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whatifyoulivelikethat · 3 years ago

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journey, m | ot7

full title: journey to the dick

pairing(s): ot7 x reader

summary: A Cinderella story but it's a dick pic. Yup, that's right. You find a dick pic on your phone and make it your mission to find the owner of said dick. Time to fuck the seven hottest guys you know! Onwards!

warnings: rated M (18+) for language, mentions of alcohol consumption / partying; horny crack, everyone radiates chaotic energy and wants to fuck; reader is comparing their dicks to above-mentioned dick pic so there's a lot of talk about dick, did I mention there's a lot of dick? dick; smut (fem reader, slight D/s dynamics in some scenes, m-receiving oral, cowgirl, penetrative sex, doggy, spanking, handjob, thigh fucking, dance studio sex, overstimulation, fingering, dry humping, 69, face-sitting, photography during sex, m-masturbation, being cummed on (neck / chest [a cum necklace LMAO] + hand), film studio sex, wall-fucking, being overheard / walked in on during sex (and not giving a shit, oops), implied car sex, implied threesome); non-idol!AU - ot7 x sex friend!reader; each member has their own scene

appearances based on the 'Butter' jacket photoshoots yes, the opening line is #50 of my prompt list LMAO title comes from Journey to the West, except it's dick because that's way more important. also, yeah, this is basically a harem hentai, but it's you and BTS, woohoo! :D

"Whose dick pic is this and why it is so inspirational?"

Park Jimin craned his head over to look at your phone, black hair brushing against your forehead. "Damn! That is an incredible dick."

"What are you guys talking about?" Kim Taehyung muttered, yanking your phone out of your hand and peering at the screen. His eyes widened, eyebrows shooting up into his dark brown hair. "Oh, ho! What a high-quality specimen of a dick."

"Why is it on my phone though?" you frowned, taking your phone back from Taehyung. You were sitting next to Jimin on their sofa, contemplating the great mysteries of the world. The black phone case had a cute mouse holding a large sewing needle and sitting next to a spool of sky-blue thread. "I didn't take this one, sadly."

"Maybe you were real drunk," Jimin offered.

"I haven't been real drunk since I projectile vomited in your guys' parking lot."

"That was last week," Taehyung reminded you, smiling amusedly.

You narrowed your eyes. "Look, it was a bad breakup."

"You went on, like, two dates," Jimin laughed, smacking you in the arm.

"It had potential!"

"Yeah, a potential dumpster fire," Taehyung added, rolling his eyes as he sat down on the other side of you. "I know you go for the quiet, nerdy ones, but you're just–"

"Brash? Forward? Ready to sit on dick at any second?"

Jimin was being very helpful.

Taehyung shoved Jimin's grinning face away. "It's a conflict of personality and yours is quite intense, so maybe you should try and be more open-minded about other options."

You frowned, not enjoying this pep talk that you probably needed. In fact, you avoided said pep talk at all costs. You reached back and yanked on Taehyung's ponytail. He prodded you in the left breast in response, glaring. You smacked his hand. He smacked your hand back.

Hey, when you don't have a good reply, resort to violence, right?

You looked back down at your phone. Swollen, red-purple, a good thickness. Nice length too, so hard it was sticking up without the assistance of a hand. You could spy the white pre-cum beading at the engorged tip. It was a strangely clear and well-composed photo. Black boxer briefs. Blue jeans, white shirt.

Fuck.

Could literally be any guy in the history of existence.

You turned the photo to Jimin. "Someone must have taken it last night when I couldn't find my phone for those two hours."

Jimin nodded. "Yeah, seems like it."

"You remember anyone in this outfit?"

Jimin snorted, wrinkling his cute nose. "Everyone was in jeans and a white t-shirt. 'Cause there was that wet t-shirt contest later that night, remember?"

You scratched your head. Ah, yes. Taehyung won. Man looked fucking amazing thanks to working out his arms and chest the past month. Was it solely for the purpose of a silly party gimmick? Maybe. You weren’t complaining though. You did what any good friend would do.

"Oh, right. Who won?"

Taehyung grabbed your shoulders and violently shook you. "I did! Obviously – ah, fuck you!" His tone quickly changed when he realized you were laughing like a maniac, doubling over in a pile of giggles with Jimin. "You're the worst," Taehyung pouted, holding his arms protectively.

"I'm just kidding, don't be mad," you chuckled, reaching over to hug him. He accepted it, but not without continuing to pout. You nuzzled his neck, placing soft kisses on his skin. "I bought you your favorite breakfast when you were hung over this morning, come on now."

His dark brown eyes shifted back and forth before letting out a long, deep sigh and hugging you back. Damn. He had a nice hug now thanks to these arms and his broad chest. He smelled like warm chamomile.

"I worked hard for these," he mumbled.

You patted him on the back before releasing him and holding up your phone. Back to the first order of business.

"Is this your dick?"

Taehyung scrunched up his face. "No? But I don't look at my dick at that angle either."

You puffed your cheeks and turned to Jimin.

"Is this your dick?"

Jimin plucked your phone from your hand. He tilted his head to one side. Then the other.

"Lemme check."

Then he stood up and started walking to the direction of the bathroom. Still holding your device.

"Uh..."

You trailed off.

Taehyung blinked.

The bathroom door closed.

Pants unzipped.

"PARK JIMIN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"You have to be kidding me, Jimin."

"Be reasonable. I can't get hard from this dick pic. Don't you want to know the owner of said dick?"

You pursed your lips and squinted at your phone, standing in Park Jimin's and Kim Taehyung's shared bathroom, because they were roommates and your friends. The mysterious discovery of said dick pic from last night's party sparked this Journey to the Dick, because it was a very impressive, intriguing, and, most importantly, inspirational specimen of the male genitalia. Clearly you had to investigate.

For science.

Which was why you were standing in the bathroom with Jimin's sweatpants off and begrudgingly getting to your knees. Begrudgingly, because...

"I thought we were supposed to be ordering pizza and watching Running Man."

"We are," Jimin answered cheerfully. "After you suck my dick."

You glanced at the photo once more.

It remained, indeed, very rousing of certain interests.

You gripped the waistband of Jimin's black boxer briefs.

Hmm...

Hold on.

You stood up suddenly and took your phone from him, sudden determination overtaking you.

"I have to do this correctly."

Jimin blinked rapidly, jumping with a yelp as you flung open the bathroom door to reveal Taehyung throwing himself into the wall, coughing awkwardly and hiding his face with his hands as you marched out purposefully. Jimin was still pants-less.

"In the proper order!"

Jimin and Taehyung shared a confused look.

"The hell does she mean, proper order?'

kim namjoon.

“Namjoon, may I look at your dick?”

Kim Namjoon looked up from his book and blinked at you over his round glasses.

“Pardon?” he replied in English.

“Your dick,” you responded in kind, in English and with succinct pronunciation. “Your penis. Your willy. Your ding-dong. Your–”

Namjoon removed a hand from his book and held it up. “My what?” he interrupted you, laughing.

Oh good, back to Korean so you didn’t have to flex all the different ways you knew how to say cock in English. “Take off your pants.”

He blinked rapidly, innocently sitting there in his flowy white button-up and brown pants. He even had suspenders. Fancy man. He had dyed his hair recently, a steel midnight blue. That’s how Namjoon was, attractive and book-smart. Absolutely won the lottery when it came to genes and brains. You couldn’t see the title of the book he was reading, but it was probably a self-help or philosophy book. He was into those nowadays, exploring the human mind, while you were more into exploring the physical aspects of humanity.

Fucking.

Luckily, fucking didn’t usually require reading.

(Usually, heh.)

“I have no objections to your proposition. I’m just confused on why so suddenly.”

You dropped your canvas tote bag on the ground. Your red, short summer dress covered in yellow lemons flared out as you shifted your weight to one hip. Your phone was in one of your hands and you waved it around like a baton as you talked.

“Aren’t I usually sudden when I want to fuck?”

Namjoon chuckled, rich and deep, shutting his book and putting it aside. Probably memorized his page number. Big sexy brain and all that jazz. A fantastic characteristic of his.

He also had a big sexy dick you were asking to see right now.

“You are, but sometimes you offer to buy me a meal or a snack first.”

“I mean, sure, if you want–”

He lifted a hand and cocked a finger towards himself, smiling. When he smiled, his dimples appeared. That was your favorite feature on Namjoon. You bounced over excitedly and sat on the couch, skirt flipping up and exposing your thighs, still holding your phone.

“I’m on a mission.”

He quirked an eyebrow, adjusting his glasses detective-style. “What kind of mission?”

You pointed to your phone. “Do you remember that party we went to, the one with the wet t-shirt contest?” You lifted your arm and flexed your rather defined bicep that made Namjoon raise his eyebrows and mouth a wow under his breath. Consistent handys really did the trick when it came to bicep muscle definition. “You remember, right? You showed off your guns.”

He burst out laughing, waving a hand. “They are not guns.”

“Sure, they are. I could do a lot of social justice with your biceps, Namjoon.”

He shook his head, grinning, dimples on full display. “And what’s with the dress? You don’t usually wear such a cute style.”

You ticked your phone to the apartment front door. “I’m meeting Seokjin later, but he said he’s going to play another round of bowling because Jungkook kicked his ass again. But anyway, back to what I was saying…”

“Ah, yes. I think I remember Jimin mentioning something to me now.”

You brightened, unlocking your phone and holding up the screen. “Right! I’m looking for the owner of this dick.”

His eyes widened and Namjoon leaned forward, readjusting his glasses again. “Wow. That’s quite a clear picture.” Then he coughed and averted his eyes.

You nodded quickly. “Well? Did you take this picture?”

He frowned and sat back against the sofa, sucking in a breath and ticking his head. “Mmm, maybe? I was pretty drunk. I don’t remember what I did…”

“Hah… Does this look like your dick, then?”

“How would I know?” he chuckled. “I don’t see my dick from that angle and I don’t have sober photoshoots with my dick.”

You pursed your lips. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to fuck then. Drop the pants.”

The thing about Namjoon was that he was a very reasonable man. You had a problem and proposed a solution and he, an avid learner who liked searching for answers to the great mysteries of this world, had the means to help you out on your quest, so he did. In addition, he thought you were hot, you thought he was hot, and you’d already fucked a couple times before Journey to the Dick, so the mutual agreement was already there.

Splendid!

The other thing about Namjoon was that he really liked to make you work for it.

Slightly less splendid.

“Are you choking?”

You squinted at him and flipped him the bird. He was well-versed with popular Western hand gestures.

Namjoon nodded sagely. “That’s good.”

And he put his hand back onto the back of your head and shoved your mouth down onto his cock once more.

You had half a second to breathe again before air was forcefully taken from you, Namjoon now holding you there, nose-first into his crotch, sighing contentedly as he expanded in your mouth. You planted your hands onto his strong thighs and pushed, but his hand didn’t budge. The safe signal was three taps and you weren’t tapping out yet. You glared and Namjoon closed his eyes, smirking slowly.

He left his round glasses on.

‘Course he did.

Damn you, Namjoon!

You reached up and pawed at the buttons of his white shirt, making Namjoon open his eyes to see what you were doing as you unbuttoned them rather deftly for someone who had his dick filling up their throat. He looked down at you, cocking an eyebrow. You cheekily cocked one back, poking his pecs with your pinky.

He grinned. “Hm? What’s that?”

You clenched your throat around the head of his cock and he gasped, losing grip for a split second.

In that split second, you threw his shirt open, glorious his tan skin and large muscular pecs now in view, and slapped your hands down onto his thighs, instantly starting a fast, rough pace, curving your neck with every swallow, sandwiching his cock between tongue and top of your mouth, pulsing your wet muscles all over his length, staring at that well-built chest, watching the muscles ripple with his sudden, abrupt inhale.

“Oh, fuck!”

Sometimes you let Namjoon have the reigns, but this time you were on a mission, although it was a little distracting now because presently you had an unobstructed view of Kim Namjoon with his shirt open, head thrown back, midnight blue hair fanning over the sofa, his full lips open and panting, tendons in his neck tensing, broad shoulders flexed, leading down his defined chest and abs, core tight from your intense pace, thighs hard under your hands, cock swollen and thick, pulsating in your mouth. His large hands planted on top of yours, squeezing them with his.

The three taps applied to him too.

Instead, Namjoon moaned your name and gripped your hands.

“T-The picture… f-fuuuuuuuck…”

Shit, that’s right.

You reluctantly slowed, tongue swiping all over the underside of his dick, tracing the veins, moaning hotly around his cock. He lowered his chin, panting hard, dark brown eyes half-open and framed by his lovely silver glasses. It was him who reached for your phone and unlocked it. He remembered your pattern lock and you had only told him once. All your consistent fucks knew how to unlock your phone.

That’s how you had so many pictures of, ahem, good times.

He placed the phone on his hip and his head fell back against the sofa, inhaling deeply as you continued lapping at the base of the head, slowly sucking on it at the same time to keep him hard.

“Mmm, fuck, that’s nice…”

You mashed the tip of your tongue against the slit and coated it with pre-cum.

“Ah, come on, look already and compare,” Namjoon chuckled in his deep voice, raising a hand to pet your head. “Then you can finish me.”

You popped your mouth off reluctantly. “Hmm.” You placed a few fingers on his cock and looked at it, positioning it to the correct angle that matched the photo. “Huh, it’s pretty close. But you have this noticeable vein here, and I think the head of your cock is slightly different…” You squinted and brought your face rather close to his stiff length. “The skin tone seems right, but it’s not exact, and I think you’re bigger…”

Namjoon wrapped his hand around his dick and smacked your cheek with the head.

“Oi!”

You puffed your cheeks, strings of saliva and pre-cum covering your face.

He grinned, dimples on full display. “Oops.”

You jabbed your finger at your phone. “I’m doing an investigation here!”

He shrugged cheekily. “You said it wasn’t exact. Get up.”

You put your phone on top of his book on the side table and glared at him. “Well, yeah, but no need to bop me,” you grumbled, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand, standing up, and removing your panties as Namjoon reached over to his pants and pulled out a condom from the pocket.

You did say you were coming. Namjoon liked to be prepared for you.

“You said you liked it,” he mused as you straddled his lap.

“I do when I’m notin the middle of an important mission,” you huffed, picking up the hem of your dress and revealing your wet pussy, chin cocked in defiance.

“You don’t have to sit on my dick then,” he said, pausing with the condom right over his cock.

You frowned. “Hurry up.”

He cocked an eyebrow, dark brown eyes trapping you in his allure. “Doesn’t seem like you want it.”

You narrowed your eyes.

Growled.

Then you smacked his hands away and rolled down the condom yourself before sliding onto him with one swift motion, clenching your jaw at the sensation of being quickly and solidly filled up, not giving him or you time to adjust. Namjoon tensed his neck, grinning, large hands coming up to firmly grip your hips. Your own came up to grab his biceps and squeeze them, mustering up your most indignant scowl. He chuckled, smirking as you pulsed your walls around him.

“Hold your dress so I can fuck you.”

“Maybe I want to do the moving.”

He clicked his tongue and rammed his hips up into you, making you hiss at the feeling of his cock being driven into your tightness. Your nails dug into his arms, breaths shallowing into rapid gasps as he continued, firmly and roughly fucking you from below, hard thighs flexing and smacking into your inner thighs and ass.

“Hold your dress,” he repeated, voice low and commanding.

“You’re so bossy,” you muttered, reaching down with one hand to yank up your dress, pulling it up high so both you and Namjoon could watch as he very deliberately and very forcefully thrust upwards into your tight hole, smirking wider as he witnessed your expression and the strain of keeping the pleasure off your face.

“Don’t have to give orders if…” He jerked up particularly hard, hitting your sweet spot, causing you to gasp breathlessly. “You…” Smack! You bit you lip, moan trapped in your chest. “Just…” Smack!

“F-Fuck…”

“Listen.”

And then Namjoon seized your hips and fucked you hard and fast with you barely holding on his shoulder with one hand and the other clutching your dress, moaning his name shamelessly to his own face. Namjoon wasn’t a gloater. His face was serious and concentrated, brows furrowed and intent on giving maximum pleasure, maintaining clear control as you rapidly lost it, allowing and trusting him to lead you into carnal desires.

You leaned forward, hot exhale on his neck, changing the angle and letting him hit you deeper, tightening around him. You heard his breath hitch, hissing out your name. Your whispered against his jaw, close to his ear.

“You like it better when I don’t listen, Namjoon.”

So close, so close, so close.

He snickered, dark, devious, sensual.

“I dolove punishing you with my cock.”

You slid your hand into his midnight blue hair and shuddered, pleasure blooming from your core in heated throbs, savoring the intensity of the orgasm he gave you as Namjoon groaned in your ear, slamming you down onto his hard, twitching cock and moaning, spilling his own into the condom, thoroughly enjoying the vicious massage of your spasming pussy. You pressed your lips to his temple, flinching with the shivers that came after, riding out the peak by rocking your hips lightly, enjoying the fullness he gave you.

“Doesn’t seem like a punishment. I’m having a lot of fun,” you taunted, panting and mirthful.

He gave your ass a playful smack and you squeezed his length from top to bottom.

“We have time for round two,” he murmured, nibbling on your ear.

Kim Namjoon was a very reasonable man.

kim seokjin.

"Gah, fuck!"

"As a matter of fact, yes, let's."

Kim Seokjin nearly tripped and fell against the doorframe, gawking at you. His expressive brown eyes went wide, mouth open enough for a nice ice lolly to be placed between those plump lips.

"Why are you in my bed? Where are your clothes? Why are you holding Pink Bean like that?!"

You sighed exaggeratedly. Here we go. "I had a nice dress but Namjoon took it and said I can't have it back until after." You squeezed Seokjin's large Pink Bean plush that he usually kept on his bed, a fluffy representation of a boss from his favorite PC game, MapleStory. It had a bubblegum pink head, light purple horns, and a cute :3 face. You squashed it with your breasts and looked up at him, on your knees with your feet tucked under your ass, missing all your articles of clothing thanks to Kim Namjoon.

Such cute clothes only for him? I don’t think so.

Seokjin turned bright red, sputtering.

"D-D-Don't do that to Pink Bean!"

"Why not? You've fucked me from behind and I used Pink Bean as my chest support."

He strode across the room with two steps, his long legs making it easy, looking handsome and summery in his pastel yellow shirt and shorts two-piece set, flapping his hands helplessly.

"That was a special case!"

You started bouncing on Pink Bean, you and your tits. Seokjin's brown eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he actually tripped at the end of his bed, falling face-first with a high-pitched yelp.

"Seokjin, I need to see your dick."

He yanked his head up, chestnut brown hair flying everywhere, shooting you a confused glare.

"Yah! You can't just show up naked and start demanding dick while abusing Pink Bean!"

You reached up and scooped your breasts forward, squashing them between the purple horns, nipples poking out above Pink Bean's head. Seokjin looked like he was about to pass out. Probably from loss of blood to his head.

You balanced your phone in your cleavage, inspirational dick pic between your tits.

"Is this your dick, Seokjinnie?" you asked sweetly.

He started, squinting at the screen between your tits. "The heck? What is that?"

"A dick. Is it yours?"

Seokjin made a disgusted face.

"Are they really that ugly? Mine sure as hell isn't."

"Oh, so it's not? You know for sure?"

Seokjin scoffed. "Come on, there's no way that could be mine, look–"

And he sat up and yanked his shorts and underwear off, slapping them down on the floor and spreading his legs, presenting his very hard and quite pretty dick and balls. He huffed triumphantly, planting his hands in his hips.

"How could that thing compare to–gah!"

You crawled over Pink Bean, shoving the plush against your stomach and placing yourself between Seokjin's long legs, oblivious to his shriek of surprise, holding up his shirt as you compared his cock to the one on your phone.

"What the–where did you g-get that picture?!"

Your hot breath wafted over his twitching length as you held it delicately with your fingertips, ass up in the air, tilting his dick to adjust the angle so he mirrored the photo. "Remember that party with the wet t-shirt contest?” you explained nonchalantly. “The one where I said you'd totally win because of your broad shoulders, but Taehyung got more votes because he had been working out and looking all buff recently?"

Seokjin was gasping as you held up your phone. Hmm, not the same thickness. Plus, he seemed harder, sticking out straighter than this photo dick. But there was a small mole in his dick that seemed to match the picture. The length is pretty spot-on too. You scooted closer, cradling his cock with your palm and coaxing it with your fingertips, ass bouncing on Pink Bean's head.

"Oh, fuck..."

"Anyway, someone snapped this photo and I've been trying to figure out who, but everyone was drunk and, if I recall correctly, you were on a table dancing with a pool noodle and belting Kim Yonja's 'Amor Fati', so I don't think you remember much from that night."

Seokjin's voice was pitched, strained from holding back.

"I remember those... oh, fuck... those shorts you were wearing... ah, with your ass hanging out on the bottom... fuck, wanted to bend you over... but yeah, after that..."

Then you yelped when you felt his hands on your head dragging you forward and pressing your open lips to his cock.

"Ah, yeees..."

"Seokjin, wait–mphf!"

He shoved the head of his cock into your lips and looked down. You narrowed your eyes as he began to gently hump your face, filling your mouth with the hardness. You sucked in your cheeks a little, molding your mouth to him, still giving him your best annoyed face.

"Is it my dick?" he gasped, pushing deeper.

You made a confused noise and Seokjin frowned at you.

"Yes or no?"

Seriously? You held up your hand and hovered it in the air, wiggling your fingers up and down, the universal sign of–

"What do you mean, maybe?! Oh, it's because a phone camera isn't good enough to catch the majesty of my cock, is that it?"

You could had been annoyed, but then you thought about it. He brought up a good point. You hadn't considered that. Still, the shape wasn't exact though. A phone camera couldn't alter dick angle, right?

No time to think about it because Seokjin rammed his entire length into your mouth and down your throat in your moment of contemplation.

"Mmmphf!"

"Just, ah, don't move, let me fuck your face real quick–"

You didn't really expect anything less, so you pushed him down, sliding his shirt up his torso, changing the angle so you weren't straining your neck. Seokjin fell onto his elbows, hands letting go but hips still moving, groaning as you enclosed your mouth around him and rubbed your tongue all over.

"Ah, your ass is so sexy, damn, bounce it for me..."

