#breathing sucks and I don’t even have any allergies >:(

[9ofspades]

It’s disability pride month, and if you are disabled in the U.S. from Long Covid I want you to know that you’re not alone, and you’re valid in whatever you feel. Whether that’s sorrow at your new problems or rage at society for failing you, you are valid, and it is truly messed up that society is continuing to fail you.

[crowrave]

hhhhhhhot chocolate

yummy

[miaoua3]

Stay The Night?

Pairing: CEO! Choi Seungcheol x f!reader

Genre: shamless smut (MDNI), piv sex, oral (both receiving), mentions of the ex (ew), hickeys and scratches, no protection (don’t be silly wrap the willy guys, don’t make me smack you all),marking in general, possessive choi seungcheol, smallest amount of spanking, squirting

Description: after spending the night with the CEO and (unsuccessfully) trying to sneak away, Choi Seungcheol asks you to stay the whole day and later on, even the night. Will you say yes?

Or

Basically part 2 to “Stay The Morning?”

Note: late present from me to you for 1000 followers on tumblr and 10k on tiktok🥰🫶 and also because i had the chance of smelling creed aventus aka the perfume cheol uses more regularly than the one i smelled that inspired part one of this and i got the urge to suck this mans dick so….bon appetit🥰

Warnings: yet again barely proofread lol im sorry i just hate doing that

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“take that dress off and get back in here, i want cuddles…and maybe something more.”

and who were you to deny him anything?

well, you were you, and so naturally you cross your arms over your chest, tilting your head to the side as a playful smile spreads on your face, in a mockingly offended voice you said “i’m not taking anything off or letting you anywhere near me until you brush your teeth and feed me something. what, you thought the last night was completely free? you’re a businessman, you should know better honey.”

cheol chuckles deeply as he stretches, the blanket slowly sliding down his bare torso, giving you a delicious view of his chest, ribs becoming more prominent the further he reaches with his hands above his head.

groaning in satisfaction, he then throws the whole blanket off of him before sitting on the edge of the bed, softly messing with his bed hair. looking at you with the cutest smile, he then gets up.

in only his boxers. the muscles all over his body softly flexing. his thighs looking deliciously big as he takes the slow steps towards you.

sweet baby jesus.

the moment he’s standing right in front of you in his naked glory, you feel your throat go dry with need and desire.

well i’ll be damned, i already got my christmas present, and it’s not even december.

almost as if he can sense your thoughts, cheol chuckles deeply before quickly dipping his head lower so he can press a gentle kiss on your neck, his tongue lightly grazing your skin. goosebumps irrupt all over your skin at his action, a shaky breath leaving your mouth as he moves away a little, just enough for his face to end up right in front of your own.

staring at your eyes, his own a deep shade of brown, almost black with desire, cheol slowly exhales, almost like he’s trying to control himself.

stretching to his original height, he then takes ahold of your dress with his fingers, lightly tugging on it.

“you should go take a shower while i make breakfast, this dress must be uncomfortable to wear. i will have someone deliver you some clothes before you’re done in the bathroom.”

you raise an eyebrow, amusement playing in your eyebrows.

“or you could, y’know, give me one of your shirts. like all the normal guys do.”

something dark suddenly appears in his eyes, the little smile that has been tugging on the edges of his lips disappears at your words.

he takes another slow step towards you, so that there’s barely any space left between your warm bodies. looking down on you, he darkly says “i’m not like other men. you should know that until know, baby.”

you swallow hardly, but not out of fear or anything like that.

you swallow because that was so fucking sexy of him.

good lord, i need him again, as soon as possible.

he then slowly kisses your cheek, like a gentleman that he is, before he takes ahold of your hand and starts pulling you out of the bedroom.

“c’mon, i’ll show you where the bathroom is and how everything works. any special wishes for breakfast? anything you prefer or not? allergies? would you like coffee or tea maybe?”

you chuckle at his questions, quickly stopping him to gently kiss his cheek before looking at him with your doe eyes.

“coffee is fine, i’m not that big on breakfast but you have spent all of my energy last night, so maybe something light but filling would be good. and i’m not allergic to anything, not that i know at least. now, before you start to terrorise the kitchen, brush your teeth, romeo.”

you push him through the entrance of the bathroom door, his skin soft and gentle to the touch as you do so.

cheol just chuckles before he starts rummaging through his drawers, finally finding you a spare toothbrush so you both can get rid of the morning breath.

as you stand side by side, dutifully brushing your teeth, you both sneak glances of each other in the mirror.

you eyes focus on his bare chest and how they move with every little movement, how his soft stomach jiggles a bit too, as well as the dark happy trail on his lower stomach. the way his biceps pops put by him holding his arms so high is just as delicious as the rest of him.

his own eyes are trained on your face, how beautiful it looks with barely any makeup from last night left. but also because he’s only a man after all, he lets his eyes also travel down your body, lingering on how your boobs jiggle as you continue brushing your teeth.

what can he say, he’s a weak man.

after you’re done, you kick him out of the bathroom in order to take a quick shower, almost letting a “wanna join me?” slip out of your mouth, but he leaves before you can do as much.

the warm water feels amazing on your aching muscles, relaxing you so much so that you almost fall asleep while standing.

after a few minutes, you finish up in the shower, looking around for the clothes that he promised you, but to no avail.

just as you open the door to yell for help, you notice a bag waiting for you on the doorstep.

opening it, your jaw drops at what you find inside.

white lingerie. with a white slip on and a white silky robe, accompanied by white house slippers.

this sneaky little-

“so, is this what the big-shot and ceo of the prestigious company, choi seungcheol, dreams at night? what he lusts for and what he desires?”, you say as you walk in the kitchen, crossing your arms over your chest, raising an eyebrow at him as you wait for an answer, signaling to your outfit with your head.

cheol just smiles innocently, his eyes just two lines from how wide he’s smiling.

“no, this is what a simple man who you have wrapped around your finger, cheol, dreams of.”

you roll your eyes with a smile at the smoothness of his answer, failing to add anything else to his answer.

he then pulls out a chair and points with his hand for you to sit on it. not used to this type of treatment from men, you almost giggle as you sit down.

he sits right beside you, taking your plate in his hand and slowly filling it with all the food that he made (which is way too much amount of food for two people, or so you think until you see him devour everything like he hasn’t eaten in months.)

you chat lightly as you eat, laughing at some of his very badly made jokes-is the laugh out of pity or because he’s just so cute? you will never tell know.

“so, any plans for today?”, he suddenly asks you.

you look up, pondering for a moment if you had anything planned, but nothings comes to mind.

“no, not really. maybe clean my apartment a bit? haven’t done that in a minute, understandably so.”, you chuckle emotionlessly, thinking about how your heartbreak prevented you from functioning normally.

cheol just gives you a weird look, not understanding why you would say that.

it is in that moment that you realise that he doesn’t know anything that has happened with your ex three weeks ago.

you reluctantly sigh, looking him directly in the eyes. “not to be party pooper, but i actually broke with my ex just a few weeks ago, because i found him cheating on me. with his coworker. in my bed. in my apartment. in my silk sheets. that i paid for. with my money.”

for a second there’s no sound coming from either of you, when you suddenly starts giggling a bit, wiping away a little imaginary tear, you continue “you could say that i’m a bit bitter-“, and then you take a look at him.

cheol just looks at you, or rather somewhere past you, his eyes murderous, hand gripping his fork so tightly it could snap in two any second.

your breath catches in your throat, an unfamiliar emotion overcoming you.

finally looking you directly in the eyes, still with the same look in them, he asks darkly “what’s his name?”

you gulp, looking away as you quietly say “it’s not important, I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

sensing that your mood has changed for the worse, cheol breathes in deeply and then out as a way to calm himself down before taking your hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of it as he quietly says “for the record, he doesn’t realise just what hell of a woman he lost. and that his loss is somebody else’s gain, so. he’s stupid, who in their right mind would cheat on you?”.

your eyes move to look at him, his eyebrows scrunched a bit as if this is hurting himself.

you can’t remember the last time that a man went out of his way to make you feel so seen and appreciated. it makes your heart do this weird thing. like it stops beating for a moment but also like it sped up by a big notch.

you smile gently at him before you lean towards him and, for the first time since you two woke up, gently kiss his lips for a moment.

pulling away, you just respond “let’s finish eating before it cools off.”

seungcheol, as if in a daze from your kiss, just nods a bit, a dopey smile taking up half of his face.

you quickly finish up, helping him put the dishes into the washer before he leads you to the humongous leather couch that is right in front of even more humongous tv.

he sits down first, right in the middle of it before he pulls you down. seemingly he had a vision for everything that is happening right now, because before you can even get comfortable, he pulls your legs over his thighs, letting a hand rest on the bare thigh, massaging it lightly as he wraps his other arm around your shoulders, your head falling on his shoulder as he does.

well, okay then you think to yourself as you wrap your own arm around his bare stomach, rubbing his hip gently.

he turns on the tv, more so as a background noise, before he starts asking you all sorts of questions- what your hobbies are, who the two friends from last night were, where you are from as in like the city, you favourite colour and many other questions, the weirdest one being “have you ever thought how the dogs think? like are they barking in their mind, or is it maybe english or korean? or whatever the language of the country they’re in is? what about deaf dogs?”

you spend hours talking and laughing, for the most part you. he tells you the stories of his childhood, stories of his brother and how he accidentally smacked him with a baseball bat on the hand which inevitably ended up being broken, how he fell from the tree, stories about his friends who he met in college and still talks to on the daily, calling them “his kids”, all while he traces the hickeys and bite marks on your neck and shoulders.

you two talk until your mouth gets dry and he fetches you a glass of water for it.

deciding that he should take a shower, he says that you can put whatever you want on the tv and watch it while he does so, saying he won’t take long before he disappears behind the door.

you turn something random on, a documentary you think??? when you suddenly realise that you haven’t been on your phone the entire time, just like you haven’t heard from your friends since the last night.

looking around for it, you find it on the little table in front of the large window, the one you stood in front of as seungcheol kissed you for the first time.

you turn it on to see hundreds of messages and missed calls from jihyo and sana.

the last message from your group chat read “that’s it, if she doesn’t answer in the next 10 minutes, i’m calling the police.”

the message was sent 7 minutes ago.

lucky.

you sheepishly reply with an “heyyy guys haha what’s up”

you immediately get spammed with the messages, variating from “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN” to “WAS THE DICK GOOD”.

i think it’s pretty clear which one of them sent which message.

you respond that you are still at cheol’s to jihyo’s message and that you probably will be home later tonight and that you can meet up then for the detailed story time of your escapades, and you respond with a photo of your collarbones and neck full of hickeys to sana’s message, sending a little wink emoji.

you can see that both of them are losing their minds, writing messages all in cap locks. just as you were about to read them all, you hear the door of the bathroom unlock.

you write a quick “gotta go, the man of the hour is back from his shower, gotta go and make him sweaty again ;)” before turning your phone off and focusing on him.

the sight makes you want get down on your knees and send a quick thank-you prayer to the god.

because there stood cheol, in all his naked and wet glory, black wet hair messily falling on his forehead.

and he only had a towel wrapped around his hips.

you unconsciously bite your lip as you watch him, sitting up straight as you see him walk towards you.

he finally stops right in front of you, his hips on the same level as your face. you go from looking at his happy trail to slowly raising your eyes to look him the eyes, his bulky form towering over you.

his dark eyes are trained on your face, his eyes as dark as midnight as he watches your teeth bite your lips in need.

his hand comes to your face, before his thumb slowly pulls on your bottom lip, releasing it from your teeth.

you don’t put any effort in closing your lips, letting them stay agape.

the same thumb starts to rub your lip, lightly dipping inside your mouth, your tongue poking it unconsciously.

suddenly, in the deepest voice ever, he says two words that make you completely lose all your self control.

“pretty girl.”

you grab his arm and pull him down towards you. he gasps in shock as he starts falling down. luckily, he has fast reflexes, so he quickly grabs the backrest of the couch, so he’s bent over you.

you loop your arms around his neck and pull him closer so you can kiss him.

cheol groans the moment he feels your lips on his, tongue prodding, asking for entrance to his own mouth. he obviously grants it, making your tongues meet in a battle for dominance.

you try pulling him even closer, making him kneel with one knee between your own legs. it is a wonder that the towel still stayed on up until this point. adamant on changing that, you use one hand to harshly pull it away, making his half hard on spring free.

like a woman possessed, you quickly use your hold on his neck to pull him to the side, making him fall on the couch.

just as he adjusts so he’s sitting comfortably on it, you slowly stand up in front of him.

eyes trained on you, unblinking, cheol’s mouth fall open when he sees you taking off the white robe, proceeding to take the white slip off too.

cheol never believed in heaven, but as you stood in front of him, in white matching lacy lingerie, with all of his marks on your body from last night, looking like an angel, he truly started to believe that this is the closest to the heaven that he will get.

reaching with his hands towards you, so he can pull you on his lap, you lightly redirect them, holding them in your own.

you are apparently set on giving this man a heart attack at ripe age of 29, because you then proceed to drop to your knees.

right in front of him, between his legs.

with his hard dick right in front of your face.

his dark eyes, pupils blown with desire, trace every movement you make.

you first adjust your hair a bit, so it’s not getting in your way, looking at him with what he can only describe as hunger of a lioness.

keeping the eye contact, you slowly lick the whole palm of your hand, making sure that it’s extra wet with saliva.

cheol gulps.

the moment that that very same hand wraps around his dick, he’s throwing his head back, a loud gasp escaping him at how sensitive it feels. his back comes off the couch, hand looking for anything to grasp on, only finding his towel instead.

you pump him a few times, looking at him, focused solely on his face, to see how he’s reacting to your touch-to you.

his eyes flutter shut, a groan rumbling somewhere from the depths of his chest, his torso expanding with every deep breath he has to take in order to control himself and not cum on your face this very second.

god, that last thought didn’t help him, at all.

you pump his dick some more, your hand not even being able to wrap itself around his dick fully, making you shiver at the thought of having the very same dick inside of you later.

deciding that enough is enough, you slowly lower your face when he’s not paying attention, until your lips wrap themselves around the head of his cock.

cheol moans the second he feels your wet mouth on him.

his eyes barely open themselves, he basically forces himself to keep them open, watching as you slowly push your head down more and more, until half of his dick is inside your mouth, hitting the back of your throat, making you pull back up.

you repeat the motion a few times just as slowly as you did the first time, enjoying his moans and groans every time the head of his dick hits the back of your throat.

deciding that you want him to be a complete mess, you start bobbing your head faster, hand wrapping itself around the base that your mouth can reach.

god, do you love the fact that his dick is so big you can’t even suck it fully.

something you certainly couldn’t say about your ex.

your mouth engulfs him, the wetness of it making him see stars. and when your tongue does that little things where it first wraps around the head, before sliding along his slit, right where he’s the most sensitive?

cheol sends a prayer up in hopes that he won’t cum right this second.

a strand of hair falls into your face, making you scrunch your face in mild annoyance.

seungcheol jumping to opportunity, quickly gathers all of your hair in his hand, making a ponytail out of it.

and as you go on, bobbing your head up and down his dick, saliva sliding down til it reaches his balls. cheol uses his grip on your hair to control your movements, moving your head in fast pace. you choke repeatedly as his dick hits the back of your throat, and seungcheol seems to like that very much, letting out a groan every time he feels your throat close around the tip of his dick.

as tears stream down your face, you feel yourself being so wet, you fear you might start dripping all over his carpet.

god, you truly hope you aren’t, because that is one dry cleaners you cannot afford.

you watch his beautiful face, head thrown back, long and black eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, lips red from him biting on them to suppress his moans.

he’s so beautiful, if you could, you would stay right here, between his legs, just so you can watch his face in pleasure.

“fuck, baby, that mouth. you’re gonna make me cum, ah, shit. look so pretty on your knees for me, sucking on this cock.”, he raps out, every few words interrupted either by a moan or a groan.

you feel him move your head even faster, as well as his hips buckling upwards, a clear sign that he’s close.

“shit, gonna cum in that mouth of yours, ah fuck, baby- you gotta- gotta stop if you don’t want to swallow it- i- ah-.” he continues to blab, but you don’t pay him any mind, focusing on sucking the head every time he moves your head upwards, and tracing the little vein with your tongue every time he pushes it back downwards.

his moans get louder, his hold on your hair gets tighter, hips stuttering as he’s right there, on the brink of cumming.

you remove your mouth completely away from his dick, immediately replacing it with your hand. looking him directly in the eyes, you say the words that finally push him over the edge.

“cum for me baby, all over my face.”

and that does it for him, spurts of pearly white cum falling on your cheeks, nose and lips. the last few drops you catch with your mouth, wrapping your lips around his sensitive head again in favour of swallowing every last drop of his cum, making sure that nothing is wasted and that he’s as clean as possible.

he moans loudly at your action, pulling your head away because he can’t endure the delicious torture.

you both pant, his chest moving up and down fast, beads of sweat gathered around the crown of his head.

you take the opportunity to finally take a deep breath in, feeling a little bit lightheaded due to being deprived of real oxygen for this long.

cheol slowly opens his mouth, looking at the artwork that is your beautiful face decorated with his cum. with a thumb, he swipes a bit of it away, holding it in front of your mouth as an offer.

you don’t hesitate a second before you wrap your lips around his finger, sucking on it like it’s the most delicious thing you have ever tasted.

cheol groans at the sight, quickly using the same hand to wrap it around the back of your neck, pulling you upwards so that he can kiss you. his tongue invades your mouth, massaging your own in such an erotic way it makes you squeeze your thighs together.

with the other hand, he reaches for your thigh, wrapping around the back of it and pulling on it. you gasp at the sheer strength of this man, because he lifts you up from the floor solely by the hold he has on your leg. for a second, you fly through the air, until your knee finds the couch.

you quickly straddle him, careless sitting down on his lap, his dick rubbing against the lacy material of your panties. he gasps at the sensation, still sensitive from the best head he has ever gotten from a woman.

in order to save his dignity, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you against him so your hips lift a bit from his dick, his lips still eagerly kissing, biting and sucking on your lips as he does so.

your hands find their home on his cheeks, holding his handsome face as you kiss him back just as enthusiastically.

at some point, after a few minutes, your lips naturally separate, but they stay close. panting in each others mouth, you use your hold on his cheeks to lightly brush your thumbs against them in comfort.

he takes a deep breath before he says in a hoarse voice “fuck baby, even though you look like an angel, that mouth of yours is so devilish.”

a giggle escapes you, leaving a quick peck on the corner of his lips. “i’ll take that as a compliment.”

he takes the towel to wipe the remains of his cum off your face before he directs your head so it’s resting on his shoulder, leaving a fleeting kiss on your neck.

“gimme a few minutes baby, i will eat you out then so good, you’re gonna cry.”

and your only response is the shiver that runs down your spine.

for a few moments you just sit there on his lap, playing with his hair while his hands rub your back, lips leaving kisses every few seconds across your shoulders and neck.

you breathe in the smell of his shower gel and his natural smell, mixing in a way that it makes your eyes flutter shut on their own.

that’s another thing, you never found anyone to smell so good like you find cheol does. something about his natural smell is just so…him, and manly, and makes you feel safe and protected.

you wish you could stay here forever.

suddenly cheol’s kisses on your neck start to linger a bit longer, a bit wetter, and his hands start to stray a little bit more on your ass than usual.

you shift slightly just to get more comfortable as your legs started cramping, when you feel his half hard on. your mouth fall open upon realising that it’s showtime.

ever so slowly, you move your hips back, almost dragging your clothed pussy over his bare dick, making him inhale deeply at your action.

he lightly nibbles on the shell of your ear, before whispering directly against it “you little devil.”

you turn your head towards him, looking all innocent and coy as you say “but i thought i was an angel according to your previous statement?”

cheol narrows his eyes, before taking your thighs in his hand and picking you up slightly so he can basically slam you against the couch.

you gasp at the action, adrenaline filling your veins more so than the blood does.

he hovers over you, his hands caging you as he leans on them right beside your head.

you look at each other for a second, waiting to see who will play the first move, when suddenly, cheol rolls his hips right into your own, his dick catching on the lace of your panties.

you gasp at the action, nails immediately imbedding themselves into his back, eyes rolling so far back in your head you can see your thoughts.

“bad, bad girl. trying to play all innocent…”, he pauses before he leans even more in, so his lips are right against your ear again “…when just a few minutes ago you were choking on my dick, so prettily and desperately.”

unconsciously you inhale deeply, making him smirk a bit.

“what, don’t tell me you’re still thinking about it? still not satisfied? cumming down your throat wasn’t enough for you?”, and the condescending voice, the smirk, the satisfaction in his voice.

it pissed you off a bit.

harshly grabbing the back of his head, your nails digging into his scalp as you pull him in a harsh kiss, your other hand purposefully dragging your nails down his back, which makes him shiver.

you break the kiss off just as harshly before you answer to his question “no, i’m still not satisfied, so you better get to it, before i found somebody who is willing to do it.”

his eyes turn black with jealousy, fire lighting up in them. within milliseconds, he’s grabbing your neck and kissing you just as harshly as you kissed him, teeth biting harshly on your lips.

you moan as he continues to kiss you, almost like he wants to prove a point to you. teeth clashing, hands clawing at each other, his hand around your neck squeezing tighter and tighter, making you wrap your legs around his hips tighter and pull him into yourself as he does so.

he pulls away aggressively, and his next words sounding like a fact, like it’s written in the stars, linger in the air for a second.

“even if you wanted to, you could never find somebody who would fuck you as good as i do.”

eyes laser focused on each other, you just utter two words as a response.

“prove it.”

getting right to it, his mouth attaches itself on your neck, sucking even more hickeys to the pre-existing ones from last night. while his mouth is busy with marking your skin, his hand wiggles under your back, fishing for the bra clasp. once he finds it, he quickly undoes it, pulling it down your arms before throwing it somewhere over his shoulder with no care whatsoever, even when it sounds like it crashed into what suspiciously sounds like the vase he got from one of his business partners.

choosing not to care, he lets his lips travel from your neck, to your collarbones, over the navel of your breast, straying to one side so he can suck on one of your tits, softly biting your nipple that causes you to moan loudly and grasp his hair in your hands.

he does it for a few more seconds, letting his hand massage the tit that isn’t getting the same attention as the one in his mouth, before resumes kissing a trail down your body.

once he gets down to you hips, he looks up to you over his short bangs that are getting in his eyes. the said eyes look at you like a hawk, preying on you, excited to see your anticipation and shiny eyes looking back at him.

he just lets his lips and nose travel of the skin of your lower belly, making it flex from the tickling sensation. once they reach your left hip, he lets his lips envelope the skin there and suck on it, a hickey forming on its place.

letting his lips pop, he looks up at you as he lets his head move even lower, until his lips are hovering right over the lacy panties you are wearing.

you hold your breath as you wait to see what he next move will be.

god, you hope to god that he will just-

just as the thought crossed your mind, cheol puts his opened mouth over your clothed pussy, prodding at the covered slit with his tongue, paying the special attention to your clit. the fabric that is still on you makes his action all that more stimulating, making you throw your head back as you moan.

hands fly to his still wet hair, pulling on it harshly, maybe in hopes that you can pull him in deeper, make his tongue finally enter your hole.

almost as if he can read your mind, he pushes your underwear to the side with the two of his fingers. the moment he sees your pussy, glistening with wetness, his lips are on you, parting your lips with his tongue, entering your pussy. he swirls his tongue around the entrance, gathering all your precum before swallowing it all, moaning at the taste.

quickly he starts pulling on your underwear, mumbling something along the lines off “off, off, i need these off now.”, before he throws them over his shoulder too.

placing your legs so they are resting on his shoulders, he immediately prods with one of his fingers at your whole, letting your walls swallow it whole. his lips wrap themselves around your clit, sucking on it just the right way.

you close your eyes in pleasure, your desires finally being fulfilled just like you dreamed of them to be.

not only was choi seungcheol a walking dream, sex appeal on legs.

he was also between your legs.

he continues to fuck his finger in you, twisting his hand when he’s pushing it in and un-twisting it when pulling out.

after a minute or so, he pulls the finger completely out in favour of pushing two back in. you squeeze your thighs around his head as he does so, moaning his name.

“cheol…”

choosing to ignore you, he just speeds up his movements, tongue still playing with your clit.

you taste so good on his tongue, it makes cheol close his eyes and groan every time he swallows.

the longer he eats you out, the more careless and messy he gets. he lets saliva cover your whole pussy, almost dripping on his leather couch. he lets his fingers push in and out of you at merciless speed, the fingertips grazing your sweet spot every time he tries to reach deeper inside of your pussy.

it all makes you feel lightheaded, moaning mess, your back arch, so much so that your whole upper body almost lifts off the couch.

“ah! cheol, more, ple-please!”

cheol never one to deny his lady anything, just speeds up his motion, sucking on your clit while his tongue pries at your entrance along with his fingers.

just as you feel yourself on the brink of cumming, your moans getting so loud they ring inside of cheol’s ears, he pulls completely away, slowly getting on his knees to admire the mess that he made of you.

tears streaming down your cheeks, your hair making it look like you have a halo around your head.

your chest heave up and down as you try to regain some of the air, nipples rock hard under his gaze.

your skin so prettily lathered with the hickeys, marking what’s his.

cheol just then realises that he started calling you his inside his head, no other reason other than the fact that you earlier mentioned the possibility of going to other men to get what you want.

he will be damned before he lets that happen.

and then your pussy. god, it looks so pretty, glistening under the light, his spit mixed with your juices, smeared all around your lips and thighs.

cheol was never that interested in art that much, but he’s pretty sure that this-you, is what a masterpiece is supposed to look like.

he suddenly realises that you have been calling his name the entire time, whining and almost crying in frustration-in need.

“cheollie please just-just fuck me already.”, you say as you pull on him with the hold of your legs that have wrapped themselves around his hips.

he immediately leans down over you, caging you with his arms around your head, his lips immediately finding yours in a hungry kiss.

just as his hand reaches down to take his dick so he can finally push it inside your gaping pussy, he suddenly remembers.

fuck, he forgot the condom.

humming in your mouth, he mumbles against them “wait baby, I forgot the condom, let me just get it from the-“, but he feels your legs just tighten around his waist, arms wrapping themselves around his neck, preventing him from getting up.

you mumble through a kiss “if you get up now, i will cry and make myself cum, all without you.”

well, alright then.

cheol just groans at the thought of having his dick in your pussy, with no condom to get in the way of truly feeling the wetness of your pussy.

little to excitedly, he takes his dick in his hand, and for a second just teases your folds with his tip, sliding it up and down, catching on your clit as he pulls it down.

as you start whining softly in desperation, telling him “hurry up” in a soft voice, cheol decides that it’s time.

and then he’s pushing in.

you both gasp at the feeling- you at the mere girth of his cock, and he because of how wet it feels to have his dick in your pussy.

he pushes a bit more in, but once he feels resistance due to you clamping on him almost painfully, he just kisses your cheeks in comfort, mumbling against them “relax baby or i won’t be able to give you all of my cock.”

you breathe in and out in hopes that it will help you relax, and it does, with help of his kisses and his hand rubbing your waist in comfort.

after a minute or so, you nod as a way to tell him that it’s okay for him to move. he continues to pepper little kisses on your face as he pushes his dick more in, groaning every so often at the feeling of your walls squeezing around him.

when he finally bottoms out, cheol lets a big breath out, relieved that he didn’t cum, which he felt multiple times almost happen due to your tight little pussy milking him so much.

i can’t, not yet, she has to cum first before i do.

with that thought, he starts to slowly rock his hips, making a fluid motion out of it. he feels his tip grazing your sweet spot, which makes you gasp and moan lightly, as well as rocking your hips into his a little bit.

you turn your face towards him, your eyes telling him clearly what you want from him.

he immediately kisses you, tongues dancing a beautiful and harmonious dance for a second and then pulling away just to do the same not even a second later.

he continues with the slow pace, rolling hips so professionally it makes you second-guess his profession.

but once you breathlessly whisper “more” against his lips, he’s doubling his pace, his hips slapping against the back of your thighs.

you stop kissing him in favour of moaning directly in his face, which seungcheol seems to enjoy just as much as your kisses.

“feels good, baby? yeah? fuck, you moan so prettily, all for me, only for me, hm? nobody fucks you as good as i do right? the same way nobody begs for my dick as beautifully as you do.”

you try to focus on his words and to answer him, you truly do, but his cock filling your pussy, sliding in and out of you, and hitting your spot repeatedly makes you forget all and every thought, only being able to respond “yes yes yes” over and over.

he groans as your pussy pulses around him, making him quicken his pace even more, his hips and balls slapping almost violently against your skin.

the words keep leaving from his mouth, but you’re just too focused on enjoy him fucking you like nobody has ever before, that you don’t even answer a question he asked you.

seungcheol doesn’t like that.

he stops his hips from moving, and as you open your mouth to complain, he quickly leaves a strong spank on the side of your ass, a gasp leaving your mouth instead.

“i said- is this my pussy, pretty girl? nobody can fuck you the way i do, hm?”

his eyes as black as obsidian, looking for an answer in your tear filled ones.

you nod your head, moaning as you try to rock your hips into his.

cheol doesn’t like that either.

he spanks you one more time, just as hard, a little scream escapes you as he does. “use your words baby, or i won’t make you cum.”

you nod as you respond “yes, yes, only you can, nobody ever fucked me so good as you.”

he kisses you quickly, tongue teasing your lips for a second before pulling away to ask “who does this pussy belong to baby? remind me again.”, he finishes with another spank to your cheek.

you moan as you desperately respond “yours, belongs to you, only you, p-please stop teasing me-“.

before you can continue, he starts fucking you again, hips slamming into you that you feel yourself move upwards on the couch from the mere force.

you scream as he rocks his hips, tears freely falling from your eyes now. you don’t even realise just how tight your nails have imbedded themselves into his back, pretty sure that you are drawing blood from them.

not that cheol seems to mind, he just groans at every little thing you give him, groaning “yes baby, just like that” in your ear.

still, deciding to spare him an ER visit, you switch to pulling on his hair instead.

which seems to be an even better thing, because he in return moans so loudly, eyes scrunched up in pleasure as you do so.

“fuck baby, don’t do that or i’ll cum right now right inside you.”

the thought makes you bite your lips, as well as clam your walls even tighter around him.

he notices this, causing a little smirk to play on the edge of his lips. “oh? would my pretty girl like that? for me to cum inside you? to cream your walls? hm?”

he looks carefully for your reaction, hoping that he isn’t crossing any lines with what he’s saying. but as you nod your head quickly, desperately saying “please! please please please please cum, cum inside of me-“, he just groans, the thought of cumming inside you, painting your walls white while your pussy takes in every last drop makes him almost cum right there and there.

seeing that he can’t go on for much longer, he lets his fingers find your clit, rubbing it just as fast as he’s fucking you, putting on just the littlest of pressure on it, knowing that it’s enough to make you finish.

your scream echoes through the room, hands pulling on his soft but wet hair like a maniac, feeling your end nearing at rapid pace.

