identifies every single one of the Hamas protesters who attempted to take over the UNC campus so that future employees will have a resource when it comes time to hire graduates? Why not then use that UNC database as the starting point for a nationwide database, to identify other Hamas protesters who took over colleges at every other university?

It seems that database already exists, called Canary Mission, which was revealed to me first in this somewhat hostile news article on May 12, 2024 from the Times of Israel, which seems more interested in protecting pro-Hamas rioters from the consequences of their actions than defending Jews and Israel from attack.

The goal of Canary Mission is very straight-forward, and utterly legal. From its About webpage:

Canary Mission documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond. Canary Mission investigates hatred across the entire political spectrum, including the far right, far left and anti-Israel activists. Canary Mission is motivated by a desire to combat the rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses. We pursue our mission by presenting the words and deeds of individuals and organizations that engage in anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry on the far right, far left and among the array of organizations that comprise the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Canary Mission gathers content from publicly available sources. We aggregate this information into a concise and easily searchable format, providing free access to the general public. Before publication, all content is verified, meeting our high standards of accuracy and authenticity.

It also provides a method for individuals to dispute its claims, and get removed from the list. As far as I can tell, so far no one has succeeded in getting removed, probably because the evidence of their anti-Semitic behavior is easy to document.

The student list is easy to scan, providing the name and picture of each individual, plus specific informatoin about what they did and where they attend school. There are also similar lists of professors, professionals, and organizations.

Book mark this webpage. It has a search function. Use it when ever someone wants a job with you, or wishes to partner with you in any capacity. You need to know who you are dealing with, at a deeper level then anything they will be willing to tell you.

[anarchistin]

Anarchism is the ‘inheritance’ of the dispossessed, the legacy of slaves and fugitives, toilers and recalcitrant domestics, secret orders and fraternal organizations.

It is the history that arrives with us—we those who exist outside the nation, as the Stateless, as the dead, as property, as objects and tools, as sentient flesh.

In meeting the heinous violence of the colony and the plantation, we have resisted, we have battled, we have fought to defeat our oppressors, we have struggled to live and to survive. In this protracted war, we have created networks of mutual aid, maroon communities, survival programs, and circles of care.

We are Black in anarchy because of how we have lived and how we live.

We are Black in anarchy.

– Saidiya Hartman, Black in Anarchy: Foreword to William C. Anderson's The Nation With No Map (2021)

[femmescripter]

The Blonde & the Brush - A Blonde!Max Maxley Tidbit

Ever since Max became open about his true honey blonde hair, he's been more attentive of caring for his natural golden tresses. Shampooing, conditioning and proper moisturizing routines for his hair/fur type. It's been a new but also exciting adjustment. For so long Max has hidden his hair - either under a hat or with black dye. And now he's being more open about it. But there's one part of his blonde hair/fur that's especially difficult to deal with. His tail. Flexible as he is Max has difficulty reaching around to brush the full length of his tail. And it hurts too much to pull it around to brush. So he can only suck it up with a half-done job, and it's honestly starting to get on the Labradoodle's nerves. When Max vents about his irritation over his grooming struggles to Bradley one day at the skate park, the senior looks from Max and then looks at his long, fluffy blonde tail. Then he looks back at his boyfriend and says something he did not expect to hear. "I can brush your tail." Max blinks in surprise at this. Not that he was offended - but he didn't think Bradley would be up to such a thing, led alone offer it to him. He asks if he's sure as Max's tail is very thick and curly. Bradley assures him that it's fine and even offers Max to come to his room at the Gamma House where they can be alone. The freshman blushes at this, as he's never been alone with Bradley in his room. But Bradley is a gentleman - and is clearly earnest about doing this. So how can he refuse? Later that same day Max arrives at the Gamma House with Bradley, and is immediately greeted by Tank, Slouch, Kevin, Boris, Federico and Shades. Bradley tells his fraternity brothers not to disturb him and Max as they'll be in his room while he brushes Max's tail. Of course the other Gammas all make cooing sounds and kissy faces, which Bradley quickly shoots down by threatening them with cleaning all of the windows of the frat house. Max just giggles at the friends busting each other's chops and follows Bradley to his room. As expected, Bradley's room is the picture of organized opulence. Expensive sports memorabilia, trophies from past accomplishments, family photos and a king-sized bed with silk bed sheets and a thick comforter. The Saluki instructs Max to sit on the bed and Max does so, making sure to lay his tail out flat. Bradley takes a moment to admire Max's tail. It's so gorgeous, just like the rest of his little macaron. The soft curls look like spun gold. And as Bradley gently picked up his tail to hold, he was in awe of how soft it was. He was so tempted to give into his baser canine instincts and shove his face into Max's tail to smell it. But he stayed strong, asking Max for the brush and began to do the job he promised. The pair sat there like that for a good twenty minutes - having pleasant small talk while Bradley brushed the Labradoodle's tail from base to tip. Max was smiling widely from how nice it felt to have his tail fully brushed. And the fact that Bradley, his boyfriend, was taking such good care of him meant a lot. Finally, Bradley finished brushing Max's tail and asked him what he thought. Max stood up in front of the full-length mirror Bradley had in his room to get a good look at his tail and smiled even more. His tail looked well-kept for a change. Amazing how an even brushing can change a person. Max sat down next to Bradley once more and hugged him before leaning up to kiss him softly on the lips. "Thanks, Brad. You're a terrific stylist." The Saluki flushes cherry red all over but tried to maintain a nonchalant bravado as he said it was no problem and that terrific is all he can do. Max just rolled his eyes in amusement but still maintained the hug. And Bradley soon returned the hug back. Since then - it's been Max and Bradley's little tradition of Bradley brushing Max's tail. And Max even returns the gesture by combing Bradley's hair. All around a sweet turn out for what was once a great bother.

I just thought of this, so I hope you all enjoy it! Especially @ashfault2nd who previously made a beautiful bust of Blonde Max from my headcanon. Go check them out!