He seemed to forget that in order to do that, you had to hump Pink Bean like a dog in heat but, hey, when the man who called himself World Wide Handsome (drunk and sober, that was the kind of man Kim Seokjin was) asks you to twerk for him, you do as you are told and give Pink Bean the best hump that plush is ever going to have.

"Fuuuuuuuck, yes, your ass is so perky and juicy, fuck, like a sweet peach..."

You tried not to choke with laughter in his dick, but the action made your throat muscles squeeze and spasm around the head, immediately making it jerk and swell at the added simulation, causing Seokjin to gasp your name and fiercely clutch his sheets.

"Fuck, yes...!"

You looked up, cocking an eyebrow, seeing his brown hair messy and fallen over his forehead, eyelids fluttering, panting as you took over the pace, firmly enveloping him all the way to the base, sandwiching him between your tongue and roof of your mouth, dragging the head over the slick wetness, pulsing expertly around his hardness. His dainty pink tongue flitted over his lips and made them glisten, full, plump, sexy as hell.

"I'm so glad Namjoon took your clothes," he wheezed.

This guy really said whatever thought that popped into his handsome head.

You smirked around his cock and wiggled your eyebrows.

Then you grabbed his hips and really gave it to him, fast and tight, angling your head so he slid into your throat deeply and easily, sending Seokjin into a sputter of curses, prayers, and blessings to who-knew-what, gripping fistfuls of his sheets and throwing his head back, beautiful neck on display and broad shoulders flexed, moaning loudly.

You almost stopped, awed by his perfectly sensual posture.

Then Seokjin thrust his crotch into your lips and gasped your name, shooting down your throat in swift, tense jolts, forcing you to stop staring at him and hurriedly gulp it all down, squeezing your eyes shut so you could concentrate, sucking in a short breath, and making him yelp, flinching to cram more of the head into your constricting throat.

You prodded his stomach sharply and drew an ‘X’, telling him to stop so you could swallow.

“B-But…”

You gave him a bunch of other hand gestures and none of them were nice. It contrasted the way you were lapping at his cock, coaxing him back to full hardness with soft tongue and delicate pushes against the roof of your mouth. He lifted one of his hands and started messing with yours, the one on his stomach making obscene hand signals. You felt him try and grab your fingers, poke at your palm, and, finally, grab your hand and tug it up, shoving your fingers into his mouth.

You popped your mouth off his cock in surprise. “Hey!”

Seokjin looked at you with giant brown eyes like a dog caught with a treat in his mouth. “Mmphf?”

You made a confused face at him.

His tongue started sliding between them, licking your joints and pads of your fingers, wiggling all around, covering you with his saliva and sending shivers over your skin at the strange sensation. You could feel the power in that squirming muscle, his brown eyes watching your reaction, your own eyes fixated on the way it looked, three of your fingers surrounded and crammed into those lush, soft, pillow-like lips, squirming, sensual tongue slipping between them, dripping saliva down your palm and back of your hand.

“H-Hey…”

It was bizarre, feeling an odd juxtaposition of the submissive nature of the act, and yet he was deliberate and forceful about it, staring pointedly as the tip of his tongue snaked out from the side of his lips, licking the side of your pinky.

“S… Seokjin…?”

He reached up and pulled your hand out of his mouth, the pads of your fingers dragging on his lower lip, wet streaks of saliva painted down his chin.

The ghost of a smirk on his open mouth, eyebrow ticking arrogantly.

You blinked at him, unaware that you were clutching Pink Bean with your other hand so hard that your knuckles were white.

Then Seokjin grinned and wrapped your wet hand around his dick and started jacking himself off with it.

“Hey! I want that in me!”

“What? Gah!”

Somehow, you convinced him to fuck you – read: threw Seokjin down on his own bed, put a condom on him, rolled him back on top of you and guided his cock to your pussy before grabbing his ass and yanking down, making you both gasp as he entered you with one smooth stroke, your back on top of Pink Bean.

Pink Bean was really seeing a lot of your naked body today, just like Kim Seokjin.

“F-Fuck– yah!”

That was his noise of protest as you yanked his yellow shirt over his head, throwing it as far as you could, out his still open bedroom door.

“Sorry, needed to get rid of useless things.”

“I like that shirt!”

You grabbed onto his wide shoulders and rolled your hips up into his crotch, wrapping your thighs around his waist and squeezing. He sputtered at the intense feeling of your pussy wrapping around him, arms shaking to hold himself up, brown hair messy and wild over his forehead, brown eyes wide in indignation.

“Sorry, my bad, I’ll pick it up after I get another out of this magnificent dick,” you quipped.

Seokjin turned red, unaccustomed to someone other than himself complimenting him.

“Why are you hanging onto me like a monkey – oh my God…!”

You used his mattress and Pink Bean to bounce up and down on his dick from below, fingers tangled in his hair, wetly smacking your hips into his crotch, panting his name into his ear, your cock feels so fucking good, love the way you fill me, fuck me up, Seokjin, giving him the praise that he wanted and that breathless moan he liked, the one where you added a bit of underlying mischievous depth, pulling back one of your hands and tracing his plush lips, his mouth opening and pink tongue lolling out, puling you into that wetness, locking his gaze with yours.

Soft and tight around two of your fingers as you slapped your hips into his, losing a bit of your power now that a hand was occupied, intense sparks shooting from your fingertips to your core, his tongue sliding sensually between them, your juices leaking out, getting wetter and wetter, head emptying and replaced with sinful pleasure as you stared into those dark brown orbs with blown-out pupils, sparkling eyes smiling at you.

Seokjin took over and started fucking you into his mattress (and Pink Bean).

Both of you completely forgot about the dick pic.

min yoongi.

"Ah, fuck, I forgot, I need to see your dick, f-fuck!"

"It's," Smack! "A," Smack! "Little," Smack! "Busy at the moment."

"Yoongi!"

The bed shifted and hit the wall.

"Oh no," came the most unbothered oh no behind you.

"Your damn neighbors are going to complain again," you hissed, planting your hands on the mattress and lifting your upper body up a little to scowl at him. "They're so annoying."

"Yeah, that's why I like fucking you," Min Yoongi snickered, looking back with his curly black mullet in complete disarray, smirking lips dark and swollen from making out. He raised an eyebrow at your displeased expression, dark brown eyes flashing. "Something wrong? Not rough enough for you?"

You narrowed your eyes. "I need to see your dick when it's fully hard."

He raised his eyebrows. "Sure. After this one."

"Yoongi–"

He cut you off. "Hand," he ordered.

You extended your left hand out back to him and he grabbed your forearm, long fingers gripping tightly, before proceeding his railing of your pussy from behind, your ass smacking into his crotch repeatedly.

"Yoongi – ah, oof!"

You slipped and fell face first into his pillows, gasping at the altered depth of each thrust, hard and deliberate, filling you up as you clenched around him, following his rhythm by pushing back with your hips and moaning as Yoongi slowly built up the pace, bottoming out each time.

"Why do you need to see my dick?" he asked nonchalantly as if he wasn't pounding you with it right this very second.

"Because, oh fuck, someone left a, fuck, Yoongi, yes, dick pic on my phone, aaah, right there, fuck, you're so fucking good, that night of the party, the one with the wet t-shirt c-contest, fuck, Yoongi, I love your dick so much, fuck!"

"Why would I do that?" he grunted, spanking your ass with his free hand and making you claw at his sheets, pain seeping into the pleasure and amplifying it, skin prickling hot, causing the excessive dripping between your joined legs. The headboard was now repeatedly smacking the wall.

"I dunno, you were drunk too, do you remember, mmm, yes, harder, yeah, like that, telling Taehyung you loved him and that he was your favorite little alien child?"

Behind you, you heard Yoongi choke slightly in embarrassment.

"No, I do not..."

"See, maybe you jacked off and snapped a memoir on my phone."

Yoongi let go of your arm and firmly gripped your ass with two hands.

"Memoirs are written."

"Maybe if they wrote their name, I wouldn't be on this journey – ah, Yoongi!"

You grabbed fistful of sheets and snapped yourself back up, your hair messy and cascading down your shoulders, meeting every vicious slap of Yoongi's hips to yours, his balls hitting your soaked clit and sending stings of satisfaction from your core to your limbs, so good, moaning his name, his growl of yours punctuated by his nails digging into your ass, give it to me, come on, and you fucked him back, pressing your palms into his sheets and feeling the shuddering ecstasy again and again, deep pulses tightening around his hardness, making him groan with want.

"One more, one more, I'm so fucking close, fuck..."

"You've been close, you're holding back, you're a dick, ow!"

Yoongi smacked your ass particularly hard and you clenched your core so tight that he gasped and probably delayed his orgasm even further.

"You're the one asking to see it," he panted, adjusting the angle to shove you further into his bed even though it wasn't possible, and continued his relentless assault in your pussy.

"If anyone has a nice dick, it's you, you bas... fuuuuuuuck, Yoongi, yes, I'm gonna c-cum, fuck!"

The pleasure shot through you like lightning, waves of tortuous triumph as you clutched his pillow and screamed his name into it, your juices leaking out from around his pumping cock and splattering onto his crotch and inner thighs, drenching his balls, saturating his skin with your sweet scent, Yoongi moaning your name and squeezing your ass as he fully sheathed himself in your shaking walls and exploded into the condom, his whole length twitching and shivering inside your spasming pussy, your ass prickling on pain, both of you gasping for air.

Someone on the other side of the wall was banging it and told you two to shut the fuck up, or at least you assumed that's what that muffled yelling was.

You and Yoongi ignored it.

"Are you... hah... okay?" Yoongi panted, rubbing your ass and kneading it.

"Of course, I am, what do you take me for, an amateur?" you chuckled, lifting your head, your breathing erratic and uneven. "Now let me see your dick, Yoongi."

The other side of the wall kept swearing. Very colorful, very loud, very upsetti in the spaghetti.

Poor thing must not be getting laid regularly.

"Fuck, fine, you know I like staying in there at least for a little while..." he grumbled, holding the condom down as you untangled yourself from his body, sighing exaggeratedly as you turned around and yanked it off. You tossed it into the trashcan that was already beside the bed.

Yoongi had the foresight to be prepared for a night with you.

"I don't have to leave soon. We have plenty of time."

The shouting through the wall seemed to have given up, kicking it once and swearing very heatedly before stomping off.

"You better not. I'm not finished with you."

You picked up your phone and unlocked it, opening your photo gallery, pushing Yoongi down so you could wrap your fingers around his slick, semi-hard cock. It throbbed contentedly in your hand as you began to move it up and down in smooth, tight strokes, flexing your fingers to add variation in the stimulation.

"Mmm, fuck, yeah, faster..."

You pulled the photo up and put your phone on the bed beside his hip and calmly continued your movements, looking down at him, him and fair-skinned cheeks with a slight fluffiness to them, him and his lightly upturned upper lip that gave him a cat-like appearance, him and his lowered lashes over black-brown orbs that held quiet, sensual intelligence. His hair was messy from fucking you so hard, but he was effortlessly sexy regardless, leaning back on his elbows, torso lifted to watch your hand. Yoongi noticed you staring and raised an eyebrow, wispy black strands grazing his dark brow.

“What?”

You smiled.

“Just thinking you’re really hot, Yoongi.”

He cringed slightly, ears turning pink and shifted his eyes away, closing them. Your own roamed down, down his defined shoulders and toned arms and chest, sucking in a breath at the sight, that slim waist and pretty hips, his cock filling up your hand, getting harder and harder, the head getting darker from sensitivity, the slickness of the lube and his own cum making it easier for you and better for him. Your other hand traced his side, running your nails over it and you heard his low moan, raising your head and your eyes found his. He was observing you again, glancing from the photo to you, the corner of his lips tugging upwards, ticking his head to the screen.

“That it?”

You ran your nails over his skin, just the way he liked it, light, pressing in a little when it came to the upper side of his hip, seeing his pupils expand and his breathing shallow, pink tongue licking his lips slowly.

“Yeah,” you replied breathlessly.

You increased the pace, pumping him from base to head, entranced by Yoongi’s expression, desire and cockiness despite becoming unraveled in your hands, his lower body trembling under you, your thighs pressed to his tense ones, tempting you to sit on and rub yourself all over them.

“Pretty dick.”

Slap, slap, slap. Hand on wet cock, sending shivers through you and through him.

“That’s why it could be yours.”

You saw his cheeks flush light pink, but he didn’t look away. Instead, he made piercing eye contact.

“Stop.”

You gasped sharply and ceased all movement, feeling his rigid stiffness pulse against your palm.

“Look,” Yoongi commanded in that low, raspy voice of his.

You bit your lip and removed your hand, strings of fluids snapping between your fingers and his hot, taut skin. His cock was so hard that it was sticking straight up, dark and imposing, twitching slightly. Long pale fingers picked up your phone and held it next to his erection.

“Well?” he chuckled.

You chewed on your lip, squinting at the screen. Reached over and ran your wet fingers over his twitching length, hearing Yoongi hiss and gasp at your touch as you angled his dick to match up with the photo. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that difficult – the position seemed to match up perfectly. He was a little taller and thicker though. The shape of the head was similar, but also a bit off. The skin tone wasn’t quite correct either, the red-purple with subtly differing undertones. Still, lighting might affect that kind of detail. It wasn’t like you knew where this picture was taken.

“Hm… It’s really close, but not an exact match.”

“Well, damn.”

Yoongi tossed your phone aside carelessly, hand reaching out and you bent down, already knowing what he wanted, lips to lips, sliding against his body. You loved the way he kissed. Intense but soft, hand on your jaw and thumb caressing your cheek, nail grazing your earlobe, whispering into your lips, put me between your thighs, and you shifting up, closing your thighs around his wet cock, his lustful sigh and smirk on your lips, slowly thrusting in between your legs.

“Tighter.”

You hooked your ankles, one over the another and squeezed.

“Mmm, fuck yes, you’re so good…”

His words reminded you of the first time, crammed into the backseat of a small car, snuck out of a party to have Min Yoongi pull you into his grasp, tongue and lips all over you, your arms over his shoulders, wondering what you were doing because this kind of guy wasn’t your type, quiet, yes, a music nerd, yes, however he knew what he was doing, light bites on you skin making you gasp and slide down his jean-covered thigh, delicious friction to your soaked panties, tipping your head back to give that decadent mouth more access to your throat.

Your phone vibrated in your back pocket. A certain someone was probably wondering where you were.

“Yoongi, how… fuck, yes, how are you so good… you’re so good…”

His deep voice over your vocal cords, vibrating them with his seductive tone.

“DND your phone,” he purred, drawing a line down your throat with his tongue, coating you with his saliva, his musky, woody cologne transferring to your shivering skin.

“What…?” you panted, unable to think straight.

He plucked it out of your back pocket, tapping it against your arm.

“Put it on do not disturb and I’ll make you cum so hard that you’ll be coming back to me all the time.”

You fumbled with your phone, strong hands scooping out your breasts from your top, those lips sinking into your cleavage and tongue ghosting over your nipples, moaning as you dropped it, ignoring Park Jimin’s text, lost in those skillful hands and that expert mouth that eventually kissed down to your pussy and drove you crazy, but not before setting your skin on fire and making you beg for it.

“Yoongi…”

His lips on yours, his eyes and your eyes both half-open, marveling at the way his lashes adorned those black brown orbs and the way he looked at you, drunk on lust and your body.

“You want me?”

Hands on your hips, grinding you down on his thigh, teasing you. He wasn’t your type, he wasn’t your type, he wasn’t your type… so why, why did that sly, knowing gaze do things to you? Why did it make your heartbeat stutter and your juices seep into the denim of his jeans, so turned on that you didn’t want anything else right now but Min Yoongi?

It just didn’t make any sense.

“Y… Yeah…”

That smirk.

“I know you do.”

You did end up coming back all the time.

He was very good and it wasn’t just his mouth.

Yoongi backed up and smirked, open-mouthed, mischievous, so fucking hot that you felt your pussy throb at the mere sight, his warm, pulsing length still jammed between your soft, closed thighs.

“You wanna ride my dick?”

You grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”

You completely forgot about the photo and spent the rest of the night on Yoongi’s cock and ignoring the yelling from his neighbors.

jung hoseok.

“Hoseokie…”

Teeth on your ear, a dexterous, teasing tongue flicking your earrings, your name coming out of that heart-shaped smile in a low, sultry whisper that contrasted it.

“You can’t come here looking like this and not expect me to want to ruin you,” Jung Hoseok purred into your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

Your lips curved into a smile.

You were on your knees, spread out a little, short black minidress hiked up your thighs, facing the mirrors of the dance studio. Hoseok knelt behind you, hands travelling all over your body. Deft fingers, neatly manicured nails, his sharp jaw grazing your shoulder, pulling down the thin straps. Your large hoodie was tossed to the side, scattered onto the hardwood floor in haste. The frosted door of Smile Hoya’s rented dance studio space was locked, hip-hop music blaring loudly, and in the center was you and Hoseok.

You knew he could hear your shuddering exhale well, already attuned to the sounds of your pleasure.

He smirked and kissed the top of your ear, yanking down the top of your dress.

It wasn’t like this the first time.

“Ah, well, I was hoping… wondering, ah… I don’t know how to say…?”

You were in his bedroom at the time, confused. “Yoongi said you wanted to talk to me about something? What is it, Hoseok?”

He had been very nervous, somewhat shaky, staring into your eyes. You reached over and squeezed his hand, tilting your head. He took a moment to speak, hiding his brown eyes under his blond hair.

“Uh, well, I was talking to hyung and I mentioned I… I feel like I have to put up a front sometimes. Because I’m so happy and stuff. Women expect me to be like that… in bed… And he suggested that maybe you could help me… chill out, but, uh, that’s really rude to say, ah, I shouldn’t have–”

He tried to yank his hand out of yours in panic but you held on, tugged forward by his movement. Hoseok squeaked, ears turning red, freezing in place.

“Hey.”

You held his hand and patted it with your free one, smiling gently.

“I absolutely can help you chill out when it comes to sex. What do you want to know? What do you want to do? I’ll teach you.”

You noticed his expression change from panic to worry, chewing on his lip.

“N… No, you misunderstand… It’s not having sex, I…”

He trailed off, suddenly silent. You frowned slightly, nudging him. Hoseok cleared his throat and looked you dead in the eye.

“I’m not nice.”

Now he squeezed your hand tightly, breathing in your scent.

“Or rather, I don’t want to be nice when I fuck. Sometimes I want to let go and just…” He frowned, not seeming to know the word.

You leaned in, whispering in his ear.

“Fuck?”

“Yeah, I just… don’t want to think about an image I have to uphold.”

You grinned. “Yoongi did direct you to the right woman.”

His blond hair was even lighter now, the tips dyed with navy, a soft, sexy contrast to his rich tan skin. This was now many, many fucks later, hooking up at parties, at random times at his apartment, and now at the space he rented to practice dance on his own. Hoseok liked to freestyle and feel the music. When he fucked, he liked to feel the moment.

His hands gripped your breasts and squeezed, sandwiching your nipples between his index and middle finger, tugging hard.

You gasped in his hands, just what he wanted, open-mouthed smirk and all.

“Hoseok… I have to… ah, ask you something…”

He shoved his hips into your back and you gasped at the thinness of his shorts, rubbing his hardening cock against the top of your ass. A brown orb watched you through the mirror and he was smiling that brilliant, heart-shaped smile, contrasting his forceful touch.

“What do you want to ask?” he chirped cheerfully, pinching your nipples and twisting them.

You moaned, savoring the swift, firm pain followed by the pads of his fingers rubbing the tips of your nipples, grinding your ass onto his stiff length. Your phone was in your right hand. You bit your lip, seeing him watch you carefully in the mirror. You raised the phone and unlocked it.

“Is this your dick?”

You noticed Hoseok pause and squint. You turned your phone and held at up so he could get a good look. His hands were still on your tits, although he had paused the moment to view the image, blinking rapidly at it.

“When was this taken?” He tilted his head, looking confused.

“The party with the wet t-shirt contest? The–”

“One where Yoongi grabbed Taehyung and told him he was his favorite alien child?”

“Oh? You do remember?”

Hoseok winced, as if the events of the night haunted him. “I remember… not much after that…”

“Oh…” You faltered. “So you wouldn’t remember if you took this picture on my phone, huh?”

“No, sorry.”

“Then… can I see it?”

He grinned. “You have to earn it.”

Earning it could mean anything.

Today, earning it meant cumming at least three times with Hoseok’s fingers before he even let you take off his shorts.

“H-Hoseok…!”

He always smelled so good, so fucking good, orange and musk complemented with the barely-there vanilla sweetness, a scent that always seemed to linger on your skin afterward. His lips were on your neck, leaving small bites, chuckling darkly. One hand on your nipple, the other between your legs, your dress bunched at the waist and your panties at your knees, not letting you take any of it off, forcing you to watch yourself as he wrecked you, teasing your oversensitive clit with his fingertips, slick and slippery, thighs shaking from the second orgasm and coaxing you to the third, sharp throbs of lust causing your eyes to roll back, head falling against his shoulder.

“Hoseok, p-please…”

He had no trouble holding onto you, flexible and strong, and you were grinding your hips down, lost in the feeling, leaking everywhere because he hadn’t actually put his fingers inside you yet, teasing you and teasing you and teasing you, driving you crazy, please put your fingers inside me, please Hoseok, your name murmured gently in your ear, no, not until the third time, and then I’m going to put my cock in you once you’ve shown me how good of a girl you are, and you were going to lose your mind, shivering in continued ecstasy, squirming in his hands, your own reaching back and fisting his hair and white shirt, moans masked by the loud music, so close, so close, your perfume mixing with his, sex and cologne, shivers and heat, teeth on your ear and circles rubbed onto your aching nerves.

Shallow gasps.

Peaking pleasure.

Seeing nothing but black, eyelids fluttering, wanton moans torn from your throat.

The song ended.

Hoseok removed his hand from your nipple and covered your mouth, muffling your scream as you came, taking your air and your sanity, pleasure rocketing up your core, crying out with need for something, anything, inside you, pushing your hips back into his crotch, feeling his cock swell at your bouncing ass, desperate for him.

The music began again.

Now you were on your hands and knees, suddenly released, gasping for breath, legs shaking from the aftershocks.

“Look.”