“i need you to cum for me princess, now, fuck, cream on it baby, lemme feel you-“

and it’s done, with a cry, you throw your head back, your thighs squeeze his hips and you cum. you cum so hard that you squirt a little all over his thighs, making a mess out of him.

he, seemingly also almost there, just needs a little bit of your help, mainly just you saying “cum, please, cum inside me, need it so bad cheollie-“, he thrusts once, twice before he’s cumming inside of you, moaning in your face as he does so.

rocking his hips for a bit, to make sure that every last drop of his cum is fucked deeply inside of your pussy, he then drops his whole dead body onto your own, his legs shaking from how hard his orgasm hit him.

although he is a bit heavy, you don’t complain at all, instead hugging him even closer, welcoming his bulky body to squish you. it’s almost like it makes you feel grounded, as well as helping you clear up your mind, haziness due to your own finish clearing up the longer he lays there on you.

you two just breathe heavily for a minute, trying to regain your breaths as you rub his back, while his lips softly kiss your neck and cheeks.

he turns your face to his own so that he can kiss you gently, rubbing his thumb on your cheek in comfort.

he breaks the kiss off, his boba eyes looking at you as he gently asks “are you okay baby?”

you just nod your head with a tired smile.

“i didn’t overdo it, right? everything was okay? wasn’t too much?”

your smile spreads a big wider as you whisper “it was perfect…you are perfect.”

he smiles a little before softly pecking your lips, stopping only at one kiss in favour of whispering back “you are the one that’s perfect…my baby.”

you just loop your hands around his neck to pull him towards you, kissing him deeply and slowly, letting all your feelings and words you don’t trust to say out loud speak for themselves through that kiss.

after a minute or so, you feel his dick slowly get hard again, making you realise that he hasn’t pulled out the entire time.

you softly say “sorry about the mess i made on your couch.”

cheol just chuckles as he responds “i could care less about the couch, especially not after i just had you squirt all over it.”

you shyly hide your face in his neck, groaning in embarrassment as he chuckles some more.

suddenly, he grabs your thighs before going to slowly stand up, all while still holding your body wrapped around his.

you gasp as you get picked up, clamping onto his dick as you feel the shift in the angle.

cheol just groans as he starts carrying you towards his room, spanking your ass one more time as he walks.

“i’m not done with you yet.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

after two more rounds of wild and fast sex, you two lay there on his bed, both on your sides as you face each other, a thin blanket covering your bodies as the sweat on your bodies starts to slowly cool off.

seungcheol just looks at your face, almost like he’s in awe that a woman like you is truly in his bed and that has given him a chance, running the back of his finger up and down your cheek as you two quietly talk in what now has turned a dark room. the night slowly crept on you two, which you didn’t even realise until you fell onto the bed after you had just finished riding him into oblivion.

night, which reminds you…

you should slowly go home now.

you push his silky black hair back, looking at his youthful face and small smile.

god he’s so beautiful, I want to see him again.

you smile small, a little bit of bittersweetness visible in it, as you say quietly“i should probably go home soon.”

his mood sours immediately, a pout replacing the smile on his cherry red lips.

the arm that has been wrapped around your waist under the blanket tightens, pulling you closer to his body, almost likes he’s trying to prevent you from getting up.

ever so quietly, he whispers in the mostly dark room “do you have to?”.

the lamp that is turned on and is your only source of light illuminates his handsome face, eyes sparkling from the said light, begging you not to go.

you smile sadly as you respond “i should.”

he stays quiet for a second, teeth gnawing on his lip as he thinks about your words.

you just lean in to leave one last kiss on his lips, letting your presence and smell linger for a bit before you pull away and start to get up.

as you are sitting on the edge of the bed, looking for your things, you hear him shuffle behind you, but don’t pay him any attention, thinking that he’s probably just going to walk you out.

which quickly changes once you feel his arms wrap around your hips from behind, face nuzzling in your neck.

you turn your head to look at him surprised, the top his head only greeting you in return.

he tightens his hug around your waist, his legs spread so that you’re basically sitting between them.

and then, in the quietest and most unsure voice he asks you.

“stay? please? tomorrow is sunday after all…and-and I don’t want you to leave… i don’t want this to be over yet…”

you unconsciously start pouting yourself at his voice, heart breaking at how sad he sounds that you have to go.

you fish with your point finger for his chin, saying a little “cheollie, look at me, please baby.”

after a second or two, he lifts his head from your shoulder, face red from the lack of oxygen.

you smile a little at him before you say “okay, i’ll stay, but tomorrow i really need to go, because i have work on monday and i can’t miss it.”

you pause for a second to gulp your nervousness down before continuing “and…”

he just looks at you with puppy eyes, seeing you get flustered in real time, but doesn’t say anything to interrupt you.

you just look at him a bit embarrassed as you finish “…who says that this has to end?”

cheol just blinks for a second before the implication of your words finally delivers in his head, making a big smile explode on his face.

quickly kissing you, he lets your bodies fall back on the bed, his arms still tightly wrapped around you, making it hard for you to turn around so you can kiss him properly.

god, choi seungcheol, what are you doing to me?

[wordsbyrian]

Would you pls do a Mary earps imagine with them filming TikTok’s together and being otp x

A/n: Not exactly what you asked for but close enough i think.

TikTok is the bane of your very existence.

It’s the bane of your professional life as a chef because everytime you turn around one of your crew is using prep time to make a concoction and upload it to that godforsaken app.

And in your personal life?

Well, in your personal life, it feels like every time you blink you're being sucked into filming one of those stupid videos with your girlfriend.

The first time it happened, you were barely even sure what was going on.

The two of you had been getting ready to go on a date to a relatively nice restaurant, when she pulled up in front of her phone’s camera so she could show off what you were wearing.

That had been the beginning of the madness (as well as a very hard launch of your relationship to the public).

It didn’t really matter what you were doing, if Mary had decided that a video needed to be filmed, it’d be filmed.

A literal walk in the park. TikTok.

You driving. TikTok.

You tearing a member of the kitchen staff a new one. TikTok. (Although she’d been asked not so politely by the head chef to never do that again).

You cooking in your shared flat. TikTok.

Hell, she even made a TikTok of you sharpening your knives, a task you find completely mind numbing.

And if having your every move recorded wasn’t bad enough, she also had you joining her in filming one of the more popular trends. You mouthing along to the silly sounds that are currently popular on the app. Or worse, dancing, you hate the dancing.

Asking how often you think about the Roman Empire (only as often as you need to).

Throwing herself fully clothed into the shower  and singing Taylor Swift while you were trying to brush your teeth.

Making you record a two second clip of everytime you changed clothes while on vacation.

The list is neverending.

Which is why you should be more alarmed when you see her walking into the kitchen  with her phone out but you’re too focused on chopping the vegetables you’ll be using in your meal prep.

 “Baby,” she says.

“Hmm?”

“Can we record a TikTok?”

“Can I keep doing what I’m doing,” you ask in return, still not looking up from the cutting board.

“You don’t need to do anything but stand there and look pretty,” Mary says as she sets her phone up next to you. “And answer questions,” she adds as an afterthought.

You roll your eyes but don’t make any additional comments as you see her hit record.

“So a ton of you have been asking in the comments how my wife manages to be a professional chef when she has so many food allergies,” Mary says, looking directly at the camera. “And I figured it was better if I just let her explain it. Babe?”

Admittedly, you hadn’t really been listening to every word that she had been saying, only really listening to every word that she had been saying, only really catching the words ‘allergies’ and ‘professional chef’, which is a topic you get asked about a lot. So you just answer without really thinking.

“My main allergies are seafood, peanuts and treenuts. And since I’m one of 2 or 3 sous on any given night, I just,” you pause, “wait, what did you just call me?”

You can feel cheeks heating up as your brain finally processes what just happened.

“What? Babe?”

Mary’s playing dumb on purpose. She knows it. You know it. And you both know that the other one knows.

“Not that, the other thing.”

“What my wife,” she asks.

A cheeky grin breaks out on Mary’s face as she watches even more color rush to your face.

For you, when she repeats it, you suddenly feel like you can barely breathe and you know that your next words come out a little choked (much to Mary’s amusement.)

“Yup, that.”

As calmly as you can manage, you put your knife down and take off your apron before walking out of the kitchen.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I have to find my wallet and keys,” you shoot back.

“Why?”

“I gotta go buy a ring before you change your mind!”

The sound of her laughter is the only thing you hear as you close the door behind you.

The video is up on that cursed app by the end of the week.

A photo of the ring on Mary’s finger goes up just a few hours before.

[mochatune]

Solivan brugmansia x reader who’s obsessed with him back hcs

—-

- he first spotted you in the library, something about you brought a sense of deja vu.

- you had spotted him too of course but for different reasons. He was in your spot.

- he knew it was. He had sat there on purpose. After multiple days seeing you, goading himself to speak to you, he found the courage to throw himself as a roadblock so you too would notice him.

- he certainly caught your attention. Cheeks puffed and stomping towards him.

- he wasn’t going to be a suck up and give you back “your spot” as far as he was concerned no ones name was plastered on that seat plus this was his chance to have a proper conversation with you.

- you had briefly considered your options to hopefully persuade him out of the seat, something like coffee crosses your mind. After all there was a cafe right there, but since he wants to be so difficult he doesn’t deserve your money or any more of your time.

- having a moment of courage you stomped up to him and plopped yourself on his lap. You swear the energy in the room became rigged, frozen even.

- it’d been about a minute since he’s moved, he’s been dead still since you sat down; You can’t read your book like this.

- “hey can you relax? You’re making me uncomfortable, I don’t bite.” You added the last part with a subtle smile

- now that he’s actually breathing, you ease yourself into his lap. He doesn’t have much meat on his bones but you’re comfortable regardless.

- feeling his arms rest where your elbows lie on the curvatures of the chair, he’s slightly looking over your shoulder. Looks like he forgot about his own book trailing the pages with you.

- despite your blazing moment of boldness you had felt an anxiety creep in, the way his breath reverberated off the back of your neck made you sweat with pressure. You wished you had gotten a better look at him, only seeing his dark tinted nails and pale hands as you glance down from your book onto the arm rests.

- with the boldness wearing off you decide to focus your attention onto the time. To your luck it’s about time to travel to your next class.

- you get off his lap slowly while giving an apologetic smile for your past behaviour towards his personal space. In the process scanning his features, despite the quick glance he was actually very good looking.

- He had hoped that moment would last forever.

- on your way to class you just couldn’t stop thinking about him, two parts of your brain arguing about wether you wanted to see him again. A new hallway crush at the very least. You too were stuck on his mind.

- lo and behold he’s in your art class, fuck.

- your heart was going to implode as you snuck glances at him accidentally hooking gazes with him. His ears tinted red as the gaze was averted mutually while you probably looked like a strawberry.

- you zoned out the teachers instructions with your own overbearing thoughts, he kept sneaking his way into your consciousness. Him and his dumb cute face.

- he had insisted on drawing you, probably for the better considering anytime you look his way you get jittery. Patiently leaned forward in a 3/4th view.

- you try to act casual, you really do but you just cant maintain eye contact. Looking at him for just a second before you shift your gaze to the wall behind him. Seems to be the same case for him as he occasionally hides his red face behind his sketch pad, must be spring allergies.

- by the end of class he claims he’s only halfway done despite it looking beautiful. You exchange pleasantries before speed walking out. Sol.. Sol you liked that name testing it out a few more times as you walked away.

- tailing behind you he grabs you by the wrist, you feel like a schoolgirl the way he’s approaching you and the worst part is you’re enjoying it. You had just hoped he didn’t hear you.

- upon request you gave him your number for “school related activities” yeah right. At least you’re in the clear. Maybe this means you have a chance with him, fake it till you make it right?

- he stays stuck on your mind all the way home as you hunker on your bed looking at the piles of laundry you’ve been putting off. No matter what else you focus on it comes back to the thought of him.

- you practically pray for another moment of confidence as you hover over his newly added contact. Sighing as you throw your phone next to you.

- ding!

- you practically jump to your phone hoping for sol instead it’s just the group chat you’re in. Despite it not being him at least someone bothered contacting you.

- a Halloween party? ‘Sounds fun’ you text the group chat as you copy the photo and send it to sol. Maybe he’ll go if you invite him.

—-

“A Halloween party? Hosted by the school?”

“Yeah!”

“I'm not quite into parties…”

“Oh…”

- You knew it wasn’t appropriate to grow this attached but you still felt your heart drop.

“Oh! Well, that's alright! Just asking, that's all :)”

- Promptly putting your phone face down next to you saddened.

- ding!

“Wait”

“if you're coming, then I'm coming as well”

“Really?!”

“Really”

- feeling your heart suddenly come burst out

“Do you plan on dressing up?”

“Idk… do you?”

“I mean, it's a costume party, so why not?”

“I'll try to think of something then.”

(The text convo was copy pasted from EchikoHoshisuki on Ao3)

——

- this excited you more then you could ever know, jumping out of bed to go and find a costume and perfect your makeup so it looks bomb for the party.

- you stood awake until 2am thinking about that guy, just what the hell was wrong with you. You wished he’d text you back.

- he couldn’t stop thinking about you, his soulmate as he pleasured himself. He’d hope to have a day like that with you a million more times.

- you finally fall asleep with him still plaguing your mind.

- Saturday is quick to pass as you spend it inside practically rotting in bed, you do have to do laundry before it gets too dark though.

- it’s about 5pm when you head out with your dirty clothing in a janky old cart, the local laundromat is placed conveniently across the street. You roll the dirty wheels over the unpaved side walk, each bump making the cart and the clothing wobble slightly.

- you hang around with a book as you wait for the wash cycle to finish, seemingly unaware of your surroundings.

- after flirting with the idea of reading, two pages later you look up and give the room a swipe. The wash cycle on your machine still has 15 minutes left on it.

- maybe it’d just be better to daydream about the person you’re trying to distract yourself from, seems like it’s a good time waster. You decide to do just that for the remainder of your wash cycle.

- you swear you just saw a lock of green hair

- you must be going crazy, you’re thinking about him so much that it’s like he’s really there.

- you feel a tap on your shoulder.

- Oh he really is there. You make eye contact with his orange hues, feeling a warmth creep up your neck and onto your cheeks.

- fuck

- why does simple eye contact turn you into a mess with this guy.

- deciding to not be a square you perk up and ask him dumb ass small talk questions. You know the; “the weathers nice, huh?”, “how are you?”, “excited for tomorrow?”.

- You knew you were excited for tomorrow. School events didn’t typically get you excited but knowing he would be there made it worth it.

- despite the obvious lack of originality in these conversations starters it was still pleasant speaking with him. Hell, even just staring at him was enough for you. Maybe just thinking about him was good enough to hold you over. For now anyway.

- you wanted to talk more, you really did. Glancing over to your machine you see the wash cycle had just ended. You wanted to wrap your arms around him and kiss him as you bid your goodbyes. He did too. But instead you opted for a wave and a smile, as did he.

- upon coming home and hanging your laundry out on a rack you still thought about him, you were going back to that laundromat the exact same time next week just to talk to him outside of school.

- he lived half an hour away from that laundromat. He had caught a glimpse of you one day while out in your area. No particular reason why he was there.

- he couldn’t stop thinking about you either, deciding to go with his own dirty laundry on the day he saw you. He was so lucky you were there.

- I love him

- I love her

- you force yourself to go to sleep that night. The excitement of tomorrow seeping in.

- you have about an hour before you need to head out, deciding on a simple mummy look. You were told very short notice, this was really all you could pull together. You figure if the makeup looks bomb then no one will pay attention to the lack of originality.

- throwing the look together with white eye contacts to really get that corpse look, you twirl in the mirror and head out. Toilet paper already tearing at your feet.

- upon arrival you see your friend group crowded at the entrance all sporting their unique styles. Brittney was dressed in a gyaru style, typical but it was cute. Jess sporting a simple cat ear headband and a tail, looks like it was short notice for her as well. Lastly, Crowe who seems to have put the most effort in was dressed as a knight in shining armor. Literally.

- you talked to them for a respectable amount of time. They were nice and they looked great your mind was just elsewhere.

- you had to find him, he’s like 80% of the reason you didn’t bail out of the plan. Sure, you went for your friends too but him coming was what really sold the deal. Otherwise you would have found an absurd excuse to stay home and scroll Instagram for hours.

- you inched your way out of the conversation, it seemed Crowe wanted you to stay and chat more as he immediately asked where you were going as you slowly but surely walked away.

- you caught a glimpse of sol just then, he was covered head to toe in toilet paper?

- god you guys accidentally matched, you could only hope he wouldn’t think you’re some crazy stalker.

- despite enjoying the chat you had to go talk to him, you just had to. You reassured Crowe you’d all talk later as you ran off into Sol’s direction.

- slowing your pace as you see the love of your life

- ahem

- Sol. As you see Sol wrapped in toilet paper just as you were. Awkward.

- he looks your way, himself blushing at the realisation you both were matching. Another reason for him to believe you both were destined to be together.

- he had to have you. Tonight.

- he could not and would not wait any long he decided as he looked at you. Thank god for the toilet paper covering over half his face, he’s redder than a tomato.

- as you finally approach him you both talk as he whisks you away somewhere more private.

- he lures you away from the crowds, to tell the truth you were grateful. You didn’t even want to come to this stupid party.

- it was weird when he had you follow him into a dark creepy alleyway but it wasn’t creepy as long as he was there by your side.

- you both stood there, awkwardly, as he stood at a distance ahead of you. He was acting strange but the red flags didn’t bother you so long as it was him.

- though it was even weirder when he lunged at you and stuck a wet cloth in your face. It made you woozy as your vision went black.

- you awake tied to a chair, you can barely piece together what happened last night. Only bits and pieces coming to you, you have a killer headache too. Maybe you could chalk it up to drinking too much if you weren’t strapped down to a cheap ass chair.

- it was actually pretty sturdy as you tried breaking your way out of it. You can only let out a defeated sigh hoping someone will come and save you, you scream but it seems that no one can hear you.

- except him.

- Upon hearing footsteps you’re pretty nervous, opting to stay as quite as possible.

- it’s him, thank god. You feel yourself immediately sink into the wood of the chair and your breath flow becomes less forced.

- he enters the basement with what looks like a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of water. He looks cute in his inside clothes.

- he doesn’t seem to be in a rush to untie you, which is weird. If he wanted you to come home with him you would have.

- he’s still, just staring at you. You can’t maintain eye contact for too long before you blush and avert gazes again. curse your nerves.

- you’re not sure what to say, honestly you’re just happy it’s him and not some creep.

- it’s a relief when he walks up to you with that tray of food, you’re honestly kind of hungry. Maybe he’ll untie you if you comply.

- “you know, you don’t have to tie me up to make me stay by your side.. heh” you offer a nervous chuckle hoping to lighten up the mood. Biting your lip to quell your anxiety.

- he perks up at this, stopping his movements with the silverware as it sloppily clangs onto the edge of the porcelain bowl.

- his face is covered, not even just covered. Drenched in a red hue, sweat runs down his forehead as he hurriedly wipes it away with his sleeve.

- that reaction gave you knots of your own, even after holding you captive you still somehow can’t get enough of him.

- he fidgets with the silverware, opting for the silence as he feeds you. It shouldn’t have made you hot and bothered but it did.

- the way he’d dab at the food that clung to the corners of your lips with his fingers gave you a visceral reaction. You briefly considered licking him honestly.

- must resist the urges. God you really were desperate.

- somewhere down the line he unties you, it doesn’t even take a fully day to get his trust. It didn’t even take you a full day to warm up to him.

- if he wants you here so be it.

- maybe you weren’t as crazy about him as he was to you but you must have had a screw or two loose to enjoy the attention he was giving you.

- you’d miss him when he ran off to school wishing he just wouldn’t bother at all. Days he’d leave you alone in the house were torture.

- you missed him all the time.

- sometimes you’d think about tying him down so he couldn’t leave you.

- you two really are just two peas in a pod

—-

Look i know these barely count as head canons considering they’re supposed to be vague but I honest to god just really hate writing one shots.

This one really took the wind out of me, I do not usually dedicate this much time to an hc but there is NOTHING for this guy online. Possibly due to the game only being a demo right now.

Anyways, I hope the longevity of this isn’t bothersome, I’ve only seen a small handful of readable fics for this guy and wanted to separate myself from the masses. I heavily utilized EchikoHoshisuki’s fic on Ao3 as inspiration for my own, I’m hoping by mentioning their name they’ll add another chapter soon 😅 Maybe expect something for broken colors or yours game next.

And yesss, I know there are still unanswered asks in my inbox. I just have commitment issues but I love y’all and I promise at some point in my life they will be answered.

[undertheopensky]

Catch Your Breath

Whumptober Day 30: “Not much longer…”

Characters: Legend, Sky

Trigger warnings: allergies, breathing difficulty, asthma, falling

Read on Ao3!

---

A lot of people, Sky reflects, thought of allergies as kind of funny. Lots of sneezing, watery eyes, even gastrointestinal misery is just funny. People looking foolish when their bodies betray them.

As he watches Legend struggle to breathe, he thinks those people are stupid.

---

It’s not that they didn’t know Legend has an allergy.

Way back when, when the group as a group was new, and Wind asked what the white stuff Wild was adding to the stew was, they’d realised in short order the differences in their eras had real consequences. Sky and Wind can’t have any kind of dairy. Time has a nut allergy that he says was worse when he was a kid, but no one wants to risk it. Shellfish makes Four violently sick. And Legend?

Legend’s allergic to feathers.

“Okay, I know we promised not to make fun of each other for medical stuff, but feathers?” Warriors says. “That is hilarious. Are you pulling my leg?”

“Nope,” says Legend. He’s unbothered, more interested in arranging the contents of his bag to his liking. “When I visited my grandparent’s farm, I was always banned from the cucco coop and anything to do with the pigeons. Prob’ly not as bad as the Old Man’s nut allergy –” and he points a bizarrely carved little twig in Time’s direction that Sky suddenly desperately needs to see in detail – “but it’s something I’m supposed to tell the healers, so.”

“Yes, and thankyou, Legend, it’s important to know,” says Hyrule. The healer smacks Warriors when he goes to open his mouth again, and that’s pretty much the end of it.

After that, it just… doesn’t come up. The one time they visit the ranch and Legend accidentally ends up on cucco duty, he quietly switches out with Four. Otherwise, there’s just not much cause for the heroes to interact with feathered creatures. Though several of them have had experiences with marauding crows, the mischievous birds don’t really count as monsters. They’ve never come across any infected ones at least. (“Not that those bastards need to get any smarter,” Four grumbles with uncharacteristic acid in his tone.) In fact, none of the infected monster hordes they hunt down includes any feathery fiends, except as very occasional decoration. It never seems to bother him, and Legend never brings it up himself. It falls to the back of everyone’s minds.

---

Sky’s carefully cleaning dark blood from Fi when he hears Wind groan in complaint. “What, already?”

He can’t help but agree. It’s been less than five minutes since the last stalfos fell; they’re still breathing hard, still patching up scrapes and bruises and the one arrow-slice from where Wild had not quite dodged in time. And they’re already being thrown through another portal?

At least it didn’t show up right as they were bedding down this time.

One by one, they head for the portal, Sky following at the tail end of the line. It’s not on purpose. He’s just feeling it, a bit, feeling the poor sleep from the night before (ha) and the heavy weight of the humidity. Actually the thought of leaving the humidity behind is what finally drives him to step through and let the dark nothingness of the portal suck him under.

It’s always an eerie feeling. Ghostly fingers trailing over exposed skin. The cold chill of the void, so dark it doesn’t matter whether your eyes are open or closed. The adrenaline rush of falling. Wind yanking at his hair, his clothes –

No, wait, there’s no wind in the void. He’s really falling.

Sky opens his eyes to a landscape of eye-searing white touched with blue and gold. It’s dizzying, it’s blinding, it’s familiar. For a moment all he can feel is the incandescent joy of coming home.

Then he remembers eight heroes with no loftwings to catch them, and his whistle is more than a little desperate.

Flashes of colour spread out below him, bright against the clouds; Sky starts marking a path in his head, who to catch first. Wars and Time and Hyrule and Twilight, all the people without gliding items. He prays the others can hold out long enough for him to come back for them. None of them are meant for true flight, but with so many already – can Crimson even take the weight? If it came down to it, who would he leave behind –

A loftwing’s cry breaks his train of thought, and the relief would knock him over if he was standing. Crimson’s diving for him, but a pair of Skyloft knights are diving alongside, aiming for his scattered friends. He doesn’t have to catch all of them.

Sky twists on himself to face the clouds; the wind is tearing at his hair, at his sailcloth, at his blurred and watering eyes. It’s freezing, he’s not wearing as many layers after Wild’s muggy jungles, but he doesn’t have time to change. All he really needs right now is his sailcloth, not to catch but to stabilise.

Crimson’s back rises to meet him. Sky hits the saddle with stinging force and scrambles to get into position; to see over Crimson’s head and tip him back down towards his still-falling brothers. Who’s closest, who’s –

There’s a flash of red that isn’t Crimson, as Legend wrestles with his Roc’s Cape and tries to keep it from tearing free. It’s not made for this kind of use, and – he’s close. If he spirals around – Four is lighter and his cape held him longer, and Crimson can snatch him out of the sky with his talons before it gives out, and then they’re dropping through the sky after Legend when the magic in his Cape falters and fails.

Four screams. Sky can’t spare the breath or the focus to reassure him – they’re drawing even with Legend, then easing underneath, then coming out of the dive in a smooth arc that intercepts Legend’s fall at the precise moment he crosses Sky’s saddle.

Before his momentum can drag him back into open air Sky snaps an arm around Legend’s waist, as ungiving as iron. Legend helps by clinging to Crimson’s saddle. Passenger secured, Sky quickly scans the air. The last scrap of colour has just been snatched up by a third Knight, and if he squints he thinks he counts out the six of them, all safely in someone’s charge. Everyone is safe. He didn’t lose any of them.

Adrenaline and panic-sweat cooling on his skin, Sky shivers. They’d gotten almost frighteningly close to the cloud layer – Sky’s a knight, he’s used to seeing it, never mind how often he’s deliberately dropped through it – so it takes a few heavy wingbeats for Crimson to steer their trajectory back upward. It’s slow going. It gives him time to sit back, to steady his breathing, to realise just how fast his heart was beating and let the grey haze at the edges of his vision fade away.

Legend coughs. Then coughs again.

Sky frowns. There’s a thin whistle to the vet’s breathing that the wind had disguised. “Legend, you okay?” he asks, just as the veteran doubles over into a real coughing fit.

He sounds awful. He hadn’t taken any real blows in the fight, he shouldn’t be struggling to breathe like this. Had he been hiding an illness? After the fit Hyrule threw the last time Wind pretended he didn’t have a cold the whole group had wordlessly decided to just let the healer have his way, and he’d thought Legend was on board with that.

It doesn’t – it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to bring something up, though it’s deep and in his chest. It sounds like he can’t get any air, almost like Sky when the thick air of the Surface gets overwhelming. Like his throat is closing over, wind whistling through narrower and narrower passages –

Sky realises all at once.

Not an injury, not an illness – Legend’s allergic to feathers, and he just crash-landed on a whole platform of them.

Sky scrambles to prop him up, though he suspects the damage is done. Legend leans back against him. His breathing is maybe a little easier with his chest open, coughs louder and further apart. When he sucks in air, it sounds like it’s screaming through metal pipes, high and thin. But he can breathe.

They level out. There’s an island in the distance that the overloaded knights are headed for, but it’s small and isolated, intended as a jumping point for people with loftwings to catch them. It’ll take time to explain the situation, that they don’t have loftwings and need lifts back to the mainland, and that’s time Legend may not have.

Sky leans forward, holding Legend to his chest, and tries to think.

They need the infirmary, they’ll be able to treat the breath attack – but then they need somewhere feather free for Legend to rest, and there’s nowhere on Skyloft that fits that description. Loftwings are everywhere. The infirmary’s even got special-built troughs for them when their riders are in there and they refuse to leave! Every building has windows Loftwings can open and at least stick their heads in, if not hop straight through, and every floor bears scratches from their talons.

Legend wheezes. His fingers dig painfully into Sky’s supporting arm.

Determination solidifies. That will have to wait.

Sky leans into the turn as Crimson changes headings. Goddess, he loves his loftwing – as soon as Sky realised what they needed Crimson was responding. It’s the loss of this kind of bond that’s so devastating to him, when he considers the disappearance of loftwings over the ages. That the others have never known having a partner who knows your every move.

Legend’s stopped coughing but his breathing’s worse: pained little wheezes as he struggles to breathe, shuddering with every inhale like it’s a fight – his face is red and his eyes are wet and Sky doesn’t know if it’s breathlessness or pain.

“Hang in there Legend, we’re nearly there,” he says.

When they make landfall Crimson hovers long enough to drop Four the short, safe distance to the thickly grassed area meant for such deposits, then they’re off again. Sky hears Four shout behind them. Realises belatedly that between the wind and his own terror Four likely didn’t know what was happening – but he’s safe where he is, and if someone else finds him they can help him regroup if the others don’t land in the same spot, and –

That’s a problem for later. Right now, he needs to save Legend’s life.

No sailcloth dives with a passenger. Crimson lands on the tiles right in front of the infirmary with a soft grunt, and Sky flashes gratitude at him as he throws himself off his back and runs.

“Aren,” he shouts as he shoulders the door open, “Aren, I need help!”

[writingblognumber1]

Dad’s best friend Toji pt 2

Contains smut!

Monday morning classes go by slowly or maybe it’s the fact that you can’t wait to go home and see what Toji is up to. Even though, he probably is at work. You wonder how he would react if he came in from work and you had made dinner for them. Would it be too domestic? Would he even question it? Would he sit at the table with you? Would he find someway to say thank you? It might be too soon for him though. You don’t want to scare him away, but you feel so drawn to him. You feel electric when he’s around.

After class, you decide that you’re going to cook dinner for him anyway. You stop by Aldi and pick up a few things and rush home to prepare. His truck that he drove in yesterday is gone, confirming that he is at work. You decide to start dessert before you take your shower. You prepare lemon blueberry tarts for him and yourself. The house smells delicious and it makes your mouth water. Hopefully he has no allergies. After completing this step you prep a few things for dinner and leave to clean up yourself.

Dinner is almost ready and it’s nearing 6 o’clock. You hear the sound of keys at the door and suck in a breath of air, wiping your moist hands down your shorts. As Toji enters the house, he lifts his head and meets your eyes. Instantly, he smiles warmly at you. You watch as he takes a deep inhale through his nose.

“What is that smell?” He asks, dropping his keys onto the counter.

“I made us dinner for tonight.” You sheepishly look down at the rice pilaf cooking on the stove.

“You didn’t have to do that. But I appreciate it. I’m gonna shower and I’ll be back down.” His voice is casual. You can’t help but watch as he turns to the stairs. Your heart skips a beat and you work to finish everything, hands slightly shaking.

When Toji comes down the stairs, you start to make your plates. As you set his plate down in front of him, he grasps your hand. You bite your lip to hold back any sounds you want to make.

“It looks delicious. Thank you.” His thumb brushes over the back of your hand.

“It’s no problem Toji. I wanted to cook for you.” You’re not sure why you said that. Maybe your hormones and sexual frustrations are catching up to you, making you braver than before. He raises his eyebrows at you and you turn your attention to your own plate.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” You jump up and come back with a bottle of wine in your hands. Toji is grinning at you and it makes your heart beat wildly in your chest.

“Wine and dinner? If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to seduce me.” He chuckles, looking at you through his eyelashes. You hesitate, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Is it really that obvious? You say nothing as you pour yourself a glass.

Dinner goes smoothly and, before Toji can leave, you’re quick to ask him if he’d like to watch a movie with you. Being alone in a dark room with him sounds like the perfect setup for something carnal to take place. He stares at you for a moment, undoubtedly trying to figure you out. But then he shrugs and says,

“Sure. A movie sounds nice. But I get to pick.” You can’t help but giggle in satisfaction at his answer. Excitement moves through your body making you feel giddy. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt like this around someone. In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever wanted someone more than you want Toji. You’re not even sure where you want this to go. All you can think of, is him. His face, body, voice. It’s like a drug you can’t stay away from.

When you make it back to the living room, after changing into your pajamas, Toji has the movie paused. Your eyes roam his features, stopping at his soft lips. He looks up at you and you turn your eyes to the tv.

“So what’re we watching?” You ask, sitting on the other side of the couch Toji is sitting on. He smirks at you.

“We’re gonna watch Sinister.” You can’t help but laugh. He looks confused for a moment.

“What?”

“I love sinister, Toji.” He looks at you and for a second there’s a look in his eyes that make you want to lay back and spread yourself open for him. He face shifts and he lets out a laugh.

“I should’ve figured you’d like scary movies.” He presses play on the tv.

“I do like scary movies but nothing too gory. It’s just exciting and makes me feel some type of way.” He turns to look at you then and that feeling comes back. This time you hold his eyes.

“How does it make you feel?” His voice is deeper, raspier. You wonder what it would be like for him to talk you through it.

“I mean, like I said, it’s exciting. Gives me a rush and I love the suspense and build up.” You pull your legs up onto the couch and position your body so you’re facing him. His eyes roam over your legs and up your body to your eyes again.

“See something you like sweetheart?” You mock him and he throws his head back when he laughs.

Since you both have seen sinister, you decide to watch something neither of you have watched before. You both watch Pearl.

It’s halfway through the movie and you’ve noticed Toji has moved a couple of inches closer to you. It’s cool and dark in the room, making you feel more confident than before. You stretch your feet out and they brush the side of his leg.

“Sorry.”

He looks up at you and you move to tuck your feet back, but he grabs them. Toji moves over another inch towards you and sets your feet in his lap.

“Thanks.” You smile, feigning innocence and he brushes his hand over your feet. His thumb presses into the arch of your foot, massaging it. You can’t hold back the small moan that slips through. Foot massages are your weakness. He lets out a low laugh.

“Feel good?” He’s looking at you now, digging his fingers deeper. Your toes curl at the pressure and the feeling of his hands on you. You want more.

“Yes.” You nod your head at him, watching his hands work. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you press your thighs together. Both of you have forgotten the movie in the background. His hand moves up your ankle, to your leg, and softly strokes you there. You clench your thighs tighter, holding yourself back from spreading your legs for him. Even though this seems extremely intimate and inappropriate, you still can’t be sure how he would react if you just open yourself up for him. The movie ends and the credits roll on the screen. His hand continues to rub your leg.

“Toji?” Your soft voice grabs his attention. He looks at you like he could swallow you entirely. Your breath hitches for a second and you gulp. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“I really like when you touch me.” You keep your voice delicate, innocent almost. He tightens his hold on your leg.

“Yeah?” He asks, his hand moves higher than it had before. Goosebumps break out across your skin at the contact. His hand is very warm, just like you’d thought.

“Yes.” You whisper out. You hold each other’s eyes as he continues to slide his hand up and over to the inside of your leg. Without being able to stop yourself, your legs part for him. Your eyes are heavy. Heat builds in your core and you can feel yourself getting wet with slick. You wonder what it feels like to have Toji’s fingers in your pussy.

“I-I’m sorry. I actually can’t do this.” Toji removes his hands from you and stands, running his fingers through his dark brown hair. The embarrassment spreads through your whole body and you close your legs, sitting up straight. The rejection sobers you up from the heat that has built in your core.

“It’s just, your dad is a good friend of mine and you’re his daughter. It would be wrong, for both of us.” You let out a humorless laugh, shaking your head. Part of you can’t blame him for being hesitant, but he doesn’t know your relationship with your father. He also doesn’t know you, doesn’t know that you’ve never done anything like this before. Never pursued a man. Never had the confidence in yourself to do such things like you’ve done tonight.

“I see. I’m so glad he’s a great friend to you Toji. If only he could be the same way with me. Doesn’t matter anyway. You won’t be here forever and neither will I. Goodnight.”

You get up from the couch and Toji watches you leave before beginning to clean up. Of course he wouldn’t want to touch you. How would your father feel if he found out? Would he even care? Probably not, but Toji doesn’t know that. You do know that Toji wants you, otherwise he wouldn’t have touched you the way he did. You wonder how much more enticing you can make yourself to him. Would he be able to say no if he saw you, begging for him, open for him? A treat laid bare for him to consume. Surely he wouldn’t deny himself something that was handed to him on a silver platter. He’s not the type to pick at his food, wouldn’t dare be impolite and reject what was offered to him. You want to see his facade crumble for you.

You make sure to leave the door unlocked and slightly ajar when you lay out across your bed. You pull your clothes off and reach for your toy. Just the sight of it makes you throb, the desire moves through your body anew. You think of him as you desperately seek release from the tension that has coiled its way inside your body.

“Toji!” You call out, so close to cumming from just the thought of what could’ve happened earlier. The thought of him pulling you closer to him and situating himself between your legs. You wonder how he would feel completely pressed against you. What does his cock look like? Would you even be able to take him? Your vibrator is pressed to your clit and your back is arched off of the bed. You can hear him coming up the stairs finally. You gasp his name out as you clench around nothing, wanting so desperately to feel his fingers, tongue, cock, anything inside of you. A creek from the door has your eyes darting towards it. Toji stands there, watching you intensely. You spread your legs for him, grabbing your breast with your other hand. You’ve never felt so vulnerable in front of someone. You want to be vulnerable for him though. Your hips roll against your vibrator again and again, unable to stop yourself.

“You’re doing all of this? For me, baby? Are you that needy for it?” His husky voice makes you beg. It sends all rational thought from your brain. He hasn’t touched you and yet, you feel like you’re floating. You can tell from his eyes that he’s fighting with himself.

“Toji, please. Please, I need to cum.” You’re whining now, so close to your peak. You wonder what he feels watching you like this. Is he hard right now? The thought makes you press harder on your clit. You’ve only known each other for a day, but it feels like he’s all you’ve ever wanted. You were never the type for random hookups, but for Toji, you have to have a taste. A piece of him. Whatever he will give you. Your mind races with thoughts of him. All over you, surrounding you. Your eyes find his again and he holds your stare. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips and you whimper at the sight. The thought of his sharp tongue on your pussy has you gasping. He steps closer, leaning against the wall as he peers down at you. It makes you feel exposed. You fight to close your legs from his gaze.

“Are you gonna cum, babygurl? Gonna cum just from me watching you play with yourself?” You cry out at his words. Yes, yes, yes.

“Cum for me, baby. Be a good girl and cum for me.” His voice is stern; it’s an order. An order you refused to disobey. Your toes curl as you arch further off the mattress. The pleasure washes through you in never ending waves. Your brain is nothing but tv static at this point, no thoughts. You’re gasping his name out like a prayer, body jerking from the aftershocks as you come down. When you finally collapse on the bed, you look to where he was standing. He’s gone.

[xanadontit]

Dear Care and Feeding.

My husband and I have a delightful, inquisitive 4-year-old daughter, “Bree,” who has a nut allergy. We have been able to manage this fairly well, but the problem is my in-laws. They were careless about nuts to the point that we had to stop coming over to their place. My father-in-law keeps a bowl of peanuts or trail mix on the end table next to the couch, and never remembered to remove them before we arrived for a visit. Even worse, my mother-in-law believes Bree’s allergy is something she will outgrow over time and even thinks she can be “cured” if she is exposed to nuts in small doses, because she read about people overcoming allergies through exposure therapy on the internet. After Bree nearly ate some peanut butter M&M’s my FIL forgot to put away on our last visit to my in-laws’ place I put my foot down. I said until they were willing to take my daughter’s safety more seriously, we would not be coming over to their house. My husband grumbled that he thought I was overreacting, but went along with it. My in-laws were very chilly for a couple of weeks, but eventually agreed to the new arrangement.

I thought we had resolved the problem, but I was wrong. When my in-laws visited our home last month, I left Bree watching TV with her grandmother while I went to check the mail. I came back to find my MIL in a panic, my FIL on the phone with 911, and Bree on the floor nearly purple and gasping …

I realized she was having an allergic reaction and immediately gave her a shot with the EpiPen I carry with me at all times. Within several heart-stopping minutes Bree was breathing better. The EMTs came and took her to the hospital in an ambulance while we followed behind.

While we were waiting for the doctors to update us at the hospital, my MIL told me she had given Bree a small piece of a Snickers bar. She said she thought Bree could overcome her nut allergy if she ate a little each day. My husband had to practically hold me back. I shouted at her that she had nearly killed my daughter and as far as I was concerned, we were done with both her and my FIL. My MIL huffed that she was only trying to make it so Bree could have a normal life and stalked out of the hospital with her husband on her heels.

It’s been over a month now, and my husband has been trying to facilitate a reconciliation between us. He acknowledges that what his mother did was wrong and dangerous, but still tries to defend her by saying “that’s how she is,” and pointing out that she never intended to harm Bree. I have told him that I will never be able to trust his parents around our daughter again. His mother hasn’t even so much as apologized. He thinks I am being too harsh and am taking this too far. Please tell me I’m not.

—Am I Nuts?

Dear Nuts,

No, you are neither being too harsh nor taking this too far. You made it abundantly clear to your in-laws what the rules were regarding your daughter and her allergies. Because they read too much online baloney and like to imagine they know better than anyone else, they broke them on purpose, put her life at risk, and don’t even seem to feel that bad about it. They suck! You are right and he is wrong. I hope this makes you feel better.

But it does you no good to feel better now and still have your husband claiming you’re overreacting, even in the aftermath of your child nearly dropping dead. It does you no good to be the lone voice in the wilderness. You need him on your side.

It’s possible that he finds your daughter’s nut allergy so frightening—and it is frightening!—that he’s desperate to grasp at any straw that suggests she might “get over it.” Combine that with an unwillingness to confront his parents, and you might have a dad who’s feeling just torn enough not to know how to handle this mess. Sit down with your husband and explain exactly how you feel about what his parents did, and how you feel about how he is not supporting you—or, honestly, even protecting his own daughter. Feel free to wave a printout of this advice column to help make your case.

Maybe, down the line, you’ll decide together to reintroduce his parents into their granddaughter’s life. (I know it feels like you never will want to, but there are such wonderful rewards for a child in having a relationship with even totally objectionable grandparents.) If so, there will be conditions, and whatever those conditions are, he’d better be on board for conveying them, in no uncertain terms, to his amateur-immunologist parents—and making clear to them that there will be no divergence from those rules.

******************

I'm sorry but what the FUCK is Dan Kois' problem? The dad/husband fucking sucks which tracks because he comes from fucking sucky stock and I'm failing to understand what "wonderful rewards" await this poor child from "having a relationship with even totally objectionable grandparents" unless he means "heavenly rewards" because they seem intent on killing their granddaughter.

Can you imagine being this kid?

"Hey, Mom, why did you let Grandma and Grandpa around me? They were constantly feeding me peanuts and I ended up in the hospital every Christmas."

"Oh, a complete moron advice columnist said it would be good for you. Somehow. Hey, you were great at calling 911 and not all kids can say that!"

ETA: And what's with all the sympathizing with the dad because he's just so sad his kid has an allergy and doesn't know what to do?! You don't let the kid eat peanuts/peanut products and you keep the kid away from people who purposely do that. He doesn't need to get an MD and cure food allergies for all of mankind. Christ.

Would love to hear @sequinedably's thoughts on this one.

[ezlebe]

If you're still doing prompts - the roys and greg are all vampires but tom is not

“Are you nervous?” Greg asks, turning over the black and gold half mask in his hands, as he paces down the length of the room. “Like. You’re prepared, you know. You shouldn’t be nervous.”

Tom rolls his head back and forth, not quite looking back, and definitely not responding to the question. He threads a cuff link through his shirt, a flash of gold between his fingers, then reaches for the next.

“I mean, it’s…” Greg swallows, thickly, lifting and spinning a hand with a weak lift of his shoulder. “It’ll be easy?”

“What makes you say that?“ Tom asks, in a bright, biting chirp, as he reaches now for the cravat pooled on the vanity. “You didn’t have to go through the wringer, proving to every fang for seventeen generations that you’re worthy of low blood pressure, solar allergies, and eternal hunger – you just hatched.”

Greg grunts low under his breath. “Sort of? But they still tried to drown me when I was born.”

Tom looks up with a blink through his lashes. “What?”

“Because my mom like did it in secret, I guess?” Greg says, looking down while digging his fingernail into the leather edge of his mask. “So you know, I technically did have to pass a test. By like not dying from that.”

“What the fuck – ? No, I did not know that,” Tom says, voice pitching, as he wraps the silk around his neck with a derisive grimace. “I thought that… Jesus, Roman’s said as much, but I thought it was a fucking turn of phrase.”

“Oh,” Greg intones, briefly letting his eyes sweep the ground in discomfort. “Yeah, I mean – No? Obviously, it turned out okay. I don’t remember it?”

“And neither the fuck will I. You’re really not making me feel like I’m standing on any more solid ground,” Tom says, as he looks up, then he sighs, offering a jerk of his chin to gesture for Greg to step close. “Come here. The little chain is all looped across – ” He lifts his hands, gently tugging at the collar chain Greg is using in place of a tie. “There. Now you’re respectable.”

Greg peeks down at the edges of the antlers framing his throat. “It doesn’t look lame?”

“You’re insulting me, Greg,” Tom says, fussily straightening the rest of Greg’s shirt, down his lapels, then flicking at a closure on the vest. “I might not remember you, in an hour, but I think some part of me will just know I’m the reason you don’t look like a schlub.”

“That would be weird,” Greg says, though he’s got his own hopes about cracks in the spell.

“The whole ritual is weird,” Tom says, pulling away with a wide eye roll. He looks in the mirror to straighten his own outfit; it’s an antique silver one, so the space is empty next to him, proving it as little more than a costume piece for anyone else in the manor. “Forget your partner just to choose them, again? In masks? It’s a rigged carnival game – one of truest bullshit, considering the 100% divorce rate in the Roy cauldron.”

Greg feels a tight pull at the corner of his mouth, somewhat ducking his head with a weak lift of a shoulder. “Okay, so you – you’re ready, right? You, um – ”

Tom loudly sucks at his teeth, looking away from the mirror while stuffing his silk cravat into his vest. He stares for a few long, heavy seconds at Greg, then straightens, as he clears his throat. “If you ask if I’m ready one more time, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“I-I only want you to pass,” Greg mutters, somewhat irked, and he feels like somewhere over the last couple weeks, as the final test snuck up, he started being the only one to care if Tom went through with it. He shouldn’t even be the one here with Tom getting ready. “Do you want me to go see what Shiv is wearing?”

“It doesn’t matter, bud. But hey, corner me about the rules, after they’ve lobotomized me, will you?” Tom says, rather than answering the question. “I don’t feel like getting sabotaged by the old ghouls on a technicality.”

Greg tips his head back and forth, imagining how it might go meeting Tom a second time; it’ll be different, at least, since he won’t know Greg’s a vampire, so he can’t – probably won’t make a joke about asking for a bite. “Will you… be nice?”

“I cannot possibly promise that, buddy,” Tom says, picking up the last of his outfit for the masque, a gold phantom mask, from the settee with a crooked smirk. He reaches out and claps Greg atop the shoulder. “You’ll just have to get over it.”

~

It turns out that Greg doesn’t have to explain it at all, because the basis is given to an enthralled Tom and another dozen mortal hopefuls at the masque. They don’t get the truth, since no one is told they’ve been put under a forgetfulness spell, only simply that they’re there part of a singles event and everyone is to exchange a token with their choice of partner at the end of the night. The tokens that Tom and Shiv share are a pair of fine bracelets donated by Caroline, which had been something of a contention, since Tom repeatedly emphasized a desire for a favor more like a silk ribbon.

Or Tom had said as much to Greg, anyway, who admittedly isn’t sure he told this to Shiv, or anyone else.

The whole pronouncement of the ritual by Ewan at the start makes Greg somewhat inexplicably queasy, a feeling that just worsens when Tom and the others are announced and file in at the entrance, so he’s relieved not to have to actually talk to Tom after he begins mingling among the party. He chooses, at first, just to watch Tom from some distance away, but then it starts to sting not to have Tom look back at him, so he begins looking for places that Tom wouldn’t be able to see him from to pretend that it’s just a coincidental sort of disregarding, not that Tom has no clue that Greg is his friend.

He does start to worry, almost an hour into the masque, when he catches on that it seems like Shiv is also in places that Tom won’t happen to see her. It actually seems as if she is outright avoiding him, and Greg grudgingly works himself up to asking about it, after catching her slipping away a second time from a room that Tom happens to step into in an evident wander.

Shiv is easy to catch when she doesn’t know she needs to be watching, though it does mean blood wine nearly ends up down Greg’s black and gold vest. She lifts her unoccupied hand, palm up, in exasperation. “What the fuck, Greg?”

“What are you doing?” Greg says, then winces, as the question emerges a little more sharp than he intends, if not particularly as harshly as he means it. “You’re, like – you’re setting him up to fail.”

Shiv stares back for a pair of tense beats. “I am not,” she says, primly lying, as she takes a quick sip of her wine. “The point is for him to find me.”

“The point is for him to fall in l-love with you, again,” Greg says, clearing his throat, as his voice threatens to break around the reminder. “But he can’t like do that, if you’re totally avoiding him. The whole mask and spell apparatus is the finding part, not like, uh, like a really mean hide-and-seek.”

“He’ll find me if he’s meant to,” Shiv says, a marked tic in her jaw, as her eyes dart away and then back up. “Maybe he’s not meant to.”

Greg feels something lurch behind his sternum. It’s not a fresh memory, exactly, but Tom had made some roundabout… metaphor in a stressful moment that seemed like he was perhaps out of love with Shiv, but that’s not particularly the point at hand. “Do you seriously want him to die?” He asks, because it only really matters that Tom qualifies to be turned before it’s too late. “For Tom to get old, or just sick, and… he’ll just to be gone?”

“No, you dick, but – ” Shiv exhales a harsh breath and glances down with a quick sweep of her eyes on the other side of her mask. “I don’t need you to understand. Fuck off, Cousin Lurch.”

Greg crosses his arms, scratching at his elbows while he shakes his head. “I want to, actually, be-because I suspect that – ” He clears his throat, “I think you don’t even love him, do you?”

“Fuck you,” Shiv snarls, fangs briefly emerging from her gums in furor. “It’s not about love. You don’t fucking get it, do you? How when you turn someone you’re fucking conjoined to them; you’ve got this pulling thing hooked into your fucking soul like a leech.”

“It’s only until they’re… better, or whatever,” Greg says, hunching into his shoulders, as he looks around toward the rest of the party, though no one seems to be paying them much attention. “It never sounded that bad to me?”

“So do it yourself, then,” Shiv snaps, offering a goading jut of her chin. “Shocked that wasn’t your first instinct.”

“I can’t!” Greg says, hearing his voice pitch, tightening his hands around his elbows while feeling his own fangs threaten to rush his gums. “You know you’reTom’s only – ”

A familiar tut sets lifts hair at the back of Greg’s neck. “I hate to interrupt.”

Greg peeks over with a wince to find his mom loitering under a nearby painting.

“Were neither of you listening to my dad?” Marianne asks, typically sarcastic, scratching at the scarf she has tied around her neck in a gaudy crimson. “Or is it just totally wrong impression?”

Shiv rolls her lips tight together, turning them exceptionally pale. “This isn’t your business, Marianne.”

“He said…” Marianne continues, then trails off, as her eyes roll and she tuts, “Not to quote, because I wasn’t listening that close, but I know it was something like ‘should Thomas Wambsgans court an attendant of the masquerade, they may take him as mate’, right?”

Shiv shifts her jaw, then sends a sharp glance up at Greg, as if he’s got any control over his mom. “So?”

“So, Siobhan,” Marianne says, using her wine glass to gesture in a condescending circle between the three of them. “He didn’t say: ‘should Thomas Wambsgans court Siobhan Roy’ did he?”

Greg focuses briefly on Shiv, wetting his lips before looking back to Marianne.

“Hell, our Tommy could court…” Marianne pauses, again, eyes lifting with some too-obvious weight on Greg, then hums a pair of notes, lifting her thumb over her shoulder to wag at the milling party. “Any dolled-up fang, and they would be able turn him tomorrow morning under the decree.” She takes a sip, sucking at her teeth, unashamed about showing her fangs. “You two are still young, but the whole point of these stupid parties was to be a meat market that trapped members of royal families in mildly compatible matches and add their blood to the mix.”

Greg furrows his brow, then rolls his eyes over his mom’s head.

“And Dad would just love to piss off duplicitous Uncle Logan with a technicality,” Marianne says, then gestures with the glass at Shiv with a slight dip of her shoulder. “No offense, hun.”

Shiv sneers while she takes a sip from her own glass.

Greg weakly cocks his head, because… that’s true, except Grandpa Ewan is also steadfast when it comes to digging in his heels to disappoint everyone. He chews at his lower lip, not particularly comforted, but that is fairly typical for getting advice from his mom.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” Marianne says, as her eyes settle and narrow toward Shiv. “I don’t think anyone will especially approve that you brought a potential this far into the fold only to turn chicken.”

“It’s not like I just – ” Shiv all but growls, then visibly swallows, jaw tightening beneath her mask. “That isn’t what happened.”

“Uh-huh. The whole kit and kaboodle isn’t for everyone, obviously,” Marianne says, gesturing at herself while rolling her head back and forth, then exhaling an ugly snort with a short lean forward. “Hell, I’ve heard a lot of stories out of the last year – very surprised m’ athair got the invitation to this masque.”

Greg feels a tightening in his shoulders. “Mom, shut up.”

“I’m just saying that a lot of trying got us to this point, so clearly there’s some forces here that want Tom in the cauldron, alright?” Marianne says, as she takes a step out of their small circle. She gestures away, down the hall beyond the milling guests. “Now, I’m off to go eat my ego and try to convince daddy dearest that changing some parameters here is his idea. You better thank me,little cousin.”

Shiv peeks up at Greg, then focuses hard on Marianne, defiantly cocking her chin. “I will when it happens.”

“Oh, ever the doubter,” Marianne says, as she turns away with a lofty scoff. “Tata.”

Shiv throws back the rest of her wine, then looks up at Greg. “Now you just need to find him someone he could want,” she says, tone rolling in a mocking lilt around the words. “How very convenient for you.”

“Me?” Greg says, hearing temper flare in his voice, ugly from the back of his throat.

Shiv narrows her eyes, staring back for a solid beat, then seems to literally swallow her words, as she shifts a long look to Greg’s right arm. She eventually exhales a sigh, as her shoulders roll back to square. “Yeah, Greg. You.” She throws her hair across her shoulder with a low, embittered laugh. “You’re the one… who cares so much.”

“But I can’t – ” Greg shakes his head, lifting a hand, and nearly knocks his mask off when he unthinkingly attempts to run his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to set him up with anyone else.”

“Other than me?” Shiv says, flatly, while her mouth lifts in a crooked sneer. “Right?”

Greg wets his lips, feeling his gut clench. “Yeah, uh -yeah, obviously, I meant you.”

Shiv is predictably the first between them to lose her patience. “Are we seriously going to fucking do this, Greg?”

“I guess?” Greg stiffly resettles his mask against his nose with a shrug. “I can’t like imagine to what it is you’re addressing.”

“Oh, you can’t?” Shiv sneers, voice lifting mockingly, as she leans forward on the balls of her feet. “That’s a load of bull. Look at what you’re wearing, Greg.”

“Okay, maybe, but not like…” Greg clears his throat, lifting his nose a little while chewing at the inside of his lip. “You know, like you brought a concubine to your commitment ceremony, anyway, making you seem like not particularly committed.”

“A concubine?” Shiv repeats, while fangs frame a sharp upturn of a hostile smile. “You’re barely three hundred, you don’t know what the fuck a concubine is.”

Greg drops his chin. “I obviously do, because – ”

A throat clears. “Excuse me, gentleman and lady?”

Greg stumbles forward and nearly straight into Shiv, who offers a small, shocked yelp, hands lifting up in his direction with a wide, startled expression flashing across her face. He makes sure his mask is straight, as he looks back, seeing Tom looking bemused between them.

“Are you two in the middle of – ?”

“Cousins!” Greg interrupts, tightly, shaking his head and briefly catching an aghast grimace beside him. “We’re just cousins. The, uh – the totally non-kissing kind.”

Shiv exhales an exaggerated gag. “What the fuck, Greg.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tom says, brightly and bewilderingly, then thrusts out a hand, first to Greg, then to Shiv, nodding between them with a friendly, polite sort of smile. It is odd to be on the other side of it, since this isn’t really an expression Greg gets very often, or ever, and a glance over confirms that Shiv is just as discomforted by it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tom Wa – Or, just Tom, right? No surnames.”

Greg nods with a weak hum to echo the sentiment. He is very quickly confirming that he doesn’t particularly like Tom not recognizing him; it’s been two blatant missed opportunities for heckling, and the air feels a little empty for it.

“I just have been seeing you around, actually, and I want – ” Tom pauses, oddly shaking his head. “I wanted to – ” He abruptly inhales a sharp breath, interrupting himself while lifting a hand to his forehead in evident pain. “Fuck.”

“Tom?” Greg says, feeling his voice pitch tight against the back of his throat. He can’t remember Grandpa Ewan mentioning any side effects, but no one really tends to pay attention to how magic affects mortals.

“Is your head okay?” Shiv demands, her voice rising urgently between them.

“Sorry, hah,” Tom says, voice tight, as he stiffly attempts to dismiss the question. “I’ve had this little ache starting up since I got here, but it’s nothing.”

“Does it feel like you’re having a stroke?” Shiv asks, tensely, as she lifts her empty wine glass and curls close to her chest. “Or is it more like a migraine?”

“O-or an aneurysm?” Greg says, flapping his hands up near his own head with a high lift of his arms crooked at the elbow. “Like, your head is actively exploding?”

Tom glances between blinks to Greg and Shiv, slowly pulling his hand from his brow. He offers a crooked, bemused smirk. “I really think it’s just that purple liquor, but I’m… flattered at the concern.”

“Sure,” Shiv says, reaching up and scratching at her brow. She looks at Tom for a beat longer, then back to Greg, expression tightening and conflicted, then it smooths out. “Fuck, Greg, I – ” She shakes her head, as she takes a step away, plainly again hesitating on her heel, but eventually does take a full stride away.

Greg slowly, carefully looks back at Tom, only to see he’s staring at him, rather than at Shiv’s retreating back. He blinks and feels his face color, scratching at the base of his jaw. “I’m, uh – I’m sorry? Did you… were you trying to ask to dance with her?”

“Not quite…” Tom winces, making a toothy, near-parody of a grimace, before he peeks back up as his lips shift into grin. “Actually, I was talking to you.”

Greg stares back for a pair of beats, feeling heat prickle more sharply under the mask. “You were?”

“Is that okay?” Tom asks, raising the brow not behind his mask, seeming more wry than particularly concerned.

“Yeah? Y-Yes,” Greg says, exhaling a brief stutter. “Of course, that’s – ” He should like probably chase Shiv back down, but… Tom is looking at him. Just him. “Yeah. It’s totally fine.”

Tom stares for a markedly charged beat, then his head tilts, as he wets his lips. “You still haven’t told me your name?”

“Oh, sorry,” Greg says, sweeping his hair awkwardly across his ear. “Greg?”

“Greg,” Tom repeats, in a fond, familiar sort of lilt – and a bit of a shock, since he’s not supposed to remember him. “As in Gregory, then? Suits you.”

“Does it?” Greg says, lifting his brows, as he looks away with a jerk of a nod. “I-I mean, thanks.”

The main ballroom swells with music, as they approach, and is filled with dancers of varying talent; slow and clumsy, to quick and spinning. It’s a comfort not to feel pressure to perform well, since Greg isn’t a hugely talented dancer, despite the cauldron’s best efforts through exposure, and Tom can’t remember that means he has had centuries to fail to practice.

“Would you like to – ?” Tom gestures his hands in a position further up than expected.

“No, no… Um, you can lead,” Greg says, hesitantly reaching out to wrap his hand at Tom’s shoulder.

“I thought so,” Tom says, breezy yet pointed, while he tips his head with a marked smirk. His hand settles solid and wide against Greg’s ribs, holding there in a way far different from the usual poke and prods he affords in general. “You look like you prefer to ask where to point.”

“Hah,” Greg mutters, rolling his lips together with a jerky nod. He feels something unspool beneath his ribs, as he realizes it’s definitely Tom underneath all the polite action. He is, briefly, a bit irked that he’s never really experienced polite Tom before; he definitely should have been given the opportunity the first time, but it… is what it is, and sometimes the deep end is the best place to fall.

“The costume really flatters you, Greg,” Tom says, voice low, in plainly some, fairly successful, attempt to flatter, as they begin to move with the music. It’s as close as they’ve ever been without some pretense, so distracting and unexpected, and the degree of their touch almost, somehow makes Tom hard to hear. “I don’t mean the mask. The brocade here… it was a superb choice – it’s like we came all ready to match.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” Greg says, absently, as they glide and step around other dancers, only to quickly find himself stiffening under a dubious stare. “I – I mean, thanks, but I didn’t actually pick it out? I’m mostly ever worried stuff won’t fit.”

Tom narrows an eye. “Your date?”

“No,” Greg says, shaking his head, feeling a harsh croak at the edge of his voice. “No date.”

“Just making sure,” Tom says, quirking a brow, then he tips his head, as he glances around them at the rest of the dance floor. “You’ve been talking to a lot of pretty masks tonight.”

Greg feels his face color, again, and worries he’s going to have to find somewhere to feed at the waste of energy. “I guess… you know, it’s important to blend in.”

“It’s definitely a formal fucking event, like playacting one of the paintings in this badly decorated museum,” Tom muses, as the music slows, prompting them to move slower and somehow closer, as piano gradually swells around them. “But you agreed to a dance with me, didn’t you?”

Greg offers a small lift of his shoulder. “You’re pretty, too,” he mumbles, then immediately wants to swallow his tongue. “I-I mean… You’re handsome? From, uh – from what I can see.”

“I’ll take either,” Tom says, smirking, as he offers a cocky tilt of his head.

The song blurs into another, and they keep going, easing Greg into some space where he can pretend the masque is going well, rather than having totally fallen apart. He catches Roman and Connor at the edge of the floor, but ignores them, turning his head while instead concentrating on counting the warm puffs of breath across his neck. He can imagine that it’s actually going to work out, standing so close, hands clasped together, like it was supposed to turn out this way.

The tactic doesn’t quite work for long, as his thoughts regroup to form another attack. What if Tom gets pissed? It would be okay, maybe, if he wasn’t going to remember tomorrow. It’s not a lot of time to come up with an excuse for what’s happening that doesn’t just make it more obvious that Greg leapt at the chance to essentially ruin Tom’s chances at becoming part of the cauldron.

“Hey,” Tom says, as his hand lifts across the back of Greg’s shoulder with a squeeze. The music around them is fading quickly, and his voice is consequently barely a mutter, as he lifts his chin to speak in Greg’s ear. “You need a breather, there?”

Greg feels a bit like that’s giving up, but he manages a jerking nod. He looks down, when Tom tugs him by the hands they had been holding to dance, and sees Tom’s is squarer than his, but just as large, and realizes with a hard swallow that he’s got a lot of thoughts racing that he’s been trying to avoid.