Turning around, your shaking hands pulling down his shorts hurriedly, still wearing your black dress and panties around your knees, hardly registering the inconvenience, not caring, completely focused on the semi-hard length in front of your face. No time. Hoseok gave you no time, grabbing your face and dragging your open mouth to him, sliding into your lips, his oversized shirt touching your nose, you whimpering at the hotness and tautness of his velvet skin. The fullness invaded your throat, taking your breath away. He buried himself all the way in before yanking his shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside with his vest that was shed earlier, far too hot now, looking down at you through his lashes.

“Don’t choke.”

Hand in your hair, pushing you down, not letting you move as he rolled his hips into your face, the head rubbing against the rood of your mouth and your tongue pushing it up to make it tighter for him, taking him deeper, hazy and intoxicated on orange, musk and vanilla. His other hand held your phone up, unlocking it with ease.

Smirk on those lips, heart-shaped and teasing. “So? Is it mine?”

You whined, not wanting him out of your mouth.

“Your choice,” Hoseok chuckled, tone light and unassuming, the edge of danger only visible in those sparkling brown eyes. “Find out or I’ll cum in your mouth and not in that pretty pussy of yours I’m looking at right now.”

Right, because you were bent over, ass facing the mirror, wetness dripping down your inner thighs.

Fuck.

You backed up, growling, glaring at the picture you knew all too well now.

“Well?”

Fine, fine, fine, you were on this fucking Journey to the Dick, and it was starting to feel more like an annoying side mission than the actual main storyline, but, whatever, you reached up and angled Hoseok’s cock slightly, sucking in a breath with him as you looked from phone screen to the delicious real-life specimen. Hm, okay. Similar in length and color. Not in angle though. Shit. And not in width either, barely a hair slimmer and the vein placement was more prominent on Hoseok’s length than this dick.

“Fuck, it’s really fucking close but I don’t think it’s yours.”

“Shit,” Hoseok sighed, turning your phone off and tossing it onto his discarded shirt. “Oh well.”

You narrowed your eyes, pouting. “What kind of react–gah!”

Hoseok pushed you down onto the ground, pushing his shorts down to his knees and pulling out a condom from the pocket, cocking a brow. You sputtered, trying to untangle yourself from the labyrinth of your own clothes, but only managed to kick off your panties before he got the condom rolled down and pushed your legs up, lifting your ass completely off the floor.

“Can’t have this pretty ass on this dirty floor,” he snickered, lifting himself higher, bending you in half, almost on your upper back, nearly uncomfortable, but Hoseok was stronger than he looked, and when he gave you what you needed, you instantly forgot about the discomfort.

“Oooh, fuck, Hoseok!”

He plunged into you, into hot wet tightness, stretching you out easily from the previous wetness, clit throbbing as he smacked his hips down, his balls slapping against your ass, drawing out another moan as his fingers brushed your clit, making you spasm and clench around his cock as he teased the overstimulated bundle of nerves.

“Fuck, yes, so tight, so wet, so desperate for a cock to fill this hole, aren’t you?” he purred, still so sweet but with such dirty words, so handsome with his blond hair and navy tips, heart-shaped smirk and glittering eyes, and the way he said your name, dainty and serene, slowly thrusting into you, but so hard, he was so hard from being inside you, completely consumed by the physicality of the act and no longer the same man who had been worrying about how you would perceive him.

That seemed ages ago now.

Your hands reached up between your legs, running your fingers through his hair, completely forgetting about the photo of the mysterious dick and focused on the one thrusting between your legs, smiling up at him, those brown eyes and lovely jaw.

“You’re so good, Hoseok, so fucking good to me, fuck, harder, yes, ah…”

Both of you forgot about the music, fucking through the pause between them, hoping that everyone else was too busy with their own choreography to think about the hot gasps and moans exchanged between you and him in the middle of the room, the act reflected in the wall of mirrors, the slap of skin-on-skin echoing off the walls, your name and his name in breathless whispers, tight and full and hot and wet and soaring on sky-high pleasure, climbing altitude and running out of oxygen.

“Fuck, gonna cum, fuck–”

“Ah, Hoseok, yes…”

Tip, free-fall, you clamping a hand over Hoseok’s mouth and his hand over yours, screaming into each other’s palms at the intensity and the force of orgasm, smacking your hips together and holding them there, feeling his cock twitch inside you and your shivering walls clamp around him in rough, intense pulses.

It took a moment to disembark from the euphoric high.

“Hah… we should… probably not fuck here…” he gasped, falling a little, cradling your ass so it didn’t directly touch the floor.

“I’d fuck you anywhere, so that’s your fault. You need to be the voice of reason.”

He laughed, rich and infectious, and you grinned, holding his head against your breasts and hugging him tightly.

park jimin.

“I hate you.”

“Come on, Jimin.”

"I was supposed to be first!"

"Oh my God, are we going on about this again?!"

"You were supposed to suck MY dick first!"

"Stop being a fucking brat, Park Jimin!"

"No!"

You tackled him and you both fell to the floor, rolling into a mess of giant t-shirts, fierce kisses and your hands in his now red hair, fiery and hot-headed like he was being right now.

"You little–"

"Don't you dare call me little!"

"I was gonna call you a little shithead but if you wanna be a big shithead, that's fine with me!"

He pinned you down and you grabbed his waist with your legs and rammed your crotch into his black shorts, making him gasp in horny pain and crumple into his laundry that you were supposed to help him fold, but instead you were wrestling and he was complaining about not getting his dick sucked.

It was your turn to pin him down with your arms and your thighs, Jimin seeing stars as he struggled to breathe from your lower belly smacking his erection the wrong way.

"Why, ack, why did you run off saying there's a proper order?" he choked out, choking harder as your panty-covered mound sat down on his length and started rubbing up and down, smirking down at him, his red hair flaring out on his cream rug.

"'Cause there is," you replied, calm and cool.

"Order of what? Order of how you fucked us?"

"Nah, I fucked Yoongi first, remember? At that party, ages ago..." you hummed, extending the expanse of your movement, sliding up and down his thighs, his plush lips open and moaning softly, his grip on your large t-shirt tightening. It was actually his, because neither you nor Jimin knew the meaning of keeping your clothes on.

"Yeah, in my car!"

"Eh, you were drunk and playing pool with Taehyung, which, by the way, he mad cheated and you didn't even notice."

"Fuck!"

You weren't sure if that exclamation was related to your teasing or Taehyung cheating, but Jimin removed one of his hands from your shirt and flipped off the wall, in the direction of Taehyung's room.

Ah, so not you.

"Is it age order? But Namjoon isn't the oldest..." Jimin refuted himself, frowning.

"He’s first because he's kind of like the leader of you guys, isn't he? You all end up listening to his reasoning anyway."

Jimin squinted, pouting. "That's just because his tall and smart and has a fatty IQ."

You grinned. "148."

Jimin looked very annoyed that you remembered the exact number.

“I never thought about it, but other than that, it is age order, huh?” you mused, bouncing on his dick.

He shuddered with satisfaction, rolling his hips into you. “Then why would you…?”

You shrugged. “Your names sound good together like that. Kim Namjoon, Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, Jeon Jungkook…”

Jimin added your name last with an amused smirk. You bit your lower lip, cocking an eyebrow and sporting a devious smile, leaning down. Lips to lips, a soft sigh, remembering that night, stumbling out of Jimin’s car and tangled in Yoongi’s touch, still kissing Yoongi with your ass on the hood of the car. Jimin had been annoyed at you then too, how could you fuck him first and not me, Yoongi laughing in that raspy, sexy way of his, because I asked, dumbass, Jimin grabbing your face and kissing you right in front of Yoongi, the older man clicking his tongue and squeezing your ass tighter, unimpressed.

In some ways, that night started off the chain reaction of hey, why not me?

Okay, maybe you did have some frustrations about your dating life and ended up tumbling into their beds for, ahem, emotional support, but in your defense, they were all great when it came to emotional support.

“Sit on my face.”

“That’s not the angle of the dick pic though.”

“Then just take the pic from that position. That’s how it was taken, right?”

Sometimes, Park Jimin was a damn genius.

He was great at eating pussy too.

“Ah, fuuuck, Jimin…”

A little messy at first, humming approvingly at your taste, thrusting his tongue into you and moaning as your muscles closed in on it, your slick nectar painting those beautiful, soft lips, him pressing them to your heat, lewd kisses, tongue swiping up and down.

“Gotta clean you up so you can dirty me up,” he breathed, tracing sensual patterns in between your thighs with his tongue, small nips to make you whine, his hands on your ass, moaning into your pussy as your kiss came into contact with his rigid cock, dripping saliva and licking it back up, gyrating your tongue at the tip and licking off the pre-cum, savoring the taste, strong and almost sweet.

Everything about Jimin was sweet, even when he was frustrated with you.

“Fuck, give it to me.”

His hands on your ass, pushing you down, setting your pussy flush onto his lips, blocking off his airway and moaning hotly, desperate, needy, wanting your noises as you swallowed him, his length swelling in your mouth at the wet encasement, swirling your tongue all around.

You’re so mean. I can’t believe you wouldn’t ask me first, get on your knees, come on, aren’t you sorry?

You weren’t, not even in the slightest bit sorry for fucking Yoongi in his car, but you had enjoyed his little pout and twinge of jealousy, kisses up his muscular thighs, the same thighs you were clutching right now, one hand tucking your hair behind your ear, remembering his hand on the back of your head, pushing you down on his cock, the same cock you buried all the way into the back of your throat, blocking your own ability to breathe, suffocating on it as Jimin groaned, coming back up for air, rushing exhale washing over your skin before returning to his work on your clit, rapid, intense licks that shimmered pleasure through your veins.

Jimin made you choke on his dick after the Yoongi incident, but you were the one in control of it now, rutting the head against your throat muscles, feeling it get harder and harder. He always felt so good in your mouth, recalling him saying once, I just really like getting my dick sucked, shut up and stop shaming me, tongue and lips and saliva, remembering how much he liked it when you held the base and focused on the tip, his muffled whines getting more intense and vibrating your core, making sure to pop your lips over the bottom of the head every time you came up and then pressing them tightly as you went back down, doing it all at that fast, suffocating pace that made him stop licking you to throw his head back and moan, loud lust radiating off the walls, not caring about disturbing anyone, too absorbed into your pace to be considerate.

“F-Fuck, yeah, just like that, fuck, you’re so good…”

Jimin was part of the reason you were good.

He really liked getting his dick sucked. Your mouth was one of his favorites and usually readily available.

Win-win.

“Faster, fuck, oh, shit, I’m gonna cum, mmmphf!”

He grabbed your ass and smothering himself with your pussy, body trembling under you as his cock jerked and shot into your throat, your lips closing in, sucking hard to drink his cum, his moans filling your wet hole and tongue all over your clit, furiously licking as you rubbed the twitching head into the roof of your mouth, his hips squirming at the overstimulation, but his violent grip and nails digging into your ass was telling you to do it, telling you he loved it, telling you he needed it, begging you to do what you did best, gulping around the head and then jamming it into your throat, cutting off your air.

He sucked on your clit, hard, whining so loud that you could feel it in his chest and racing heartbeat pressed against your lower belly, almost lifting your lower half with his upper body alone, showing off his strength from dancing. You angled your head, taking as much as you could, nose in his balls, whimpering around his cock and the snap of orgasm making your entire body flinch, leaking all over his face and into his mouth, his nose buried into your pussy, tongue soothing your throbbing clit, wave after intense wave, barely breathing, lightheaded with pleasure, clutching his thighs tightly, naked bodies suddenly dirty, surrounded by clean laundry.

Jimin yanked his head out from between your legs, panting in satisfaction, diving back in to shove his tongue on your quivering hole and scoop out your orgasm, sucking it out to drink it, murmuring your name into your slick juices.

“You taste so fucking good, fuck…”

You came up for air, gasping, tongue lolling out, holding his cock and rubbing the slit against your wet muscle. His stiff length twitched, still hard because of your mouth.

“Take the picture, mmm, yes, did you forget?” Jimin gasped into your pussy.

You fumbled with your phone beside his leg, still reeling from orgasm and Jimin’s continued ministrations, putting it in selfie mode and seeing the lower half of your face, chin shiny with saliva, his cum dripping off your lower lip, his cock in front of your face and naked chest, your breasts pressed into his abs.

You thought about licking off the visible cum, but then you decided against it, snapping the photo with your tongue hovering close to his rock-hard erection.

You knew the composition of the inspirational dick pic now, so you brought it up in a photo editing app, putting the two side by side while wrapping your lips around the head of Jimin’s cock, sucking it leisurely like a lollipop. He didn’t ask you to get off.

Instead, he planted your pussy into his face and suffocated himself with it again.

You studied the two photos. Hm. Firstly, yours was much sexier. No offense to white t-shirt, blue jeans, and black boxer briefs guy, but your glistening cum-covered lips and squashed tits in the background of the cock made the photo eons better than his. Jimin would definitely be asking for yours later. Anyway, back to the picture. Hmm. Jimin’s dick was slightly shorter and straighter, with a warmer skin tone to his purple-red tip, although the head shape was spot on. Was that possible to have a different length but almost identical head shapes? Did dicks work that way? Did Jimin have an equally sexy twin brother or doppelganger somewhere?

Hm, a threesome with basically two Jimins would be hot as hell.

He patted your leg and you climbed off him, sighing as you rolled over and pursed your lips, concluding that his wasn’t the mystery dick. Once again, close, but no dick. Wait. That wasn’t the saying. Eh, whatever.

“Fuck, send me that photo later, I’m gonna jack off to it.”

You laughed, feeling him crawl beside you and roll you onto your stomach, pinning you down with his naked body. “You wanna jack it to your own dick?”

He was rubbing said dick into the crevice of your ass cheeks now, using your saliva was lube. “Fuck yeah I wanna jack it to my own dick with your lips covered with my cum and your titties on my stomach, sounds fuckin’ hot.”

“You’re such a pervert, Jimin.”

“And you aren’t?”

The front door slammed shut. There was a loud yell of your name in deep baritone.

“Aw, hell no, I’m getting it in this pussy first, I got time before he comes to collect,” Jimin growled, reaching into his discarded shorts and ripping open a condom, scrambling off you and rolling it down his still-hard length, grabbing one of your legs.

You shifted to your side, glaring at him. “What am I, taxes?”

The deep voice called your name again, asking where you were.

He didn’t have to wait long for an answer though, because Jimin thrust into you and you ended up moaning Kim Taeyang’s name to inform him of your whereabouts, causing Jimin to bend over and fuck you hard and rough.

“I can’t believe you would moan his name like that with my dick inside you,” Jimin growled, looking far too cute to actually be pissed at you. “Gonna fuck you so hard that you’ll be sore for him.”

Everything about Jimin was sweet, even when he was firmly fucking you into his floor and making you yelp as Taehyung burst the door open, sighing at the scene.

“Who would have fucking guessed what you two are doing…”

kim taehyung.

"You're so fucking stubborn."

"Wow, that's really rude, I don't make comments about your–"

"Shut up, I'm deleting his number."

You narrowed your eyes and frowned, sitting with one leg bent on Kim Taehyung's bed. He was currently in possession of your phone, clicking his tongue and pressing buttons on the screen.

"When someone tells you to leave them alone, you leave them alone," he scolded.

You cowered slightly, eyes shifting. "I was only asking if he was doing anything this weekend... I didn't have any ulterior motives..."

Taehyung squinted. You deliberately avoided his gaze. He sighed, crossing his arms. You were still wearing Jimin's shirt with nothing underneath so, uh, maybe he had good reason to be suspicious.

"You have a virgin kink."

You choked on nothing. "What, no, I don't–"

Taehyung reached over to his desk and put on the thin, gold-framed glasses he kept there. He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. You abruptly stopped talking and gawked at him, breathless at the way his dark brown orbs were bordered by gold and his long, black-brown hair, the rest tied back in a small ponytail.

"And a glasses kink."

He took them off and you sucked in a tight breath, grimacing.

"That's why you keep going after these kinds of guys," Taehyung tutted, neatly folding the specs and placing them back on his desk. "And why you bonked Namjoon-hyung so fast, only to realize that he is not, in fact, a virgin."

"W-Well, he's still good..."

"Same reason why you got so excited when–"

"Look," you cut in, chopping the air with your hand, not letting Taehyung finish. His eyebrow seemed permanently raised. "I'm off my bullshit for now, no? I've got a mission–" You pointed to your phone and he held it out of your reach. You scowled and bounced back down into the bed. His eyes weren't following your face, but you ignored it. "–and I'll stop okay?"

Taehyung cocked his other eyebrow.

"Serious. You just deleted all the numbers except you and your friends, right?"

He turned the screen, thumb hovering over a certain number. Him and his friends were listed from one to seven, in order.

His thumb was over number seven.

"Don't," you whined. "Please, Tae."

His brows lowered, serious expression on his handsome face.

Then he smirked, dumping your phone on the bed.

"Silly girl," he drawled, crawling onto the bed, advancing towards you, sultry gaze and enchanting eyes making you forget about your device. "Why would I do that? He likes you so much."

You growled slightly, letting him push you down but not relenting. "That's really fucked up."

"That I wanna hear you say please?"

His hand lifted and cupped your chin, mischievous smile, unable to contain his pride for his little trick, sliding his leg between your thighs, tilting his head.

"Not just any please," he murmured, deep voice silky smooth, dark curled stands brushing against your cheeks he leaned in, hot exhale on your lips. "Your needy please when I threaten to take your precious Jungkookie from you."

You tried to close your legs but he stopped you with his knee, tilting his head, highly amused at your narrowed eyes.

"You don't like it?" He was leaning down, feathery kisses on your lips and cheeks. "I know you like it when I tease you." His honey voice was dripping into the fire, turning into fuel that fed the sparks of arousal, your hands coming up to clutch his black shirt, pulling down the center zipper, his deep chuckle in your skin, hand from your chin sliding up to your hair, the other tapping down your front, grazing the thin t-shirt material.

"Don't..." you gasped, his deft touch toying with the hem. “Don't use the others against me. That's not fair...”

“Mmm, yeah?”

Drawing circles on your inner thigh with his nail, nicking the skin.

"You only want to think about me?"

Your phone hummed with a notification. Taehyung chuckled, fingers creeping closer and closer.

"Aw, I wonder who that is? But that's too bad, because you're all mine right now."

You gasped, clutching his open shirt as his fingers slid in, two because you were already wet, shallow breathing and lidded eyes telling him enough, taking your lips with his, pace slow and steady and maddening, spreading your legs with his knees, forcing you to tip your hips up to him in an embarrassing position.

Then again, embarrassment during sex wasn't part of your vocabulary.

You pushed his black shirt down one shoulder and reached in, your fingers snaking to the hem of the white undershirt and stroking his skin, his satisfied exhale hot against your neck, you remembering the way the water drenched the fabric and stuck it to his golden tan skin, playfully flexing his defined chest and biceps, adorable and arousing because Kim Taehyung was both. He separated his digits inside your pussy to create a loud, sharp, wet squelch. You heard him grin, smug at the dirty sound, then begin plunging his fingers in and out, in and out of the tightness, trying to be as noisy as possible. You clenched your core to make him work for it, force him to be rougher with you, his fingers curling in your hair, yanking firmly, lips on your ear.

"See, how can those boys you pick keep up with you, hm? They won't know what to do with your pretty, sexy self," he purred, faster, harder, pushing you to the edge with your heated moan and your hands all over his chest, lifting your hips to meet his touch. "You need us to take care of you, don't you?"

Fuck, the way Taehyung said your name.

Like it was a decadent sweet he was craving, a taste compared to no other.

Your head fell back into the pillows, breathing in his warm scent in shallow puffs, his name pouring out of your lips, yearning and desire.

"Mmmm, Taehyung...."

Melting you into it, sweet bliss and sharp jerks of your hips into his hand, gasping at the flood of euphoria, trying to squeeze your thighs around his hand and stopped by his open legs. Your throbbing pussy gripped his fingers and made him hiss, his devious smirk growing as you lowered your chin again to look into those dark eyes, shivering under his intense gaze.

“Let’s play a little game.”

His tongue slid out, lickings your lips lightly.

“It’s called, how many fingers can I stuff in you before you’re begging for my dick?”

“What kind of – oh, f-fuck!”

One more.

Aching tightness, clenching your jaw, trembling at the ease of it, Taehyung cocking an eyebrow.

“Ah, yeah, three’s too easy, huh? You already warmed up.”

One more.

“Fuck, Tae, fuck!”

His dark eyes glittering, pleased at your reaction.

“That’s better. That’s what I wanna hear.”

Whines in your throat as he picked up the pace, fast and hard, clutching his shirt and his side, your nails digging in, stretched out and stuffed with four, your eyes rolling back and one leg sliding up to hook around his waist, meeting each thrust, so deep, so full, so wet, loud and obvious and uncaring of who was listening – probably Jimin with a huge smirk on his face – panting Taehyung’s name over and over, feeling the strength in his hold and his grip in your hair, pulling lightly, shooting pricks of pain down your head to meet the oppressive pleasure brimming in your core, closer, closer.

“What do you want?” Taehyung growled, that deep voice dangerously low.

“Y-Your c-cock, p-please…” you managed to gasp out, chasing it, chasing the fullness and the depth.

“Can you take it? Can you take it like the good girl you are?”

“A-Ah, yes, please Tae, want it,” you moaned, your fingernails digging into his back, scratching down as your orgasm shattered through you, making your whole body shake and shiver from the intensity, him pulling out. Your moan turned into a hoarse whimper, squirming as he rubbed your clit with his slick fingers, spanking it and teasing it, rocketing you into peaks and valleys of cut-off ecstasy that drove you insane, clawing at his clothes, desperate for his body on yours.

“What’s your magic word?”

“Please.”

He grinned at you despaired tone.

“That’s it.”

It took no time at all, your shirt flung aside, Taehyung losing his clothes that were already half-off, hot body to hot body, heated kisses and rummaging in his nightstand drawer, groaning into his mouth as his cock slapped your thigh, hard and thick and ready, dripping pre-cum on you before he yanked you up on top of him, ripping open the condom.

“Work for it.”

Lacing your fingers in his, sliding down onto that impressive girth and gasping as it twitched inside you, rolling your hips down onto it, better than his fingers, bouncing on it with your tits following your rhythm, squeezing his hands. Taehyung liked this kind of intimacy, the kind where he was grinning like the devil under you but still holding your hands as you railed yourself with his dick, rough and hard with your own smug smile, a little erratic but somehow good that way.

He made you work for it and you were good at working for it.

You found a good rhythm and – ba dum tss – rode it, leaning forward to deepen the angle and make it last longer, pulsing around his length with your tight walls, control and power and endorphins, each smack adding to the lewd melody that mixed with heavy moans and shuddering gasps, bringing Taehyung on your rollercoaster, his hips rising, your name rumbling in his chest, blood thudding in your ears at the baritone depth.

“Yes, such a good girl, gonna make me cum, don’t you want me to cum for you?” he panted, fishing for the magic word, bouncing one of his dark brows, his long hair flared out on his pillows, high cheekbones and strong features no longer hidden by wayward strands.

Your tongue between your teeth, grinning wide.

“Yes, please.”

The right inflection of winded want, maybe a little mischievous, but Taehyung liked that, for there was no fun in someone who was too easy.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking sexy.”

He squeezed your hands and thrust his hips up fiercely, shock bolting from your core to your spine to your head, your head snapping back, gasp torn from your throat, flooding his crotch with your juices, overstimulated clit rubbing on the base of his cock and Taehyung was gone too, husky groan falling from his lips, slamming his hips up and locking his legs, shooting jerks of cum into the condom, aftershocks causing you to lose hold on your knees, moan pitching higher as you slipped down on his throbbing length, trapped on it because Taehyung wasn’t going to lower you until he was done, the head pulsing inside you, squeezed out by your shivering walls.

“T… Tae… the picture…”

“Ah… yeah… hold on… lay down for me…”

He wasn’t going to let you leave without his mark anyway.

“Serious?”

“Deadly.”

You laid back against the pillows, spent, holding your phone, Taehyung straddling your chest and stroking his slick cock, plops of cum and lube falling onto your chest, messy dark hair curling around his handsome face. You could see the purple-red head peek out from between his fingers, hear the steady slapping as he pumped it back to full hardness.

“Alright, let’s see.”

Your chest was rattling but you raised your phone, bringing up the picture as Taehyung gripped the base of his cock, lifting it up slightly to put it in position. You squinted at the screen, looking from the photo dick to the real one. Of course. He was definitely bigger, a little thicker, but strangely, the color was almost the same. Was that lightning or similar skin tone? Or perhaps men with really nice dicks just happened to have Taehyung’s tan complexion?

You wouldn’t question it if it was true.

“You’re bigger,” you sighed, tossing your phone aside.

Taehyung smirked proudly. “What a surprise.”

“We all knew that, even before I saw it.”

He chuckled, going back to fisting his cock. “That’s because Jimin has a big mouth and likes to spread rumors.”

“You like that he spends rumors.”

Taehyung shrugged, but his sly expression wouldn’t be hidden even as he shook his head to cover part of his face with his long brown hair, curtaining half of it with darkness, teasing and effortlessly sexy.

“Ready?”

“Mhm, do it.”

You raised yourself onto your elbows, smiling wide, watching his breathing shallow and his eyes close, losing himself in it, faster and tighter, the wetness audible, strong thighs shuddering at your sides. Then he sucked in a breath, hissing your name and tipping forward, painting viscous white strings onto your collarbones and tits, pushing his shuddering cock up and down to spread it out, your clavicle now sticky and covered in his strong scent.

Taehyung ticked his head, lips in a devil’s smile, chest heaving with exertion.

“Your cum necklace is extra pretty today. Take a selfie for me so I can jack off to your cute face later.”

jeon jungkook.

“Jungkook?”

Jeon Jungkook shrieked your name like you were Michael Myers and he was Jamie Lee Curtis, flinging himself onto his computer monitor and mashing the power button to turn it off, his long purple hair flying everywhere, brown orbs like saucers, entire body shaking so bad that even his eyebrow piercing was vibrating.

He froze like that.

You blinked at him from the doorframe of his rented studio room, one hand on the knob and the other holding up your phone like a kitchen knife.

His leather bomber jacket was hung over the back of his rolling chair. The chair was currently slowly sliding across the floor, away from him and his panic. Jungkook was wearing a sleeveless black shirt and loose black jeans.

For a guy scared shitless, his pants were pitching a very impressive tent.

Had he been watching porn?

“Er… I knocked…?” you said slowly, pointing to the door. “Do you not hear me?”

“Um, uh, n-no,” Jungkook sputtered, looking you up and down. “No, I d-didn’t.”

“I said I was coming by today. Via text?”

“Was that today?” he echoed hollowly like a ghost in a shell, the end of his question pitching to a higher octave. He coughed and cleared his throat. “Ah. Sorry. I think I f… forgot…” He was not looking at your face, instead staring at your thighs and your shorts, tight and tiny, shredded black denim paired with a loose, long-sleeved black top that read in bold, white, graphic, letters...

REALITY SUCKS.

You pointed to the turned-off monitor.

"Were you watching porn?" you asked cheerfully.

Jungkook's ears turned red.

"Yes," he blurted.

Silence.

A bird cawed outside.

You nodded, closing the door. You tilted your head and locked it, just in case, before waltzing into Jungkook's film studio space, bouncing on the heels of your large black sneakers. "If you're gonna watch porn, you should lock the door. What were you watching? Is it lesbian porn again? Can I–?"

You reached over to turn the screen back on and Jungkook's tattooed hand shot out and grabbed your wrist, yanking you away from it and to him. You blinked rapidly, confused at his tight grip.

"N-No, you can't see. You can't," he sputtered, pinning you against his hard body.

You frowned, annoyed. "Why not? I like porn." You squirmed against him, but he sandwiched you between his forearms, forcing you to look up and face him, thinning your mouth into a line. He gulped, eyes shifting, holding your body against his. His lower lip trembled, mole underneath bouncing with his uncertainty.

"I... It wasn't porn..."

You stopped struggling, confused. "Huh?"

Those dark chocolate eyes found yours, looking guilty.

"I was looking at your pictures."

You blinked rapidly. "What?"

"You know... the ones I take of you sometimes... You said it was okay..."

Ah, yes. Jungkook liked to take pictures of you. He had mumbled that it was because he needed practice and, later in bed, he admitted it was because he considered you his muse, an inspiration of sorts, so would it be okay if, maybe, you just turned a little and laid in his covers just like... like that, yeah, could he take maybe one photo?

"Sure, knock yourself out, dude."

A bit later, far too late, you had realized that had been maybe too chill of a response, but Jungkook seemed to prefer that and he acted less awkward about it every other time he asked to take a picture. They weren't usually dirty pictures. Although you were naked in some of them, they weren't quite inappropriate, every single one framed with delicate, well-thought-out composition. You always sighed and told him he made you look better than you actually were.

Jungkook always insisted you were consistently beautiful.

You pointed between your bodies.

"Were you gonna get off to them or something?" you cheerily inquired, bumping against his pitched denim tent.

"N-No!"

His ears turned scarlet and he jerked sideways, but you held onto him, hands firmly on his hips, not letting him twist away. He quickly covered his ears and pouted at you.

"I was... I just missed you."

You smiled, squeezing his ass. "I missed you too, Jungkook."

Your tone was soft, gentle. He stilled and lowered his hands, lips parting at your words, slightly surprised, incredibly adorable.

His dick twitched in his pants and jabbed your crotch.

A pause.

Jungkook's eyes shifted to the side, mumbling under his breath. "And, yeah, okay, I got horny, but that's only because it's you..."

"That's great, since I definitely wanted to look at your dick as soon as possible!"

His eyes went wide.

You smiled widely.

Then he said something unexpected.

"Ow."

You looked down and backed up as Jungkook frowned and reached down to shift his rock-hard length in his pants, sighing in relief.

"Zipper was killing me..." he grumbled, running a hand through his purple hair.

"We should just take it off then."

"Pardon, we should wha–ah!"

You grabbed fistfuls of his black top and yanked it up and over his head, causing Jungkook to sputter in confusion, throwing his hands up as you unsheathed his muscular torso, leaning in, breathing on his skin, leaving him to untangle himself as your lips closed onto his dark nipple, tongue teasing the small nub.

"Ah, fuck!"

You lifted your lips, tongue still extended, looking up to see him flinging the shirt aside, his long purple hair messy and wild, tattooed arm and un-inked arm lifting, pushing his hair away from his face, his chest rising to your wet muscle, gasping. You had a clear view of that cute little mole under his lower lip, trembling with pleasure before Jungkook looked down at you, hazy chocolate orbs fanned by black lashes, breathing hard.

You ticked an eyebrow, licking slow circles, lips closing in again, sucking daintily.

He bit his lip and let it slowly tease out while you simultaneously teased him, your name leaving his lips in a low moan. You danced your fingertips up his thigh, nail tracing the seams of his jeans, kissing across his chest, his eyes following you, hips rocking into your touch, following your pace, letting you command it. His head tipped back as you kissed down his abs, whimpering with want, curling his fingers into fists.

Jungkook always made you feel like you were touching him for the first time.

"You're not a virgin?"

"No?" Jungkook had repeated after the first time you had fucked him, sounding confused. "I'm just like this? Is that bad?"

"W... well... no, and now that I think about it, you were suspiciously good..."

"You didn't like it?"

You had turned to look at him and, fuck, the way he looked at you, so cute and innocent, uh oh, and then the slightest hint of an open-mouthed smirk dancing on those shapely pink lips, reminding you of someone else.

"Namjoon-hyung said that's what you were into. Is he wrong?"

Voice so deep and so smooth, gliding over you like butter.

You almost hastily defended yourself but one look into those roguish, yet genuine, chocolate eyes and you couldn't lie.

"But... you should enjoy yourself too..."

Jungkook had grinned, endearing and heart-thuddingly handsome. "I do. I told you, this is how I am. You're just my type."

"And what's that?'"

He had pinned you back onto the bed, leaning in.

"Hot and horny."

Turns out.

Seemed to be a running theme with all eight of you.

Right now, his pants were falling and you were sliding up as your hand was sliding down, shushing him quietly, your other hand dancing up his neck and pulling his head down.

"Someone's gonna hear you," you whispered to his open lips, tone and touch implying you didn't give a shit who was listening, wrapping your fingers around his stiff cock the second he pushed his black boxer briefs down, his shivering moan tickling your cheek. His right hand came up to cradle your head and lean it against his, begging whines for you to move, pairing it with an irresistible, husky hiss of your name.

"Please..."

He liked it tight and he liked it rough, liked the way you could lock your fingers and keep that nearly suffocating pace, closing his eyes with a flutter and moaning into your skin, curtaining you with purple, his grip in your hair tightening as you built that speed, filling the rented studio with his silvery, erotic cries.

"Someone out there is going to think you're watching porn," you teased, nudging him with your nose, looping a finger back to smear the pre-cum over the swollen head. He bucked his hips into your hold, lips pressed to your cheek, intoxicated groan warming your skin.

"Kiss me and breathe into my mouth..."

You couldn't say no, not with his voice so soft and pleading like that, not with that edge of nervousness. Fuck, the way Jungkook succumbed to your kiss, uncontrollable tremors taking over his shoulders, hot taut skin twitching in your palm indicating he was close, and you almost broke away to say that he shouldn't cum like this, it'll be messy and get on the floor, but he grabbed your face and didn't let you go, whimpering in his throat, wordlessly telling you to do it, exhale into his throat and he groaned in his chest, long, drawn-out, consumed by lust, and maybe it was bad, but you loved it, loved the way he wanted it so bad, wanted you to push the air out of his lungs and suffocate his pulsating cock with your grip, pre-cum leaking between your fingers, finally pulling back and gasping, his lashes fluttering helplessly.

"G-Gonna cum, f-fuck!"

You had to think fast, looking down for a moment and feeling his cock jerk in your hand, swiftly switching to cupping the dark red head, thick white cum suddenly spurting your palm, Jungkook burying his face into your hair to muffle his wail, your scalp hot with his released exhale and your hand covered in his heated release.

You breathed in, smirking at the scent of dirty gratification.

"Jungkook..."

He whined softly, hips quivering as you covered his jerking length with your cum-covered hand, spreading it all over and getting him hard again.

"There's this picture..."

"Mmm, yeah, the h-hyungs told me... don't stop..."

You swung your hips from side to side, free hand running down his chest, your eyes roaming his toned body, his tattooed arm still hovering over your head, long fingers tangled in your hair still, squatting down and opening your mouth, tongue dancing out and licking your hand and the side of his purple-red length, wet sloppy kisses, slurping up his cum and moaning on the throbbing head, making sure that he could feel the sinful heat.

"Give me... oooh, fuck, give me your phone..."

Your hand left his abs reluctantly, tugging your phone out of your ass pocket and holding it up for him as your mouth closed around his cock, swallowing it all, eyes closing, cramming all of him until the head hit your inner throat and your lips pressed against his crotch, knees on the tile floor, thighs spread, hands poised in the air, unable to breathe.

Click.

You cracked open one eye to see Jungkook holding your phone above your head, teasing smirk on his shapely lips, mole winking at you.

“For me?” he asked, not quite innocent.

It was the first time Jungkook had taken an actual dirty picture.

You shrugged as if to say, sure, pulling back as he turned the phone around, the dick in question on the screen. You eased off his length, licking it clean, bringing up your wet hand covered in his cum, popping your lips off the engorged tip and sliding your fingers in your wet lips, tongue wriggling between your fingers, inspecting the two dicks. Jungkook was still hard – so hard that his cock was sticking straight out, almost mimicking the photo. You had to crouch a little more, tilting your head and placing your fingertips on his balls, raising his dick a little on the back of your hand, smearing saliva and pre-cum on your skin.

Yon continued to lick, grazing the underside of his length with your tongue and then pulling back, eyes going from the photo to the real thing.

Jungkook moaned above you, clutching your phone tightly, knuckles white under black tattoos.

Hm.

You tilted your head.

One way.

Then the other.

Hmmm?

Hmmmmmmm.

“W… What?” Jungkook stuttered above you.

You pursed your lips at the tip of his cock, swiping your tongue over it and sucking off the pre-cum. He gasped, hips shaking, threatening to shove it into your lips.

“It doesn’t look like your dick at all.”

“What?” He sounded startled.

You pointed with your dry hand. “The shape is a little off, you’re longer and slightly bigger, and the color is different.” You sighed, whooshing hot air over his soaked, taut skin, Jungkook whimpering. You squinted slightly.

“Still…”

You tapped your lips with his cock, thinking.

“I think he wears the same underwear brand as you.”

“He does?” Jungkook squeaked, spinning the phone around and blinking at it.

You shrugged. “And for some reason, the position of his hips reminds me of you. I don’t know why…”

He chewed his lower lip, staring at the phone.

“Oh well.”

You stood up abruptly at your words and plucked the phone out of his hand, putting it on his desk.

“If it’s not you, it’s not you. Let’s fuck.”

Jungkook yelped as you grabbed the bottom of your shirt and began stripping off your clothes.

That was his reaction that one time you lost strip poker to Kim Seokjin and him at that one party, not that your cared because you didn’t bother learning the rules. You had other priorities and they involved getting mostly naked and then pinning Seokjin down to make out with him as Jungkook gawked at the other side of the table, half-clothed, clutching his cards.

“I can… go…?” he had sputtered.

You surfaced from Seokjin’s plush lips, his hands around your bare waist, the taller man gasping for air, reeling from your kiss.

“I still have one more piece of clothing to go, Jungkook.”

Side of your lower lip between your teeth, cocking an eyebrow, swaying your panty-covered ass at those huge brown eyes.

“You can help, you know.”

Fun night.

His eyes were huge now too, your back against the wall and him rolling the condom down, lifting your leg and sliding into you, gasping at your tightness, leaning down to kiss you again, greedy and ravenous, his hips jerking upwards, forcing you on tiptoe. Your hands were on his shoulders, nails digging into that soft skin and strong muscle.

“F-Fuck me, Jungkook, mmm, fuck, yes…”

You didn’t really get to talk during that strip poker night because your mouth was full of Seokjin’s dick as Jungkook’s pounded you from behind, but it would be a crime to complain about such things.

You met your hips to his to deepen his thrust, enjoying his strength, powerful and steady, fucking you against the wall, wet slaps and soft moans filling the room between harsh kisses, lips swelling from the fervor, your ass even rhythmically smacking into the wall, but neither of you cared, your leg around his slim waist and his right arm wrapped around it, his fingers digging into your thigh, black tattoos and tan skin gleaming from sweat, his other hand clutching a fistful of your ass and ramming your drenched pussy down on his stiff cock, grinning at your soft cry of his name, staring into his eyes and not looking away, spellbound by chocolate orbs framed by wispy strands of purple.

“You always feel so fucking good…”

You pulsed around him, feeding the fire, wanton exhales mixing, dick pic forgotten.

“Hah…”

You rolled over, sighing loudly.

“Haaaaaaah…”

“You still fixated on that dick?” a deep, unimpressed voice said next to you.

You frowned and planted your phone with the inspirational dick on your face, praying for it to come to life and choke you.

“I never found out who it was…” you mumbled.

“Well, it is Saturday night. We can go crash a party and maybe you can find that dick!” exclaimed a joyful voice, poking your side. Your phone slid off your face and clattered to the floor. A cheerful hand covered in colorful clay rings waved at you and your gaze shifted to Jung Hoseok and his blond and pink hair. He was too cute and you were unable to help yourself as you looked at him, matching his heart-shaped smile.

“Nah,” you tutted. “If it’s not one of you guys… the dick isn’t worth it.”

You closed your eyes and sighed again, long and with longing.

“If it makes you feel better, we don’t know who it is either.”

You laughed hearing Kim Namjoon’s deep, serious voice. “How would you guys find out?”

“I know a lot of things,” Park Jimin’s angelic, light voice chirped.

“Too many things,” Kim Taehyung’s baritone voice remarked coolly.

“Are you gonna eat that slice of pizza, Jungkook?”

“Yeah, hyung, I am, no, stop–”

“Give Seokjinnie-hyung a bite!”

“Over my dead body!”

“Then you’re dead to me, boy! Respect your elders!”

You heard some slapping and flailing about, but didn’t open your eyes.

“He’s probably not a virgin anyway. Virgins don’t snap pics like that on strangers’ phones.”

You cracked an eye open and narrowed it at the form laying on the ground beside you. Min Yoongi was messing with his phone. His head was on a huge pillow that he wasn’t sharing. He seemed to notice your glare and turned his head to raise a lazy eyebrow at you, cat-like eyes shrouded by black hair.

“Isn’t that what you’re into?” he taunted.

Your eye twitched.

You growled, sitting up. “I’m not into virgins, damnnit! I just like listening to people who are knowledgeable about their interests, like how Namjoon goes on about human philosophy, and how Seokjin never shuts up about MapleStory, and like how you talk about music theory. Just because I don’t understand right away doesn’t mean I don’t try,” you snapped, prodding Yoongi’s firm pecs through his t-shirt. He didn’t move, completely unbothered as you continued your tirade. “I don’t know anything about TikTok, but I like listening to Hoseok talk about the latest dance and fashion trends. Jimin’s the only reason I don’t make an ass of myself at parties because he knows everything about everyone so I don’t accidentally sit in a taken person’s lap and cause trouble. Taehyung’s always following that animal rescue Instagram and giving me cool facts about all these different creatures. Jungkook can go on for hours about cameras. I still don’t think I even know how to work the aperture function on DSLRs, but as long as he will continue to explain, I’ll listen.”

You sucked in a deep breath and seethed.

“So what’s the difference?”

“What?” you scowled.

Yoongi shrugged casually.

“Why do you keep chasing dorks with glasses struggling to get stupid graduate degrees when the people you spend the most time with are here with you right now, ready to fuck you at any time?”

“That’s–”

Your words died in your throat, Yoongi’s words finally sinking in.

Silence.

“Hyung, I’m struggling to get a grad degree…” Namjoon cut in, but the black-haired man on the floor lifted a finger and sliced the air, quieting him instantly. Yoongi was watching you carefully, head tilting at your frozen state. Your brain seemed to have ceased function. His lips curved into a slow, open-mouthed smirk.

Yoongi dropped the bomb on you.

“Didn’t you think it was a bit suspicious that the dick had elements from all of ours, but never quite matched up?”

W… What?

Your head whipped to your fallen phone and you scrambled with it, bringing up the dick pic again. The photo showed up at the party with the wet t-shirt contest. Your phone has disappeared for two hours during said party. Everyone was drunk. No. Everyone had gotten drunk after your phone had mysteriously been found and returned to you. You spent the night in various laps doing various naughty things, not bothering to check your phone after retrieving it, leaving it as a later you problem. You filed through your memories, recalling their faces as you showed each and every one of them the photo.

Hold on.

“Didn’t you think it was a bit weird, almost as if…”

They weren’t as weirded out as one might be, seeing some random dick on your phone.

As if…

“As if one of us is good at photo manipulation, perhaps,” Yoongi purred.

As if they had expected to see such a photo.

Click.

You whipped your head to the left and a whirlwind of dark purple hair went flying under the coffee table, hiding behind broad shoulders, chestnut brown hair, and full lips forming an ‘o’. At the same time, the realization hit you like a falling piano from the sky.

“Did you all…” you choked, mechanically jerking from face to face, Namjoon, Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, and lastly, back at Seokjin because Jungkook was cowering behind him, large brown doe eyes behind a massive shoulder. “D-Did you all…?”

No way.

“Did you all take a dick pic and Photoshop them together into one superdick photo and PLANT IT ON MY PHONE?!”

One look at those seven faces and…

YUP.

Taehyung laughed, loud and rich, nudging Namjoon with his elbow. “Told you she wouldn’t check the details of the photo and realize it was from an outside source.”

You started and swiped around. The file name was close enough to your camera photos’ file names, but upon closer inspection…

“Oh my God…”

“She’s very easily distracted by dick,” Hoseok chuckled, infectious grin on his face.

“I am not!”

“Wanna bet?”

“Jimin, do not whip out your dick.”

You heard your name being called softly and looked up, clutching your phone, still stunned and flabbergasted that you had been lusting after a fake dick that was a fuckin’ Megazord of the seven dicks currently surrounding you and those seven were the very dicks that tricked you!

On purpose!

For what?

FOR FUN!

(GG, no re)

They got you good.

Your irritation immediately dissipated when your eyes found those anxious chocolate ones, long purple strands curling around his cheek, curious open mouth with the small mole underneath barely visible.