It turns out that Tom had actually meant air, not simply stopping their dance, as he leads Greg out onto a stone patio. He even takes a deep breath of the cool air, remarkably literal, as he lets go of Greg to lean on a stone half wall.

Greg stares at Tom’s back, rubbing absently at the lingering warmth in his hand. He lets his eyes trace across Tom’s broad shoulders, then down the seam of the jacket to his waist. It feels a little more lecherous than it normally might, more one-sided, since Tom would usually look back, then they’d both look away and pretend they hadn’t shared a thing.

“This is going to make me sound like some hopped up stalker,” Tom says, after a few moments of staring out across the green; he doesn’t see it though, it’s just dark for him, and now always will be, which feels like another point of failure. “Or a fucking moron addled by romance novels, but I… I’ve been drawn to you all night. Like a super powered magnet.”

Greg feels his jaw actually drop somewhat open. “You have?”

Tom hums a low confirmation, then he turns around to face Greg with an exaggerated, puffing sigh. “But maybe you’re just that tall.”

“Hah,” Greg mutters, dropping his head with a weak tilt of his chin. “Maybe.”

“Honestly, though,” Tom says, stepping closer, pushing away from the wall with a frustrated gesture of both his hands. “It was like my eyes went right to you whenever we were in the same room.”

“Oh, I – ” Greg shakes his head, but he really can’t remember Tom looking back at him. “I didn’t notice?”

“I hoped you wouldn’t,” Tom says, mouth flattening, as he offers a dismissive, flapping gesture. “It was…” He laughs, low, “It made my head hurt just a little. Literally.”

“I thought it – ” Greg takes a frustrated breath, as he shakes his head. “You said that was the, like – the plum wine?”

“I haven’t had that much,” Tom says, really seeming not to care enough, though he might if he knew about the spell. “But I really don’t think it’s a fucking aneurysm. I just keep… thinking about Romans, for some reason, as in the emperors.”

Greg briefly forgets about his own concern, as a croak of a laugh escapes him. “Really?”

Tom hums a confirmation. “Did you know the emperor Nero had a legion of men over 6 foot?”

“No,” Greg says, shaking his head while biting at his lower lip. He wonders if Tom had been saving that up and has accidentally just ruined it for himself. “I thought Romans were… sort of short?”

“They were a bit prejudiced when they were writing about Gauls, yes,” Tom muses, rolling his head back and forth, as a familiar condescending sort of smirk curves his mouth. “But Nero is a hundred years after Caesar kicked them hard.”

“Right,” Greg says, nodding with a weak lift of a shoulder. “I, uh… I really only know the history I live through.”

“That’s a pretty narrow window, bud,” Tom says, raising a brow, as he offers a plainly judgmental tilt of his chin.

Greg feels a wry smirk pull at the edge of his mouth. “…Sort of, yeah. But it’s getting wider.”

Tom holds his dubious expression for a beat, then breaks into a laugh with a shake of his head.

Greg can’t help when the smile grows wide and unwieldy across his lips.

“Look,” Tom says, taking a step back, then forward, lifting a hand oddly across his chest with a short lean into it. “You can take it or leave it, but I feel like I’ve got…” He exhales a weak puff, dragging his teeth hard across his lip. “I have to ask if you’ll take the stupid thing I’m supposed to give to someone I like, as if this is some rose exchange in middle school.”

Greg feels his expression collapse with surprise, hurriedly closing his mouth before his instinctually erupting fangs are visible along his smallteeth. He can’t help but think that it’s only been a dance and a conversation to Tom, and barely that, yet he already wants to exchange tokens? Greg isn’t sure if that … Is that normal? It can’t be.

“I know, I know, it sounds like I’m taking the cart here, and the rules said at midnight, yadda yadda,” Tom says, pacing a few steps one way down the patio, then turning and walking back, his hands spinning between them in a fussy gesture. “But I already know you’re the only could-be I’ve met tonight that I want to see again.”

Greg wets his lower lip, offering a weak turn of his head. “Are you sure?”

“I am,” Tom says, a sincere, tight sort of smile pinching at his mouth. “I really am, but… My ego can take it, if you want to do a little more looking.”

“I don’t, really,” Greg admits, scratching hard, then yanking into the small hairs on the back of his neck. “An-and I do feel the same, really, about like knowing you and looking at you, but… It’s just, uh… It’s complicated?” He shakes his head, slumping down onto a stone bench that the night makes cold through his thin trousers. “I didn’t even… I didn’t think I’d meet anyone.”

“Look, how about – ” Tom kneels down, which is absolutely awful, and then he makes it worse by pulling the actual tokenout of his inner jacket pocket. “We just do it, then figure it out later?”

“I – I don’t have a – ” Greg gestures, at a loss, as he stares at the bracelet with a tightness growing at the back of his throat.

Tom spins the bracelet around his fingers. “You really didn’t expect to meet anyone tonight? You’re hardly ugly, Greg. I can’t see enough of your face, but I think you’re probably put together just perfect.”

Greg bobs his head while he exhales a weak croak to clear his voice. “Okay, uh-uhm – ?” He lifts a hand, clumsily tugging at the pins holding the chain across his shirt collar. He looks down at the antlers, then up, offering them. “Is this okay?”

“Only if you’re willing to part with it,” Tom says, quiet and sincere, then he breaks the tension with a small snort. “Those’re definitely more your style.”

Greg answers with a weak huff. He only has them because of Tom, who he had been shopping with when he had seen a similar set in a display apart from the other jewelry. He had been interested, but concerned they were silver, so waved off the offer to pull them from the case; he’d gotten a surprise weeks later, when Tom presented him a near identical set cast in platinum.

He weaves the antlers between the chain and leaves them bound at Tom’s wrist. The points dig into his skin, leaving little rosy scratches of pressure, but Tom doesn’t seem to notice. “You can give them back.”

“Sure, I can,” Tom says, then he wets his lips, as he seems to hesitate with the token in his hand. He narrows his eyes at it, then throws it onto the bench. “You know what? I hate that.”

“Um?” Greg says, staring at the bracelet on the bench.

“If we’re using whatever, you can take this,” Tom says, as he begins to pull at his cravat, yanking it from his throat and leaving it somewhat indecently exposed for company. Of Greg. “A traditional sort of thing, like a knightly favor. I can’t even remember why I have that… bracelet.”

“Oh,” Greg intones, nodding in a jerky drop of his chin.

“No, no – Up,” Tom says, as he shakes out the cravat, only to just as quickly twist it back up. “You’re looking naked now.”

Greg slowly tilts his head back, anxiously wondering if he can have a heart attack, because it feels like it’s making a go for crawling up his throat. The feeling becomes especially bad when Tom straightens his shirt, as he ties the silk around it, because it feels… just like it had earlier in the night when he straightened the antlers.

“That’s funny,” Tom says, quietly, as he finishes tying the knot.

Greg hums a confused note.

“I thought it was just your hands, but you run pretty cold,” Tom says, as his knuckles gently press against Greg’s jaw, swiping up to the point of his chin. “Are you chilly?”

Greg feels his eyes widen. “Uh – ?” He slowly drops his head, wincing while he looks into Tom’s openly curious face, as he fails to come up with an excuse. He finds himself swallowing hard, thud getting worse, then he leans in and clumsily presses his mouth to Tom’s before he can think any more about it.

Tom inhales deep, pushing back with a rock forward on the balls of his feet. He seems to nearly lose his balance, as well, hand flattening on the bench beside Greg, while the other that had previously been across Greg’s jaw settles heavily onto his neck. He turns his head, seeming to try to deepen the kiss, mouth opening in a gasp between them, only for their masks to clatter together with dull thunks of leather and metal.

Greg pulls away with a small duck of his head, a flush in his face that’s probably the worst he’s ever had it.

“God, these things really get in the way, don’t they?” Tom says, reaching up and knocking a pair of knuckles against the cheek of his own. He stands from the ground, shaking out his hands with a shuttering sort of a laugh. “I’m glad to have met you and all, Greg, but I must have been real lonely and schnookered to sign up for this costume party.”

~

Tom jolts awake to a sharp series of honk from a car outside the window and covers his face with a groan, only to feel a dragging weight across his wrist. He peeks open his eyes, staring blearily at a pair of familiar platinum antlers locked across their chain. “Oh,” he chokes, shoving himself up on the mattress in a fumbling hurry. “Shit. Shit.”

The hazy memory filters in and what happened, how it happened, is all good, in a way – maybe even edging into great – but it’s so totally fucked. He let his heart get in the way of a plan he’s suffered and bled over for half a decade; how goddamn romantic.

He slumps back, playing with the chain, and manages somehow not to immediately reach for his phone. It eventually rings, anyway, as he’s spiraling with his eyes following the spinning ceiling fan, and it nearly startles him into the other side of the bed.

“Thomas,” greets an aged voice, once the line connects, tinged with ever-present gripe.

“Sir,” Tom says, closing his eyes for a few beats; evidently, his failure is worthy of a personal boast from the great hermit himself. “Good morning.”

Ewan grumbles out a rasping sigh. “Congratulations. I have been…” He pauses, exhaling another lengthy breath. “Convinced that you’ve passed.”

Tom peeks up at the shifting shadows of the curtains and the fanblades. …He what? Wait, does that mean he’s –

“I do not envy your position,” Ewan continues, “Gregory is not particularly… accountable, so you will likely have to be very explicit with him during the acclimation period if you want your needs met.”

Tom covers his face with a hand, breathing hard into his palm, then cracks his fingers open across his mouth. He’s pretty sure his smile would put the Joker to shame. “Shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“I’ve been convinced of that, as well,” Ewan says, in a way that might be wry, if it contained any particular humor.

Tom taps his fingers heavily against the side of his cheek. “Could I risk it all by asking why the special case?”

“No special cases,” Ewan says, sternly, setting hair up on the back of Tom’s neck from miles away. “The masque was used this way for centuries, not wasted on a single potential.” His voice resettles into an apathetic note. “And Marianne is to be head of the family, eventually, she’ll need backing unrelated to my brother, when the time comes.”

Tom raises brows with a bitten back choke of laughter. He thinks Logan must love that succession plan, after spending centuries grooming his own spawn. “I can… understand that position.”

“Good,” Ewan says, decisive, “She will also schedule and handle your conversion.”

Tom thinks he hears a protest in the background, just before the line goes dead, which explains a lot – he’s a test in responsibility, how fun. He’ll be shocked if the upcoming most-painful-experience-of-his-life-bordering-on-actual-death is any more formal than her showing up at the door with Greg at some random time between today and two months from now.

He rolls the phone in his hand, then tosses it up, grabbing it, and switching between apps until he finds the right name to tap. The phone rings in his ear far longer than usual, and that’s to be expected, but it finally connects on what must be the final ring.

“Gregory, hello there,” Tom says, raising his voice over a familiar mumble attempting to greet him down the line. “Tell me, did I suffer a wet dream, or did you really kiss me like a damsel under the moonlight?”

“Um, I…” Greg sighs, and it’s too easy to imagine his conflicted expression while he weighs his options. “It was a new moon?”

Tom exhales a quiet laugh through his nose.

Greg continues to hem and haw, to some concerning degree. “Sorry.”

“Are you?” Tom asks, pitching his voice in a taunt, trying to cover the small lurch in his gut.

“Yeah? I… I want you to be one of us, too, but I –” Greg exhales, rasping and harsh, down the line. “I didn’t try hard enough to…” He pauses, again, then clears his throat. “To shift your, uh – your amorous attention.”

Tom shoulders the phone, looking down and toying with the chain at his wrist. “Have you talked to your esteemed head of bloodsucking bastards?”

Greg is quiet for a beat. “Like, ever?”

“Like today,” Tom says, rubbing hard between his brows.

“Oh,” Greg intones, then clears his throat, preemptively weedy in the act. “No. My mom said she would. I-I don’t think he’s… he’ll really care about what I have to say? I can try, though – I should try, I mean. Yeah.”

Tom can hear the same note that Greg had in his voice last night, as he’d put the chain around his wrist. “I’m getting offended by how much you sound like the world is ending, bud,” he says, quirking a brow with a short click of his tongue. He knows Greg kissed first last night, which is doing a lot to bolster. “Was it that bad last night?”

“No, Tom, but if you’d… You know, pursued Shiv, then it wouldn’t matter, because after the setting period, we’d – ” Greg stutters into a pause, somewhat hissing into the receiver. “We could’ve probably worked it out sometime in… you know, essentially forever, but you didn’t, an-and now…”

Tom scrubs his face and is astonished how Greg can be both naïve and an absolute viper at the same time.

“Shiv was… really lame, too,” Greg continues, low and as derisive as he ever gets, being an enormous, centuries-old killing machine ever concerned someone might overhear him being unkind. “She likes you, she said, but she couldn’t do it. She said it would be – be like, a suckling on her soul, or something, like she was scared of having a mate like that. She didn’t even want to give you a chance.”

Tom drags his lip harsh against his teeth, a bit stung, a bit annoyed, too, but not exactly surprised. “Would you?”

Greg is quiet a few beats, then exhales a sullen, offended grumble. “I gave you a token.”

“And…” Tom says, slowly, dropping his voice into what he likes to think is a fairly friendly sort of patronizing developed just for Greg. “I didn’t give Shiv a second glance when you were standing next to her.”

Greg is quiet for a few seconds. “I guess.”

“Honestly, I…” Tom shakes the chain back around his wrist with a tut. “I think Shiv and I might like each other about the same.” He rolls his eyes across the room to the door, then over toward the window, exhaling a humorless laugh. “We don’t even sleep in the same room, anymore. It was iffy that we even applied for the masque.”

Greg mutters something tiny and unintelligible down the line, but it sounds a little derisive.

“But I’m ecstatic to hear you’re not wary of having a suckling babe on your soul,” Tom says, spinning the antlers around his wrist, delicately trying to unwrap them without further turning his skin patchwork or bending a delicate chainlink. “Because I have spoken the grand poobah treant – I passed.”

“Y-You did?” Greg says, voice pitching through the speaker, plainly blindsided by the news.

“He also implied it was mostly so I could white knight your mother, but that’s…” Tom feels a wide grimace pull at his mouth. “Pretty far out, one can hope.”

“No, but he – ” Greg exhales a breathy, hitched laugh. “Like, with me?”

“Yes, Gregory,” Tom says, leaning his head up and wedging his forearm against the pillow beneath it.

“I, like – I’ve never totally drained anyone,” Greg says, in a quiet, thoughtful mutter. His voice pitches, “What if I can’t stop… What if I like kill you?”

Tom rolls his eyes, as a bark of laughter edges around his voice. “Could we have a single good thought this morning?”

“…Sorry.”

[crazylittlejester]

i personally don’t have any food allergies, but my younger sister does, and when she was younger they were a lot more severe so i always tried to make sure we knew where her allergy medicine and epi pen were when we first found out. it also sucked because she was the first of anyone in my family to have food allergies so it shocked and scared us pretty badly when she had her first allergic reaction.

anyway, i wanted to one, thank you for writing fics where wars had that anxiety over food so that others (like myself) can try and understand a bit better those with food anxiety!! and then two, because my love language is basically giving/making food to others, *throws as many oranges as possible towards you* i hope you feel better and that people stop being jerks to people with allergies!! (i’m glad you have someone like your friend’s mom who at least tries their best though!!)

I keep two epi pens on me always, and my best friend carries one as well, not because she has allergies but just because she said she’d feel more comfortable if she had one too since we spend so much time together, so I gave her one. That first allergic reaction is definitely absolutely terrifying for everyone involved, because oftentimes no one knows what’s happening and no one really thinks “Oh it’s an allergic reaction” because you’re either the one on the floor unable to breathe or you’re watching it happen to someone you love and it’s just awful because everyones is panicking

I really wish people were more aware of what allergic reactions look like and how to handle them/help, I feel like a lot of lives could be saved this way. I went to grade schools that treated allergies like a joke, because they just didn’t understand, and I think schools are getting better about it now from what I’ve heard, but I firmly believe that schools should teach kids about allergies to spread awareness. Especially because food allergies aren’t even an uncommon thing anymore???

A kid in my class junior year of high school had a severe allergic reaction and the teachers and adults all stood around not knowing what to do, and it was his best friends who gave him the epi pen, called 911, and handled everything. That group of 16/17 year old boys literally saved their friend’s life because they were taught what to do (by said friend with allergies), and that’s why I think it’s so important people learn what to do in situations like that. Like if you know how to give an epi pen, you literally know how to save someone’s life

And like I said last night, I think it’s kinda insane that after nineteen years of trying to explain to people what this kind of food anxiety feels like, all it ended up taking was a couple fanfictions about a guy who’s scared of being poisoned 😭 I’m really glad I finally found a way to get people I know and also internet strangers to get to a place where even if they’ll never understand exactly what it feels like, they can at least see the thought process and understand that way, but the WAY through which I finally accomplished this is hilarious to me.

Thanks LU Warriors for ur sacrifice king 😭

I am incredibly grateful for both my friend and her mom for everything they do for me, and also for every single person who tries their best to understand an experience they might not ever have. Again, it’s crazy that what it took was Zelda fanfiction to get people to see what it’s like, but hey, I’ll take it 🫶

[prince-princess-bunny]

I have a shellfish allergy and I work as a dishwasher. I knew about the allergy beforehand, but I thought it was only eating. We didn’t serve any shellfish dishes for my first 6 months I was there, until thanksgiving, when I accidentally sprayed down a pan that had been used for shrimp, and was sent home with a migraine. I thought it was a holiday thing, so I brushed off, until we started serving shellfish on a regular basis. I told my bosses and the team, but only two people actually cared enough about my safety to wash their own shellfish dishes (someone once left me a note that said “shrimp :(“ on top of it). I had to go get an official accommodation to force everyone take my allergy seriously.

I remember eating shrimp as a kid. Growing up, my dad hated pickles, so I thought I hated pickles. Then as an adult, I tried a pickle. Turns out I love them! A few days later, I was presented an opportunity to have shrimp again and thought “I love pickles, maybe I love shrimp!” A few hours later, a bad idea.

Food allergies are weird. You’d think it’s as simple as “exposure to A causes reaction B.” But no. It can be all over the goddamn place. When I first found out, I got severe stomach cramps and a headache, so I stopped eating it. When exposed to particles, it makes me feel like garbage. Breathe in enough, it triggers a migraine. I can’t be in the same room as someone washing the lobster bisque, but I can be around the clam chowder, as long as I’m not the one cleaning it. Then out of the blue, my allergy decided to develop into trouble breathing. Nothing life threatening, but now I keep some pills and an epipen in my locker, just in case. Now if I’m exposed to shellfish, it’s a roll of the dice if I’ll trigger a migraine, or if I’ll role play a weak person trying to strangle me. Tonight, I had a two hour delay before my health slid down.

The thing is, because my symptoms are kind of all over the place, I always feel like I’m lying. Because I can’t specifically say “this causes that reaction,” I’m always afraid people won’t believe me. I looked up allergies in general, and apparently it’s common for them to just be wildly inconsistent?? It’s so much easier to just tell people “I’m allergic.” And leave specifics to situations at hand.

Everyone has been really good about keeping track. I’ve worked there for almost 2 years now, and I’ve only had a handful of events. We moved locations recently and got a bunch of new hires, so they let me print out a sign with big red ALLERGY letters on it (I call it my “please don’t kill me” sign). Most people are cool. They’ll even remind me if I forgot to put my sign up. I’ve had to explain multiple times to multiple people that fish is not the same as shellfish. Yes, I can wash the tuna bin. It’s annoying, but very sweet, so I let it slide.

Tonight, one person dismissed my sign, and I got a face full of shrimp. Had to leave work early. I’m not mad, because it wasn’t on purpose. Things happen in a kitchen. I’m certain she’ll be extra careful going forward.

Allergies suck. They’re weird. It makes me feel bad physically and mentally. I have to work to make people take me seriously. I hate it ~___~

[lluxoperon]

You don’t realize how much you depend on balance until you don’t have it

Ok here goes, this is a long one and a bit personal. I’m hoping that’s by sharing this, it may help someone experiencing something similar. Full disclosure here - I’m not going to even attempt to pretend to apologize for any language, because sometimes nothing better fits or gets the message across as poignant or elegant as a well placed sentence enhancer.

Simply put, chronic and/or long term health things suck ass. Serious donkey balls sucks. Serious. Like… Fuck. That. Shit. Sucks. Especially when you spend a months (or longer) not knowing what the actual fuck is going on with yourself or a loved one. It also sucks much less when you have people in your life that genuinely give a few of their own precious fucks in their life to you to help you get through it all, when your fucks to give are coming up short to a complete lack thereof.

I’ve been down a really shitty road of a long term thing once before when it took an agonizingly long 6+ years to diagnose my cluster headaches at a time they weren't really understood by anyone in the medical industry, let alone common people. The amount of “just fucking relax, it’s only anxiety” I heard that time from literally EVERYONE (including my past SO's) around me at the time was outright maddening. “Yea I fucking have anxiety because all you fuckers either don’t care, think I’m faking this shit, or you can’t figure this shit out because you suck or never heard of this”. The lack of a good support system is not helpful as best, damaging at worst. And if I am being honest, I kind of expected that again from my past experiences. However, this time around, it's been night and day compared to before. I’m not being made to feel crazy, and it's quite a breath of fresh air. My wife, Niki, has been all kinds of helpful and supportive. I write all this as much for her as myself, she's been deep in it with me right from the start.

So to the present... Some of you online have noticed I haven't been posting a lot of my photography for quite some time. Some of you that have seen me in person recently may have noticed I’m using a cane lately, and/or noticed I haven’t been my usual jet-setting self as much I usually am. International travel stopped completely after Nürnberg in Feb 2023. Some people asked about it, some have been polite and just nodded and not asked. Some have ignored it altogether, as I know some aren’t comfortable talking about personal stuff, either their own or other people's. I appreciate however you feel about it, but full open kimono, I’m not embarrassed about it, nor do I mind talking about it, it just is what it is. It's a crazy story, and I often forget details when I am rambling (why I'm writing this in the first place). I guess talking about it also is in my best interest if anyone else has even heard of someone dealing with this. Trying to figure out what it is has been an ordeal, mostly because it's so uncommon, but I’m not giving the fuck up. My brain won’t let me stop trying to figure it out, but some of this all is still in flux.

After getting back from Nürnberg, I started having a weird ear thing, where I was noticing a weird warble effect in my right ear, basically like an echo or reverb. I have gotten this actually quite often over the years, as I had bad ear infections when I was a kid, and it’s also something that just happens with my cluster headaches, or allergies. No big thing, whatever. However, one day after doing some work on our backyard, breaking up concrete, I put my finger in my ear to get some concrete dust out, and I fell backwards onto the kitchen counter. Whoa. Vertigo. What was that?!? Ok... that’s weird. I go to take a shower and as I get to clean out my ear and my eyes start shifting uncontrollably left and right. Wait, what?!? No fucking way. What?!? Ugh. That doesn’t feel great, it also makes my head spin. Ok yea, don’t do THAT anymore. "Niki come look!" Yea, weird... Ok. Put that out of my head. Let’s see if it goes away. It does a bit, but my head is still all wobbly for days and weeks, but maybe I'm just super tired. I mean we were going all out on working outside in our backyard to get 'er done before summer hits in typical Vegas fashion. I get a referral from my GP for an ENT. I find one local to Vegas, they do not return my calls. Typical for here, so yea... A couple months go by...

I fly to LA in April for some tattoo work, all is ok. Over the next week, I have industry conventions to go to on the Strip, all is ok. I'm starting to wear my mask a little less around people, no big thing. All good, tired, but good. A few people come over, I play some Beat Saber with them, I get a little nauseous and dizzy playing, but I figure I'm a bit over exhausted from being on the Strip all week, work, travel to LA, meetings back to back, and house work. The finger in the eye still produces the weird eye thing (it's called nystagmus I find). Still no big deal, right? The fates are laughing in your general direction... Enter one of the largest wind storms we've seen to date in Vegas. My allergies now are through the roof. I get yearly hay fever, so not surprised at all. I start up the Allegra I take each year for my allergies. We go out drinking with friends on the Strip, we all eat too much, drink too much. Back home, in middle of the night, I get up to pee, and as normal, I don't turn on the light in our WC. I'm not barely even drunk any more at this point. I turn around to go back to bed and next thing I know I am splat out on the floor, I don't even know how I fell, or even remember falling. Somehow I ripped off the TP holder on the way down, I'm confused and tired. Niki helps me get back to bed. I'm REALLY confused at this point, and a bit more dizzy than I have been in weeks.

Two days later, I fly back out to LA for a demo for people from the EU, I'm listening to an audio book, and as the plane starts going descending to land in Burbank, I am struck with the most INSANE vertigo, my eyes rolling back into my skull, I feel like the plane is crashing, this is how I die type vertigo. My eyes can't be controlled be damned holy shit I can barely stand once the plane lands I want to crawl to my rental car. Nope, I'm done. I am NOT going to my demo, it's not going to happen, I need to get back home ASAP. I call Niki, I need urgent care, this is not good. I'm dying. WTF is going on?! Holy shit! I'm NOT going back on a plane, fuck THAT shit, I'm driving right now back home to Vegas. I drive. The entire time, I'm either focused on an audio book or Niki over the phone. I can't look over my shoulders. I probably should NOT be driving. I don't fucking care, I need to get home. NOW. I have no way to get home. Fuck THIS. GO. I drive like a banshee. It's the worst drive to Vegas from Burbank, EVER. When I start the trek into Primm down the mountain, the vertigo gets even worse, like when the plane was descending. OMFG it's the goddamn air pressure! Holy jeez. Nope this is not fun. At all. I make it home, somehow.

We get to urgent care later that day:

UC Doc - "Huh that's weird, yea. Yea, you have uh some redness in your ear. Looks like an old infection."

Me - "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, I still am having the vertigo like a fucking madman, it's been all day now, and my eyes are doing this stupid nystagmus. This isn't BPPV (Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo - ear crystals), or Labyrinthitis, I have had those before. It's doesn't feel the same. And obviously the air pressure change is making it worse. "

UC Doc - "Oh, Ok you know your terms, good. Been down that road before I see. Maybe it's Meniere's, but that usually has hearing loss and not the nystagmus. Here's some steroids and antibiotics."

Yea, I obviously need to get into see that ENT like right now. I call and leave messages. I'm still having the vertigo. I email. Nothing. Days go by, did I mention, the vertigo has NOT stopped. FINALLY get ahold them. Appointment in 1.5 months. I did say the vertigo hasn't stopped, right? JUNE?!? Uh... ok. well... shit. Hello vertigo, my new bestie. You're an asshole, bestie. On top of this, now I start realizing my balance is crap, I close my eyes, I just fall and can't feel it. Wow, ok, that is something new to fucking panic about. Lovely. Thank the fates and our good taste that we have a really comfy couch to park my ass for most of the day. We're still trying to get some things done outside, but I'm feeling like washed shit and can't help much while I wait. Vertigo is the new baseline of my days.

Finally see the ENT in June. By this point I am having vertigo on and off all day long. New constant is always fucking dizzy as fuck. Like you drank too much on a boat and got back to shore and your feet can't find the horizon, it's my new Jack Sparrow Sway. Do a bunch of tests. No hearing loss. Air pressure still fucks my shit up, they can't even finish that test. Finger in the ear still making my eyes have the nystagmus. My ear looks fine. We all assume it's just my right ear. Nothing significant to report, but probably, maybe, definitely not Meniere's. Maybe. Maybe it's a fistula (tiny hole). Time for a CT Scan, only way to see that. Maybe they can put in a drainage tube to help with the air pressure, but we'll see. He also gives me a nose spray (Flonase) for my allergies, maybe it'll help.

It's not a fistula. This is "weird", ok this is clearly past this ENT's wheelhouse. Let's get you to our other Neurotologist/ENT 2 in July. This is going nowhere quickly. Groan. I stop taking the Allegra for the Flonase spray. Helps the allergies way better, but does nothing else. Now I'm starting to get fatigue every day. Can't go an entire day without a nap. This shit is draining me, for real. I'm not keen to fly to LA for work meetings, I cancel flights. Besides the fear of air pressure changes triggering me, I'm just so damned tired. All the time.

End of June, my legs start to twitch uncontrollably at night and fucking hurt. WTAF. Dude, seriously?!? Now my legs are twitchy and my balance is still shit. Let's just say I am not loving life right now. I am in super pain all up and down my legs, it's agony. I get a couple what I assume are 3 bug bites on the back of my left knee, and 4 on my thigh, they are PAINFUL, and are not healing. I'm about to loose my mind. After a week or so of this, we go back to urgent care.

"Oh this is an easy one, it's Shingles." Wait, WHAT?!??! I'm way too young for that. "Well, looks like you are past the point any antiviral will do anything, so here is some antibiotic cream for the sores. Have a nice day." This just keeps getting better and better. Also, still dizzy all the time. Vertigo daily, STILL. Leaning on Niki hard while we are out, because any time it's dark and/or inclines in any direction, or I close my eyes, I still can't feel myself falling. Like at all, it's fucking scary. Shingles is no joke, but shingles AND all this vertigo, dizzy, and crap balance. I'm not in a good mood, ever, at this point. Understandably.

Back to the ENT 2, whom specializes in balance disorders and neuro related ear things. "Yea that finger in the ear thing is super interesting, never seen that before. Weird. Let's get a massive barrage of blood work to check everything from vitamins to lyme disease to neurosyphilis and a brain MRI. Also let's get a VNG (Videonystagmography) test to see where your balance is at. See you back in a month. Super weird, wild man, this is crazy." Cool man, glad you are entertained. I'm half amused, half annoyed.

Get all the bloodwork and MRI, now we wait. Waiting is always the worst part. You know, there are DAYS and weeks were the base line doesn't change. So while you wait, you are IN it and waiting.

At the VNG test, negative for BPPV (knew that already, since day one), my eyes work fine with tracking. Great. My hearing is fine, so it's not Meniere's. It's not Labyrinthitis (figured that as well). Moving to the next test, my eyes are not moving when my ears are stimulated by hot or cold air. Like at all, ZERO reaction. In BOTH ears and eyes. I ask 'What's supposed to happen when you do that? No reaction? Not get nauseous?" She replies, "Actually... the opposite, you are SUPPOSED to have a reaction." Oh... "Total caloric eye speed of 6, and 24 is the target for normal. Your vestibular system is not working, in EITHER ear. This generally means Bilateral Vestibular Hypofunction (BVH), and you should do PT, specifically VRT (Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy)."

We go back to ENT 2, bloodwork all fine, except positive for Mono. Huh? "Is this from the shingles?" "No, anyone who has had Mono can have a positive result for the rest of their lives." Uh... actually, no I know that isn't true, but we'll skip over this for now and not worth the argument, maybe it's just a false positive. Too many other things to think about. MRI came back with some white matter lesions, but he says common with migraine. But I don't get migraines. "Oh, well it's probably Vestibular Migraine which is causing the vertigo, which doesn't always come with headaches per se." Coincidentally, not a single cluster headache since all this started. "So, let's start you on some Nortriptyline, and see if that works. Also, yes, start the VRT asap."

I start the new med and the VRT. When I go the the eval for the VRT, they do some more tests. My overall balance is at 50% overall of what is usual for my age. How???? Why??? They confirm when my eyes are closed, my balance is takes a nose dive of the shallow end. It's nil, nada, zip, zero, zilch, completely non-existent. This is not cool. Not fun or cool, at all. "Ok, so what do I do or take to get it back?" Not so fast, it's going to take time. And all this stupid VRT twice a week, doing exercises every day, morning and night at minimum. Well fuck.