“Are you mad?” Jungkook asked quietly, pink lips curving into an irresistible pout.

Oh.

Shit.

Before you could quickly say, no, of course not, Jungkook, it was funny, I’m not mad at all, you felt a dark presence by your shoulder, raspy chuckle by your ear, sending shivers down your spine, whispering your name, devious and smokey.

“Whose idea do you think it was?” Yoongi murmured.

You stared into chocolate eyes.

Innocent.

Or…?

Jungkook’s pout disappeared.

His dark eyebrow cocked, mischievous smirk gracing those irresistible lips. No, not just him. Lowered lids and midnight blue hair, smug expression with a dimple. Kim Namjoon. Lifted chin, looking down at you with a sheepish yet wicked smile on full lips. Kim Seokjin. The black head of hair leaning his chin on your shoulder, laugh like a seductive purr. Min Yoongi. Tilted head balanced on long fingers decorated with colorful rings and bracelets, sly heart-shaped smile. Jung Hoseok. Shit-eating grin fanned by red hair, bouncing a perfectly manicured eyebrow. Park Jimin. Long dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, spare strands framing a moody, handsome face with a glint of playful cunning. Kim Taehyung.

And then, Jeon Jungkook.

“The hyungs thought it was a great idea,” he drawled, silvery and sweet, looking extremely pleased with himself, running his tattooed hand through his purple hair, unquestionably guilty, but despairingly angelic in appearance.

These fucking…. Seven Kings of Duality!

You were positively fuming.

Silence.

An owl hooted outside the window.

“YOU PUNKS!”

You threw yourself over the coffee table and horny chaos ensued.

2021.09.01 - JK birthday drabble 2021.10.02 - Namjoon birthday drabble

masterpost

#bts x reader #jungkook x reader #bts smut #bts x you #jungkook smut #yoongi x reader #yoongi smut #taehyung x reader #kim taehyung smut #jimin x reader #park jimin smut #hoseok x reader #seokjin x reader #namjoon x reader #hoseok smut #seokjin smut #namjoon smut

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krreader · 4 years ago

Text

dal | teacher with benefits.

pairing: bts x idol!reader fandom: dal ; bts warnings: big hit girl group member!reader ; sex ; oral sex ; daddy!kink ; dirty talk language genre: smut word count: 1.2k+ other: for more DAL content, please check out the DAL masterlist

a/n: wow, a diamond maknae AND a dal update in one day? I’M ON A ROLL TODAY! Thanks @ally22042000 for your request, I absolutely LOVED it <3

kim seokjin

BigHit liked to keep things interesting with their groups. They liked to make you do different activities that your fans could watch with their premium subscription. For the next project, they wanted you girls to make a cooking series. All four of you were supposed to share your favorite recipes and cook them together with your viewers on stream.

Thing is, your favorite dish was so fucking basic that they didn't allow you to make it on stream. “It'd be over in fifteen minutes,” had been the excuse. Very rude.

So what did they do? They sent you over to Jin with the full intention of him teaching you some fancy recipe that you could do for your fans and followers.

But that... didn't really work out that well.

“It'll burn, (Y/N),” Jin managed to moan out, but his hand was still in your hair as you were on your knees in front of him, pushing your head forward so that you were almost deepthroating him.

You released his dick with a plop after his grip had losened and looked up at him from under your eyelashes, “Do you really want me to stop, when you're so close?”

You had started secretly seeing each other about two months ago and well... the relationship was still fresh and exciting, so these kind of things happened. All good.

“No,” he turned off the stove, “I'll just write you up a recipe later.”

Yeah, and to Taehyung, that came in two minutes after Jin came? That wasn't cream on your cheek.

min yoongi

You absolutely loved learning how to make music from Yoongi. He always had so many new ideas when it came down to producing. But given your... relationship, things could get heated very quickly.

It was a flirty comment here, a look there and before you knew it, “working on a new song” was not on the agenda anymore.

Instead, Yoongi made sure that his studio was thoroughly locked and was now watching you ride him with a grin.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you complained, “It's distracting me.”

“Do your members know this is what we do when you're supposed to work, baby girl?”

“Do your members know this is what you do with their friend they’re so protective of?” you clapped back, leaning forward and hovering over his lips, “Tell me, daddy. Do you tell them about how I ride you like this? How I take your dick so well?”

This was exactly the reason why you kept on doing this, over and over again, because you could keep up with him.. easily. You were the challenge that Yoongi had been missing in his life.

jung hoseok

The sexual tension between Hoseok and you during your daily dance sessions had become so much, that neither of you had control over your feelings, wants and needs anymore.

It hadn’t always been this way, at first, it truly was just you and him practicing your dance moves together. But then the performances changed. They became sexier, the songs more sensual...

And so he had pinned you against the mirror and the two of you had started making out. Wasn't long after until he fucked you against it, so hard, that he had to put his hand over your mouth so that your screams wouldn't make anyone hear and come in here.

It felt way too good to have only been a one time thing. Even if the two of you didn't talk about it afterwards, nor any other time that you met after that. It just happened again the next time the two of you practiced on your own.

And you were sure that it'd keep on happening.

kim namjoon

This was supposed to be you helping Namjoon on an English speech that he was supposed to deliver next week, but it somehow ended with you on top of him.

Nevertheless, you were here for a reason and you were too stubborn to just let him have his way with you without putting in any work.

“Move, baby,” he whispered, but you shook your head.

“Repeat that sentence again, this time, with the proper pronunciation.”

“Oh, come on,” Namjoon laughed, “You've got to be kidding me,” but when you leaned back, your hands on his knees, your breasts on full display, he did what you asked.

You narrowed your eyes at him for a moment and shook your head, “Again.”

His jaw dropped and – as expected – it didn't take him five seconds to turn you around and push your legs back.

“Funny to think you're the one to be in the position of making demands of me. You keep on forgetting your place, love.”

Ah, shit. One day.

park jimin

“You can go higher,” Jimin put his hand on your stomach, “Just try it.”

“I can't... this is the highest I can go, seriously!”

Jimin let out a sigh, “You and I both know that's not true.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Well... last night... the night before. You were begging me to go harder in a much higher pitch than what you're..-” but you immediately put your hand over his mouth, looking around as if anyone had heard him. Nobody but you was in the studio, though, so you slowly pulled it back, revealing a grinning Jimin, “Let me show you again just how high your voice can get.”

“Wait.. here?”

His hands were already on your waist and he placed a single kiss on your lips, “Door's are locked, no cameras... we got this place all to ourselves. And the more I think about you screaming my name in here, knowing that it's soundproof, the more I like the idea.”

The pool between your legs couldn't say anything against that.

kim taehyung

“I really don't get it,” you sighed heavily, “How am I supposed to find the best part, when I don't even know what I'm looking for. You’re as perfect as the girls, it’s all “the best part”,” you dropped your arms, the camera still in your hand, looking at your boyfriend sitting on the bed.

He was giving you a crash course on photography, but only because your members kept on complaining that you took shitty pictures of them for Instagram and needed to get better at it.

“I'll make this easier for you,” your mind was absolutely blank when he said that, but your mouth dropped when he got up and pulled down sweatpants plus panties, revealing his dick to you, “This, is my best part.”

“I..- I mean..- Yeah, but..-”

Taehyung started laughing when you became flustered and even took off his shirt. And even though you had seen him naked countless of times, this felt different.

“Take pictures. I'll be your model. Do whatever you want with me.”

Yeah... this wasn't about the pictures, you realized that very, very soon.

jeon jeongguk

Being an idol required a lot of stamina for performing and who better to be your personal couch than Jeon Jeongguk himself. He was the best when it came down to stamina, after all.

Just that, given your personal history together, his teaching methods were very different from what a professional personal trainer would have done with you.

“I can't..-” you wanted to stop, but Jeongguk didn't let you get up from his lap.

You had been riding him for fifteen minutes already, you had orgasmed twice already and he was forcing himself not to cum, only so that you'd have to ride him more.

“Yes, you can. Come on, sweetheart. I want to cum inside you. Can I do that?”

Given the fact that you reached your orgasm twice already and he hadn't, you felt bad and continued. And then you reached your third and he still hadn't cum... and used that same fucking excuse again.

That man would make your legs the prettiest in this world with this method.

#bts imagine #bts reactions #bts x reader #bts #bangtan #bangtan reaction #bangtan boys #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop reactions #bangtan sonyeondan #reader #bangtan x reader #bangtan boys x reader #requests

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sugar-petals · 4 years ago

Note

So Caro how do you like "butter"?? 😳🤔

i’ll be cranking out my media major, let's review butter stylistically. ✍️ in four aspects — sonically, visually, lyrically, and concept-wise.

sonically: 9/10. here’s an interesting comparison i found, this can be calculated by looking at the stats of a musical piece. if you want to do harmonic mixing with another bts song, seesaw (!) is the most similar to it. with the exception that it’s written in f minor but other than that, the bpm/energy/danceability is uncanny. mindboggling. in other words, two bts songs can have the same anatomy and be entirely different worlds. that’s seriously hard to pull off. talking genre, recalling that namjoon said it's a "super retro disco pop new age acoustic ballad", that description is right on 😂it gets very daft punk after 1:38, groovy, the production is quite proper. especially in the second half, it’s a firework and all transitions VERY well. what i liked less, the voices are quite meddled with and as last time, the pitch gets higher and higher so the baritones need more pressure on the voice to be heard (i salute taehyung, my mezzo would be breaking apart). it’s a miracle that rapline can handle these songs. they put a heavier bassline under yoongi’s and rm’s bars, and separated hoseok toward the end since his tone is higher so, i hear you, someone knows what they’re doing. as for the tenors, looking forward to the live rendition of the mixed register bits and the vocal runs. bts are stable like that and jk’s timbre carries the song effortlessly (as is everyone’s great english pronunciation, these guys work so hard) so they wouldn't need autotune, figure it's been added for artistic effect, the retro vibes. a bonus on the other hand, jin getting his lines, hell yes, the spotlight for him. and the arrangement of their parts in general is quite ingeniously done, that looks like the workings of namjoon’s giant brain.

visually: 9/10. the dancebreak being the highlight — this is the sexiest thing i've ever seen — we get to see some really fancy moves from everybody and the hairstyles are quite a feast. jimin and jk have been much-talked-about so i'll emphasize the extravagance of hobi's 2013 MAMA g-dragonesque neon yellow here. he’s the smooth like butter guy they’re talking about indeed, butter hair, butter attitude, butter on his plat! 😂it’s seriously good thinking to have one member embody the concept with a color so, pretty clever. making him stand out as the ending fairy and then blending in the butter logo is equally smart. they wanted to catch our eye, they achieved it. the couture: yep, fashion youtube will have a good time going through all the outfits. from tae's chanel earrings, jin’s skirt, to white suits to jackets over the shoulder. very stylish. someone put a lot of thought into it, and i'm a sucker for some gnc undertones so very cool stuff. the only (very trivial) minus i noticed, a lot of the tailoring does not exactl fit the boys’ bodies to a t, see jungkook’s or jin’s sleeves, though you can’t expect bts to have a tailor come in and fix so many outfits with so many comebacks at once. the dance, it's a compilation of many classic bts moves. i feel like it could be tiny bit more distinguished with a whopping new complex signature formation that bts is famous for in creating, then again the full dance practice isn't out and the head nodding part is quite a visual anchor. also: i noticed they put yoongi in front row a lot. someone’s shoulder is finally better again, we can prepare for some good stuff.

lyrically: 4/10. the song fulfills its function, it creates the mood, but i’m hard to please in that regard as mentioned before. why: time and again i realize that yoongi, rm, and pdogg spoil us with comforting or on-fire lyrics that hit home and are on brand. same idea as in dynamite here, we're hit with a lotta english catchphrases that we usually wouldn't hear from bangtan. it's party mode, it's the summer hit kinda writing, so yeah it does what it’s supposed to do anyway and anybody can sing along. it’s catchy and solid for sure. the 'smooth criminal/superstar/heartbreaker' idea is carried through as a red string so thematically, it's coherent at least. a lot of lines are downright hilarious with random analogies and i don't know if the writers are serious or not. they could go all the way to make it clearer that humor and braggadocio is the concept here, exaggerate it even more. you can’t always tell if it’s a parody of a ‘yeah i’m the man you all fall for me’ sentiment or if it’s 100% business. in some parts of the song it works, in others it makes less sense. where i’ve seen bts execute this well with their own writing is converse high, that’s the bar. it’s also a personal lesson for me since i write crack often, butter tells you where to put the punchlines and where to keep it neutral. a lot of it is all over the place. on the other hand, it fits right on the beat. and perfectly executed pop so i'm a bit torn. i like the ‘got that heat’ part they gave jimin. 'side step right left to my beat' is a good chorus entry as well. making light of it, every lyric works as a witty gif or tweet tagline and we'll be circulating these phrases to eternity. every line works as a good comeback in any situation of life. yoongi's verse legit made me giggle. TLDR: the lyrics are partially confusing but they blend with the music well.

conceptually: 8/10. hit the bell for that black and white intro, that was a good idea, same with the latest teaser. and: range, darling. only in a bts video could a cotton candy jimin go from a mugshot to being the president to a basket ball court hero to going full saturday night fever to flexing his legs in less than three minutes. jokes aside: it all fits in the universe of boy with luv and dynamite so points for consistency. bts's directors have outlined a new style for sure. the worldbuilding could go even deeper, but lumpens did a good job giving us many different eye candy serves and an innovative theme that hasn’t been tackled before, k-pop and pancakes why not! there are less actual film sets (and the difference shows, e.g. in Fire or Daechwita it really gave it some oomph), but it's not really needed. butter has no requirement for an agust d-ish plotline with historical buildings and the members' looks are in the center of attention. then again, i like those details of hoseok sitting in a retro apartment at the end — cozy, i love — with a radio. once again, they could exaggerate the vintage even more, it wouldn’t take away from the idea and visuals. i wish they would’ve expanded even more on the melting butter aesthetic shots as well, although it’s neatly tied into the song so it makes sense. the lyrics really have been blended with the choreograpy theme (the side step as a central move) so i’m thinking the art direction and choreographer had quite an in-depth discussion how to create a bigger picture. as for my weakness: cuteness melts me like butter, extra points for jungkook and yoongi being adorable in their seats.

#bts #butter #butter review #bts meta #bts comeback #bangtan #butter era

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alouispo · 4 years ago

Text

part two :D

“Is that a flying island?” Techno questions aloud, slowing down to a walking pace as he made his way towards the earth in the sky.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that it is Tech,” Phil deadpanned, straightening his hat and following his friend over the hill.

They both pushed through the leaves and trees, soon enough ending in a much less dense part of a flower forest. Blue eyes scanned the area, shocked at how nice this place looked. Phil remembered seeing something that looked like a flower forest back towards the main area of the SMP, but it didn’t appear as vibrant as it was here. Bits and pieces of that forest were destroyed or wilted away, some parts of it not even having flowers anymore due to them being picked or trampled on.

Was the SMP so much nicer when you got out this far?

“Well, Phil, I think anyone would be skeptical of there being a random piece of land in the sky without any warning,” the piglin retorted, pausing to let Phil catch up, who was currently too encaptivated by the landscape to actually pay attention to where he was going.

Rolling his eyes, Techno grabbed his friend’s sleeve and marched towards the spawn coordinates on his compass, ignoring the protests the older male made at being dragged along.

Soon enough, the two of them reached the top of the hill. IF Phil was being completely honest, it was not what he was expecting at all. He looked around with shock; there was a bunch of people living here! There were so many different buildings -that were all finished, he noted- and there was a huge lake right in the center of all of them.

“Hey Tech, can we go down there?” Phil questioned, trying his best not to freak out. This place looked nearly a million times better than the Dream SMP, and it only fueled his excitement. It reminded him of his hardcore world, which was only more welcoming to the bird hybrid.

“We have to anyways, it seems like spawn coords are right near the center of the lake,” watching as Phil immediately jumped down, chuckling to himself before following right after.

“Techno this place is great! Look at all the flowers!” the hybrid exclaimed, kneeling down to touch the wildlife that appeared so unnaturally for him. “Have you ever seen flowers like this grow near the SMP? They look like they are practically glowing!”

“Nope. We also live in the arctic so it wouldn’t make any sense for them to grow there,” Techno replied nonchalantly, stepping over the flowers in order to not step on them. “Now stop gushing over plants Phil, we have to find who runs this place so we can see what’s going on.”

“Oh you’re one to talk Tech-” he was cut off by the sound of wings beating loudly above them, making them both pull out their weapons and look around.

“Hello!” the pair turned towards the lake, watching as a blur of feathers floated outwards and a man stood before the flowers.

“Heh?” Techno questioned, staring at the newcomer as Phil dropped his sword.

“Welcome to the Origins SMP! I am the Crow Father, protector of these lands, and ambassador of The Circle. What are your-” the Crow Father paused, staring right back at Phil as their eyes met.

The newcomer looked exactly like Phil. Same eyes, same hair, same hat. The only difference was that this man had not been fated to war, one who still had his wings intact. They appeared much brighter in color compared to Phil’s, who had resembled the color of oil but still had all the colors in at the same time. He also adorned a white gown under a familiar-looking robe.

“Phil?” the man in question stared a while longer, grabbing the sword and putting it into his inventory as he stood back near Techno.

“Are you alright Phil?” the anarchist tried again, placing his hand on his shoulder.

He nodded,” I’m alright, don’t worry about it.”

“Well then,” the Crow Father said, brushing himself off as he smiled warily. “I don’t think you are supposed to be here? Am I right?” he asked, a crow of similar color as his wings landed on his hat, tilting its head to the side in at the pair.

“No, if that wasn’t obvious enough by there being two of you,” Techno remarked, putting a hand on his hip in slight annoyance.

“Uh, right. So, uh, mind telling me how you got here, mate?” the Croaw father questioned, putting his hands behind his back politely.

Phil frowned, examining the other. Did he really look like that? It seemed odd to see another version of himself standing right in front of him, behaving almost exactly as he would. He made eye contact with the Crow Father, as he called himself, realizing that he was doing the same thing.

“Well, we got transported here by the God of our SMP cause we broke one of the rules, and now we are here and have to try and get back before we die or something,” the piglin hybrid stated as if it was just another day of the week. He paused. Actually, it was another day of the week, what was he talking about.

“Oh, well that’s fine mate!” and he smiled, which made him feel strange. Phil hadn’t remembered how to smile like that for such a long time, it looked off on his own face. Which technically, wasn’t even his face at all.

“I’ll help you in the best way that I can since after all, it is my job.”

“You sure about that? You don’t seem like the type that would be able to help us with what we need,” Phil turned and punched Techno straight in the arm, glaring at the much taller male in playful annoyance.

“I was just being honest!” the piglin retorted, appearing unfazed by the action.

“Honesty is what is going to make me kill you one day, you whiny bastard. You’re worse than my Cshat,” he replied, narrowing his eyes and turning back to Crow Father, who was watching with great interest.

“Well, it still is my job of course, so I can at least try to help you. That’s what the boss appointed me to at least,” the other Phil said, looking up thoughtfully as he tapped his cheek.

“The boss?” Phil questioned, catching both of their attention.

“Oh yeah, the boss of this place,” the Crow Father said, sweatdropping as the bird on top of his hat started beating his wings aggressively.

“Do you think we could speak to him?” Techno asked, looking at Phil and then back at the protector, who appeared to be forcing a smile on his face as the bird pecked at his hat.

The Crow Father paused, jumping slightly when the crow started squawking incoherent words very loudly before flying away. “You little shit!” he shouted at the runaway bird, plucking the stray feathers out of his hair and dropping them to the ground.

“Sorry about that,” he started, brushing off his gown. “The natural wildlife don’t really like the admin. Not exactly sure why but hey, really nothing we can do about that,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, uh anyways, can you take us to the admin of this place?” Phil questioned, tapping his foot albeit so impatiently. He didn’t really like the Crow Father, as much as it was another version of himself.

He was not jealous of his wings, that was not it. Shut.

“Are you really sure about that?” The Crow Father asks adamantly, looking to his right and back at the pair anxiously.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” Techno asked, adjusting the chains keeping his cape on his shoulders. “It’s the best choice we have anyways unless you know a way to go back to a server where you most likely wouldn’t exist?” he added, crossing his arms and glaring.

“No, no, you’re right,” the other Phil said, resigned. “Come now, follow me, I’ll take you to the pube.”

“The what?”

It was not in fact, a pube, it was a pub. Very interesting pronunciation there.

After climbing up the unnecessarily tall ladder, Phil noticed that on top of the flying island was what the Crow Father had described as the pube. He had said that he was the one that built the place, although he didn’t necessarily own it. Another thing that the Angel thought was strange.

“Here is the pube, place where the admin resides,” the Crow Father said as he walked inside rather loudly, startling what looked like a full enderman. Phil and Tecno followed behind, eyeing the newcomer warily.

“Ranboo!” the other Phil called, making the pair look between the two in shock. This was Ranboo?

“Oh, hey Crow Father! What brings you here…” he trailed off, noticing that there were double of Phil and a really different-looking Technoblade both behind the hero. “Uhh..”

“These two are from a different server, which is why there are two of me and Techno looks really different,” the Crow Father explained nonchalantly.

“Oh, that makes sense. Anyways, what brings them here to the pube?” the other Ranboo said, standing up making Phil do a double-take. This version of Ranboo was even taller than their Ranboo, although it may be because this one didn’t have a massive slouch.

“They’re here to talk to admin to try and get back to their own server,” he replied, scratching his chin nervously.

“Oh.”

The four of them stood in silence as Ranboo looked up towards the ceiling, scratching the top of his head and contemplating something.

“The boss isn’t busy is he?” the Crow Father asked, his wings twitching subtly.

“I don’t think he is. Nothing has really been happening with the locals so he’s most likely doing some paperwork,” Ranboo replied cheerily. “I’ll take you guys to him!” he added, going up towards the ladder to the second.

“Only the regulars are here today, so there won’t be too much problem with you guys talking to the boss today,” he added once they had gotten to the top.

“Thanks, Ranboo!” the Crow Father said, going to knock on the door.

“Wait a minute,” Techno said, staring at the sign on top of the door in horror.

“No way,” Phil added, taking a step back as he paled.

The sign on the top of the door read the words ‘Innit Incorporated’, carved hastily into the wood in messy handwriting. Techno and Phil looked at each other, dread pooling in the bottom of their stomachs as realization dawned upon them.

“Sorry bout that, sometimes he’s talking with people so he doesn’t hear much,” the Crow Father said apologetically.

“Coming, I’m coming!” a very recognizable voice shouted from the inside of the room, making Techno groan as his fears came true.

In a burst of his above-average glory, a very similar-looking but not quite Tommy opened the door, looking irritated as he overlooked the people in the room. He had a bunch of feathers neatly placed in his hair and much brighter eyes than the Tommy they knew.

“What?” he asked, annoyance obvious in his tone of voice.

#tommyinnit #technoblade #philza #crowfather #origins smp #dream smp #origins smp fanfiction #dream smp fanfiction #dsmp au #dream smp au #osmp fanfic #dsmp fanfiction #ranboo

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slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years ago

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Breakable Heaven (pt. I) - p.l. dubois

As promised, here’s the first part of Breakable Heaven! I’m really excited for this one, there’s so many things I can’t wait for you all to read. This chapter is more setup and background, but I promise it’s all worth it! I’d love it if you reblogged (helps me know people like my work!) or pop into my inbox and let me know what you think! I read all the tags :)

part I part ii part iii part iv

June 4 (thurs)

Laurel clipped her pager back onto her scrubs, leaning over the counter of the nurses’ station. “You ready to go grab lunch?” She had just finished changing the bandages and administering pain medication for a little boy who was recovering from a heart surgery, and was looking forward to getting off her feet for a few minutes. The PICU floor was quiet, only about half of the rooms being filled, and there were no pressing matters that required her attention. If something drastic changed in the next half an hour, she always had her pager.

Madeline looked up from her chair, where she was finishing up filling in a patient’s chart. “Sounds good,” she said, letting their charge nurse know that they were headed down. Madeline Peltier had been one of the first people to introduce themselves to Laurel when she started; having only been on the unit for two weeks herself, she was still getting a handle on the reins and was more than willing to show Laurel around.

Madeline was also one of the few on the floor who was just as comfortable in English as she was in French. French had been Laurel’s foreign language through college, but she was made rudely aware upon her move to Montréal that the pronunciation and slang of Canadian French was very different from the Standard French of Madame Anderson’s rural Minnesota classroom. Her grasp of the language was good enough to take the Québec nursing licensure exam — which wasn’t even offered in English — but the spoken dialect was proving much more difficult to pick up. They walked down to the cafeteria, on the second floor, grabbing some sandwiches before swiping their ID badges for the employee discount.

“I still think they should give us free food,” Madeline said moodily, unscrewing her water bottle and taking a sip.

Laurel laughed. “When hell freezes over, maybe. Doctor’s lounge usually has some pretty nice stuff set out, or at least that’s what they say. Pity our cards don’t let us in, I’m not above identity theft.” Madeline snorted into her sandwich.

“What are you doing this weekend?” Madeline asked a few minutes later, starting to peel an orange.

“Uh, not much?” Laurel said. “Getting my papers together to resign my lease in a few weeks, grocery shopping, but nothing big. It’s been a long few shifts this week and I’m mostly just looking forward to taking it easy. Why?”

“If you’re up to it,” Madeline shrugged, “Patrice and I are going out for dinner Saturday night and we’d love for you to join us.” Patrice was Madeline’s long-time boyfriend, they started dating in university and had been together ever since.

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Madeline, thank you for the offer, but I don’t want to keep being your third wheel.”

Madeline let out a conspiratorial grin. Oh no, Laurel thought. This can’t be good. “As it would so happen,” she said, “you wouldn’t be third wheeling. One of Patrice’s friends is back in the city for a few months, and I think you two might hit it off,” she sing-songed. Madeline had been trying to set her up from practically the moment they met; whether it was someone from her gym, one of the critical care fellows, or apparently, her boyfriend’s childhood friend. They were always nice guys, but nothing had ever stuck for more than a date or two.

---

Twelve hour shifts meant that, at least on work days, there was no way Laurel was going to have the emotional or physical capacity to make herself a real dinner. She’d order in occasionally, but it more common to just pull together something quick like a frozen pizza or grab whatever leftovers she could find in the fridge. Yesterday’s chicken and rice it was, then. Sticking it in the microwave, Laurel opened the door to her balcony, letting Piper out to use the bathroom. Piper was an eight-month-old chocolate lab, the love of her life who she had adopted just after the new year. Laurel had always grown up with dogs; back in Minnesota she had Jackson and Lucy, and she had been missing them more than a little bit since moving to Canada. Piper was incredible. Intelligent, loyal, and so friendly that even her neighbor’s notoriously picky five-year-old son had taken a shine to her. She wolfed down her food, grabbed Piper’s leash and her water bottle, and headed out the door.

June 5 (fri)

The intricacies of language were hard. And, somehow, learning the intricacies of a language you already knew was even harder. Laurel was trying her damndest to pick up Québecois French as fast as humanly possible, but while she could conjugate l’imparfait in her sleep, the accent and vocabulary were what was really throwing her off. But she intended on making a life in Montréal, and staying as long as she could, so there really wasn’t any option but to hit the books. Immersion worked for some people, and thank God she knew the medical terminology to communicate with her patients and their families, but it wasn’t quite the same when she was struggling through telling the mechanic her car needed an oil change. In a perfect world she’d have someone to help her one-on-one, but she didn’t want to ask Madeline for that big of a favor. And while she made decent money at the hospital — she could afford her own apartment and had a little left over every month to put into savings — it was nowhere near enough to pay for a tutor. So Duolingo, and podcasts, and Youtube lessons it was.

Letting out a groan, Laurel leaned her head into her hands, shutting her laptop. She wasn’t going to make any progress being this frustrated. She bent down to scratch Piper, whose favorite spot for naps was a blanket right beside Laurel’s desk, between the ears, pulling her leash and collar off of their book by her bedroom door. Piper’s ears perked up, and soon enough she was running around the apartment wagging her tail as fast as it could go, a slightly exasperated but nevertheless laughing Laurel following. She finally managed to clip on her leash; at fifty pounds, Piper still had a little bit of growing left to do, but she had already proven she was more than capable of bending the will of a full-grown and otherwise capable 23-year-old woman.

She had discovered Parc Saint-François-d’Assise a few weeks after adopting Piper, and had thanked her lucky stars for finding a dog park so close to her apartment. Having a schedule like hers meant that she couldn’t always get her to a weekly training or obedience class — plus, the French that she did know certainly didn’t include ‘heel’ — so the time spent socializing was well-appreciated. It was only a fifteen minute walk, and Piper was good enough on a leash that she only stopped once to bark at a squirrel in one of the many birch trees that lined the street. The park was an acre or two, small enough that she could see all the way across and keep an eye on Piper as she let her off-leash, but big enough that there was more than enough room for all the animals. It wasn’t particularly crowded that Friday; Laurel was confused for a moment before she remembered that most people were busy at 11 AM on a weekday. There were a few families, with kids out for the summer from school, and a man playing in the far corner with his two small dogs, but not much else.

Laurel leaned down, unclipping the leash from Piper’s collar, and gave the chocolate lab a scratch on the head. “Have fun, girl!” Piper never needed much encouragement, and took off running almost before Laurel had even wrapped up her leash. Rolling her eyes and laughing, she picked up her phone. A text from Allison, one of her only friends in the city aside from Madeline, inviting her out for her birthday next week. Madeline, giving her the address for the restaurant the next night. The Duolingo owl, threatening her with bodily harm if she didn’t log her language progress for the day. She was so engrossed in checking her email that she didn’t hear the shout for her to look out, or the two bulldogs barreling towards her at full speed, until they had knocked her off her feet and she landed straight on her ass.

“Desolé. Vas-tu bien?” The man asked, holding out a hand and helping her up. Laurel nodded, brushing the dirt off her jeans.

“Ouais, ouais. Pas de problème, pas de mal. Ils sont chiens, non?”

He chuckled, patting the smaller of the two bulldogs, which had decided to take a break from accosting passers-by to get petted. “C’est vrai.” They talked for another minute or two before saying goodbye, but she could have sworn it was an hour.

Walking Piper home half an hour later, Laurel was struck with two realizations. The mystery man — bulldog dad, as she had started calling him in her internal monologue — had very possibly the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen in her life, and she’d be cursing herself for the next week for not getting his number.

June 6 (sat)

Saturday meant Laurel had a day off, but more importantly, Saturday meant she didn’t have to set her alarm for 5:30 and could actually wake up at a semi-normal hour. Her internal clock didn’t wake her up until half past seven; even then, it was Piper’s soft barks that finally got her up, throwing on a pait of shorts, and leading her out to the courtyard down the hallway to use the bathroom before coming back to her apartment and throwing open the fridge doors. No 7 AM shift meant that she mercifully had enough time to make a proper breakfast. On shift days, there never seemed to be enough time to actually sit down and eat, and Laurel usually ended up just having a quick bowl of cereal or some overnight oats and making a protein shake to drink on the drive over. Eggs, bread, yogurt, a peach she had picked up from the farmer’s market.

After the bread was done toasting and her tea was finished steeping, she gingerly carried the food out to the balcony, placing it on the table as Piper trotted out behind her. Laurel crunched her toast with one hand as she flipped the pages of a book with the other, a Shirley Chisholm biography that Victoria, her best friend from high school, had recommended her. It was almost an hour later when she finally found a good place to stop. As much as she may have liked to just camp out on her balcony all day and blow through the rest of the book, her pantry was crying out for a grocery run and she was running desperately low on ice cream.

---

The dinner reservation was at 7, and by 6:30 Laurel was almost ready to leave. Her blue skirt fanned out on the couch as she sat killing time on her phone, tapping the floor nervously with the same pair of block heels that she’d worn to her university graduation. The restaurant wasn’t far from her apartment building, so a few minutes later, she decided to go, leaving Piper with a pat on the head and plenty of food in her bowl. Laurel laughed to herself on the way over, her eyes flickering over the skyline as she walked alongside the St. Lawrence River.

It’s like what she had told Madeline over and over again, every time she tried to set her up on a blind date with a friend of a friend. She wasn’t actively looking for a relationship but wouldn’t be opposed to it. Whatever happens, happens. Biting her lip, Laurel decided that even if she didn’t hit it off with whatever guy Madeline was trying to set her up, even if things go horribly wrong and he’s the exact opposite of what she’s looking for in a partner, she’ll get a free meal and, hopefully, a new friend.

Laurel hadn’t been told much about her blind date, or anything, really. She didn’t even know his name. From what she had been able to figure out, he was from the area but didn’t work in Canada most of the year — so maybe he was in business? All Madeline told her was that he was tall, attractive, and had a dog. Or was it two? She honestly couldn’t remember. She trusted her and Patrice’s judgement, so if he had gotten their stamp of approval, it was good enough for her. She grabbed her phone out of her bag as she neared the restaurant, letting Madeline know she was almost there and asking where to meet her. She told the hostess she was meeting some friends, and Madeline walked around the corner less than a minute later. “Hi, love!” she said, reaching out and wrapping Laurel in a warm hug. “We’re over this way.” Laurel followed her around the corner and past the bar to a four-seater against the wall. She slid into the seat closest to the wall, leaving a space empty.

“He should be back in a minute, just ran to the bathroom,” Patrice said, nodding towards the vacant seat and referring to her mystery man. A minute passed, Laurel scanning the wine list, before Madeline threw her hand up in greeting.

“Salut, PL!” When Laurel looked up, she almost dropped her menu.

“Oh my God!” The stranger — PL’s — eyes widened in recognition. “You’re the bulldog dad!”

He chuckled, rounding the table to greet her with a kiss on the cheek. Left, then right. It had taken Laurel a while to get used to; even going to university in Toronto, cheek kissing was practically obsolete, but that changed very quickly upon her move to Montréal. “I am. Pierre-Luc Dubois, good to meet you properly this time.”

Madeline looked between the two, clearly confused. “You know each other?”

Laurel shook her head. “Not really, no. His dogs ran into me at the park yesterday when I was there with Piper, we talked for a minute or two.”

Pierre nodded in affirmation. “So, Piper. The chocolate lab’s yours then?”

“My pride and joy.”

June 13 (sun)

Over the next week and a half, it became more and more common for Laurel to meet up with the group on the weekend, or one of her off days, or really whenever she had spare time. She had learned that Pierre-Luc was a hockey player, Patrice explaining that they had played atom league together growing up and the friendship had somehow stuck. Come to think of it, he had looked a little familiar. The University of Minnesota Duluth was less than an hour drive from her hometown, and besides being the college that the majority of the 50% of college-bound graduates of her high school went to, it also had one of the best hockey programs in the country. So she knew the sport, followed enough to be informed, and had even become a de facto Maple Leafs fan from her time in Toronto.

Sometimes Madeline and Laurel would bring another friend from the hospital along, sometimes it was just the four of them. Once, a Sunday afternoon coffee meetup turned into just Laurel and Pierre-Luc; Patrice had come down with a bad cold and Madeline was staying behind to look after him. If she was being honest, it was far less awkward than she had anticipated. Pierre had insisted on buying her iced capp, and they had settled in a corner booth, sharing a box of Timbits.

“Patrice mentioned you’re from the U.S., somewhere in the Midwest?” Pierre asked, sipping his coffee.

She nodded. “Cloquet, Minnesota,” Laurel sighed, “where there is exactly one hotel, one high school, and life revolves around the mines.”

Pierre sucked in. “That sounds...interesting,” he said diplomatically.

Laurel laughed. “It’s okay, you don’t have to mince words. The people are nice, if you think like they do, and the scenery is gorgeous, but…” She gathered her thoughts. “It’s not the place you can really dream big, you know?” He nodded. “Neither of my parents went to college, my mom’s a receptionist at the elementary school and my dad works in the mines. I knew by the time I was in high school that I wanted something more. There was just nothing for me there, and I didn’t ever want to feel as trapped and beaten down as some people I know.”

Pierre leaned back in his chair. “Do you go back often?”

“Once a year, maybe twice?” Laurel said, shaking her head. “I’ve only got a few good friends back there, and trust me, they’re much more excited to come to big-city Canada than I would be to go back to a town of 12,000 people.”

“Fair enough.”

Conversation between them flowed easily, so easily that before she knew it, two hours had gone by and he had to leave for a skate. As she walked back to the metro, Laurel couldn’t help but shake the feeling that the two hours she had spent with Pierre had felt more like a date than any she’d been on since moving to Montréal a year ago. But it couldn’t have been a date, because it wasn’t supposed to be. Right?

June 15 (tues)

It was half past seven on Tuesday, and Laurel was just getting home from work. She loved her job, genuinely, but twelve hour shifts were no joke. Spinning her key ring around her finger, she stopped in the mailroom, unlocking her box and fishing out the stack of envelopes that had accumulated in the two days since she’d last checked. Walking over to the elevators, she held the bundle in one hand as the other punched in her button to the third floor. Laurel flipped through the envelopes as the doors opened. Water bill, bank statement, letter from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. Hang on. Laurel stopped at the last envelope, running her finger under the flap as she turned her key in the lock, opening the door with her hip and letting it slam shut behind her.

She had applied a little over a month ago for her permanent residency card, which she had been assured by everyone she asked would be a relatively easy and painless process. “You’re a nurse, and a good one. I could use ten of you,” her charge nurse had stated. “You went to school here, you have a Canadian degree and a Canadian license. There’s no reason they would cause you any trouble,” Madeline had said. And she had done her due diligence, double-checked every piece of information, checked off every document on the list. Done everything she was supposed to do. So when she unfolded the paper, the words shocked her.

Denied. Laurel brought her hand shakily up to her mouth as her eyes raced down the letter. No explanation was given, all she was told was that her application had been rejected and she had until September 17, when her work visa expired, to leave the country. The first thing Laurel did was frantically grab her laptop, seeing if there was some way she could apply for a visa extension, but the deadline had passed; she’d have to go back to the consulate in Minneapolis and try to re-apply from there, but her chances weren’t good if she’d already been rejected. The second thing she did was collapse on the floor, Piper nosing herself under her arm, and cry.

June 16 (wed)

When the group met up for lunch the next day, Madeline noticed something was off about Laurel almost immediately. Normally someone who was hyper-focused on the task at hand, she was stirring her straw around in her glass, nibbling at a piece of bread and answering questions shortly if at all. “What’s up?” she asked carefully, catching Laurel’s eye as she tried to busy herself with straightening her napkin. There wasn’t really a way she could get out of answering that one.

“I, uh, I got a letter yesterday,” she said. Pierre and Patrice stopped their conversation. All eyes were on her. “From immigration services. They told me,” her eyes pricked with tears, “they told me my PR application was denied, and I only have until the middle of September before I have to leave.”

“Like, leave the country?” Pierre asked. She nodded. “But can’t you renew your visa or something?”

“No, I looked into everything.” Laurel said in frustration, shaking her head. “There’s not enough time for it to be processed, I’d have to go back and reapply in the States, and even then the chances aren’t great.”

Madeline leaned over, wrapping Laurel up in a hug. “Oh, Laur. I’m so sorry,” she said. “You don’t deserve this.”

“It’s just hard,” Laurel started, “knowing that there’s nothing there for me back home. That’s the whole reason why I came to Canada in the first place, to get away. To get out. I’d have to retake all my licensure exams and find a new job and I don’t want to have to start all over when that’s not at all what I planned for. I thought I’d stay. I thought this was going to be my home”

“I can call my friend who’s a lawyer, see if he’s got any ideas?” Patrice offered.

Laurel smiled weakly “Thanks, Patrice, but I really don’t think they’d be able to do much. I was on the website for hours, and there’s like two ways I wouldn’t be kicked out of the country. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to give birth by September 17,” she said, letting out a watery laugh.

“You’d have to marry someone or something to stay,” Madeline said.

“Yeah, that’s the only other way it was going to happen,” Laurel agreed. “But seeing as how I’m obscenely single, I don’t see that happening…” She trailed off.

“I’d marry you,” Pierre said suddenly, shrugging.

Laurel’s head whipped to her side. “You’d what?”

“I’d marry you. We’re both single, by all accounts you’re an amazing nurse and deserve to stay. We get married, stay ‘together’ for a few years until you get your citizenship, and then tragically inform the citizenship and immigration people that while we tried, it just didn’t work out, and get a divorce. Easy peasy.”

Laurel almost burst out laughing, the idea was so ridiculous. She almost couldn’t wrap her head around what he was offering to do. He couldn’t be serious. Right?

---

Laurel slung her arm over her head, body tangled up in bedsheets. According to her phone, it was well past one. She couldn’t sleep. She had tried rain sounds, counting sheep, drinking a cup of chamomile tea, but nothing was working; she just wasn’t able to still her mind. Honestly, she couldn’t stop thinking about lunch earlier. More specifically, what Pierre had said.

As much of a bad person as it may have made her sound, the more she thought about Pierre’s offer, the more it made sense. He was incredibly attractive, so it wouldn’t be hard to fake a marriage to him for a few years. She really didn’t keep in contact with anyone from back home in Cloquet aside from her family and a few friends from high school, so it’s not like there would really be anyone to blow her cover. And she really, really wanted to stay in Canada. It wasn’t just the scenery, or the general human decency of everyone, or even the universal healthcare that pushed her to stay. She had fallen in love with the people, the city, and didn’t want to go down without a fight.

Rolling over, she grabbed her phone from her nightstand, pulling up Pierre’s contact. Hey, she texted. Laurel immediately cursed herself as the three dots popped up on his side. Hey? She was going to ask this man to marry her and the best she could come up with was hey? He wrote back immediately. Hey. You’re up late, what’s up? Laurel took a deep breath. How serious were you about offering to marry me? His second response was even faster than the first. As a heart attack.

#hockey imagine #hockey writing #pierre luc dubois #hockey smut #nhl imagine #hockey #nhl imagines #nhl smut #hockey imagines #nhl writing #nhl

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softyoongiionly · 5 years ago

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Talk to Me In Korean (NSFW Edition)

Jungkook’s curiosity regarding the dirtier words in English, finally gets the better of him...

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: Hello and we’re back with another episode of me repressing my undying love for Jeon Jungkook.

**ALL ITALICIZED WORDS INDICATE WHEN THE CHARACTERS ARE SPEAKING KOREAN***

Warnings: smut, language, 18+ over only please :)

Two weeks into his break and Jungkook decides that he is the happiest he’s ever been.

The days seemed to drift by carelessly, delicately…

He feels completely at ease in the small but luxurious apartment that the two of you share. Jungkook is a sensitive soul. He’s strong but, encased in a warm glow of tenderness. Since being on break, he’s only further retreated into himself but, in the best way possible. He’s been playing video games, messing about with a new digital art program on his laptop, taking photographs of the view off of your high rise balcony. He’s been singing but only when he’s in the shower, he’s gained a few pounds, stuffing his face whenever he gets the chance but, you’re happy to feed him. You’re happy to see how soft and happy your boyfriend has become. For the first time, you see the furrow between his brows smooth out; he isn’t anxious, he feels no pressure, he feels only happiness.

“Jagiya…where is this…from…?” He struggles a bit over his enormous bite of jasmine rice, “Where is it?”

You smile, admiring the newest addition to your boyfriend’s aesthetic: the floppy hair that is currently dangerously close to getting into his rice bowl.

“The rice? I bought it from the store when we went shopping…” You remind him gently, using your chopsticks to push the grilled meat around your bowl.

“Yesterday?” He verifies, eyes wide for approval at his pronunciation, his cheeks puffed up and full of rice.

A giggle leaves your lips, “Right, we went yesterday.”

He smiles, nodding to himself as he mutters, “We went shopping yesterday. Yahhh jagiya, I’m getting good no?”

His words are muffled by his food as he still hasn’t swallowed his second bite; it causes you to laugh again, your foot nudges his leg, “You’re getting really good, you’re gonna be better than me before you know it…”

He chuckles along with you before his brow furrows, “Nooo, not better than you, you’re the champion. Champion English speaker. Wooo Y/N, she’s number one!”

The exclamation is paired with a raising of one of his fists, his expression dramatic and over the top as he praises your English skills. This only causes you to laugh again, feeling nothing but warmth in the presence of your boyfriend.

“I didn’t have to learn it as recently as you did though, you’re getting better every single day. I’m proud of you…” You point out, smiling and, finishing up the last of your meal, feeling full and satisfied. You had taken some time off of work too, choosing to spend your days learning different recipes and writing various short stories.