Ok FINE. 1 month of VRT. I start using a cane, while out and about, so I don't have to lean directly on Niki.

2 months. Wobble is the new norm. Fuck you new norm. Fuck you very fucking much. Oh hey! I can now feel myself falling, well happy fucking birthday to me. There is THAT.

3 months, October. The vertigo has subsided quite a bit, now maybe getting it once a week. Maybe it's the medication, more likely it's the VRT. Most likely my brain was just "short-circuiting" from the loss of my balance. Ok, now... WHY. I need to know what happened, this still sucks, I'm still wobbly, I can't walk without a cane in the dark. Still dizzy all the time, but getting better. My balance has gone up to 72% of what it should be, but still completely zero eyes closed (or dark). I NEED TO KNOW, because how else will I "fix" this, right?

I'm getting antsy. I start getting out of my comfort zone and go to Lowe's without Niki just to see, obviously with the cane. I'm not having the vertigo. I want to go to my October meetings in LA. Dear lord, the airplane... I don't have enough energy to drive. Niki finds these ear plugs on Amazon for regulating air pressure (EarPlanes). Ok, let's try a quick single day trip. It goes surprising well. I have vertigo a couple times, albeit super quick episodes while on the trip. The EarPlanes work fucking amazingly, some positive news, finally. Maybe I can actually manage this. Everyone looks at the cane, most are confused. Everyone I chat with while in LA are supportive when I tell them what's going on. Best comment was: "maybe you should just say you laid down a motorcycle on a highway to save a pregnant lady and jacked your leg up". I love my people and our shared sense of dark humor.

November, I consult with my GP. Should I see a Neurologist? It couldn't/wouldn't hurt. Ok, appointment set for end of December (four days before Christmas), and my VRT "ends" in early Dec (fuck you very much medical insurance). I'll continue to do the exercises at home for now I guess. If I'm going to need the cane for a while, I might as well get one I like, so I do.

We go to the Neurologist. It's a very weird visit. He's is asking me questions, taking his time responding. Very nice guy, obviously thinks before speaking. Going over all my results I sent over. Very thoughtful.

Neurologist - "Take out your phone, open the camera."

Me - "Ok."

Neurologist - "Here take a photo so you can refer to it later, this spot right here on your MRI."

Me - "Yea, got it."

Neurologist - "Your ENT missed this, he saw possible migraine on the list of possible things and left it at that. These white matter lesions concern me."

Me - "Yes, we talked about that, I mentioned that about 15 mins ago when you asked me my other visits."

Neurologist - "Yea, ok. He missed this. I think you have MS."

Me - .......................

Neurologist - "Let's get you more bloodwork done, neck and spine MRIs... *cue Charlie Brown wah wahs* "

Me - ....

Neurologist - "... and a spinal tap."

Me - "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

Neurologist - "I know, sorry, they aren't fun. But let's do that and follow back up in Jan, and go from there."

Me - "Ok, wait you said MS?!?!? What then?"

Neurologist - "It can be dealt with, but it would account for all you said, plus all the weirdness with all the results so far."

As you can imagine, it was a quite anxious Christmas and New Years. More blood work, 10 vials taken in all at once for one, PTSD flashback to blood drawn when I was a kid when they found my iron deficiency. Brain electricity scans. MRA head and neck. MRI neck and spine. Already getting sick of getting poked and prodded. Then comes spinal tap time. 1 star, do not recommend. Hated it. "It'll just be a pinch..." Liars! Nope my body didn't like it one bit, it hurt like hell, all up my back and down both legs. Recovery was even worse, laid out on the couch with a proper migraine for a week straight. Like brain is going to leak out your ears migraine, light sensitive and all that. Nothing helped, not ice, not pain meds. Nada. Good times, indeed. Apparently, I've actually have actually never had a migraine before. Weird, huh?

Go back to Neurologist. "I'm not convinced it's MS." Well ok, thanks for that month and half panic attack and all the testing to go with it. "Maybe it's NMO." If it's not that, then he will refer me to another Neurologist for a second opinion just to make sure. Gotta love the go get 'em, figure it out attitude, but bro... send me for tests, but maybe don't tell me the worst case each time right up front. Go for even more bloodwork. "Btw, you have some syrinxes (cysts) in your cervical and thoracic spine. We're you dropped as an infant?" Huh? Uh, I don't think so? "Ok anyhow those won't do anything with this condition, but something to monitor yearly or so now."

I go out to Palms Springs for work. A whole 4 days planned. First night, I'm walking back to my room and it's pitch fucking black on the sidewalk, and I have to walk up a grassy area because of a puddle. I have to call Niki because I just cannot deal. I'm stressed. I can't walk. I have to use my phone's light to see so I can make my way back. I'm done. I just can't. This was the worst idea ever. Sigh. FUCK. I make it through 2 full days, going back to nap when I can, all the walking is too much. It's wearing me out, so much worse than I thought it would be. I just don' t have it in me to last the entire trip. I can't. I have to call it on day three, I'm disappointed in myself. I drive back home.

I have a follow up with the ENT 2. I want to stop taking the Nortriptyline as I'm not convinced it's Vestibular Migraine, and I really need a fucking drink at this point. You can't drink on Nortriptyline, and it's a bitch to get off of.

But moreover, I don't know if the vertigo being gone is from the medication or PT. I suspect the VRT PT. Besides since starting it, between my own searching and asking the physical therapist, I'm starting to suspect the BVH from a Neuritis (ongoing viral infection) in my inner ear. She tends to agree, they have been seeing that more and more, especially in younger people... Lingering viral infection, lines up with my symptoms, I had Covid late the year prior, and the "ear infection", and then the shingles. Too many coincidences to be coincidental. The timeline of events is WAY too close.

I speak with the ENT about this all. He still focuses on the nystagmus, which has since gone away, and deflects from the Neuritis, which is weird. Of all people whom specializes in inner ear infections and the such, and being the one that recommended the VNG. But such is the time we live in - it can't possibly be viral, that might mean we're not following up correctly with everything going on. The med is fine to stop, and if the vertigo comes back we know it was Vestibular Migraine. Come back when/if needed.

Spoiler alert - the vertigo doesn't come back full force, it's not Vestibular Migraine... Well least another thing ticked off. Lots of things ticked off, but not a lot to go on still. Fuck this, I'm starting to go back to my VRT. At least that was doing SOMETHING. My balance is still right around the same as it was in early Dec. So, still not great, but not worse. Yay, a small victory at least.

It's not NMO. At the neurologist, "Also, what about the fatigue? I'm super tired all the time. Like STUPID tired." This week I was back at the Strip for the yearly conventions, so doing the late dinners, drinks and all that as usual. "Maybe don't work so much." "Heh, right, but seriously, that's not possible." So he prescribes a MS fatigue medication, Amantadine. Cool, I don't have MS, but... ok, I'll just hold onto that for now, not starting that just yet. Referral received, and follow up for end of the year.

Enter Neurologist 2. This lady is great, spends around 2 hours with us. She's not convinced it's MS either. But the MRI is super low quality and she wants better images. Give her the entire story. Answers any ancillary questions we have. She mentions "You definitely have something going on in the sinus, ear, throat area, like maybe a Vestibular Neuritis, which damaged your balance." Hm, you don't say? "But let's get you more images, and you can come back."

Still doing my VRT, but I think now I've hit a plateau with my balance, so we're working on strengthening for tactical feedback so I can at least not fall, maybe eventually not use the cane.

VNG test number 2 as recommended by my PT, so we can see if anything has changed. Yep, definitely still BVH, and so far this is my ONLY actual 100% positive diagnosis. This year my total caloric eye speed has bumped up all the way to a whopping 9. Still shit, but upwards is a positive right? So how do you fix this? "You can't, if it's gone, it's gone. No getting it back, just learning to deal with it. But you should look up Neural Circuit Dizzyness." Yea, remember how I thought my brain was short circuiting from the loss of my vestibular working? Yea, cool. I get more dizzy when I am fatigued, so that tracks.

Cue two months later, back at the Neurologist 2. Definitely, probably NOT MS. "But let's monitor it yearly via MRIs for both your syrinxes and white matter lesions just in case, now that we know they are there. You should also find a new ENT." Know any GOOD ones in Vegas? "Yea... not so much. Maybe Mayo in AZ or UCLA in LA, but not many good or even decent ones in Vegas." Yea, I know that for sure, no one here specializes in BVH as ENTs. She gives me Meclizine to have on hand just in case I get more dizzy than normal for travel, and said the Amantadine might help, and try it out for a couple weeks.

Now - I'm at a point, I am sick of getting poked, prodded, jabbed, and all that. I'll follow up on follow ups and just for now focus on more VRT, bumping up the sessions per week, and see where we are at in a few months, maybe just finish out the year. I'm still fatigued all the damn time and debating starting the Amantadine. Balance is still crap when my eyes are closed, but now the vertigo only comes very rarely. Usually only when I'm beyond stupid tired, or overly exercised, and only for a few seconds at a time.

Still more to come, and a stupid, stupid long road ahead... to quote Monty Python: "I'm not dead yet!"

More background FYI - BVH affects only a very significantly small amount of people, I have read between .3-3% of the population. The higher number are ones who have this in addition to other related issues (such as BPPV or MS), and the smaller is having this without other conditions (related or not). The later, smaller percentage, appears to be my case - unrelated to anything else and its cause appears to be idiopathic (unknown or unknowable) for the time being.

For more info: https://vestibular.org/article/diagnosis-treatment/types-of-vestibular-disorders/bilateral-vestibular-hypofunction/

[carmenized-onions]

Ad Interim. | No Service

logline; The days and doubts and desires; the air, underneath the shoe.

[!!!] series history, this is the ninth; the amount of links are getting nauseating just go to the landing LMAO.

Spotify Playlist, if you like to listen while you read. I listen to it when I write :) Constantly gettin’ added to. I listen to this playlist too much in my day to day now, fr.

portion; 3k+

possible allergies; you're almost ten chapters in, you know very well by now that these two are rife with anxiety and insecurity.

pairing; Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto & Fem Reader (gets she/her'd mb)

fun fact: i finished this one 19 hours after the last chapter, whoops, but let it sit in my drafts to give some breathing room and do some rework

It is t-minus three days, until the worst Friday of your life.

But today’s Tuesday, and though you feel a touch uneasy, you figure it’s probably just the breakfast from yesterday at La Mattina settling in your stomach— Or, at least, hope it is.

You’re at home, sitting on your couch, pensive, haggard, leaned over. Elbows to knees, prayer hands to face, staring at your phone on the coffee table in front of you.

Just send it. Just send the text. Don’t be a fucking wuss. You’ve re-written it in your notes app like five fucking times— He does not care this much, he doesn’t even have basic reading comprehension— Okay, that’s mean— But it’s just not that deep. Just fucking! Send it!

Actually no, no, upon sixth review, the paragraph you had written out was way too intense, way too presumptive. Backspace, backspace, backspace—Just say hi. Let’s just start with Hi.

‘Yooooooooo’

Are you fucking possessed? Good Lord. How is he already typing he never used to reply this fast, what the fuck—

‘Are u fucking haunted?’

‘Fuck is yooooooo’

‘Yooo to you too, cousin’

Faster texter now, but Richie is still the same guy, at the end of the day.

‘this is a loaded fucking question’

‘but do you think you’ll be free any time this week?’

‘not unless ur dead or dying��

‘are you dead or dying?’

‘not that I’ve heard’

‘but I was thinking maybe we could like, get food or smth’

‘chat one on one. Been a minute, yknow’

That was too much. You didn’t need to do all that. Now he’s gonna go well who’s fault is that? And it’s yours. You know it’s yours. And then you’re gonna have that fucking conversation— Which is what this whole meet up thing was supposed to be about in the first place—

‘heard’

‘can’t get time off but fak needs to have his training wheels ripped’

‘could have dinner at the bear this week? Like 2 hours. Then I can watch him and keep him from shitting the bed’

‘and still get to do a fucking one on one, you corporate speak ass’

‘I didn’t know how else to fucking say it alright!!!!!!’

‘Dinner @ bear sounds good to me’

‘but probably ask carm/syd first if it’s cool’

‘yea yea I’ll fuckin check in with daddy don’t worry’

‘that sucked for me. That sucked to read. Go to jail.’

‘already have.’

‘I’ll let u know a time when I know. See u chip’

You heart it. The classic signal that it’s the end of a conversation. Holy shit. You did it. You actually texted someone that you miss that you miss them— Not directly, but you know Rich knows. And specifically, to book a dinner, to talk about what happened, to apologize for it. That’s pretty fucking huge. Which means—

It’s time to eat a whole freezer cake and lay in your pyjamas all day and interact with not a single soul on this entire planet. You’re absolutely at your social limit, for the day. Maybe you’ll talk it through with Mikey, actually. To the air, more accurately, but, y’know, same thing.

You’re gonna get dinner with Richie. You’re gonna get dinner, with Richie, this Friday. And it’s not gonna be awkward or weird, at all.

It is t-minus two days, until the worst Friday of Carmen’s life, so far, at least. There’s always next year.

But today’s Wednesday, and though he feels a little nerve-wracked, he’s pretty sure it’s just because the kitchen was so fucking dysfunctional this morning, and now that their prep’s off, the tempo of the whole fucking day is off, and they're behind on two tables. And fucking seriously this time, can someone get him a fucking marker that fucking works.

Okay, maybe it’s a little more, than nerve wracked.

Sydney is ever the intuitive, and always correct, at the station next to him— Because yes, they’re still down a hire since the meth guy, so now Carmen is on line.

She can tell, that somethings wrong with him, something’s always wrong with him. “Take your ten, Chef.”

Carmen shakes his head, obviously, there’s still prep to catch up on. And if he doesn't do it, it's not gonna get done, and even if it does get done, it's not gonna get done right. He’s pressing the dead sharpie down on the tape, like if he just brute forces it, it’ll start to work. “M’good, Chef.”

“Carmen.” She turns to him fully, stopping her work. And so, he does too. “Take your fucking ten.” She deadpans, she’s not taking no for an answer. She rubs her fist over her heart.

Carmen takes a beat, before nodding, doing the same. “Heard, Chef.”

He needs to look over expense reports that he can’t quite comprehend, anyways.

He really needs his sister. He steps into his office. Despite the fact that they re-constructed just about everything in the restaurant, this musty office remains the same. Untouched. After caving down walls, they had to cut the budget somewhere. He’s glad though, that it's untouched. It might be crowded, poorly organized, have an off smell (probably because of the birth in here, just a few weeks back), but it’s exactly as his brother left it, and that helps him feel… Connected, somehow.

What the hell is Var vs Budget? He’s googling every other word, here. He’s more than grateful, that before going home on mat leave, Sug set up a good enough automated Excel sheet that he could just plug in numbers and it did all the calculating for him. Doesn’t mean he knows what any of the numbers mean, but, they’re there.

He knows that red equals bad. Natalie told him that very specifically. Which did seem like she was calling him fucking stupid, but he let it go. There’s a lot of red. That’s a lot of bad. Well, not a lot, but like, a third of this is red. That’s probably more than it should be. How many months do they have again? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He is never gonna get to pay himself, he’s never gonna be able to pay Syd, he's never gonna get her a star, she’s gonna live with her dad for the rest of her life, you are never gonna get to work here, you’re gonna work as a bottle girl for the rest of your life, he’s never gonna get his shit together so he’s never gonna get to call you his, he’s gonna have to hand the deed to Cicero and then fucking everyone is gonna to lose their jobs and he’s still gonna be him. He’s still gonna be him. Carmy Berzatto, the chef that lost everything, little brother to everyone's hero who blew his brains out. Starless in Chicago, unable to feel anything more than sorry for himself. Carmen’s gonna die as Carmen, and nothing more. At the end of the day.

Take a deep breath, Bear. Relax.

He’s catastrophizing. You told him that. He forgot to look into it. He googles that, instead of another business term he doesn’t understand.

‘Fixates on the worst possible outcome and treats it as likely, even when it is not.’

Well, it does seem pretty fucking likely that he’s doomed to fail and fall into a Sisyphean nightmare of opening restaurants and falling on his fucking face, dragging everyone he loves down with him with his stupid failed pipe dreams. He's no better than his brother.

He tries his best to think of whatever level-headed bullshit you'd give to him, right now, tries to taste the hot chocolate, the lavender and cardamom coffee. He smells your shampoo, in his hair, that helps.

Maybe, maybe it’s just been a bad week. Maybe there will be a lot of bad weeks, maybe there won’t be. Maybe things will be fine, maybe they won’t. You and Syd will still succeed, even if he fails. Everyone will, even if he fails. He has a very capable crew. And while he cannot escape the thought that failure is around the corner, at the very least, he is comforted by the idea that at least he will be the only one sinking with the ship he commands.

The thought of drowning alone is still impossible to rid of. Though.

But you’ve sent a text. And isn’t that a wonderful distraction?

Your connection results in response to his, from this morning, of course. You actually got it today. He swells with what feels like pride, and despite the fact that no one's looking at him, he has to hide his smile with his hand, embarrassed by how happy he is, when he sees the photo you’ve sent, just now. A selfie, sitting next to an oven, Other Tony’s oven. You’re holding a fried wire in your hand.

The text below it is a wonderful salve, ‘If you ever fuck up your ovens, I’ve got like, 10 thermocouples in my personal stock now :))’

So good to him, too good to him. Too good to anyone. ‘Heard.’

Carmen so, so fucking desperately wants to ask you to come to The Bear, right now. You’re only two blocks away, at La Mattina. You’d come, if he asked. He knows that. But he also knows that even if you calm him down, in the long run, it’ll set his day even further off tempo, he’ll be distracted the rest of his shift, and that’s the last thing he needs. He can handle this himself.

‘:)’ For levity. Or something. He’s trying. You give it a heart, so that means he’s done something good, he’s pretty sure.

There’s a knock at his door. Richie does not wait for an answer before coming in. His knocks are more like warnings, really. Carmen’s quick to tuck his phone away, he knows it’d be perfect cannon fodder to be teased into oblivion.

“Aye, cous—”

Carmen does not let the man get a word in inch wise, “Who’s on expo?”

Richie grimaces, this fucking song and dance, again. “Syd.”

“Who’s on her station, then?”

“T.”

“And hers?”

“She’s doin’ fuckin’ both Carmy— And—” Richie pulls a sharpie out of his breast pocket, throwing it at him. Carmen catches it. “Fuckin’ works. Alright?”

Marker works, and the system works. He catches the double meaning, too. Carmen nods, “Heard.”

“Christ.” Richie looks to high heaven, looks to his best friend, really, to give him strength. “Can I take my fuckin’ turn now?”

“Yeah, yeah, go ‘head.” Carmen turns to his desk, looking over the excel sheet, again. He can’t imagine Richie needing all of his undivided attention, right now, he’s not you.

Speaking of you, he can’t find your repair expenses anywhere on here. He needs to text Sug, about that. No, she’s got a fucking baby, he’ll at least look for a physical copy, first.

“I need to take two hours, on Friday.”

“Huh?” Carm’s head snaps up. Okay, maybe he does need to give his full attention to Richie, right now. “Eva got a fuckin’ recital, or somethin’?”

“No, no, uh— Chip wants to get dinner.” Rich scratches his nose with his thumb. “Thought since Fak's been training to host f'like, the whole fuckin’ month, could do dinner 'ere, let him do a run on us. Two birds, one bullet, y’know.”

“It’s stone.”

“I’m not fuckin’ high, cousin—” “No, it’s— Alright.” Carmen closes his eyes, hand over his face, deciding this is not the fight he wants to choose. “Tony’s getting dinner with you?”

“If I’m allowed, your fuckin’ Majesty.”

If it were up to Carmen? He wouldn’t be. But you specifically asked. Why, he has no idea. Carmen crosses his arms. “Yeah, yeah, s’fine. Just start at like, a not peak time. Like 4:30? Then when rush starts after 5 Fak’ll have a lil' momentum.”

“Heard. I’ll tell ‘em.” Richie nods, turning to make his way out.

Carm’s leg bounces, a tick that he’s pretty sure he’ll never get rid of. “… Ey Rich?”

He stops, turning back to Carmy, “Yeah, cousin?”

Carmen taps the end of the sharpie on the table, not looking at Richie, “What’s uh— Why d’you call Tony ‘Chip’?”

Ever so slightly, Richie’s brows furrow. “Did'j'ya ask her?”

Carm shakes his head, “S’why I’m asking you.”

Richie takes a beat, head rocking to the side, “Y'should ask her, she’ll tell you.”

Carmy squints, at that, “Is it fuckin’ dark or somethin’, cousin?”

What’s so secretive about Chip? He figured it would be some stupid inside joke with chocolate chips, like Sug with the salt mix up. Richie swallows, frowning just a bit. He clearly does not know how to answer this question, which just makes Carmen even more curious.

“S’ not dark, kinda, it’s just, y’know. Personal.” Since when the fuck did Richie have respect for personal? Probably since he sent him to stage. Goddammit.

“Did you not coin it?”

“Mikey did.”

Oh.

Huh.

Mikey got to do that first, too, eh?

“But, y’know, ask her, she likes you well enough to tell you, I think.” Richie shrugs, palms out. “Kinda tells stories like that better than me, anyways.” That's high praise— Not in the sense that Richie's a great storyteller, but that he's willing to admit it, for you.

“Oh, she doesn’t bury the fuckin’ lead?”

“Oh, fuck you.” But it’s true, so Richie’s amused. There’s something nice, about being known. Even if it’s to tease.

There’s a lull of silence. Quite frankly, Carmen’s hoping that Richie’s general disdain of silence will force him to confess your nickname backstory, just to fill the void. It doesn’t. Instead, it just gears him up, in the worst way, able to read the look on Carmen’s face.

“You really wanna fuckin know, huh?” Richie tilts down his head, teasing. Carmen groans. Oh dear god, why him. “Oh, fuck, you fuckin’ like her, don’t’chu, cousin? You fuckin’ dog.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rich—”

“Aye, Chip’s a real catch, I gettit— Works hard, plays nice, cleans up good— Y’have my blessing.”

“Didn’t ask for it.”

“Aye,” Richie snaps his fingers, pointing at Carmen like he could smite him. “Don’t gimme no talk back, she was my boy first, a’right? One bad word from me, n’ your lil’ fantasy—” He gestures an explosion with his hand, making a ‘pop’ sound with his lips.

“Gone, cousin.”

Carmen leans back in his seat, playing with the sharpie in his hand. He’s essentially Kubrick staring down Richie, but the guy is unaffected. “Friday, 4:30, two hours. If Fak fucks up, you’re on deck.”

“Heard.”

“Jeff, can I please get an all day, baby?” Baby is Tina’s new HR approved version of ‘for the love of fucking god’ She’s definitely at her limit, meaning Syd’s definitely at her limit on expo. Richie starts to step out, walking backwards.

“You comin’ cousin?”

Carm scratches his nose, straightening up back to his desk. He wishes he could go back to the kitchen, where he knows he’s good, instead of in here, with some goddamn spreadsheets that he cannot comprehend beyond bad. “Uh, one sec, I just need to finish this fuckin’—” He shakes his hand in the air, “Whatever the fuck this is.”

Richie nods, tapping the doorway on his way out. “Heard… g’luck.”

Carmen does not look at the spreadsheets. No. He thinks. He doesn't think about business.

That wasn’t true, was it? A phone call from Richie wouldn’t be the end of him, end of you, would it? Carmen is on the losing playing field here, practically everyone here has more history with you than he does. If he had a… lapse in behaviour, and it got back to you, would that ruin him? God, even his work family ruins things for him. Or could. Which means they will. Catastrophizing.

Whatever. What the fuck ever. He needs to find your invoice. After some flipping through last month’s file, he finds a sticky note from Sug between loose pages.

‘reminder: ask carmy 4 tony invoice’

He squints. You said Nat took care of it. Maybe it’s an old sticky note, he’ll text her about it, it’ll be a solid forty hours before he’ll get a response, anyways. Mom stuff. He really needs to go visit his niece again, soon. Maybe this weekend. Take Richie’s car. But then he'll probably will be forced to take Richie, too. Maybe he should just ask you, instead. Let Nat thank you for the heating pad she’s been loving, properly. Have dinner, all together, in an actual family home, instead of just each other's apartments. That'd be nice.

Yeah. Yeah. He’ll ask you on Friday, when you come for dinner. He grabs a pad of paper, biting the cap off his sharpie. He’ll make you something off menu, on Friday. You’re coming before the rush, anyways, he’ll have time to play, on Friday.

He’s gonna do right by you, this Friday.

Tomorrow, you’ll be getting dinner with Richie, and it’ll be the worst Friday of your life.

But right now, it’s Thursday night, and you’ve finally finished Carmen’s piece for The Bear. You know you told him if he didn’t like it, he didn’t have to put it up, but admittedly, if he doesn’t like it, you will be crushed.

One big white canvas.

Nine perfect squares, perfectly equidistant from each other at all angles.

Each square a snippet, a photo transfer. The squares themselves are messy, sun damaged, bleach stained, light flared. All twinged blue and yellowish. But so perfectly cut and curated.

Each image, something new. Starting at the top left, it’s The Original Beef. Then, the inside. Then the booths.

Then the second row, the sandwiches, held in hands.

The center photo. You've taken almost all of these photos on a disposable from yesteryear, but this is the one you like the most.

Mikey. The only transfer completely unbleached, unaltered, unruined. He’s holding two cut outs. One, Food & Wine and the other, a small section in the off off off pages of the New York Times.

Both specifically the one’s that mentioned Carmen, winning Best Chef and the James Beard.

Mikey was so proud. So so proud, silently, just with you— Couldn't look soft. Carmen does not know this photo exists. No one does. You hope this piece will act as the catalyst for you to be able to talk about the elephant in the room you’ve yet to open for him.

Right next to Mikey, is a balloon on a pipe— A photo you grabbed from Sydney and printed. You can only imagine the stress you could’ve eased, during their fire safety test. C’est la vie. Fak got to prove himself.

And on the last row, the new, ritzy, booths. The Seven Fishes dish— Also a photo you stole from Sydney. And finally, The Bear’s sign. Taken at night, lit up in all its neon glory.

Though the images are disconnected, starting from Mikey in the center— Clean, the flaring and staining grows more intense at the pictures in the corner. Just bordering on illegible. It all feels interconnected, woven.

It’s Carmen. Or, at least, you think it is. That’s what you were trying to achieve. You took inspiration from the way his brain works, the way he cooks messy but produces orderly, the way he’s grown something out of what was barely more than nothing. The way love and grief is at the center of everything. He’s awfully inspiring.

You’re excited, to show this to him tomorrow, on Friday. Hopefully all goes well, on Friday. You’re coming before the rush, you’ll probably have a little time to talk, on Friday. You won’t be able to get into everything, no, you’ve promised most of your bandwidth to Richie, but you’ll make a good start, on Friday.

You’re gonna do right, by Carmen, on Friday.

Tomorrow.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

i've still got 2k of beats to cover for the next chapter, and have 7.9k already written out, for it. This is going to be fun. lmao. I'm genuinely very very excited for you to see it, when it comes out. Cannot believe I thought like 4 chapters ago that'd this next chapter would be the one to be released next. I almost briefed over all of these past few chapters to be nothing more than snippets in a chapter, I would never forgive myself if i went through with that plan, fr.

Anyways, no time for the future, this is NOW!! I hope I described Tony's paintin' good. I think it'd be nice. MBMBAM reference in the intro, are you fucking HAUNTED? ARE YOU FUCKING POSESSED? Love griffy, had to. Carmen CANNOT stop having anxiety attacks, someone get him on prozac frfr.

Tell me your thoughts or I'll eat my hat, I'm gonna need some words to chew on while I write, anyways. Hitting a wall choreographing this back half of chapter ten my GOD. Also oh yeah, silly aesthetic thing. I dunno if anyone noticed or cared, but i do a different ombre banner when it's carmen's perspec-- Did it last chapter too, aint that cute?

Also, I must finally give in, I was lazy to do taglists, but have folded, so here u are mfs. If you'd like to be added, you gotta leave me an essay somewhere. It's the RULES! Well, leave an essay and also ask to be added to the taglist that is but IT'S THE RULES!!

@anytim3youwant @navs-bhat @whoknowswhoiamtoday @gills-lounge @slut4supersoldiers @sinceweremutual @itsallacotar @catsrdabestsocks101

fully added people that never asked to be on here, you're just like, top fans, so i thought it would be nice, but if you WANT TO BE TAKEN OFF LET ME KNOW I'LL DO IT IMMEDIATELY ALSO IF I'M FORGETTING ANYONE WHO ASKED PLEASE DO REMIND ME

Next Part

[dragonmuse]

I had so much fun with your scenario in which Izzy becomes a writer! Do you think there's any chance of a universe somewhere where he'd become a professional chef? Maybe one that makes a name for himself making food that's both gourmet and allergen-free... I love all these possible AUs that you write, by the way <3

( Thank you so much! <3.

soooo this one became a full on fic. no bulleted list. Because of that, there was no place to put it, but Eddy in this timeline comes out in her teens and is already out when she meets Izzy. CW: There is an old-fashioned Izzy allergy attack in this one. Brief mention of a hospital, but no one stays there.

Let's call this one 'bottle of red, bottle of white' )

“Boss?”  Fang appeared at Eddy’s elbow. They were trying to sort out the reservation system that Hornigold had foisted on them last week. It was a fucking mess. 

“What?” Eddy snapped. 

“There’s an emergency.” 

Eddy whirled on Fang, who did have a wild look about him. 

“What kind?” 

“Ivan already called 911. It’s Izzy.” 

“Did he stab someone?” Eddy asked with a groan, heading back towards the kitchen.

“No, boss-” 

The kitchen was silent. The kitchen was never silent. It was a place of flames, banging pots and yelling. If Hornigold was back there (rarer and rarer these days) than it was even worse, with barks of ‘yes, chef!’ following his shouted order. 

No Hornigold today. But also no banging, no leaping cascades of fire. The rapid ‘clack clack clack’ of knives had fallen off. The entire staff seemed frozen, eyes glued to the floor. Eddy looked down and there was Izzy, sitting on an overturned bucket. Izzy who rarely let anyone touch him, had Ivan’s hand on his back, as he tried to draw in air. 

“Iz,” Eddy dropped into a squat, fear seizing her. Israel Hands didn’t sit during meal prep. He was a shark from 4pm until midnight, moving from spot to spot to ward off death.  

Izzy didn’t look up. His hands were planted to his knees and his breath was staggered. The hands were covered in furious red bumps. 

“Did he get burned?” Eddy demanded. 

“No, boss,” Blue Toby was looming over them. “All of a sudden he started wheezing.” 

“Ambulance is on it’s way,” Ivan provided. 

“Fuck,” Eddy closed their eyes, sucked in a breath than nodded sharply. “Ivan, stay on the phone. The rest of you, get the fuck back to work. Dinner service is still dinner service.  Iz...Izzy, can you hear me?” 

A slow faint nod. 

“Fang, tell Sam he's on front of house until I get this figured out.” 

“Yes, boss.” 

Industry sounds started up again, but not nearly as loud as usual. Ivan went on talking to the operator. 

Eddy put a hand over Izzy’s shoulder. Listened to the way his breath strained. 

“Don’t you dare die, you mother fucker,” She hissed. “I will dig you out of your grave and make sure you never have a moment’s peace if you die.” 