“Thank you…” He bows his head slightly, setting his bowl down on the table, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips; he was a sucker for praise. “I want to learn some new…words though…”

A tilt of your head is enough to get his blood pumping at the question he’s about to ask you.

“What words do you want to learn? You know you can always ask me if there’s something you want to know…”

“I want to learn words…like the ones you say when…” He trails off, feeling his cheeks warm up as he grows slightly nervous, “When we…”

Oh…

Realization comes over you. You know what he’s referring to but, flustering your boyfriend is always an entertaining endeavor.

“When we what?”

You scoot closer to him on the couch as he groans, flopping back against the cushions.

“Yah don’t make me speak…” He complains, his stomach churning when he feels you beside him, your fingers brushing against his thigh. “You know what I mean…”

“Don’t make you speak? How are you going to learn then?” You giggle, gently pinching the inside of his thigh.

Jungkook emits a low playful growl in the base of his throat before his hands secure themselves around your hips, tugging you onto his lap.

A surprised shriek comes from your lips as your hands desperately come out to grip his shoulders. Jungkook’s dark eyes are glinting as he chuckles, leaning in to your mouth.

“When we….” He mumbles, his big hands sliding over your hips, lingering at the top of your ass, “…do sex…”

You resist the urge to giggle at his choice of words; you don’t want to discourage him but, you’re very interested in sated his newfound curiosity.

“When we have sex…” You correct him gently, pecking against his plush mouth.

“Have sex.” He repeats, smiling into your lips, hands wandering to settle over your ass fully. “When we have sex…”

“Good job…” Another kiss is placed to his lips and, it continues on longer than you plan; his mouth is addicting.

“Kissing…we are kissing…” He whispers, he’s still focused but, you’re curious to see how he’ll fair as he settles further into his arousal.

“Right, we’re kissing…” You keep your voice gentle as you run a hand through his long tresses, scratching gently at the base of his neck, “Some people call it making out too…”

His brow furrows, “Making out? We are making out…?” He tries the new phrase, not really enjoying the way it sounds coming out of his mouth.

If he’s being honest, now that you’re in his lap, his interest in the lesson is dwindling slightly but, he has a feeling that this particular lesson is going to offer him the best of both worlds.

“Tilt your head back.” You coo, kissing his cheek.

Jungkook obliges immediately and, you take the time to admire the tan skin of his neck and, the bob of his Adams apple as he tries to control his breathing. After years together, you’ve learned every inch of his body and, you know for a fact that there is a particular sweet spot on his neck that makes him completely melt.

Just below his right ear, at the base his skull, you ghost your lips over the warm skin as you prepare him for the next word, “This is called a love bite…”

Before he can repeat it back to you, you move in and suck the skin gently between your teeth, nibbling and coaxing his flesh until you’re sure you’ve left a mark.

Jungkook winces at the pain but, his hips give him away as they suddenly push up against yours, “Uh….um I like love bites Noona…”

His voice is growing shakier and, you can hear even more of his accent sneaking in.

“I know you do…” You whisper, smirking to yourself as you kiss over the aggravated spot on his neck.

Jungkook smirks too, he likes this game…

“I wish you’d leave my neck decorated all the time Noona…if it wasn’t so provocative, I’d let you…”

Jesus Christ, this boy could be filthy.

“Is that right?” You secure your hips tighter to his, ensuring that both of you are experiencing some level of pressure, though of course it isn’t enough. “You’d let me leave love bites all over your neck? For everyone to see?”

“Mhm…” He hums, eyes closed, lips still curved up in a smirk. A tilt of his head serves as an invitation for you to make a matching mark on the other side of his neck, “They could know…who had me…”

Jungkook didn’t like to share and, with that, he also liked feeling like he belonged to someone. You aren’t the possessive type but, you’d play the part if it makes him harder.

Before you speak again, you attached your mouth to him once more and, as you do, your fingers begin unbuttoning his pajama shirt. His body presses up to keep himself attached to your lips as long as possible, his fingers digging into your ass at the sensation.

Pain makes him dizzy.

As you open his shirt, you’re met with the toned planes of your boyfriend’s body: tan skin, smooth and defined muscles that ripple underneath your touch; he looks like a god. You begin kissing down his neck, keeping your motions slow and gentle, your thumbs smoothing over his erect nipples.

“Nipples…” You inform him, pinching them momentarily, which causes a shaky giggle to erupt from your boyfriends lips.

“Nipples.” He repeats, eyes peeking open to watch you as you descend down his body. “I like when you touch me there Noona…”

“They’re sensitive huh?” You catch his gaze when you move off of his lap to settle between his legs.

Jungkook can’t think properly; seeing you on your knees, your beautiful lips kissing all over his body, if he wasn’t getting hard before, he feels like he’s going to burst out of his boxers at the moment.

“Yeah…sensitive. Feels like-“ He breaths, his head lulling back when he feels you slide your hands up his legs, “Feels like…good.”

Jungkook laughs as his ability to form a coherent sentence continues to dwindle rapidly. His sits up for a moment to pull his shirt off the rest of the way, a light sheen of sweat forming at the back of his neck.

“It feels good?” You check again, placing kisses over his tense tummy, nibbling at the skin right above his waistline.

All he can do is nod, his bottom lip tucking into his mouth, his eyes clouded with lust as they stare down at you.

“Do you know what this is?” You tease, one of your hands, running up the inside of his leg before you squeeze over his throbbing length. The action causes Jungkook to sigh out through his nose, his mouth opening, releasing his lip from its confines.

He shakes his head, “I only know the clinical term…”

Hooking your fingers into his pants, you begin slowly dragging them down his legs, keeping his gaze all the while as you do. Jungkook’s wearing his favorite pair of Balenciaga’s but, the white material is stained slightly at the seam.

“This is your dick…” You whisper, leaning down to ghost your lips over his boxers.

Another deep breath his pulled through his nose as he feels his hips twitch towards your mouth.

“My dick…” He chuckles, and you follow suit, the idea of you teaching him dirty words is rather immature but, neither of you care.

This break is all about learning new things right?

“When you use your mouth on me…what’s that called?” He smirks, his hand sliding through your hair, letting it linger there as he waits for your answer.

“Well…” You begin, taking his question as an opportunity to remove his boxers, leaving him completely naked before you, “there’s a lot of phrases people use…blowjob is a common one, I don’t really like that one though.”

Jungkook looks awfully confused, chuckling at your response, “Blow? But you don’t blow on it Noona…”

The fondness practically erupts in your chest as you giggle, kissing all over his inner thighs, warming him up for what’s about to come.

“Exactly…it’s a stupid term. All of the phrases are pretty vulgar, I usually just say- sucking dick.”

His length twitches as your lips near the base of him; he doesn’t mind that phrase too much, although he still doesn’t feel quite right about it.

“Sucking dick…” He repeats, licking his lips, his heart rate increasing in his chest, “So you…suck dick? You suck my dick?”

You know full well that he’s trying the words out and, trying to figure out their conjugation but, there’s something about hearing dirty words out of your boyfriend’s normally coy mouth that causes your underwear to grow damp.

“Mhm.” You hum, wrapping your fingers around his length before situating your lips over the tip. Tentatively, you lick the precum off of his dick, holding his gaze all the while.

“Are you going to suck my dick Noona?” He practically coos, keeping his voice small and hopeful, licking over his lips again.

There isn’t a need to respond, you’ve been teasing him for quite awhile. Slowly, you take him into your mouth, ensuring that your lips are curled over your teeth. Jungkook melts into the couch, his mouth opening once again, his jaw going slack as he feels the tingle of pleasure in all ten of his toes.

You’re careful not to overstimulate him as you set a slow and steady pace on his pulsing dick. Your tongue rubs expertly on the underside of his tip, causing a low whimper to bubble past his lips.

Jungkook, like many people, loves getting head but, he literally never asks for it. He feels like it’s too much of a burden despite your best efforts to convince him otherwise. The first time you ever put him in your mouth, he only lasted two minutes before quite literally, cumming all over the place. He’s heard from his hyungs that it feels good but, nothing could have prepared him for the real thing.

Even after all this time, he still feels unprepared.

“Noona…” He breathes, the hand that was resting in your hair is now resting ontop of your head, “I like this a lot…when you suck my-”

He grimaces as the pleasure rushes up from his toes and into his balls, which are tight with the sensations your lips are providing. At this point, your hand has come up to assist your mouth in your endeavor to make Jungkook fall apart.

Your pace is increasing steadily with the rise and fall of his chest and, you take a moment to admire how beautiful your boyfriend looks: unashamed and in pleasure. His long tresses are starting to stick carelessly to his face, his eyes are squeezing shut, teeth gnawing on his bottom lip. Jungkook’s naked body, tan and toned, is sprawled out on the couch with reckless abandon; a feat within itself considering how shy and reserved he used to be.

“Noona…I’m getting close…” He warns, eyes fluttering open to catch your gaze. There is a level of desperation in his eyes but, you can tell he isn’t past the point of no return and, given that you’re starting to feel drunk on your own arousal, you make a decision.

“Can Noona teach you one more word before she lets you cum?” You request, lips still lingering on the tip of him.

Eagerly, he nods; Jungkook does whatever you say when the two of you go at it, he prefers it that way, he wants someone to take control.

There’s a ton of dizziness that clouds your brain when you quickly rise to your feet. Keeping his eager gaze, you remove your t-shirt and, sleep shorts from your frame, leaving the two of you completely naked.

Jungkook shakes his head, his dick twitching between legs and, for a moment, you regret the fact that you aren’t still sucking him off.

“Noona…you’re so beautiful.” He whispers, his eyes travelling over every inch of your body, hands reaching towards you eagerly.

All you do is smile, feeling warm at his words before accepting his request and, taking your place back in his lap. Jungkook immediately captures your lips, kissing you slow and tender, returning his hands to your hips.

“What’s the new word Noona?” Jungkooks murmurs into your lips, his hips pressing into yours as he begins to grow impatient with the lack of pleasure.

You smirk into his mouth, still kissing at him whilst your hand moves between the two of you to wrap around his length.

“Do you know where this goes baby?” You counter his question with your own, nudging his nose gently.

He nods, a wry smile on his lips as he nibbles against yours, “Inside?”

The response his cheeky and hopeful, it makes you giggle.

“Inside of where?”

Jungkook groans as he feels the tip of him brush against your entrance; the feeling of your own arousal coating his dick is driving him crazy, “Tell me Noona…tell me where…”

A devilish smirk is on your lips and, right before you answer him, you sink down on him completely:

“My pussy…”

At the feeling of you surrounding his already sensitive length, Jungkook whimpers, tucking his face in your neck as he guides your hips up and down. The sensation of you pulling on him; it’s so tight and so wet, he feels like he’s in heaven.

He still can’t figure how he got so lucky…

Jungkook curves inside of you just right, its practically unfair. It’s like he was made for you, riding his dick shouldn’t be allowed to feel so good, you never want to get off of him most of the time. Your hands slide up his back, holding him to you, your lips lingering at the side of his head.

When your pace increase he speaks again, his voice weak and raspy.

“I like pussy Noona…” He giggles, feeling delirious as the sensations completely wreck his body, “I like your pussy…”

He corrects himself, wanting to ensure you that the only person he’d ever want on top of him is you. You’re the only one who makes him feel this way.

“Yeah? You like my pussy?” You coo into his ear, nibbling on the shell of it, meeting the increasing pace of his hips.

“I love your pussy Noona…it feels so good on me- ugh…” His proclamation is interrupted by a moan when you move your hips a certain way, the tightness in his balls increasing to an almost uncomfortable level.

Pulling his face out of your neck, you quickly connect your lips with him, using the kiss as a way to ground the two of you, lest you float off into space.

“I wish I didn’t leave you…I wish I had you on me all the time Noona…” He mumbles against your mouth, the pleasure too much for him to focus on his second language, “I’m your good boy right? I make it feel good for you? I make you want to stay forever right?”

As much as you like watching your boyfriend learn new things, hearing him speak sweet nothings in his native language will always overshadow anything else.

“I’ll stay forever…right here…on you, oh god-“ Your reply is cut short as Jungkook increases his hips yet again and, he acts quickly, taking advantage of the moment.

His strong and capable fingers find your swollen clit, which is completely starved for attention, and begins rubbing tender and deliberate circles into the bundle of nerves.

“Noonnaaaa-“ He whines, but his mouth sports a prideful smirk, he knows he’s got you, “Are you going to wet my lap now? Will you do it for me?”

All you manage is a nod, a gasp leaving your lips as you buck into his hand. It’s your turn to tuck your face into his neck, sucking on his heated skin as a way to ground yourself.

“Suck on my neck Noona, bruise it while you finish for me. I’ll wear them out Noona, I don’t care if the cameras see them, they’ll know how good I am for you…they need to know.”

At his words, you loose it, careening over the edge and soaking his lap, exactly as he requested. Jungkook gasps in your ear, fucking up into you so hard it’s blinding the both of you.

“Oh thank you Noona, thank you for finishing on me…thank you…” He shudders as you continue riding him through his release and, soon enough, he can’t take it anymore.

Jungkook untucks your face from his neck, pinning his sweaty forehead against yours, “Can I finish please…please?”

“Yes,” You whisper immediately, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth, “Finish for your Noona…”

That’s all he needs for his hips to tense up beneath you, shuddering once again when he lets himself cum inside of you. Jungkook’s fingers dig into your hips as his breath leaves his lips in choppy and uneven pants.

“Thank you Noona…oh my god…” He whines, back to English now, feeling lost in a world of pleasure, kissing all over your neck.

A few more thrusts are needed to help him completely push through his release before he seems to slump back against the couch, taking you with him. Soon enough though, the two of you begin kissing eachother again, taking the time to come back to earth after your orgasms.

His smiling into your mouth already, he can’t help how good he always feels around you. As cliché as it sounds, he thinks he finally understands what all the fuss is about because, love is pretty fucking great.

“I love you.” Jungkook giggles, rubbing tenderly over the skin of your hips.

“I love you too…”

Eu-pho-ri-a

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filmwuju · 4 years ago

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[TRANS] Character Introduction: People around Seongyeom & Mijoo

Ki Jeongdo (Male, late 50s) Seongyeom's father / Four-term assemblyman

A politician who was an athlete. Back then, he was renowned as the nation's thief for snatching actress Yook Jiwoo, who was the nation's first love, at the prime of her youth. Rising to fame, he threw his hat into the political ring, as if he was waiting for this. Him moving into his wife's family home as a live-in son-in-law was also for the campaign fund.

Managing a family that can be recognized by citizens during elections was also Jeongdo's long time plan. As a man, Jiwoo was his trophy; and being the father of siblings who are national athletes, he was able to bear national sentiment. Seongyeom's home becoming a show window family was entirely Jeongdo's volition. Family means gathering together when needed and taking a harmonious photo, that's it. Just one is hard enough already, how incredible is it to raise two national representatives of South Korea? He regards fatherly love as an instinct, and thinks what he's doing to his children is true love. Not knowing that for the person receiving the unwanted love, that love can become violence.

He has always been privileged with vested rights, and since he's in the upper class, he always lived with pride. He has never doubted his capability of going higher, higher up. Most politicians are likewise, their final goal is running for the presidential election. And since they're running, naturally, they want to win. But Seongyeom, who used to be an obedient chess piece, keeps causing trouble. So he's contemplating on how to quash him.

Yook Jiwoo (Female, late 50s) Seongyeom's mother / Actress

A top actress hailed as the nation's first love. If there's Suzy in the 2000s, there was Yook Jiwoo in the 1980s. During the early days of her career, she went by the stage name Jiwoo, without the Yook, because her last name comes off as stubborn. This was her agency's policy. Later, Jiwoo saw her name on a movie poster and threw a huge fit. Since then, she goes by her full name that sounds stubborn for a "female" actor.

She's a perfect actress named as the Queen of Cannes; but she's a born actress who, in pursuit of her career, is far from even the letter M in the word "mother", much less be an excellent one.

Ki Eunbi (Female, 30) Seongyeom's sister / Pro golfer

She doesn't know how to love in an ordinary way, because she's never lived an ordinary life. The world's number one female golfer. With that title alone, men—regardless of their skin color—approached her, not knowing how Eunbi is like after falling in love. There are no exceptions—whether they have a strong build, or got a straightforward personality. By the time they realize how scary Ki Eunbi is not as the queen of golf, but as a lover, it's already too late—so accept your fate. Once she takes a bite, she does not let go until she gets sick of it. There's no place to escape unless you go to the edge of the world.

Of course there's an exception. When their love for her dies down, she lets go without hesitation. It was always easier to figure out separation than love. The same goes for her family. The time she spent with them in her whole life wouldn't amount to even one year because of her trips abroad. They always separated the moment they met, and she felt worried at the thought of Seongyeom, who would be alone in the huge house. My poor little brother. Their father, who likes to rank, compares them frequently; the media, who likes to chatter, bashes him regularly. My little brother Seongyeom. Seongyeom, whose sin is getting born as my little brother.

Of course she worked hard, but Eunbi's talent played a bigger part. Her sense of distance is more outstanding than others, and she's exceptional in controlling her strength. They said the only thing left for a first placer to do is to fall downwards, but Eunbi didn't know how to fall. If she didn't have talent, would it be a different story? While having these thoughts, she saw Seongyeom and thought, hmm.. it would be stressful to have no talent.

She's even sick of the first place now. Feeling bored, she was thinking whether she should retire and rest a bit, but her beloved little brother caused big trouble. What can I do? My little brother wants to do it. It's an older sister's duty to act as his shield, and I won't die from doing it for a few years more—so just for a bit longer, I'd have to stay in the first place for him.

Kim Wooshik (Male, 20) National track and field athlete

He lost his parents at a young age and was raised by his grandmother. Unlike someone his age, he believes in superstitions. But rather than saying he believes in them, it's more like he's familiar about life and is treated as a precocious child. His self-sufficient grandmother clothed him in cleanly washed clothes even though they're old, and did everything she can so that Wooshik can grow up as a bright and optimistic person. Wooshik, who grew up just like how she raised him to be, was perfectly kind and honest. He wasn't good at studying but he was smart; his hands were slow but his feet were fast. Naturally, Wooshik chose track and field. It was also a sport that he could do even with no money. He fell in love at first sight after watching Seongyeom's race, ran all the way with Seongyeom as his goal, and became a national athlete. It's his wish to run a relay race in the same competition with Seongyeom before the latter retires. No records or competition, just as Ki Seongyeom and Kim Wooshik.

He once saw a passage that said forgiveness is the biggest revenge. That's like saying the powerless can't do anything but to forgive. Ever since his days in sports high school, he experienced countless assaults and abuse under the force of power. And you say that's the biggest revenge? It was a day when he got beaten by his seniors as usual. He roughly wiped the blood from his nose using his sleeves. The superstitions Wooshik believed in were of no help at all in the face of reality. The one who offered Wooshik practical help was Seongyeom. He told him that forgiving is the victim's right. He told him that he doesn't need to forgive if he doesn't want to. As the only person who told him that, how could Wooshik not admire him.

Kwon Young-il (Male, 29) National track and field athlete

South Korea's track and field record holder. As the best sprinter, he lives up to his reputation of South Korea's No.1 track and field athlete who receives unconditional support from track and field fans. He's a narcissist who cares about nothing but himself, but takes an interest only in Seongyeom. It's because he's jealous. Whenever he's free, he picks a quarrel with the forever runner-up Seongyeom and ends up saying foolish words. I'm the real first placer, but why does it feel like I'm being pushed back by Ki Seongyeom every single time?

But still, as Seongyeom's long-time colleague, and as a sportsman, he's a friend who supports Seongyeom for the path he's going.

Kim Hyunjin (Male, early 40s) Assemblyman Ki Jeongdo's aide

Would there be another expression that puts a limit on Hyunjin as much as the phrase "aide by nature" does? However, he is a capable aide—to the level that everyone would agree in unison—who grasps everything about the Ki family, including Assemblyman Ki himself. He's machine-like, making one wonder if his heart is made of steel; he does not feel things like conscience and warmth.

Park May (Female, 35) CEO of imported film distributor May

Her name was originally Maehwi. Was it her dad's poor hearing, or her mom's poor pronunciation? Her dad, who heard Maehwi as May, registered her birth with the name "May". For a long time, her mom called her Maehwi and her dad called her May. To May, the actual party concerned, it didn't matter whatever they called her by. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

May believed in fundamental things. This was also due to her peaceful and cool nature; is it because of that? Entering a translation and interpreting university at the top of her class and finishing her studies in a graduate school of the same expertise, she was walking the so-called elite course. But then she set aside her career path and went into foreign film translation. The reason was simple. Because films are fun, but film festivals are freaking fun. She was in Busan when she first met Mijoo. At the Busan International Film Festival, which she skipped her class for, their sharing of the same bed at the guesthouse was the beginning of their relationship. After getting to know her, she found out that she's a distant junior of hers under the same department in their university. Mijoo was 21.

There is no bad Mijoo in this world. This is the pet theory of May as the dog owner of Mijoo. Mijoo—rough and clumsy, which makes her cute and pure too—was like a dog sometimes, she had no hesitations in baring her claws at arrogant things. From then on, May took it upon herself to be the dog owner. She was worried. If Mijoo meets a good person, it feels like she'd overcome her struggles and become extremely successful*, and if she meets a bad person, it feels like she'd get stabbed with a knife in the midst of selling drugs in a backstreet. All or nothing—Mijoo, who has no in between, didn't have a lot of things. She said she's never met a nice adult in her 20 years of life. Ah... I'm stuck. No choice, I'd have to be the nice adult for Mijoo, she decided**. Just like that, she spent around 10 years of time with her, as a senior and roommate.

She had more curiosity and energy before compared to now, but she feels no excitement nor interest in whatever she does these days. When she was young, she simply felt that her older seniors were cool, but now that she's at that age, she understood. There's just no fun in doing anything. She's done them all, tasted them all; the energy she used to pour out without reservation had been exhausted since long time ago.