Izzy’s horribly broken out hand groped for hers. He held it tightly, eyes pressed closed. 

Eddy could hear her pulse in her ears.  

Cooking was not Eddy’s thing, really. Eating was fun though. When they’d been offered a gratis summer class on cooking at some underprivileged kids' bullshit school, Eddy had taken it figuring that at least there’d be some extra meals. It had been a condescending, terrible fucking experience, except for two things: 1. She’d met Hornigold, celebrity chef, who frequented the school to find young, cheap labor and 2. She’d met Izzy, who actually liked all the ridiculous classroom stuff and had attached himself to her like an angry limpet. 

It had only taken a two years of doing Hornigold’s bidding that Eddy realized that maybe only one of those two things had actually been good. Not that Eddy wasn’t fucking aces at her job. Restaurant management was made for her. Three years in, she ran the Ranger almost single-handedly. Hornigold’s flagship restaurant only turned profit because Eddy was at the helm. But it was miserable work. Hornigold would never unclench his fist fully around the place, swooping in to make a mess of what Eddy had finally cleaned up and taking them to task for things that no one could control for. 

No...no. The only goddamn thing worth having that she’d gotten out of that ridiculous class was Izzy.  Reliable, loyal, workaholic, Izzy, who turned all of Hornigold’s tired old recipes into something at least palatable. Izzy, who terrorized the kitchen staff into a peak efficiency, uncaring of what they said about him on smoke breaks.  Izzy, who no matter how late he’d been up the night before, was awake before Eddy and handing them coffee when they stumbled out of the bedroom. 

Her roommate, her partner, her sometimes fuck that once let her choke him in the pantry and he’d made such sweet sounds around her fingers. There were no moans today, no penetrating eye contact. Izzy was fighting for his breath against the world instead of her and that was fucking unacceptable. 

“Don’t die,” she ordered again and he squeezed her hand harder. 

“Back here!” Ivan guided in EMTs. Eddy was shoved back, but that never stopped them from staying where they needed to be. When they loaded Izzy into the ambulance, Eddy was right there beside him. 

The phone in their pocket was already buzzing with recriminations from Hornigold, some asshole probably tattled. Eddy didn’t give a single fuck. It was a restaurant, fully-staffed. Everyone would survive one night without peak service. 

Whatever they gave to Izzy in the ambulance seemed to start working. His breathing became a little less labored though nowhere close to normal. In the E.R., they get him laid out and an I.V. hooked up, but there were no rooms available, so they were just in the hallway. Eventually, Izzy groaned and sat up, head in hands. 

“What the fuck?” Eddy demanded of him, even as she rested her hand on the back of his head, brought in close enough to kiss his stupidly over gelled hair. 

“Peanut butter,” Izzy muttered. 

Eddy froze. They knew Izzy had some shit about nuts. He wouldn’t eat them. Wouldn’t cook with them either.  Seemed like one of his many weird twitches and Eddy had let it alone. What did she care if there were nuts on the menu?  But Hornigold had insisted that his latest ‘innovation’ (a dish he’d served twenty years ago and was hoping everyone had forgotten about) needed a dollop of peanut butter in it. 

Izzy hadn’t said a word as the instructions had been rattled off. But he had been wearing latex gloves all week. 

“Are you fucking allergic?” They bit off, furious they hadn’t realized before. 

“Yeah.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Did,” Izzy’s voice was raw. “He didn’t give a shit. Hadn’t had a reaction in years, figured maybe I’d gotten over it.” 

“Well, you didn’t,” she growled. 

“Yeah,” Izzy agreed. “Noticed.” 

“Should’ve told me. I can’t do shit about what you haven’t told me.” 

“You had other things.” 

It had been a bitch of a week. Eddy had been furious for most of it. Izzy never minded their temper, seemed even to enjoy it sometimes, but he wouldn’t have brought them a problem when they were like that. 

“You could’ve died, moron,” Eddy snapped. “Then what would I do? Out half the rent and a head chef? I’d have to find like ten new people to replace you.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Fuck. Hornigold legit almost killed you because he doesn’t know how to spice a stew,” Eddy realized. “You probably had like three alternatives, right?” 

“Four,” Izzy agreed. 

“Shit.” 

It took some time, but eventually Eddy was allowed to take Izzy and his shiny new Epi-Pen home. The apartment was a disaster, usually was Tuesday through Sunday.  Mondays, Izzy would tidy and Eddy would do laundry for them both. Sometimes, if Eddy was lucky, those cleaning sessions would end in Izzy cooking something just for the two of them. Something new he’d thought of while churning out ancient classics of someone else’s cookbook that would be spectacular.

Tonight, Eddy ate cold mac and cheese from a box, watching Izzy sleep in her bed. She had steered him in here when they got home and he hadn’t asked a question, just kicked off his shoes and fallen against the sheets. 

It was one thing for Hornigold to treat Izzy like shit. Hornigold treated them all like shit. But it was another to almost kill the man. Izzy belonged to Eddy. No one got to take him from her. 

After they were done eating, they got into bed and curled around him, listening to him breathe.

“Eddy,” Izzy pushed at them. They startled awake. 

“What?” 

“I need to piss.” 

“Come back after,” she demanded. 

To their surprise, he did come back and let himself be reeled in close. They didn’t cuddle usually. They didn’t ever actually sleep together, but Eddy wasn’t letting him out of her sight if she could help it. 

“We have to get out of there,” she whispered in his ear and Izzy didn’t argue. 

It took two years. Two more painful years to scratch up what they needed, to do it quietly. To find the place, to shake money out of investors that weren’t keen on handing over cash to two people in their twenties with thin resumes. In the end, all they were able to secure was a hole -in-the-wall place in a rundown neighborhood. 

“It’s gorgeous,” Eddy determined. 

“It’s a shithole,” Izzy contended, but he was smiling. Not the feral one with too many teeth that some staffers saw right before they were fired. Just the real one that he got sometimes when Eddy complimented his food. 

“We’ll make it gorgeous,” Eddy allowed. 

“You will,” Izzy walked straight back into the kitchen with a pile of cleaning supplies and a gleam in his eye. 

It took weeks of elbow grease, and a clever manipulation of funds to get the place into opening shape. Eddy sourced tables and chairs from curbsides, bringing them back to clean and paint until everything was black, purple and blue. On a whim, she even painted the horrible linoleum flooring a matte black, sealing it in with satisfaction at 2 AM on weekday. 

“Huh,” Izzy had said as he stumbled in to find them slumped over a rescued table the next morning. 

“You like it?” She challenged. 

“Should do the ceiling too,” he offered. 

They did that. Strung fairy lights up over it so it glistened like the night sky. The walls got covered in bric-a-brac, paintings that Eddy found in Goodwill, seascapes where she could get them. 

And in the kitchen, Izzy built a menu like an architect, scaffolding up dishes. Eddy’s stomach had never been fuller as she happily tucked into his ‘failures’. 

“Need a name,” Eddy said one night as they both chewed through egg-free pasta noodles drenched in garlic, oil, and oregano. 

“Choose whatever,” Izzy gestured loosely with a fork. “You’re good at that shit.” 

“You’re the executive chef,” Eddy grinned. “Just call it Hands.” 

“Fuck that,” he snorted.  

“How about Nutless?” 

“Yeah, that’ll go over.” 

“Dizzy Izzy’s?” She suggested and then cackled as he threw a noodle at her head. 

In the end, the white on black lettering on the sign says ‘Freedom, a fine dining experience’ in Eddy’s own loopy and writing and underneath in Izzy’s spiky letters ‘nut-free, egg-free, soy-free, full of flavor’. 

Running a restaurant together, without Hornigold’s interference, was both easier and harder. Eddy had complete control, but there was also no one else to blame when things went wrong. Izzy stayed in the kitchen like someone had chained him to the stove, despite have a half-decent kitchen crew. He’d even gone back to the fucking horrible school and plucked a sous-chef from their ranks. Roach swore even more than Izzy, had a pathological attachment to his meat cleaver and made the world’s most gorgeous quiches. Thanks to Roach, they expanded into brunch service on the weekends. 

“You don’t have to go in,” Eddy would remind Izzy on Sundays. “Roach has it.” 

“Busy today,” was all Izzy would say and then disappear. 

The hookups in the pantry were off the table once it became their pantry and was no longer a rebellion, but a liability to the shelving. Nights in one of their beds fell off as they both came home too tired to do anything more than sleep. 

And Eddy....they found they didn’t miss it much. It was easier to be Izzy’s business partner than his life partner. 

So they didn’t talk about it and that part of their lives died on the vine. Withered up and went cold.

“I found a place,” Izzy told them, not making eye contact. They were eating their own dinners, hurriedly over the sink as the kitchen buzzed around them. It was one of Eddy’s favorites, seared scallops, which they rarely served. That should’ve made them suspicious. 

“What do you mean?” 

“To live,” Izzy stared harder at his place. “Closer to here.” 

“Iz...” 

“I can’t stay,” he muttered. “I can’t- we can do this. Here. But I can’t be in your space all the time if we’re not...” 

“Yeah,” Eddy choked. Fuck. “Yeah, okay.” 

**** 

Izzy hadn’t lived alone for more than a few days in his entire life. Gone from home to his shared apartment with Eddy. At first, he relished the quiet. The control. No one else's things cluttering up his precious few hours of free time. But it quickly dulled. He missed Eddy desperately some days, even when...maybe especially when, he was around them for hours anyway.  

If it hadn’t been for the restaurant, maybe Izzy wouldn’t have had the balls to go. Maybe he would’ve hung around the apartment for the rest of his life, waiting for Eddy to want him again. 

But there was Freedom. There was the kitchen where he ruled with an iron fist and could spend the day elbow deep in food prep. Yes, there was still Eddy swanning in and out, poking and teasing him while they made sure the money flowed in. 

And it did. Reviews came out and Izzy read them late at night, memorizing criticism and recalling it at horrible moments, but they were generally good. People liked the food, like the atmosphere Eddy had curated with their inane knick-knacks and charisma. They were good at being partners on the steady black floors of their tiny kingdom. 

So Izzy poured himself into the restaurant. They hired more staff. Oluwande, who was a good host, came with Jim, who wandered into the kitchen one night and never went back out on the floor again and Frenchie, who made divine pastries light as air. 

“Iz,” Eddy circled up around him one night, their eyes alight. “The place next store closed.” 

“The pharmacy or the antiques place?” Izzy glanced up. 

“Antiques,” Eddy reached down, plucked up one of the bits of beef  dancing around the pan that Izzy had been cooking. Izzy had given up even pretending to threaten them about that a long time ago. Eddy had asbestos fingers and no sense of kitchen hygiene, it just was what it was. Anyway, the appreciative noise she made when she had a bite of his food had always been his favorite compliment. 

“Good,” he determined. “Hated that dusty window display.” 

“Yeah, but...” Eddy hooked her chin over his shoulder. A few years of working together, living part had left her physically affectionate again and he never shook her off. “Iz. Next door.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Space, Iz. Two stoves.  More tables. The walk-in freezer I know you jerk off too.” 

Izzy’s eyes went wide, “We can’t afford it...can we?” 

“We can,” Eddy said delighted. “We fucking will.” 

It required meeting with some rich dude that owned the building, but Eddy came back from that meeting very merry and an agreement in hand. 

“You’d like him.” Eddy declared, then wrinkled her nose. “Actually you’d probably hate him, but I like him. Anyway, he gave us a sweetheart deal.” 

They had to close for an entire month which was heart-stopping, but Izzy didn’t have time to obsess over it because he was handed a sledgehammer. To cut costs, they did a lot of the labor themselves and it was like the beginning all over again. The whole staff pitched in and the wall came down. 

“What if we didn’t do the floors black?” Eddy floated as they stood between the two spaces, only the demarcation of paint to say where one had once started and the other began. 

Izzy crossed his arms over his chest. He loved the black floors, Eddy’s first tender foray into making their mark on their space. But whatever they chose it would still be Eddy’s. That’s what mattered. Eddy out front, facing the world, Izzy in the back, making it taste better. 

“Do what you want,” he said and it wasn’t dismissive. He hoped Eddy knew that. 

The way they caught his eye suggested that they did, so he left it there. He had a walk-in freezer to stock anyway.  

He didn’t count on the chandelier. 

“What the fuck?”

“It was Stede’s idea,” Eddy said gleefully from beneath the actually very tasteful fall of crystal. 

With a bigger space, they finally put in a decent size bar. It was made of mismatched reclaimed wood, homage to their now retired mismatched furniture. Eddy hired a bartender and then informed Izzy,

“No allergies, omnivore. He suggested if you guys did a tasting he could build out a cocktail menu to match. Told him you’re shit at wine pairings.”

“Thanks,” Izzy rolled his eyes. “Cocktails though?”

“People pay through the nose for specialty cocktails,” Eddy shrugged. “Stede knew the guy, says he’s good. Works rich people parties sometimes, apparently.”

“Great.” Izzy prepared himself to spend an hour listening to a pretentious peacock pick apart his menu. He made the tasting platter as perfect as he could because that’s just how he was and brought  it out to the bar at the appointed time. 

The guy was waiting, already seated at the bar and he was a knockout. Long legs in skinny jeans, shirt so wide necked it threatened to dip off one shoulder and a creamy bit of fabric wrapped around his neck. His hair looked intentionally mussed, a fucked out look that only came from gel.

“You Spriggs?” Izzy asked, pleased that it came out nearly normal. 

“That’s me. You must be Israel.”

“Izzy,” he corrected.

“Izzy,” Lucius repeated with a lingering look. “Lucius, please”

He set the tray on the bar. “Won’t all stay at the right temperature but I don’t have my staff in this early in the day to make as we go.”

“That’s fine,” Lucius studied the tray. “This is…this so beautiful. You didn’t have to make it…wow. Sorry I feel like I asked you to do a lot of work. I just needed some quick bites.”

“Eat with your eyes too,” Izzy did not flush. Absolutely not. 

“Yeah I’m devouring,” and that sounded lewd as hell. “Where do I start?”

“There’s the hummus,” Izzy pointed to it. “Has some heat if you mind that kind of thing.”

“I like a bit of spice.”  

Did everything this guy say sound like a double entendre?  Lucius dipped pita into the hummus and took a bite. Then he made a low, throaty noise that went straight to Izzy’s dick. 

“It’s so creamy! Holy shit, it’s like a mousse.” 

“Yeah,” Izzy said vaguely. “That’s the point.” 

“Wow, okay, and this is the eggplant stack thing, right? Gotta say I like that you don’t do any dippy names. Everything is what it says it is.”  Lucius took on the mouthful with another one of those noises. It took everything in Izzy not to turn around and look for a camera. This felt like a setup. 

“Never liked playing cute. Eddy tried it early on, but it didn’t sit right.” 

“Mhm,” Lucius picked up his glass of water and took a sip. “There’s another appetizer?” 

There were fifteen small plates on the tray. Three appetizers, ten entrees, two desserts. Tight menu for a tight space.

Izzy answered Lucius’ questions, watched him basically make out with each dish, and decided he didn’t care if he was being punked, his ego had never been this well stroked without any apparent agenda.  

Lucius licked the back of his dessert spoon, then asked, “Mind if I get behind the bar? I think better if I mix as I go. Kind of like sketching.” 

“Yeah, go ahead,” Izzy said roughly. “Sketching?” 

“Uh huh. Okay, so the vibe this gives me is like...summery? Which is pretty cool because you’re mostly using winter vegetables.” 

“Yes,” Izzy nodded.  “Mostly. The farmer we source things from grows some out of season things in a greenhouse, so it’s still fresh.” 

“Into that. So I’m thinking I can keep a base of four cocktails, then rotate two in seasonally to match what you do with the menu.” 

“How’d you know that we switch things out?” Izzy hadn’t told him that yet, figuring it was enough to work with the winter menu that they were currently dealing with. 

“I read some reviews,” Lucius admitted, taking down various bottles. “Got a favorite liquor?” 

“Vodka. I hope you didn’t read that twat from the Sun.” 

“Was that the guy who bitched about the ambiance? Came off pretty petty.” 

“It was,” Izzy said darkly. “He hit on Eddy and they turned him down. So.” 

“Oh ew,” Lucius wrinkled his nose. He dug out a shaker and shoveled ice into it. “Eddy get that a lot?” 

“Yeah, it happens.” 

“Stede is mega into them,” Lucius laughed. “I’ve known the guy for like two years? Never seen him like that. Twitterpated.” 

“Yeah,” Izzy shoved down the bile that threatened to rise. “What are you making?” 

“Mmm, not sure yet. Eddy said you hate wine.” 

“I do,” Izzy sighed, waiting for the judgment. 

“Me too,” Lucius snorted, plucking something off one of the small plates. “I never got what the big deal was, it all tastes the same to me. I thought chefs were required to like it though.” 

“It’s got its uses, but I don’t go looking for it. Didn’t go to one of the fancy cooking schools or anything, never ‘refined my palette’ whatever the fuck that means.” 

“Must not mean much because everything I just ate rocked my socks off,” Lucius grinned. “And I’m not just saying that. Like that lamb changed me on a deep level. I'll never be the same.” 

Izzy had made that lamb for Eddy, years ago. Just the two of them in the closed kitchen of Ranger after dinner service one night. It had been too busy for either of them to choke anything down. She’d leaned against the sink, pulled out a flask, and told him that it was the anniversary of her mother’s death. They’d shared the liquor and Eddy had slumped exhausted while Izzy tried his best to make a dish for heartbreak. There’d only been lamb left over, so he’d added all the warm spices that Eddy loved, layered it in tomatoes and carrots, cooking it all until it was tender.  

Eddy ate it without a word, but pressed so close to him that Izzy had to brace himself against the counter to keep from tipping over. 

He’d made it for them both on the regular after that night.   It was the only thing on the menu that had stayed the same from day one of Freedom. 

“Yeah?” Izzy choked.

“Uh huh,” Lucius picked up the shaker and gave it a vicious rattle. His hands were big, fingers almost circling the fat metal cylinder. “You already have a house red and white. Add a few more slightly more expensive options and that’ll be that.” 

“People like a long wine list.” 

“Fuck ‘em,” Lucius said merrily, then paused. “Should I not swear? Am I going to lose a job I’ve had for ten minutes?” 

“I don’t give a fuck,”  Izzy snorted.

“Great,” Lucius poured a clear drink into a martini glass, then searched the bar, coming up with a sad looking lime. He wrinkled his nose at it, but got a peeler and with a flick of the wrist had a perfect curly string of green that he set along the edge of the glass. Then he put it in front of Izzy. “Try that.” 

“Hmm,” Izzy picked it up and, by long habit, smelled it first.  It smelled mostly of lime and...basil? Could that be right? He took a small sip. It exploded over his tongue. Fresh and clean, not too sweet, but with a good edge of it and definitely alcoholic as hell.  

“Basil and lime vodka gimlet,” Lucius explained. “It’s not quite right, really need to let the basil sit for longer. Pair that with the lamb and it’ll cut the richness and compliment all the ginger and stuff. Right?” 

The question seemed in earnest, so Izzy took another sip and then dragged a finger through the remaining dregs of the lamb plate and sucked it off thoughtfully. Yeah it did do that, especially with the vodka keeping the drink warmer. 

“It works,” Izzy confirmed. “Keep that one.” 

“Yeah,” Lucius was watching him with such intent that Izzy wondered if he wanted him to say more. 

“It’s good," he allowed.

“Thanks,” a soft laugh as Lucius re-focused himself, “Okay,  probably want something gin based too. Gin is really hot right now.” 

They talked through the rest of the drinks, Lucius trying a few more things and Izzy approving all of them with only minor adjustments. By the end, Izzy was getting well into tipsy and was starting to suspect that Lucius might be flirting with him. Which was ridiculous. Probably just his way or whatever. Bartenders made good tips by being flirtatious, probably. 

“Should I send you the finalized list?” Lucius asked as he tidied up. 

“Just to Eddy. She’ll get it printed up.” 

“Do you have a graphic designer? I do that sometimes on the side." 

“Eddy question,” Izzy dismissed. 

“What’s an Izzy question then?”  

“Food stuff. Inventory stuff. Don’t give a fuck about the rest.” 

“Yeah? You don’t come out and shake hands?” 

“Hell no. If I wanted to talk to people, I wouldn’t have gone into cooking.” 

“Yeah, bet you hide in the kitchen at parties,” Lucius winked. “Me too. That’s where all the best people are.” 

Hard to argue that. A few minutes later Lucius had cleared out. Izzy cleaned up, then walked home. The smell of basil lingered in his nose until he fell asleep that night. 

Over the next few weeks, Izzy’s hunch about flirtatious bartenders was proven correct. Lucius wasn’t the fastest worker Izzy had ever seen (understatement, but that was Eddy’s problem), but everyone who sat at the bar didn’t seem to care. He flirted, he gently teased, sometimes less gently insulted everyone in the vicinity. Apparently, there was a boyfriend (of course there was) named Pete, who came in once a week like clockwork and sat at the bar, apparently not at all ruffled by the flirtations.  Not that Izzy got to witness any of that first hand, just got word from the waiters as they breezed in and out, and Eddy’s own tickled report. 

“I think he’s a fucking terror,” she confided as they shared one of their now rare cigarettes out back. 

“Yeah? We need to dump him?” 

“We run on terror. He fits right in,” they laughed. “Hey, we should do a thing for the re-opening.” 

“We’ve been open for a month,” Izzy pointed out, taking a drag and then passing it back to her.

“Gotta celebrate though. Maybe do a staff thing. Invite a few people. You know, music and whatever.” 

Izzy gave them the side-eye. “What’s this about?” 

“Celebrating,” Eddy said firmly. “We made it, Iz. Got to stop and enjoy that at some point or what are we even doing, you know?” 

Izzy didn’t know. Every day that he stepped into the kitchen and knew it was his was a goddamn celebration. But fine. Party it was. 

They were usually closed on Mondays, but Izzy came in at noon and made finger foods, set them up around the place, so no one would have to run back and forth to serve. When he brought out the last tray, he was surprised to see Lucius behind the bar. 

“Eddy mentioned what you’d be up to,” Lucius waved when he spotted him. “It’s smart. Figured I’d make some pitchers of things now. By the time those are gone, people will be happy with shots. Like we’re all definitely getting obliterated right?” 

“Most likely,” Izzy agreed. “Made things that won’t rip out your throat if you puke.” 

“How thoughtful,” Lucius grinned. “You’re a real gentleman.” 

“Take that back, motherfucker.” 

Lucius’ laugh was deep and rippled over Izzy’s skin.  “Sorry, chef. You’re a raging asshole.” 

“Damn right,” Izzy nodded. “My prep is done. You need anything?” 

“Want to show off your insane knife skills and do some orange slices? Thinner the better.” 

It wasn’t hard to slice them fine, nearly translucent. Lucius moved around him, to grab something at one point and reached out, gripping Izzy’s shoulder for just a second for balance. The touch seared through him. 

“You know I was kidding about the knife skills, but holy shit!” Lucius plucked up one of the slices. “That’s amazing.” 

“What’re you putting it in?” 

“Rum punch.” But that slice went right into Lucius’ mouth as he set down the glass. “Use up some of the fruit we’d have to toss otherwise and it tastes better the longer it sits.  If you didn’t go to culinary school, where’d you learn to cut like that?” 

“Worked in a fancy ass kitchen for a couple of years. Picked up things there. Rest is just time and practice.” 

“Guess you do practically live back there. Jim says you’re the last to leave, always there when they get in.” 

“There’s a lot to do,” he said vaguely. “You...settling in?” 

“Sure, it’s great here,” Lucius said with apparent sincerity. “Way better than catering gigs.” 

The back door opened, Jim and Oluwande’s voices spilling through the space and that was the end of any quiet. Everyone trickled in and the main room was soon heaving with staff, a few regulars, and some people Izzy wasn’t sure he’d ever met before. Eddy was presiding over all of it with an enormous smile that fully reached her eyes. Music poured out of the speakers and a cleared space in the middle of the room had enticed some people to dance. Or maybe that was Lucius’ punch. 

Izzy had had a glass or two, but stopped there, unwilling to unwind so much in that large a group. So he was the only one with a clear enough mind to notice someone knocking on the door. 

A tall guy with a shock of blond waves and a fancy suit was fidgeting a little outside.  Izzy opened the door reluctantly, 

“We’re closed. Private party.”

“Oh, you must be Iggy!” The guy said with a fumbling smile. 

“Izzy,” he corrected. 

“I’m Stede! Eddy invited me.” 

This was Stede? The guy that Eddy had mentioned like he was a mad genius? Izzy stared blankly at him, then took a step back to let him in. 

“Stede!” Eddy called out delightedly. “Come here and dance with me.” 

“Coming!” Stede’s face transformed with a brilliant smile. He left Izzy behind, still holding the door open like a fool. He locked it back up with a grimace. 

When he got close enough, he could see Eddy clinging to Stede in a messy attempt at ballroom dancing to a song that was far too fast while nearly crashing into Frenchie and his enormous friend.  For about a minute, Izzy watched them. Then he stalked off into the kitchen and gave some serious consideration to locking himself into the walk-in freezer and letting the night go where it would. 

Instead he poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly.  The door creaked open just as he finished. Another body slipped inside and pressed back up against it, expelling a long breath. 

“You okay?” Lucius asked, stepping towards him. 

“Are you?” 

“Busy out there,” he shrugged. “And the best people hang out in the kitchen.” 

“Don’t have to keep me company.” 

“You ran away pretty fast. Did Stede say something stupid to you? He does that sometimes. His mouth and brain aren’t always sync up.” 

“No.” Izzy watched him warily. “Just done, I think. I don’t do parties.” 

“This is my shocked face,” Lucius said dryly and extended his hand. Izzy registered he was holding two glasses. “Take it.” 

“What is it?” 

“Just a vodka tonic. Well, I did put a little ginger simple syrup in it. You’ve got a thing for ginger, I noticed.” 

“...what?” Izzy took it and had a sip. The ginger was very present, sizzling pleasantly on his tongue. 

“I like that you don’t over use it, but it’s obviously your favorite. When you make staff dinner,  you use it when you’re in a good mood.” 

‘I don’t have good moods.” 

“Lies,” Lucius leaned against the counter next to him. “You know Eddy kind of threw this party for you?” 

“I know,” he took another sip. It was really fucking good, goddammit. 

“So...” 

“So what?” Izzy sighed. 

“Just saying. It’s your party and you can cry if you want to,” Lucius sing-songed. 

“Fuck off,” Izzy barked a laugh. “I’m not crying.” 

“But you’re not thrilled.” 

“Eddy and me...it’s old news. But it’s hard sometimes seeing them with someone else.” 

“Oh. Oh shit, really?” Lucius’ eyes went wide. “You and Eddy? But you guys are like siblings most of the time....or. Or old marrieds. Oh my fucking god, that makes so much more sense.” 

“We weren’t married,” Izzy denied. “And it’s not like that anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time. But yeah. Once.” 

“Fuck. You know she and Stede aren’t actually together.”

“Yet,” he said tiredly. 

“Yet,” Lucius conceded. “Are you guys going to like...implode or something? Because I was serious about liking this job.” 

“No. It was going to happen. Surprised it took this long. Eddy’s magic,” Izzy stared into the drink. He should be angrier, he realized. Or worse somehow. Certainly he shouldn’t be talking this way. Maybe Lucius’ could mix truth potions. “Been waiting for someone else to come along and notice.” 

“And you’ve been looking for someone?” Lucius asked like the question might detonate. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Freedom is what I want. I don’t have room for anything else.” 

“Yikes. I don’t think that’s true. Plenty of fish in the sea who wouldn’t mind swimming around a grim workaholic, you know.” 

“Endorsement like that, I should let you write my dating profile.” 

“Would you let me?” 

“Fuck no.” 

“Aw,” Lucius elbowed him. “C’mon, give me another chance. How about ‘talented and chiseled chef with a phone-sex hotline voice seeks flexible in the schedule and the bedroom partner’?” 

“Lucius...” 

“Oh! How about ‘killer forearms, wicked knife skills, and probably not a serial killer’?” 

“What?” Izzy blinked. “I’m not a serial killer.” 

“You have a lot of knives. Just saying.” 

“I’m a chef, we all have a lot of knives. You should...stop. Whatever this is.” 

“Having a conversation?” 

“I don’t need a consolation flirt or whatever you think you’re doing.” 

“It’s a pretty honest flirt,” Lucius said calmly.  

“I’m not...I don’t do that.” 

“Have fun?” 

“Flirt,” Izzy clung to the drink. “I don’t mess around. I don’t play.” 

“Okay, but I’m not playing.” Lucius turned, catching his gaze. “I’d go home with you if you asked.” 

“What about the boyfriend?” 

“What about him? We’re open. Pete knows I’m interested in you.” 

“We work together.” 

“We do,” Lucius agreed. “But Eddy is my boss, right?” 

“Technically.” Definitely. Izzy never messed with the front-facing staff just like Eddy never did shit about his people. 

“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” Lucius even took a slight step back. “And if you tell me to fuck off, that’s fine. But I figured I’d let you know that I’m an interested and flexible fish.” 

Izzy backed off an insane desire to ask what kind of fish. That was an Eddy question, her voice loud in his ear right now. Mostly screaming ‘for the love god, man, jump on that’. But he spent a lot of time saying ‘no’ to the very real Eddy. He could certainly do the imaginary version for her. 

“Fine,” he took as sip of his drink. “You told me. Go back to the party and leave me alone.” 

For some reason, Lucius smiled like Izzy had offered him a compliment. 

“Leaving,” he said cheerily. 

It was only once he was actually gone that Izzy realized that he hadn’t actually rejected the interest. He should probably go fix that. Instead, he finished his drink, cleaned the glass, and walked back into the party. He didn’t join in the dancing, but he sat along the perimeter. Let Jim sit next to him and strike up a conversation about mushroom varieties that they got through with remarkable clarity considering they were clearly drunk as a skunk. 

After that night, two things started happening. 

The first was that Eddy actually took her day off. Used to be it was more of a theoretical thing where she’d wind up at the restaurant anyway, holed up in her office and working because she’d gotten bored at home. Now, he’d go in to ask her something and find the room empty. It was unsettling, but her general demeanor was unarguably better the rest of the week.  Like someone had re-lit the flame in her that he hadn’t noticed had gone out. 

The second was that Lucius started finding reasons to be in the kitchen. He wasn’t helping, wasn’t actually bartending for all that was his excuse (‘Ran out of cocktail onions!’ ‘Do you have any cinnamon sticks?’). He just seemed to buzz around for a few minutes, then go back out with whatever item he claimed to be fetching. When he used to say he didn’t need the staff dinner, he was suddenly hungry every night. 

Reasonably, Izzy should never be making staff dinner, a job for a more junior person, but reality was that he worked efficiently and his people were well-trained enough these days that it was easy to break for a few minutes and put together something for himself and the rest of them. 

“What happened to ‘I ate at home’?” Izzy demanded after the fourth day in a row that Lucius appeared to scoop up some bacon mac and cheese. 

“That was when I was under the impression that the staff meal was leftovers, not first dibs Izzy originals,” Lucius grabbed a fork and stabbed into his plate with vigor. “On catering jobs it was always like dried out and cold stuff.” 

“And you just suddenly realized that I wouldn’t feed anyone cold shit?” Izzy asked, affronted. 

“Eddy mentioned you were making those chicken wings the other night and it clicked,” Lucius made one of his obscene noises at the pasta. “I’m never eating a twinkie before work again.” 

“Those aren't actual food,” Izzy informed him. "They're barely edible."

“Yeah, but they are delicious. Not as good as this though. Fuck me running.” 

“He does burgers on Friday nights,” Jim informed him, edging Izzy out of the way to get their own dinner. “Onion jam.” 

“You can make onion jam.” Izzy contended. 

“It’s boring to make, good to eat,” Jim volleyed back.  

“I’m working this Friday,” Lucius said giddily. 

So now Izzy had to deal with Lucius invading his kitchen, and eating his food with lavish compliments and all his little sounds, almost every night. It was enough to drive a man to the brink.

“Are you complaining that he likes your food?” Eddy asked incredulously, when Izzy finally had to tell someone about it.  The dumpster out back absolutely reeked in the summer sun. 

“He makes sex noises at it!” 

“Yeah, some people do that out front. I never tell you about it because it’s fucking weird.” 

“Wait, really?” Izzy narrowed his eyes at them. 

“Yeah, man. Not a lot, but every few months or so. Didn’t figure Lucius for a moaner, but there you have it.” 

“I have a tall annoyance is what I have,” Izzy grumbled. 

“He’s just eating dinner.” 

“And talking to me. Asking questions. Being nosy.” 

“Like...he’s trying to get to know you?” Eddy’s lips twitched. “Be friendly? Oh no. Run, Iz, run.” 

“He told me he was interested in me,” Izzy confessed. 

“Oh, shit,” Eddy’s eyebrows flew up. “Is he bothering you or something?” 

“No, not like that. He just told me the night of the party.  Now he’s just chattering at me all the time.” 

“Uh huh. What are we complaining about?” Eddy rolled her eyes. “Hot cute guy propositions you. You say no. He pulls back, but tries to stay friendly because you work together?” 

“I maybe didn’t say no,” Izzy told the ground. Fuck, he should’ve grabbed the cigarettes before dragging Eddy out there. Would’ve been something to do with his hands. 

Eddy didn’t say anything and finally, Izzy looked up to find her staring at him. There was a wry twist to her mouth, something contemplative in her eyes. He waited her out until she finally said, 

“Plenty of reasons to say no, but....if you said yes, it’d be okay, you know that, right?” 

Because Eddy had Stede now. Or was close to having him. Or close to telling Izzy that she had him anyway. Eddy took days off now. Eddy whistled again while she did orders. Eddy wore lipstick sometimes in a way she hadn’t in years. 

“What if it isn’t? He’ll still work here.” 

“Then it’ll be awkward for a while. We’ve survived worse than awkward.” 

“It’s not appropriate.” 

“Since when has that stopped us? Hearing a lot of reasons for you to say no that have nothing to do with Lucius, so probably you want to say yes, huh?” 

“Shit.” 

“Time to put on your big boy pants,” Eddy slapped his shoulder. “Tell me how it goes!” 

“I will absolutely not.” 

The words don’t come to Izzy though. Partially because every time Lucius was in the kitchen, everyone else was there too. Partially because they were genuinely busy, news of their expanded dining area finally catching fire. 

One night, Lucius doesn’t come back for staff dinner. 

“Slammed out there!” Oluwande came in for his own serving. “You’d think we’re giving it away. I don’t think I can take more than five minutes, please tell me there’s a plate already.” 

Izzy handed it to him. If the tables were that busy, the bar would be packed in deep and Eddy was probably snowed under. Some of the waitstaff had passed around a cold and called out on top of that.  They all had to keep moving, but Izzy started to assemble something in his head.

Even as busy as he was, he could take up one burner on the stove, tossing in this and that and letting it cook low. It would keep as long as it needed to, would be better for sitting. After all, one of Lucius’ favorite ingredients was time. 

At ten, Lucius burst into the kitchen eyes wild. 

“Someone feed me,” he begged. “I almost gnawed off a customer’s arm.” 

“That’d be good for business,” Roach cackled. “At least put some garnish on it first.” 

“I’ve got a plate,” Izzy gestured him over and Lucius crossed to him quickly. “Just needs a minute.” 

“Might not have a minute,” Lucius told him mournfully. “I might die.” 

“You want pasta or not?” 

“Wait, the handmade stuff?” 

“What else do we have here?” 

He tossed the pasta into the waiting boiling water. No timer required, but the one that ran in his head. Drained it off, centered it on the plate, then carefully ladled the ragu over it. It was the perfect color, dark and rich. Perfect if you’d gone hungry for a few hours. 

“Here,” Izzy handed it over. “Go sit in the corner. We’re still winding down.” 

“Yeah, fine,” Lucius all, but grabbed it and got out of the way as the kitchen ticked onward into the last few plates. It was only when the very final one went out the door that Izzy turned back to the tiny table they kept crammed by the back door for breaks. Lucius was still eating, but he wasn’t looking at his food. He was looking at Izzy. 

With a deep breath and long exhalation. Izzy crossed over and sat in the other chair. 

“Oluwande said dinner was meatloaf tonight,” Lucius said quietly. 

“It was,” Izzy rubbed the back of his neck. 

“This isn’t meatloaf. This is...it’s fucking amazing. Why isn’t it on the menu?” 

“First time making it. Made ragu before, but not like this specifically,” he mumbled. 

“What makes it specific?” Lucius asked, twirling his fork through the noodles. 

“Heavy on the basil, used vodka instead of wine. Added some heat.” 

Lucius ate his next bite slowly, eyes never leaving Izzy’s face. He swallowed and finally said, “You made this for me. Specifically.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Because....” 

“Because I like to cook for someone. Specific. For one person, sometimes.” Izzy wished he’d thought of the words as carefully as the dish. 

“Why?” 

Izzy forced himself to meet Lucius’ eyes. They were beautiful, those warm pools of brown. There was no smile on his face, wry, playful or otherwise. Izzy sucked in a breath and summoned his courage, 

“So you’ll let me do it again for breakfast tomorrow morning.” 

“Chef,” Lucius reached across the table and took his hand. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.” 

It had been a long time since Izzy served someone wearing only a knowing grin, but he thought he could easily get used to it again. Especially when the review came in the form of a long hot kiss, hand tangling in his hair and a return to the rumpled bed they’d barely managed to vacate. 

Eddy: you coming in today? 

Izzy: no, it’s my fucking day off, isn’t it?

Eddy: hell yeah it is. Details later. I

zzy: absolutely not.

[mjinzx]

[11:15 AM] akaashi keiji

take me out next time.

wc: 1,060 | genre: fluff | fem! reader x akaashi keiji | cw: mentions of allergies, profanity, lewd jokes, 1st pov

[11:15 AM] akaashi keiji | bonus!

~~~

I didn’t know when it started.

At first, it was creepy. A pack of lollipops suddenly appearing inside my locker? Come on, it’s a locker for a reason, only I could unlock it, more so put stuff inside. It annoyed me, so much that I was a breath away from reporting it to the school.

But fate had a different storyline for me, and Mr. lollipop supplier (as i like to call it). Days of finding different flavored lollipops turned into weeks, and as time flew by, I grew out of my irritation. You could say that I got used to it, but never would I get used to the different notes I receive with the said sweets.

Usually, it would be the casual “good mornings” and “have a nice days”. Unknowingly, I would smile. No, more like a grin or a smirk. But I would never admit that it made me feel all giddy inside. Nope. Not ever!

Or so I thought.

It’s been two weeks since the whole set-up. I go to school, attend my morning class, go to my locker and find another pack of lollipops that I can add to my collection. I always wondered why mr. lollipop supplier decided that it would be lollipops. It could’ve been gummy bears, right? Maybe he had a special connection to the little suckers. I remember yesterday it was bubblegum, last week was peach-mango flavored, my favorite so far.

But today, bright red welcomes my eyes.

Cherry, huh? That’s too bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong! I appreciate it, of course. I would never complain about food, like ever. But the thing is, I am allergic to cherries. Yes, I get a really bad allergic reaction whenever I eat cherries, including artificial flavoring.

I didn’t want all of this to just go to waste, I’m not much of a waster, if that’s a word. So, like any normal human being, I decided to just give it to my friends! I kind of feel bad for not eating it, even though I shouldn’t because they came from a complete stranger/potential stalker, but we’re ignoring that part for obvious reasons. I don’t feel like having an allergy attack right now, not ever actually.

My thoughts were interrupted when someone came barging in.

Oh?

That’s not Suzuki sensei, rather it’s the class president.

Akaashi Keiji.

“Good morning. I apologize for the short notice, unfortunately, Suzuki sensei cannot attend math class today. Although, she did say to do an advance reading for today’s lesson. That’s all, thank you.” He said.

Queue the cheers from the students, looks like everyone’s happy about having no class, including me.

“Hey, let’s suck lollipops.” My friend told me, mimicking a sucking gesture, which honestly had a lewd look to it. Slightly baffled, I just nodded at her and laughed. Thus began their lollipop sucking, I just looked at them like they’re from another planet.

Looking back to the front of the room, I find Akaashi-san with a straight face. He’s always like that, has a poker-face with a monotonous voice, and he’s always speaking as if someone did a grave mistake to him. Like he’s mad or something, but maybe that’s just his way of speaking since he is the class president, to invoke authority, maybe? Bottom line is, he’s a scary guy.

While i was oceans deep in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that O was already staring at him, a bit too much. Noticing my rude behavior, he looked back at me and raised an eyebrow.

With my eyes widened and parted lips, I looked away.

Shit. That’s so embarrassing!

Was all i could think of. I assume he can see how flustered I am, as he was still staring at me. It was starting to get hot, like really hot. I’m not sure if that’s just me feeling flushed, or the AC is just busted. (maybe because blood is rushing thru my cheeks?!)

Saved by the bell. Students started getting out of the classroom, and so did I. I failed to notice the cheeky grins my friends gave me as they gor out of the classroom. Fumbling with my stuff, I quickly took my bag and headed out (tried to), still avoiding his gaze.

Just as i was about to go out—

“Hey, Y/N-san.”

Uh-oh.

Shit. This was not how I expected my morning to go.

I faced him, with a not-so-genuine smile on my face. “Akaashi-san! Is something the matter?” I responded. Politely, of course, shaking off the feeling of nervousness in my body.

“Forgive me. I was just wondering why you are not eating your usual lollipop just like every day?” He asked. (more like demanded but moving on)

Interesting.

How did he know that I eat lollipops every morning?

“Oh, that. Well, long-story-short, someone has been giving me a pack of lollipops every morning, today’s flavour was just not my cup of tea.” I chuckled.

“Oh… You don’t like cherries?”

Interesting, again.

I looked at him weirdly. First, he knew my usual get-up every morning, and now he knew the flavour of the lollipops?

“I’m sorry, but how did you know it was cherries?” Imagine me having the most confused face, like right now.

“Wait, you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“I’m the one who's been giving you packs of lollipops every morning. You didn’t know?”

I-

Blink. “I had no idea.” Blink.

“I thought you knew since your friends saw me putting the lollipops in your locker one time.”

Oh, screw them! “They never told me anything. but wait! Why are you doing it, though?” I asked. Hey, I didn’t want to assume, even though I kind of know the answer now.

“Isn’t it obvious? I like you, Y/N-san.” He said with such finality in his voice, his eyes lovingly gazing at me.

“And, I was hoping you’d want to go out with me. Do you?” He asked, watching me carefully.

Hell yeah, I do!!!

Yup, this was not how I expected my day to go. I like it, though.

“Of course! I’d love to go out with you.” I smiled, genuine this time.

“That’s… That’s great! Thank you, Y/N-san.” He smiled. No, he shyly smiled.

You can say that we just stared at each other’s eyes for a good 5 minutes. I don’t hate it, but I’m definitely not complaining.

a/n: no thoughts, just akaashi as class president (*_*)

© mjinzx

[baepsaesbae]

Spring Will Come Again

Pairing— Jeon Jungkook x reader    

Genre— Photographer!Jungkook x Baker!reader, SMUT +18, fluff, angst, Virgin!Jungkook, Sub!Jungkook, Switch!Jungkook

Warnings— Finger sucking, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, squirting (?), slight choking, there are a lot of emotions, Jungkook is literally so sweet gosh I just wanna hold him tight, this fic is kind of a rollercoaster of emotions bc I myself do b going thru it

Word Count—  ~10.9k  

Summary— Springtime generally brings new beginnings, but being stuck in a small town all your life means nothing ever changes. Finally, something, or rather, someone, stumbles into your life. Can this shy boy manage to change your life forever?

A/N— This beautiful banner was made by @dee-ehn​! Please let me know what you think of this fic! Hope you guys enjoy~

It all started on a beautiful spring day. Something had convinced you to go on an unprecedented early morning walk for some reason. 

The morning air was cold but crisp. You were bundled up in your favorite sweater, and the scarf that your grandmother knitted for you was wrapped snugly around your neck. Normally you would be immersed in your headphones, but since today was already unusual you decided to forgo the music. 

You walked along the banks of the stream that flowed next to your neighborhood. This particular stream held nothing but fond memories. You grew up here with all the other kids. During the summer breaks, you’d play out here from morning to nightfall. This was the place where you saw your first fireflies, and where you won your first fist fight. 

You stopped to sit on the grassy hill that ran alongside the banks, relishing in nostalgia as you took in a breath of fresh air. Everything is so different now. Everyone moved away to pursue their careers or to go to a big university. You were the only one left. Your parents urged you to go to college, but you refused. Who else would help run the bakery? 

As much as you hated to see it, your parents were growing old. Managing the family bakery was getting harder on them. You were such a huge help to them since you basically managed all of the front-of-house work. They worked diligently in the kitchen every day to create the best baked goods in town. 

You had always dreamt of leaving this small town. You’ve fantasized about attending a big university in the middle of a bustling city since you were a little kid. Unfortunately, that can’t happen now. You can’t leave your parents or the bakery behind. You held no resentment though, you loved it. Being an only child was a bit lonely at times, but your parents made you feel loved no matter what.

You laid on the grassy hill, watching the clouds roll by. Maybe life was better this way. It was simple, and you always knew what to expect. Day in and day out, the routine was always the same. 

Everything changed on that day. That was the fateful day that you ran into him. Or rather, he ran into you. 

“Good morning, ____! Where were you this morning? Why weren’t you answering your phone?” your concerned mother asked when you returned home.

“Morning mom. I went on a walk and forgot my phone I guess. Sorry about that. I ended up laying on the hill by the stream,” you replied as you sat at the breakfast table.

Living with bakers was probably one of the biggest blessings in your life. Every meal smelled delectable and you had access to all the fresh goodies you could desire. 

“Wow, you were awake before we were? What a surprise. Here, tell me what you think of this loaf,” your dad set it in front of you.

You tossed a piece of bread into your mouth. The taste was savory to say the least. It was your father’s signature banana bread loaf, only this time with a small twist. 

“Why’d you take out the walnuts? It’s still delicious though,” you said, devouring another piece.

“Well so many customers complain about having nut allergies now. I thought we could sell more if we take them out! You think we can sell this?” he asked eagerly.

“I think this will be our newest best seller!” you happily replied, “I’m gonna go open up the shop. See you guys soon,” you kissed them each on the cheek before taking your leave.

The bakery was down the street from your house, so the commute was only about 5 minutes even if you walked slowly. You brought your phone with you this time, so you were jamming out to your music, oblivious to the outside world. You were so out of it, that you didn’t have time to react to the person quickly rounding the corner.

One moment you were walking to work, the next you were knocked onto the cold hard ground. Your assailant fell on top of you, and you soon locked eyes with him. It was as if time stood still for a moment. He was the most beautiful boy you’ve ever seen. His eyes were wide with concern, and for a moment, you swore you saw stars twinkling within them. 

It took a second to register that this stranger was on top of you, in a compromising position no less. You’ve never been this close to a boy since...well it has been a while. Your legs were intertwined and his nose was only inches from yours. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you until the last second,” the boy apologized as he scrambled to get off of you. 

As he helped you up, you reassured him that you were fine. You laughed off the incident and took the boy by surprise. You had the most angelic laugh he’d ever heard. He stood awkwardly gazing at you, before you asked him if he was okay. 

“I-I’m fine! I’m glad you’re okay. I apologize again for being so careless,” he bowed.

“I’m also at fault! I wasn’t paying attention either. So shame on both of us,” you smiled to show him you were joking, “Enjoy the rest of your day, don’t run into anyone else!”

And with that, you parted ways. You forgot about the stranger as the morning rush piled into the bakery. 

Despite being located in a small town, your parent’s were nationally renowned bakers. The bakery was always busy. That was part of why you loved it so much, you were never bored. The regular customers were your favorite. Most of the townsfolk had been coming to the bakery since you were little. 

“Is this banana bread new?” Mrs. Park, the local florist, asked.

“Technically, yes. It’s the exact same recipe but without the walnuts,” you replied.

“Perfect! I’m not too fond of walnuts but I adore your parents’ banana bread,” Mrs. Park beamed, handing you a loaf along with other goods she picked up.

“How’s Jimin?” you asked as you rang her up.

“Oh he’s doing well! He loves it out there in the big city. At first, I was terrified of letting him go. He’s just always been so passionate about dancing, I finally had to cave in. He recently auditioned to be part of some fancy dance crew, and he got in! Can you believe it?” Mrs. Park began to dote on her son.

“That’s amazing! I’m happy for him,” you smiled.

“You know, ____, Jimin is still single. You two would be perfect together--”

“Long distance relationships are hard, Mrs. Park,” your mother interrupted her, swooping in to save the day. Thank god. You wouldn’t have known how to react. 

“She could always move out to the city to be with him!” Mrs. Park retorted, not picking up on the awkward situation she created. 

“I could never leave the bakery,” you responded quickly.

“Ah, yes that’s right. You have such a good daughter, Mrs. _____. Jimin never took any interest in taking over the family business. I’m jealous of you!” Mrs. Park said to your mom.

After what seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Park finally left. You were fond of her, but she never knew when to stop talking. Jimin was a good friend of yours growing up. You never wanted to admit that you had a huge crush on him. You figured it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since he was so fixated on moving out. 

The morning rush had died down. You took this opportunity to restock and tidy things up before the afternoon rush. The store bell rang, indicating the arrival of another customer.

“Welcome in! I’ll be with you shortly,” you called out from behind the counter. 

“No worries, thanks!” the customer yelled back.

Once finished, you popped up with a bright smile on your face. Your parents taught you to always greet the customers with a smile as soon as they walk in. 

However, the customer wasn’t facing your direction. He was looking at the baked goods that aligned the opposite wall. You patiently waited for him to make his selection. He kept walking back and forth, eyeing all of the baked items. You left your station behind the counter and approached him.

“Can I help you with anything, sir?” you piped up behind him.

The man jumped back, startled.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” you apologized.

“It’s okay! I didn’t hear you at all. You must be some sort of ninja-- Oh it’s you!” the boy turned around to face you.

It was the gorgeous boy who ran into you earlier. 

“Hello again! I guess it was my turn to frighten you,” you joked.

“That’s fair,” he nodded, “What’s the best thing here?”

“Mmm that’s hard for me to say, considering that I love them all. What kind of tastes and textures do you like?” your customer service persona kicked in. 

“I like sweet things I guess? I like bananas too…” he trailed off.

“We don’t have any bananas in fruit form, but we do have killer banana bread,” you beamed.

“That sounds good, but I don’t really like nuts so--”

“There are no nuts in our new recipe! You must be lucky, this is the first day that we’ve started selling them. Want me to ring you up a loaf?” you interrupted him.

“Oh no nuts? Okay, I’ll try it,” he agreed quietly.

“Would you still like to get something sweet as well?” 

“Yeah, if that’s okay,” he nodded timidly.

“Of course it’s okay! My personal favorite is our milk pudding bun. The pudding in the middle is pretty creamy plus the bread is unbelievably soft! If that’s not for you, then we have a classic chocolate bun filled with, surprise surprise, chocolate. We also have…” you led the boy around the entire bakery.

You were too focused on recommending various breads to notice him stealing glances at you that lingered longer than normal. He patiently let you talk his ear off about the goodies.

“I’ll go with the milk pudding bun,” he smiled shyly.

“That was the first one! You should’ve stopped me from rambling,” you huffed.

“I wanted to know my options. Plus you seemed pretty happy,” he added softly.

“Alright, let’s go check you out then,” you headed to the counter, “I haven’t seen you before. What brings you to our little town?” you attempted to make conversation.

“Mmm, to get away, I guess,” the boy said after a pause.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” you leaned over the counter to whisper.

“Kind of,” he whispered back.

“Stay right here, I can call the police,” you frantically murmured as you whipped out your phone.

“No no! Not like that,” he couldn’t contain his laughter, “I’m a fine arts student. My main focus is photography, but lately I haven’t been able to capture anything worth printing,” he explained.

“Ohhh,” you said, feeling dumb, “Then why come to a town in the middle of nowhere? You won’t find much here.”

“To an untrained eye, maybe so. But to a professional, beauty can be found anywhere,” he said proudly.

“Then why can’t you find anything back home? And aren’t you still a student?” you questioned.

“You know, I was really hoping that you’d let me have that,” the boy deflated.

“Aw, I’m sorry! If you ever want to take photos of the beauty that is bread, you’re always welcome here,” you smiled.

“I might take you up on that offer,” he said as he grabbed the purchased goods, “What’s your name by the way?”

“____. Yours?”

“Jeon Jungkook.”

“I’ll see you around, Mr. Jeon Jungkook. Oh! And if you’d like a tour of the town, I’d be more than happy to show you around,” you suggested.

“That would be nice,” Jungkook pondered, “Where can I find you?”

“I’m here every day. I get off at 3pm,” you answered.

“Cool. I’ll drop by tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

“Sure! See you then!” you waved goodbye.

“Who was that?” your mother asked when the boy left.

“Some photography student that said he wanted to get away for some inspiration. I offered to give him a tour tomorrow after work,” you explained. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” your dad offered.

“I’ll be fine on my own, thanks,” you quickly turned him down.

You spent the next morning frantically flip flopping between outfits. Should you go with a pretty top paired with a skirt? Or perhaps keep it casual with a t-shirt and jeans? Or should you go with a simple dress? You know you’re supposed to be a tour guide, but you still wanted to look somewhat presentable. You settled for the dress. It gave off a “cute but not trying too hard” type of vibe. 

Time seemed to slowly drag on as you waited for Jungkook to return. You had already mapped out your route, making sure it was efficient (not like there’s much to see anyway). You wanted to surprise him with a picnic at the end of the tour. Hopefully it could help show off the natural beauty of the forests and meadows that surrounded the town. As the clock approached 3pm, you began to wonder if springing a surprise picnic on a stranger was odd. Oh god, what if it was? You hadn’t had much interaction with people your age once all your friends went off to live their own lives. Panic was starting to set in when the front bell chimed.

“Hey! I’m a little early, but I can wait around until you’re finished,” Jungkook greeted you. You noticed a fancy looking camera dangling around his chest.

“It’s all good! Business has been slow today, I’ve been bored,” you admitted.

“Oh I see--” Jungkook was cut off.

“Hi! I’m ____’s mom. Did you like the bread you bought yesterday?” your mom materialized out of nowhere with a pan of fresh bread in her hands.

“It was delicious! Better than anything I could get in the city,” Jungkook complimented.

“Why did you batch a new batch? No one has come in after 1pm,” you aggressively whispered to your mom. 

“I got bored,” she pouted, “Here, have one! On the house, think of it as a welcoming present to our town,” she motioned for Jungkook to take a fresh loaf off the tray.

Jungkook’s face lit up at the offer as he thanked her for the snack. His smile lingered as he took a bite, savoring the taste.

“You must have some sort of good luck charm; you’re getting even more free food later,” you chuckled as you plopped a wicker basket onto the checkout counter.

“Sweet,” he beamed. 

You let out a small sigh of relief. It didn’t seem like Jungkook was creeped out by the thought of eating with a stranger. With the basket in hand, you led Jungkook across the town. There truly wasn’t much to see. Your family’s bakery was in line with the rest of the town’s shops. You passed by the florist, the cafe, the grocery store, and the post office within the first 3 minutes just by walking down the street. You added in little personal stories with each business that you pointed out. 

Jungkook paused by the flower shop, in awe of all the beautiful arrangements. His eyes scanned the outside displays, as if he was looking for something. 

“Need something specific, dear?” Mrs. Park asked her potential customer. 

“Do you have Tiger flowers?” he inquired.

“Tiger… No, but I can probably order some for you,” she offered.

“Ah, that’s alright. I’m sorry to bother you,” Jungkook apologized before rejoining you.

“Did you wanna take a picture of that specific flower?” you asked him as you strolled along the sidewalk.

“Yeah, it’s my birth flower,” he shyly nodded.

“Oh nice! I don’t know what my birth flower is, but yours sounds pretty. Ah, here is the town square. Over there is the courthouse/government building/boring stuff happens in there probably,” you said as you pointed out the building.

“This is cool,” Jungkook examined a decrepit well that stood in front of the courthouse.

“I guess. I always thought it would be better if they replaced it with a big pretty fountain or something,” you mentioned as you looked down into the dark abyss of the well.

Jungkook said nothing as he began taking pictures of the well from various angles. You watched him frown at each picture he took before he tried to take another. 

“Maybe you could take a picture looking into the well? I mean, you’d probably have to stand on it to get a full shot and your feet will be in it but…” you suggested before realizing that you knew nothing about photography.

Jungkook immediately hopped onto the well, disregarding the loose pebbles that crumbled away under his weight. Pointing the camera directly down into the well, he snapped a couple of pictures. He didn’t bother hopping off of the well before scrolling through the pictures he just took. You caught yourself staring at him, admiring his features. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, his lips were pursed, and the wind was blowing his bangs over his forehead ever so slightly. He really was a handsome boy, though he seemed to be completely unaware of it. 

“How’d it turn out?” you asked as he climbed down.

“Not bad actually. Better than the angles I took at first,” Jungkook smiled with approval, “I’ll show you after I touch them up.”

“I’m excited to see! Also, this basically concludes the tour because everything else is residential stuff. Unless you wanna take pictures of random people’s homes,” you joked.

“I’m good. Is this where we’re eating? I kinda skipped lunch,” Jungkook looked at the wicker basket in your hand.

“Nope! I’m gonna take you somewhere special. Are you okay with a bit of light hiking?”

“Sounds fun,” Jungkook grinned. 

“Perfect! Now it’s your turn to lug this thing around,” you said as you handed him the deceptively heavy basket. 

You took him to the outskirts of town, where nature was left untouched.

“Is this where all the cool kids have their picnics?” Jungkook asked as you led him down an old trail.

“All the cool kids left this town a while ago, so I can’t speak on their behalf. However, this is where I like to have my picnics so take that in whatever way you please,” you responded.

It was a sunny day on the verge of being too hot, but the densely wooded forest provided enough shade to make it comfortable. Your parents used to take you on walks in these woods when you (and they) were younger. Of course, now the hilly paths and loose soil would only wreak havoc on your parents’ old knees. You’ve grown accustomed to exploring on your own. Bringing Jungkook along was a pleasant change. 

“You okay with eating here?” you suddenly stopped, pointing over to a field just off the trail.

“I’ll eat anywhere, I’m starving,” Jungkook quickly nodded. 

“I’m fully aware of that; I could barely hear the birds chirping over the sounds of your stomach growling,” you teased.

An old tree that was large enough to cover up the entire picnic blanket with shade proved to be the ideal spot. Jungkook set down the wicker basket that you assigned to him earlier, eagerly waiting for you to finally open it.

“On the menu today we have fruits as an appetizer, ham and cheese sandwiches in homemade croissants as the main course, and last but not least, chocolate buns for dessert,” you proudly showcased each item.

“I never knew bread could taste so heavenly until I went to your bakery. I’m happy I walked in,” Jungkook praised as he wolfed down his sandwich.

“It’s not my bakery, it’s my parents’ bakery,” you corrected him as you ate the fruit.

“Don’t you work in it nearly every day? I don’t see how it’s not your bakery too,” Jungkook insisted.

“I’m not the one running the business,” you argued.

“You seem to put in the same amount as work as them. Instead of baking, you’re handling all of the customers. That’s gotta count for something, right?” Jungkook persisted. 

“Fine, I guess you could say it’s a family bakery. Happy?” you huffed, clearly annoyed.

  “Hey, I wasn’t trying to make you angry. I’m sorry if I overstepped,” Jungkook apologized, putting his sandwich down, “I wanted to let you know how much I love your family’s bread, that’s all.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s just…” your trailed off as you gazed at the blue sky.

“I don’t want to pry, but I’m happy to sit here and listen,” Jungkook offered. 

“I don’t want to scare you away by dumping my personal issues on you,” you tried to lighten the mood.

“I don’t think you could do that, ____,” Jungkook assured you. 

Your eyes widened ever so slightly since he caught you off guard with his sincerity, but soon you gave him a soft smile.

“Fine, since we’re just sitting here anyway,” you caved as you picked up your sandwich, “I wish I wasn’t here anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and I love the bakery. I just wish I got to go to a big city somewhere and attend a real university. I don’t know what I’d study, I just know that I thought my life would be different by now,” you turn away from him to hide your watery eyes.

“It’s not all that great,” Jungkook responded after a short pause, “I came from a small town too. The only difference was that it was along a beach, not by a forest. Wait, the location doesn’t matter,” he quietly scolded himself, “What I’m trying to say is that I did get away from my hometown. I was so excited to finally be a city kid. I didn’t realize how overwhelming it would be. Now look at me. I’m a senior in college with no direction in life. That’s what I get for choosing a career with no job security,” he chuckled as he looked down at the camera around his neck. 

“But are you doing what you love?” you quietly asked.

“I think so. Are you?” he asked back.

“I think so,” you sighed, finally turning to look at him. 

“I could always take you back to the city with me,” Jungkook flashed you a big bunny smile.

“Don’t joke with me like that. I hate getting my hopes up,” you playfully punch him in the arm. 

“I’m not joking!” he yelped in surprise.

The conversation turned into a more cheerful one. You both spoke about your dreams, both childhood and present day. It was fun talking with Jungkook as you both watched the clouds roll by without a care in the world. 

“Maybe you could get some pretty shots of some wildlife while we’re out here,” you recommended when the conversation came to a pause.

“Do you want to model for me?” Jungkook asked.

“Huh?” his sudden proposal surprised you.

“It’s completely okay if you don’t want to! Actually, just forget I said anything,” Jungkook looked down at the camera in his hands in a futile attempt to hide his flushed cheeks. 

“Just tell me how to pose,” you smiled, already getting up.

“Uh, just act natural,” he said awkwardly as you leaned against the thick tree trunk.

At first, you made some silly poses that made Jungkook laugh. To be honest, you only did that because you really didn’t know how to pose next to the tree while making it look natural. Forcing a smile, you attempted to lean on the tree like as if it were another person. 

“You don’t have to fake a smile,” Jungkook called from behind the camera.

“I don’t know what to do!” you called back.

“Act natural!”

“How do I do that?”

“Naturally!”

His response rewarded him a sarcastic eye roll, followed by a burst of laughter. Jungkook furiously clicked his camera as you laughed even harder. He praised you for ‘being in your natural state’ as he took shots from ridiculous angles. He gave you a thumbs up after he was satisfied with the impromptu photoshoot.

“Is laughing until I can’t breathe just me being in my natural state?” you asked playfully as you sat back down on the picnic blanket.

“It was authentic, so I would say so. I wish I could capture sound too, your laugh is so cute,” Jungkook said nonchalantly as he scrolled through the photos.

His eyes widened as soon as he realized what he said. He opened his mouth to try and take it back, or at least cover it up. He looked over at you shyly, only to see that you were digging out dessert from the basket. He let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, you didn’t hear him. 

“How were the pictures?” you asked, scooting to sit beside him after handing him the dessert.

“See for yourself,” he proudly showed you.

You were amazed by his talent. Even without editing, the photos looked like they were ready to be submitted into a contest. Everything looked so perfect. Your smile was genuine, the lighting was optimal, and your hair looked surprisingly good. You applauded him for his talent, to which he bashfully denied by saying he was still such an amatuer. You both finally dug into the desserts. 

“These chocolate buns were amazing,” Jungkook licked his lips after he finished it.

“They’re my personal favorite! They’re also the best things that I can make on my own,” you winked at him as you finished yours.

“You made these?” Jungkook’s doe eyes filled with awe.

“Yep! Don’t act so surprised,” you pouted.

“Sorry, it’s just that you told me your parents bake everything. These were really good! Probably the best things I’ve had since--oh wait. You have a little something,” Jungkook leaned forward to wipe the corner of your mouth with his thumb. 

You both froze for a second, in shock of this intimate gesture. Jungkook’s mouth opened to apologize, but you stopped him before he had the chance. Without thinking about it, you put your mouth around his thumb. You sucked on it for a second before you snapped back to reality. You started apologizing profusely the instant his thumb left your mouth. 

“It’s okay! I shouldn’t have touched you in the first place,” Jungkook shied away from you, refusing to look you in the eyes. 

“I don’t know what came over me,” you apologized as you grabbed his hand.

Jungkook looked at you with an embarrassed expression the moment you held his hand in yours. At first you didn’t realize why he was so embarrassed, you were the one sucking his thumb. But then, you noticed Jungkook sheepishly resting his other hand in his lap.

“Jungkook,” you said sweetly.

“Yes?” he answered, his eyes averting yours once more. 

“Do you want me to do it again?”

“Huh?” he looked back at you with disbelief. 

You made a bold move as you moved to straddle his lap, each leg settling beside his waist. You brought his hand up to your mouth and batted your eyes innocently.

“Like this,” you say before licking his pointer finger. 

Jungkook gulped while slowly nodding his head, giving you permission to continue. His eyes stayed glued on you as you wrapped your lips around his finger. You dragged your flattened out tongue from the base to the tip. You then reversed this motion, but instead only using the tip of your tongue. You began to work on his middle finger as well. It was hard to fit his long fingers in your mouth, but you’re no quitter. Your tongue weaved between his fingers, adequately coating them with your saliva.

Jungkook’s breaths quickened the longer you went on. You felt a bulge grow between your thighs as you straddled him. Perhaps wearing a dress was a great idea after all. Your hips began to move on their own as you slowly grinded on Jungkook. 

“____…” Jungkook moaned quietly when you daringly took three fingers into your mouth.

Rubbing your clothed pussy against his hard crotch spurred you on even more. Drool was dribbling down Jungkook’s arm and your chin, but neither of you cared. It just made you look more erotic to him. His other hand was on your hip to help you maintain a rhythm. You opened your eyes to make contact with his as you suckled his fingers. That’s all it took to make him come undone.

He quickly pushed you off of him as he cried out. You were both too shocked to say anything for a few seconds. Jungkook seemed too embarrassed to look you in the eyes again, his cheeks bright red.

“Jungkook, I--” you started to apologize.

“You probably think I’m pretty lame huh? Cumming in my pants like some sort of middle schooler,” he looked down in defeat. 

“What? No, of course not!” you disagreed.

“Don’t lie,” Jungkook refused to believe you.

“Jungkook, that was honestly the hottest thing I’ve ever done. What we just did was hotter than when I was actually having sex,” you tried to cheer him up. 

“You’re not lying?” Jungkook finally looked up at you with sad puppy dog eyes.

“I swear I’m not. I could help you clean it up, if you’d like,” you offered. 

“I think that would make me feel worse. Just hand me some napkins and I’ll go take care of it myself,” he declined.

You packed everything up while you waited for Jungkook to return. He discreetly threw away the ball of used napkins into the designated trash bag, praying to god that you weren’t looking. 

The walk back was quiet and awkward. Neither of you knew what to say. You were horrified with how you acted; you’ve never been so bold before. Jungkook was ashamed of cumming before he had the chance to do anything to you. He felt so pathetic. 

“I’m sorry for making you so uncomfortable, Jungkook,” you finally apologized.

“Are you kidding? You think I would cum that fast if I was uncomfortable?” Jungkook looked at you with incredulity, “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m disgusting and came in my pants while you did all the hard work.”

“You’re not disgusting at all, Jungkook. I enjoyed it too. I can’t remember the last time I was that horny,” you laughed.

All the tension in the air had disappeared. Jungkook bounced back to being his cheery self. The conversation went back to normal as you brought him back to the bakery. You hugged him goodbye and were about to leave when he caught your hand.

“Thank you so much for the tour. I know we’ve only known each other for a day but... would you like to go on a date with me?” Jungkook asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“No,” you said firmly, watching his shoulders fall, “I’d love to go on a date with you,” you smirked.

“You jerk!” Jungkook gasped. 

You couldn’t help it, he was too easy to tease. After working out the details, it was decided that he would come pick you up on Friday night. 

Jungkook took you to basically the only restaurant in town (that wasn’t the cafe). It was a family run Italian eatery, and it took Jungkook by surprise.

“Is everyone in this place a master chef or something? This is delicious!” he praised as he ate his pasta.

“I guess it’s the authenticity of family recipes? You probably eat at more chain restaurants while you’re in the city,” you shrugged as you twirled noodles around your fork.

The date went on pleasantly. Jungkook wanted to know as much about you as you did him. The conversations you had were lively and fun; there was never a dull moment with him. Something about him just automatically clicked with you.

“What’s your favorite thing to photograph?” you asked.

“I like taking pictures of landscapes and buildings. That’s why I was super excited about going to a university in the city. It’s a lot easier than taking pictures of people! Unfortunately, that’s where the money is right now,” he explained.

“You don’t like taking pictures of people?”

“Not really, no,” he answered bluntly.

“Then why did you ask me to model for you?” you were genuinely curious.

Jungkook froze in his seat. He took a long sip of his drink before answering you. 

“For practice, I suppose,” he said softly. 

“I’m happy I was able to help then,” you smiled, thinking nothing of it. 

Jungkook seemed grateful that you didn’t press for more details, and was soon coaxed out of his shy shell once the topic of anime came around. You were happy that he took you out on a proper date, you hadn’t been on one in so long.

He walked you back under the pale moonlight. You were admiring the twinkling stars when you realized that Jungkook hadn’t said anything in a while. His hand awkwardly brushed against yours when you first left the restaurant, but you didn’t think much of it. Jungkook seemed to be thinking hard about something as he walked alongside you. You were going to say something when the back of his hand brushed against yours again. He instantly pulled away and uttered a small “sorry”.

“What’s wrong, Jungkook?” you were worried now, you thought the date went well. 

“Nothing…,” his voice trailed off as he looked away.

You interlocked his pinky with yours without a word. Jungkook looked over at you with surprise, but said nothing. He admonished himself for not committing to hold your hand, but he was happy with this too. In fact, he thought it was cuter than actual hand holding.

You arrived in front of your house. Bidding Jungkook goodnight, you went in for a hug. Jungkook also went in for a hug, but he leaned the same way you did. In a quick bumble, your lips grazed the corner of Jungkook’s, causing you to jump back. You stood in Jungkook’s arms, looking away in embarrassment. He brought up one of his hands to cup your cheek, forcing you to look back at him. His eyes sparkled under the moonlight as he gazed into yours. 

Slowly, you found yourself leaning forward. Jungkook met you in the middle, his lips finding yours. It was a tender kiss, sweet and soft. You broke it off after a couple seconds to giggle, but Jungkook pulled you back into it. He kissed you gently, yet with so much passion. You reciprocated his affection as your fingers intertwined with his hair, deepening the kiss.

He finally pulled away, smiling back at you. To be honest, you wish it lasted longer. However, you knew you would have had a hard time controlling yourself if it did.

“Thank you for dinner,” you thanked him with a soft voice.

“Of course, thank you for accompanying me,” he bowed like a gentleman and kissed your hand. You couldn’t help but laugh at his gesture.

“Too much?” he tilted his head.

“Don’t change a thing,” you continued to laugh. 

All sorts of thoughts about Jungkook swam in your mind as you fell asleep that night. 

Jungkook soon began to hangout with you every day. When he wasn’t out trying to take pictures, he would be in the bakery keeping you company. Your parents teased him, saying that he better buy something or else they’d kick him out, but they never did. In fact, your mom would always sneak him some freshly baked goods. 

After work, you and Jungkook would spend even more time together. It didn’t matter if you guys were exploring nature, cooling off in the stream, or just watching movies; you enjoyed it all. It was nice having someone to talk to for a change. Jungkook never asked to make plans with you, he just assumed you guys would hangout the next day when he said “see ya tomorrow!”

You knew you had a crush on Jungkook, but you didn’t know how he felt. Yes, he took you on a date. Yes, you’ve kissed. Yes, you made in cum in his pants (not necessarily in that order). You were waiting on him to ask you to be his girlfriend. You didn’t want to pressure him, especially when you knew that he’d be going back to school in the fall. 

One day, much to your chagrin, Jungkook was helping you with inventory. You argued that he shouldn’t work since he wasn’t getting paid, but he smiled and replied that spending time with you was all the payment he needed. You were too flustered to argue after that.

“Great, everything has been accounted for! Can you help me put this box back up there?” you asked him, nodding your head at a particularly high shelf that was out of your reach. You grabbed a step stool for him to make it easier.

Jungkook lifted up the heavy box of supplies with ease, and placed it back on the shelf. He looked down at you and smiled.

“What?” you cocked your head.

He said nothing as he leaned down and kissed your forehead, “You just look cute from up here.”

You looked away as you blushed, not knowing what to say. Jungkook laughed as he got down from the step stool. He teased you about it for the rest of the day.

Days flew by as it was getting closer and closer to Jungkook’s departure. You let Jungkook decide on what to do during his last day there. He picked you up at the bakery after your shift. He wanted to take one last stroll with you around town before he had to leave. You were about to hug him goodbye when he invited you over, saying that he had a box of popcorn he needed help finishing.

After watching a couple movies, Jungkook had his arms around you as you rested your head on his shoulder. Cuddling had become a norm between you two. Jungkook suddenly nudged your side, causing you to shriek.

“Sorry, just making sure you were still awake,” he giggled.

“I was, but now I definitely am,” you said as you returned the favor and tickled his sides.

It soon became a war of tickling as laughter erupted from both of you. Jungkook was just as ticklish as you were, making it a deadly battle. Before you knew it, you were straddling Jungkook, gripping both of his wrists in your hands. You both stared at each other as the laughter subsided, now replaced with heavy breathing. 

“You could easily knock me over, you know,” you said as you lowered your nose to his.

“What if I don’t want to?” he whispered back.

He moved his head upwards to kiss you, catching you by surprise. You kissed him back, pushing him back down. You lowered your hips to rest on his hardened crotch. You let go of his wrists to help him take off his shirt before removing your own. 

Once your lips connected again, Jungkook’s hands moved freely over your body, gently caressing your breasts. He treated you so tenderly, it made you even hornier. Your hands reached down to unzip his pants.

“Is this okay?” you paused to ask.

“Only if you take off your pants too,” he answered with a smirk.

Soon enough you were both down to just your underwear. You palmed Jungkook’s erection, curious to see it. It already felt huge in comparison to your hands.

“I want to fuck you, _____,” Jungkook groaned as you kissed his neck.

“I’m glad we want the same thing. Where do you want me?” you cooed. 

“Like this is fine,” he quickly answered. 

He helped you take off his underwear, revealing his massive dick. Your pussy clenched at the sight of it. You wriggled out of your panties and positioned yourself on top of him. 

“Ready?” you asked.

Jungkook just nodded, his eyes wide with anticipation. He gulped as he watched you slowly lower yourself onto him, taking in each inch slowly. You moaned as he went deeper and deeper in you. You hadn’t had sex in a long time (and admittedly it wasn’t very good). Now, you were sopping wet and Jungkook was filling you up perfectly. Once you reached the base of his dick, you took your time going back up.

From the look on Jungkook’s face, he was in pure bliss. You continued to tease him as you fucked him slowly. You transitioned from taking his entire length to just swiveling around his tip, making him moan from the overstimulation. Jungkook dug his nails into your lower back, begging you to take all of him in again.

You leaned back over and peppered kisses along his chest and up his neck. Jungkook whimpered at the sensation, his breathing grew uneven. You giggled at him as you suckled on his neck, leaving wet kisses in your wake. Once you had enough of teasing him, you slammed back down onto him, and both your moans filled the room. Your hips began to move faster as you bounced on top of him. Jungkook’s grip on you tightened. 

“I--I’m gonna cum,” he panicked.

You immediately hopped off, hoping to edge him. He whimpered at the loss of your warm pussy, but your plan seemed to work. His eyes begged you to get back on top. 

“Now it’s your turn to fuck me,” you demanded as you laid down on your back.

Jungkook complied and positioned himself between your legs. He bent over to kiss you while he pushed his cock back inside of you. He took his time at first, but then tried to pick up the pace. His movements were awkward and stiff, and his pelvis hit your hips in a way that you knew they were going to bruise later.

“Jungkook, just relax,” you commanded.

Jungkook steadied his breathing and took your advice. He was finally able to find a rhythm and stuck to it. Luckily, it was the perfect rhythm for you as he continuously grazed your g-spot. Jungkook moaned with every stroke as your warm insides squeezed around him. You wrapped your legs around him, bringing him even closer. You looked up at him to see that the usual sweet star filled doe eyes of his had switched to a version of pure ecstasy as he gazed down at you with blown out pupils. The change was a little jarring, but also incredibly sexy when you realized the potential duality Jungkook could have. You pulled him into a deep kiss, tongues exploring foreign regions as he pounded into you. 

“I’m gonna--,” his breath hitched.

“Cum on me baby,” you panted as you furiously rubbed your clit, desperate to cum with him.

With perfect timing, Jungkook got to feel you cum around him for a few seconds before he had to pull out and finish all over your chest. He gave you a quick peck on the cheek before scurrying off to find something to clean you with. 

He rested his head on your chest as you held him close. You were falling asleep when he said something.

“Sorry, what did you say?” you asked him since you barely heard him.

“I am, well I guess was, a virgin,” Jungkook admitted.

“Oh,” you tried to mask your surprise.

“I didn’t wanna say anything. I mean, how lame is it that I’m a college senior and have never gotten laid. You’re probably surprised huh? I’m not lying, I swear.”

“I am surprised, but only because you seem like ladies would be all over you. You’re so handsome, funny, charming--”

“Yes yes keep going,” Jungkook joked.

“--and a genuinely good guy. Plus I feel like being a photographer would help you meet a lot of pretty girls,” you reasoned.

“While all of that is true, the real reason is pretty embarrassing. I’m...I’ve always been kinda scared of girls,” Jungkook sighed as you tried to suppress your laughter, “I’m not kidding! I always get so nervous around girls, I could never actually talk to them.”

“So am I not a girl in your eyes?” you teased.

“You’re a woman,” he answered cockily.

“Shut up! I hope your first time was enjoyable. Thanks for entrusting me with your v card,” you laughed.

You both continued joking and laughing the night away until you fell asleep in each other’s arms. While that night was enjoyable, it made Jungkook’s absence hurt more. 

Life had sunk back into the same mundane routines once Jungkook left. Of course, he still kept in touch. He would text and video call you as often as he could. He’d send you pictures of his newest shooting locations, and you’d always be the first person he’d show his finished products. 

You loved witnessing Jungkook’s passion grow, he had a new spark in him that wasn’t there before. With your encouragement as an extra shove, he applied to his dream job. He explained to you that it was with an agency that would send him to a random country where he’d work with a participating magazine company. You secretly envied him for even having the possibility of exploring the world. 

Days and weeks started to blend together. Your parents insisted on having you help out more in the kitchen, presumably to get your mind off of Jungkook. 

It was a weird fling you had with him. However, it also didn’t seem like a fling. Most flings didn’t still keep in touch in a long distance “friendship”, or whatever it was you had. You were never officially dating, but it sure as hell felt that way. You cursed yourself for waiting for him to ask, you should’ve just done it yourself. Of course, part of you felt like you’d just hold him back if you guys actually ended up dating. 

These thoughts constantly swarmed your mind. Ironically, the only time you weren’t thinking about your dilemma was when you were chatting with Jungkook. The end of the semester was quickly approaching, and you could tell that he was getting antsy. He hadn’t gotten offers from anywhere that he applied. You could do nothing but give him hope but assuring him that someone somewhere will hire him. 

You watched snow fall outside when you got a call. 

“I GOT IN!!!” Jungkook exclaimed.

“What?! Where?!” you jumped up in excitement.

“My top choice! The one where they send me to another country! Guess where I’m going,” he sing songed.

“Umm… Italy?”

“Close! I’m going to España,” he said with a spanish accent.

“That’s amazing, Jungkook. I’m so proud of you! I knew you could do it. When do you leave?” you asked.

“In a week. God, I’m so excited! Oh, my parents are calling. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Of course. Congrats again,” you cheered before he hung up.

Before you knew it, you were crying. You were honestly happy for Jungkook, but reality hit you. You were never going to be able to tell him that you loved him. You were never going to be with him, not while you’re stuck in this town. It sucked, but you had no choice but to accept that. 

Two days had passed since that phone call. Jungkook was probably busy packing and working out minor details, so you stayed out of his way. You figured things would probably be like this from now on. Why would he bother talking to a small town girl while he’s out exploring the world? 

You were restocking the milk puddings rolls when the front bell chimed. 

“I’ll be with you in a second,” you called out.

“No worries, I’ll wait all day if I have to,” a familiar voice responded.

You dropped the rolls as you turned around with lightning fast speed. Jungkook stood at the doorway, beaming a big bunny smile at you. You ran to him, embracing him in a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around you and kissed your forehead. 

“Surprise,” he smiled.

“What are you doing here?” you asked as you wiped tears from your eyes.

“I needed to see you. I was planning on coming back and surprising you even before I left. You didn’t think I’d leave without saying goodbye, did you?” he ruffled your hair, “Oh, and those tiger flowers are beautiful,” he nodded over to the flower bouquet on the checkout counter.

“I got them because they reminded me of you,” you blushed, your ears turning red.

“Did I hear Jungkook?” you mom poked her head out of the kitchen, “Oh my goodness! Honey look! Jungkook is back!” she called your dad. 

Your parents came out to greet him. He explained everything to them, and they congratulated him. 

“How long will you be here? Aren’t you leaving soon?” your dad inquired.

“I leave tomorrow night. I wish I could stay longer,” Jungkook answered solemnly. 

“____ suddenly doesn’t have to work until after you’ve left,” your mom smiled fondly at you.

Your eyes lit up as you kissed your parents on the cheek to thank them. After grabbing your jacket, you took Jungkook’s hand and dragged him out. You both aimlessly walked around the town as you chatted. He went more in depth with the details of his job. He was most excited about capturing photos of the city. After looking up some pictures of the architecture, he immediately fell in love with Madrid.

Jungkook invited you over to watch some of the short films he worked on over the past semester. While they were just videos of his friends with no plot, you could feel their friendship seeping through the screen. The way Jungkook played with music and colors really enhanced the already well shot video. You felt at peace sitting beside Jungkook on his bed as he showed you all his past projects. Part of you wished that this moment would never end. 

“You’ve made me a better person, you know,” Jungkook said out of nowhere, “I’m more talkative around my friends, and I’ve gotten more comfortable with being myself.”

“I didn’t do anything, that’s all you,” you smiled as you poked his chest. 

“You definitely helped,” he ran his fingers through your hair, “I love you, ____.”

Your heart skipped a beat.

“I love you too. I thought I’d never get to say that,” you said with a sigh of relief. 

He looked into your eyes before leaning forward slowly. You’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, you practically pounced on him. You kissed him passionately, as if to show him how much you missed him. Clothes were thrown in every direction leading to bare skin being exposed.

Jungkook’s soft hands roamed across your body as if he were trying to memorize your every curve. His touch was a bit rougher than the last time, his lips crashed against yours as he pinched your nipples. You couldn’t tell if it was desperation, carnal lust, or just a new side of Jungkook, but you didn’t mind in the slightest. His erection pressed against your thigh as your hands tangled themselves in his dark hair. You reached down to grab his cock, gripping from the base and slowly dragging your hand to the tip and then back down. He shuddered at the sensation, moaning into your mouth. 

“Should I get on top?” you batted your eyes.

“Nope, I have a better idea,” Jungkook growled as he flipped you over onto your knees, “Can I fuck you like this?”

“Fuck me however you want,” you answered gleefully. 

Jungkook rammed into you without hesitation. He firmly gripped your hips to keep you in place as he thrusted into you. His dick sent waves of ecstasy as he crashed into you. He surprised you when he reached his hand around you to play with your clit, causing you to squirm under him.

“Be a good girl and stay still,” he ordered. 

His newfound dominance turned you on. He was no longer the baby boy that followed your every move, although you were sure that side of him was still there somewhere. You got lost in pleasure and didn’t realize how far gone you were till you felt liquid dripping down your inner thighs.

“You’re so fucking wet baby. All this for me?” Jungkook panted as he continued snapping his hips into you.

“Mhm, of course. Only for you,” you managed to moan out between thrusts.

“That’s my good girl. Get up,” he demanded as he hopped off the bed. 

You obeyed, curious as to what he was going to do. As soon as you got off the bed, he spun you around and pushed your chest back over the covers. He slipped back into you with ease, groaning as your slick juices coated his cock. This new position enabled Jungkook to directly hit your g-spot with each thrust. Again, his hand wrapped around your waist to find your clit. His other hand found purchase on your neck, slightly choking you. The overstimulation had you crying out in bliss that you had never experienced before.  

You were practically gushing now as your wetness ran down your legs and sprayed onto Jungkook’s thighs with each strong impact.  Jungkook lifted up one of your legs onto the bed, spreading your pussy.

“Now touch yourself for me,” Jungkook directed.

He didn’t have to tell you twice. Your legs started to shake as you played with your clit at the perfect pace while Jungkook drilled into you. You were sure that you had already came numerous times by this point, but you could feel the grand finale soon approaching.   

“Jungkook I--” you didn’t get a chance to finish your sentence as you climaxed onto his dick. He was infatuated with the way you looked from behind, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He pushed you back onto the bed with your legs still hanging from the edge. He reinserted himself while you laid there, completely delusional from the pounding you had been receiving. 

“You’re such a sexy woman,” he moaned as he anchored the weight of his arms onto your shoulders. 

He continued his torment downwards. Your bountiful cheeks bounced back and forth while he repeatedly rammed into your g-spot causing you to release more of the juices his massive cock craved. 

 He slowed his pace but still kept going to help you ride out your high for as long as possible. The sensation of you cumming on him was enough to bring him right to the brink of no return.

“Can I cum on you?” he pleaded in a tone all too familiar to you.

“Please do,” you nodded.

“God, you’re so sexy,” he said as he gave you a couple more hard thrusts before pulling out and coating your ass with white strings. 

Jungkook held you in his arms after wiping you down with a towel, both of your chests heaving in sync. You both managed to work up a sweat, but Jungkook still smelled amazing. He played with your hair as your eyelids started to get heavy. 

“_____,” he whispered softly.

“Yes, Jungkook?” you replied with your eyes still closed. 

“Come with me.”

“What?” your eyes shot open. 

“Come with me to Spain. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t care. You’ll finally get the adventure you’ve always wanted, and we’ll do it together,” he kissed your forehead. 

His unexpected proposition had you overwhelmed. You were speechless. You would go with him in a heartbeat. It wouldn’t matter where you’d go, as long as you were with him. 

“Jungkook...you know I can’t do that,” you fought back tears, nuzzling yourself further into his chest. 

“I wanted to ask your parents as soon as I arrived but you rushed me out too quickly and--”

“I can’t leave them, you know that,” silent tears rolled down your cheeks. 

“I think they’d understand. Plus, you’ve said that they’ve tried to convince you to go to college,” Jungkook was getting desperate, he thought you’d agree on the spot.

“They need my help now more than ever. My parents are getting old. As much as I want to leave this place, I can’t. I’m going to be stuck here forever. I’m so sorry, Jungkook,” you wept.

“It’s okay, ___. We can ask them tomorrow, how does that sound?” he rubbed your back. 

“No, I can’t do that to them. You know they’ll say yes. I have to stay,” you sniffled.

“You’re a great daughter. I can’t force you to come with me. I’ll miss you. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” Jungkook’s voice started to falter.

“Don’t worry about me. Go live out your life. Eat great food. Take beautiful pictures. Meet pretty girls,” you tried to lighten the mood.

“You think I want to meet pretty girls? Why would I do that when I have you,” he hugged you tightly.

“We aren’t even dating, Jungkook. I don’t want to hinder you more than I already have,” you blurted. 

“I...I know we aren’t dating. Not officially. But that’s just a stupid label. I want to be with you,” Jungkook’s voice softened to hide his pain. 

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” you said as you got up.

Jungkook immediately pulled you back into him. Your nose brushed against his wet cheek, causing you to freeze up when you realized that he had also been crying.

“Please stay with me. At least just for tonight,” he pleaded.

“Alright. I can do that,” you softly kiss him. 

You woke up the next morning with your head on Jungkook’s chest. Jungkook looked adorable while he was asleep, with his mouth agape and his hair falling messily over his forehead. You tried to inch away, but he just pulled you closer, making it impossible to escape. 

He woke up with a yawn a couple minutes later. He smiled down at you before ruffling your hair.

“Jungkook, I’m sorry about last night. I--”

“Let’s not talk about it. This is my last day with you for god knows how long. Let’s just enjoy ourselves, okay?” he interrupted you.

It had been three years since that spring when you met Jungkook. You sometimes reminisce about the times you had with Jeon Jungkook. It honestly felt like a dream. Communication with him slowly faded away, and now the only conversations you had with him were one message long during birthdays and holidays. You kept up with him more through Instagram. He regularly uploaded his beautiful pictures, and you could tell that his talent only grew. He had a knack for making dull buildings and streets come to life. 

Your parents planned to retire soon, leaving you to tend to the bakery by yourself. They mainly managed the front-of-house work during the busy hours now. Their goal was to finally sell the bakery, but you protested against it. As much as you wanted to be rid of the chains that tied you down, you were scared. You didn’t know what you would do if the bakery was suddenly gone. It was all you’ve ever known. 

Ever since your parents announced their retirement plans, you started to dabble in pastry making. They were impressed with your skills, and your creations got added to the menu. Word spread that the already famous bakery was now carrying delicious pastries, and business soared. 

You were busy decorating your latest desserts when your mother came into the kitchen.

“Your father and I have to go run a quick errand, we’ll be back soon!” she said before giving you time to protest. You grumbled to yourself as you placed strawberries on your cakes, praying that no one would come in.

“Hello? Anyone here? The sign says open,” someone called from the front.

‘God dammit’, you thought before putting on a fake customer service smile. 

“Welcome to--” you stopped in your tracks.

Jungkook was standing in the middle of your bakery, looking even more handsome than you had remembered him. His face lit up as soon as he saw you. You couldn’t help yourself as you ran towards him, colliding into him with a forceful hug.

“I hear you sell desserts now,” he grinned.

“Jungkook! What are you doing here? Your hair, it’s so long! And...do you have tattoos now?!” you were in shock. 

“Do I look more artsy now?” he laughed, “I came to see you. I wanted to try your desserts too, of course. No one would believe me when I said nothing can compare to your family’s bakery. Oh, I have a present for you.”

You became giddy with excitement as Jungkook brought out a brown paper bag and handed it to you. You pulled out prints of a beautiful girl standing in a forest. Wait...it looked familiar…

“Is this me?” you asked as your mouth hung open.

“Yeah, these are the pictures from when you took me on that picnic. Would you believe me if I said I barely had to touch anything up? They were already nearly perfect,” Jungkook said proudly.

“It’s because you’re a talented photographer,” you smiled.  

“That, and because I had the perfect model. How could I not ask the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen to model for me?” he said as he tucked your hair behind your ear.

“So I wasn’t just practice?” you recalled asking him about it all those years ago.

“I was so nervous back then, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth,” he laughed, “I’m much more open now.”

You promptly switched the ‘OPEN’ sign to ‘CLOSED’ and sat Jungkook down. You brought out one of your fresh strawberry cakes, eager to hear his opinion. His face contorted with pleasure as he took the first bite. He complimented the flavors and textures, saying that everything tasted like perfect harmony. You laughed together as he shared stories of his time abroad. He intently listened while you opened up about the struggles of the bakery. 

“Anyway, that’s enough complaining for now. I’m happy you’re back! How long are you staying for this time?” you tilted your head. 

“Depends,” Jungkook answered as he gazed out the window. He looked back at you with a serious expression. He quickly grabbed your hand and pulled you close, bringing your face just inches away from his.

“Do you still want to explore the world?” he asked.

“Of course, that’ll never change. But...you know I can’t,” you answered somberly. 

“After everything you just told me, you still think you have to stay here?” Jungkook raised an eyebrow, “My next gig is going to be in France. Come with me this time, _____.”

You stared at him with a stunned expression. You thought he had forgotten about you. Now here he is, asking you to run away with him again.

“Why did you lose touch? I thought you had moved on. I made peace with that. God, it hurt like hell, but I came to terms with it. And now we’re doing this again,” your voice cracked as tears welled in your eyes.

“Honestly, it hurt me too much. I couldn’t bear talking to you every day or video chatting you, without knowing when I’d see you next. I never stopped thinking about you. I tried. I tried to forget...but no one could ever come close to you,” Jungkook cupped your cheek in his palm, “There’s a really good patissiere academy close to where I’ll be working. You could go there and sharpen your skills! Then maybe one day open up a bakery of your own...if you wanted.”

“But what about my parents--”

“Stop using us as an excuse to hold yourself back,” your mom scolded you as she entered the bakery.

“Did you like your surprise?” your dad winked.

“You knew?” you were bewildered.

“Jungkook contacted us a while back, asking if we thought his plan could ever be a possibility. I figured you were still head over heels for him since you never dated anyone else,” your mom shrugged.

“If you want to go, go. Don’t worry about us. We can sell the bakery, and finally retire,” your dad said. 

“You have your parents’ blessing, ____. This decision is entirely up to you. What’s it gonna be? Will you come with me to France?” Jungkook asked again.

“I..,” you looked at your parents before your eyes wandered back to Jungkook, “Yes. I’d love to,” tears of joy rolled down your cheeks.

Jungkook got up and embraced you in a tight hug before he whispered, “I’ve missed you so much,” in your ear. 

“Well, we better start packing,” Jungkook turned to your parents.

“Packing? Already?” your eyes widened. 

“We leave by the end of the week!” Jungkook gleefully took your hand and dashed out of the store. 

Jungkook dragged you through the town up to your house. You couldn’t help but smile as you watched his long hair bounce around while you ran. You could’ve sworn that sometimes they looked like bunny ears.

He was definitely Jungkook, but he seemed like the upgraded version of the shy boy you once knew. He had a new confident aura around him, and he seemed more manly than boyish now. Everything was happening so quickly, but you were nothing but excited for the adventures to come. 

As long as Jungkook was by your side, you were ready to take on the world. 

Published March 26, 2021. No editing, copying, translating, or reposting allowed. All Rights Reserved © 2021 Baepsaesbae.