Around that period of ennui in her life, an unsavory incident broke out in the translation industry she's been working in. She left translation behind and set up an imported film distributing company. As a small company that mainly imported independent films and art films, it involved a lot of legwork, so business trips is a norm. Her dream was to be a salaried employee for a lifetime, but why'd she become a CEO? CEOs like salaries too.. she didn't know of this fact until she became one herself. Is this, depressing? May, who was mentally healthy, immediately began her visits to the psychiatrist. Antidepressants help people who help themselves, and May wants to help herself properly. And since she's on it already, it's better to be bright and healthy.

T/N: * The idiom used in the original text is 개천에서 용 난다, which literally means "a dragon rises up from a creek." Often translated as "rags to riches," it is used to refer to someone from a humble background who overcame their hardships and became extremely successful.

** A longer translation that would more properly express the nuance of the original sentence would be: May decided that: I'm not the best choice, but since there's no one else to do it, there's no choice but for me, at least, to be the good adult for Mijoo.

(orig post link from writer Park Shihyun’s DC gallery post)

#run on #run on trans #run on kdrama #run on drama #runon #run on jtbc #jtbc run on #run on icons #jtbc #kdrama #korean drama

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shadowdianne · 4 years ago

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So, apparently, I was tasked with something... xD

@allbutwrong. Your prompt went like this: narcissa gives a speech at draco's wedding and accidentally says hermione's name instead of draco's and then rants to hermione how they could never be till hermione shuts her up with a kiss

I’m just going to do what AJ here knew I was gonna to probably do and make both this and my former prompt related. Enjoy :P

The plates were empty, the glasses half-full and the air was filled with the scent of about-to-fall rain. Despite the ozone and humid blue, the sky was cloudless and Narcissa glanced up at it for a moment while the echo of the calling clink she had made with the aid of her wand and a glass, cursed through everyone’s tables. Conversations halting as shadows began to emerge like scurrying animals beneath the feet of those sitting and slowly turning to the matriarch of the Malfoy family, expecting, waiting, for the last speech of the night, the one that would mark the end of the banquet.

The blonde witch eyed her boy and the man at his side, their intertwined fingers, the subtle yet obvious mark on Draco’s neck as he tried to hide it with the collar of his shirt. She could do anything but smile as she felt Draco return a very similar look etched on his face, a squeeze and a graze of fingertips against darkened tuxedo, magic swirling against the fabric. With the same look, Narcissa moved and pivoted towards her right, catching everyone’s eyes, noticing that while, yes, the number could be feeble as opposed to what could have been before the war the mixed and yet trusting looks tasted much different for both her and the one who had already shared his vows with the dark-haired boy that sat next to him now.

It was bittersweet in a sense, but also rewarding, and the blonde woman could do nothing but start her speech, the one she had written and perfected for weeks now, with something less Malfoy, less Black, and more solely hers: A swinging motion, her hand hitting the dying light, the gold on her hand glowing momentarily while her eyes caught on the witch that, same as she had done three years ago, had been invited with the same polished piece of white paper, the same hex on the ink of the invitation of itself that she could remember for her as the younger witch had walked towards the second youngest of the Weasley family: red bursting on her cheeks, gorgeous enough to burn.

And, three years after that wedding, the one in where Narcissa had needed to walk away, line after line of words never said burning her tongue, her nostrils, her lungs, the brunette looked just as good, just as gorgeous, as she had done before. With silver and green in subtle details, with the lack of a ring on her finger, her marriage in shambles as the papers had echoed some “unreconcilable problems” amidst the Weasley-Granger household.

Mind blanking, tongue flat against her teeth, Narcissa let her hand fall once more and grasp the stem of her glass, the motion clunky but disguised. Blue eyes searching, the older witch took into the ones still glancing at her, the lag on her response minute and barely seconds but loud on the way her heart humped on her chest. Demanding just as it had done back in the day.

She had tried to revoke herself for the possibility of having a similar reaction, had worked and moved on with her life until the two months mark after the wedding, a bump and a casual way in where her name had been said the last signal for her dying resolution. She had been thrown in a series of decisions of dates and teas and laughter and friendship and, ever so steadily, she had seen the darkened eyes, the lack of sleep, the pursed lips, the word divorce being whispered. Not due to anything in particular, not because some horrible secret, some skeleton that would be best if it remained buried. It was, as Hermione would sometimes confide with tongue licking her lips, eyes lost, wand between her fingers, not a matter of disgraced cruelness but rather her own realization that friendship and fulfillment withing a relationship didn’t necessarily mean the same thing.

Despite of it, or maybe precisely because of it, she had remained as silent as possible, as just as possible. No one needed to repeat to a jailed intellect that they were being clipped off from their wings after they realized it, after all. She remained unshaken, silent, kind, and when Draco had told her about his plans of marriage, she had known what to do when the list for guests had rolled by even if the same concept of it burned the back of her eyelids.

And there she was now, eyes on Draco, fingers shaking slightly, voice enchanted so it could be whispered and murmured by everyone’s in the attendance. The grass beneath their feet lush, the earth amongst it, dry, the twinkling set of flaming stars above them all warm on their winking light.

“There’s braveness in love.” She begun, smile tensing her lips just enough. “During my formative years I was led to believe that love solely meant giving to the point of exhaustion and disappearance. Giving until there was nothing left of me for me to preserve. Love felt like a chore and in the same breath it burned brighter than anything else the moment I first laid an eye on the one you have in front of you. Because the second I saw him, the second I hugged him close to me, I realized that I could not merely put my love for him under the pretense of a chore in where my own soul was destroyed and given to the wind for it to judge me. “

Her voice sounded and echoed and she rolled her shoulders slightly, retaking her initial position, her heart beating wildly, quickly, not out of nerves due to the speech but the acute feeling of being watched, of Hermione’s eyes following her every word, her every move, her every sentence.

“I was wrong, and I got to learn as years passed. Love is not only fire, not only destruction and life wrapped up as beginning and end of a wand and a spell, though, but is also water, tranquil and still on its welcoming embrace. Love is not only the big actions, the ones we are forced to do or rather nothing else will be after we are done. Love is also the smaller decisions, the ones that are choices we take every day, every moment, every waking second. Love is the laughter and the shared glances and the touch of their skin against yours. Love is intimacy in not merely the option of being naked but also on the way her arms around you are enough for you to know you can close your eyes, and rest.”

She didn’t realize her slip until Draco looked at her, eyes open, skin white. She didn’t realize the slip until the pronouns rolled by her tongue when her mind flashed against her eyes, the glass falling to table, liquid sloshing, dripping.

She had been taught how to preserve the pretense no matter how the world around her was misshaped and hit. She felt her lips tremble, the point in where her eyes tried to focus fill with black dots that danced and mocked her. She felt a tremor on her spine, the questioning looks beginning to be thrown around. She had seconds, moments, and she could only refuse to glance towards where Hermione was sitting at. Decisions made on her mind’s eye.

Love. The word felt too bright, too strong, too full of implications neither of them were ready to consider. Yet that had been the word she had chosen for her initial speech and that word had been blurted out of her the second her mind had halted, left her bare. She felt the same ringing sensation on the back of her mind, the one that had made her get up and leave the moment the vows between Hermione and the Weasley boy had been exchanged. She felt weak and wrong. Something that made her skin prickle with the fear of not having the ready answer on how she needed to behave.

“Pardon me.” She finally said, voice weakened, brittle. “Seems like both the wine and the nerves have made my tongue not capable of proper pronunciation. I will let another voice to raise tonight. Have a good evening.”

She waited for the confusion to die and she turned, ready to disappear, to move back to the shadows and the blackened corners of not being noticed, when a hand on her forearm made her jump, the electricity deafening, the way her magic reacted, obvious.

And when she turned and eyed the now young woman, she felt her vision began to close in a tunnel-shaped one, the circles and black dots bigger, anxiety brimming on the back of her lungs, muscles seizing. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t answer.

“Narcissa?”

The younger woman’s eyes were doubtful and Narcissa could feel them full of questions and the never-ending nervous worry of having misunderstood what for her had been so painfully obvious it made her want to turn into ash. Younger and younger still, her heart beat and writhed, traitorous, and she closed her eyes and wished for not being there, amidst those who, even if had turned their backs to the now quickly retreating couple of witches as the rest of the speech was finalized and banquet terminated, were nothing but curious, noisy, who wanted to understand.

A feeling that, even if it pained her, was something Narcissa couldn’t blame them all.

“I walked away from your wedding the second I saw you in your dress.” The blonde finally blurted, blue against brown, magic so vivid it made her take a breath while she tried to focus on anything, something, aside of Hermione’s eyes on her. “I knew it back then; I hadn’t realized until then. I needed to leave, I needed to give you the space. Because there was nothing I could do, nothing I could ask…”

She was stopped by a hand and a smile, a set of eyes so full that they made her feel empty and about to explode.

“Nothing you could have asked?”

It was said in a soft way, timid, fragile, and Narcissa shook her head in a poor imitation of a “no” as her breath was stolen and her hands grasped, her lips pursed, her head tilted, a smile reaching Hermione’s lips and eyes.

“Nothing?”

The younger witch halted, mid-movement, mid-kiss, mid-air.

“Noth…?”

“Please.”

“Very well.”

#cissamione #prose #allbutwrong #love you

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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

Text

Rise Up

Ch.10: A Jinx's Path

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Team Flash and Arrow join together, along with time traveler Graciela Haynez to defeat Vandal Savage. It's only in the end that Graciela reveals the true nature of her status.

This chapter (and the previous) serve as a prequel to Graciela’s full story Redemption.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles [If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

Visiting Star City when it was due to some strange, mystical man wasn't exactly on Barry's top five things to do. Yet there he was because an innocent woman was being hunted down by the mystical man. At least he could be surrounded by friends who would be able to help him in case something went wrong.

While everyone came up with a decent plan for Kendra Saunders, they gathered in Oliver's apartment for some drinks that night. Barry had listened to how much had changed for both Felicity and Oliver, and honestly couldn't hide his shock.

"So, you're the CEO of Palmer Technologies," Barry pointed to Felicity Smoak as he wrapped his mind around the idea of Felicity being big boss as a company, "And you're now living with Oliver Queen."

"There you go, you got it!" Felicity sarcastically hit him on the arm.

"It's insane how much life can change in six months, huh?"

"Which you would know better than anyone, considering that there's another Flash, another Dr. Wells, from another... earth. I mean…" but as much as Felicity tried wrapping her mind around a new Earth it just wouldn't. "I wonder what Oliver's doppelganger would look like. Bald, pot-bellied…" Barry laughed at the idea and sneaked a glance at Oliver in the kitchen. "Haven't asked, how are you and Belén doing?"

"Uuh...I mean, we're good," Barry meant to be honest in that in terms of being a couple they were indeed good, but there were some rough patches that didn't exactly pertain to their relationship.

"I sense there's a 'but' somewhere there…" Felicity narrowed her eyes on him, ready to scrutinize him on the spot.

"It's not about us, it's just we're dealing with...you know...other world and stuff."

"Oh…" that seemed to calm Felicity more or less.

"I love her and I hate seeing her so stressed... I want to help her but I don't know how." And Barry despised that fact. He had the answers to his speed because there were people to train him, even if some of those were evil, but the fact laid in that he garnered the skills because of guidance. Belén didn't have that. To find the answers, she was basically on her own.

~0~

While everyone mingled, Cisco took opportunity to have a word with Barry on the side. He hadn't been sure if he wanted to tell Barry what he saw but Cisco was sure it would inevitably help Kendra in the end.

"You 'vibed' Kendra?" Barry was surprised to hear.

"Unintentionally," Cisco left that clear before he went on. "But remember the man with wings? It wasn't a man. It was Kendra. She was, like, a bird. You think that she's a meta-human?"

Barry could not be sure, and neither was Cisco. "Mm... Wait. Why didn't you say anything about this sooner?"

Cisco gave a light shrug. "Well, I didn't think it was related, but I guess now it has to be. Look, I don't want her to know about my powers. I have this great thing going with her. She laughs at my jokes, and she loves movies, and... I just... I've never felt like this before, and I don't want to sabotage it."

"I get the feeling," Barry could honestly relate.

"Look!" Kendra had jumped from her seat to point at the glass wall overlooking the city.

Vandal Savage was swinging forwards and broke through the window. Everyone backed away as the man got up. He certainly seemed at home when he saw Kendra. " I will always find you, Chay-Ara."

Barry sped Oliver and Thea their arrows. Oliver quickly took aim on Savage. "Don't move."

"Then how will I kill you all?" Savage pulled out several pocket knives in a second and threw them strategically at them all. Barry sped down and managed to get the knives before they were able to hurt anyone.

Oliver then took his moment to shoot arrows towards Savage. The intended victim ducked and dodged like there was no tomorrow. At the same time, a familiar purple and black leathered figure swooped in through the hole Savage left on the wall. With one leg stretched on the floor and a hand keeping her from falling, Jinx shot her purple beams at the lights above and caused massive sparks to fly down on the group.

"You again?" Savage faced her, fairly curious with the persistent women.

"Me, again," Jinx smirked as she straightened up. "We weren't finished."

"We weren't," Savage didn't hesitate to start throwing more blades her way.

She backtracked while dodging them all with those bright purple beams that seemed to either change the blades' direction or crush them altogether. Oliver and Thea joined again, although neither was sure who that woman was, and shot more arrows towards Savage. Jinx dropped her hands and ran forwards to engage Savage in hand-to-hand combat. She proved to be skilled as she jumped and blocked Savage's punches while throwing one of her own. Finally, Savage became agitated it was all taking too long and surprised Jinx with a different, golden chopped knife. It would have came straight at her heart if Barry hadn't sped in and grabbed it three inches away from her. In her shock, Savage took his opportunity and escaped by jumping off Oliver's balcony.

"No!" Jinx cried as the man disappeared. She tried to chase after him but Barry grabbed her arm.

"He's not going to make it!" he said, but she yanked her arm from his grip.

"He's immortal you idiot!" she shouted angrily and hurried to the balcony. She looked down but, no surprise, Savage was gone again. "Dammit!" she grasped her hair and turned around to the shock-stricken group staring at her.

"Hey…" Barry meant to approach her calmly but she was too angry to stop and realize.

"I said to stay out of it! I only have a couple chances before they find me and you keep ruining it!" she gritted her teeth and scoured the group until she spotted Kendra. "I'm not messing up again."

Kendra felt this was a warning that encumbered her too and suddenly stepped back. Jinx lowered her arms and straightened up.

"You're the one he calls Chay-Arah...so you're it." Jinx smiled and thrust an arm in the group's way, or so it seemed. Her beams had hit the pillars that were part of the supporting pieces of the ceiling.

"Ah...what's happening…?" Felicity couldn't, and wouldn't, take her eyes off the ceiling.

Jinx was running towards Kendra but Oliver and Thea took aim up again on her. It made it a struggle for Jinx to keep going as she had to constantly battle the arrows threatening her. Barry decided to end it by simply taking Jinx over her victim and pinned her against the back wall.

"Kendra isn't going anywhere with you," he warned her.

"You don't get it, she's the key," Jinx kicked him in the stomach. "It's not like I'm going to hurt her. I just...need you…" she laid dark eyes on Kendra.

"Yo, not happening," Cisco barred the way to his girlfriend.

Jinx laughed mockingly at his defense. She raised a hand, making Felicity panic. She'd figured out Jinx's powers by now.

"Not the ceiling!" cried the blonde.

Jinx rolled her eyes but redirected her hands to the kitchen. Energy beams made fire erupt from the oven and another shot at the walls made pipes burst. Even if they wanted to stop Jinx, the natural disasters prevented them from saving Kendra. Jinx had taken her all too easy in their distress.

~0~

"All right, Lance is gonna call if he gets any information on... whoever they were…" Oliver said after hanging up the phone.

"And the ceiling…?" Felicity hadn't taken her eyes off the ceiling since the fight. It kept grumbling and groaning like it would collapse at any moment.

"Homegirl Jinx lives up to her name," Cisco bitterly kicked the couch from behind.

"New metahuman?" asked Diggle.

"Man, we don't know what she is except she's crazy with bad luck powers!"

Barry put a hand on Cisco's shoulder, understanding he was sick worried over Kendra. "Look, you can call me crazy too but I don't think Jinx is going to hurt Kendra." Cisco turned on Barry with an incredulous expression on his face. "I just meant-" Barry took a precautionary step backwards, "-she clearly wants to get this man as much as we want to and she's made the connection that wherever Kendra is that man will follow."

"You saying she's gonna use Kendra as bait?" Thea raised her eyebrows.

Barry shrugged, knowing that the possibility of Kendra being bait didn't exactly make Cisco feel much better. "It's just…"

"It's exactly what we would do," Oliver spoke up.

Cisco's eyes nearly popped from his head. "What!?"

"And if she's thinking like that then maybe we can reason with her," Oliver continued like Cisco hadn't spoken. "We could get her to help us instead."

"And maybe have her fix our ceiling…" Felicity mumbled.

"Felicity, you think we can find Kendra by pinging her phone?" Barry asked.

"Oh, watch me!"

~0~

Kendra found it was useless trying to pull on the ropes binding her wrists and ankles together. She leaned against the wall where Jinx had put her and frowned at the woman who had kidnapped her. Jinx was sitting on a table, literally, tinkering with the metal wristwatch (as it appeared to Kendra) on her.

'There's a 98% probability Vandal Savage will be around the area, Miss Haynez,' a computerized voice informed her.

"What is that?" Kendra couldn't help be curious of the device.

Jinx looked up with a smirk. "It's a miniature A.l device I knicked off a friend."

"You stole it?"

"Oh, I'm gonna give it back when I'm finished in this time," Jinx put both her hands on her lap. "My friend will probably shout at how irresponsible it was to go through time and blah, blah, blah-" she rolled her eyes, "He always likes to be dramatic."

Kendra's eyebrows knitted together. "Wait, time? You're a…"

"Man, I read all about these metahumans before coming - the Flash, the Azalea, the Arrow, Black Canary? I thought they were super smart enough to figure that out."

"Give them credit," Kendra frowned. "It's not everyday we come across time travelers and immortals."

Jinx laughed. "True."

Kendra studied the woman for real now and came, fairly quick, to the conclusion that whatever Jinx wanted it really had nothing to do with her. She wanted Savage. She was merely the bait.

Jinx hopped off the table and walked towards Kendra. "I need you to wake up or something."

"Wake up…?"

"C'mon, it would be a lot easier to fight Savage knowing you could defend yourself. I don't want liabilities."

"I have no idea what you mean," Kendra pulled her legs closer to her as Jinx neared her.

"I know you have powers, Kendra. And I know there's another of your kind-"

"My kind?" repeated Kendra, now truly confused.

"The male. I don't know where he us but that's okay since Savage seems to want only you right now. But c'mon, sprout the wings, pull the sword out or something."

"Okay I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Jinx looked mighty frustrated and disappointed with Kendra. "Tell me you're kidding?" Kendra's blank face said it all. "Woman!"

"I'm just a barista!"

"No, you're not! You're like a...I don't know, reincarnation? I honestly didn't read too much on that background. All I know is that you and some other guy die and reincarnate over and over because of Savage. And since you don't even have your powers activated it's gonna be a hell of a lot easier for Savage to get you!" Jinx growled and turned away from Kendra. "I don't have that much time here before they find me…" she rubbed her face and hoped to God something would pop in her mind to help her out.

Meanwhile, Kendra tried to internalize what she'd been told about herself apparently? None of it made sense but it would explain why Savage was so hellbent on killing her. There was a hell to pay that she didn't even know about.

About thirty minutes later, Jinx returned to Kendra and pulled the woman up without saying a word. She pushed Kendra towards the exit of the abandoned room.

"Wh-where are we going?" Kendra tried digging her heels into the ground to stop herself from going.

"Relax, I'm taking you out to the street. I figure maybe your powers will show up if you're under stressor, also known as me."

"Wait, what!?"

Jinx pushed Kendra out and forced the woman to go to the dark street. She left Kendra tried by the wrists and stepped back. "Ready?"

"NO!"

"Yes!" Jinx's excited voice went over Kendra. She swung an arm forwards and her energy beams hit the nearest street pole by Kendra.

"No! Stop!" Kendra cried and jumped backwards just as the pole groaned and fell over. From the force, Kendra fell back.

Jinx clapped a hand to her forehead. "This is seriously not how I imagined things going."

Kendra shot the woman a glare from the ground.

"We're going to need to 'up' the stakes," Jinx theorized, lowering her hand to her chin. "I suppose it's like a self preservation. The bigger the stressor…the more chances of getting those powers…"

"Please…" Kendra scuttled backwards, unable to get up on her own, "...whatever you want from me...it's not going to work…"

"Wouldn't say that," Jinx's eyes raised up to the electricity cables. "Perfect."

Kendra followed the woman's gaze up and felt her blood run cold. "Oh n-n-n-n-no…"

"Sprout those wings, woman!" Jinx raised her hands above her head and was about to shoot at the cables when an arrow struck her by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground. "OW!"

Before she knew it, Barry had sped in front of her and looked down. "If you don't want another arrow, I suggest you listen."

Behind him dropped Oliver who took a threatening aim at Jinx. Jinx's dark eyes flickered between the two and could see past them where Diggle and Thea were helping Kendra up. Suddenly, Barry lowered a hand for her to take, confusing her of course.

"First you shoot me-" Jinx pulled out the arrow embedded on her shoulder like it was nothing and threw it to the side, "-and then you offer help?"

"You haven't been all that straight forwards either," Barry retorted and motioned her again to just take his hand.

Jinx grasped his hand and let him pull her up. She cast a suspicious glance on Oliver who still didn't lower his arrows. "What now? You'll imprison me?" she challenged but scoffed in the end. "Because if I'm being honest, you're gonna have to get in line."

"We just want to talk," Barry reassured but Jinx cleared her throat and nodded her head at Oliver. "Dude…" Barry tried pushing away the arrow Oliver had until eventually Oliver lowered it completely. "Thank you. Look," Barry tried again with Jinx, "we don't understand anything-"

"-clearly," Jinx crossed her arms.

"-but it looks like you do and we have a common enemy so...why don't we help each other out?"

"She tried crushing me with a street pole!" Kendra shouted from across. Now that she was free she frantically motioned to the pole on the ground.

"Hey that was only to get you to sprout those wings!" Jinx snapped. "And it didn't even work!"

"I don't have any wings!" Kendra waved her hands in the air. "I don't have any powers! I keep telling you that!"

"I know you do! You just haven't activated them!"

Kendra stalked towards them but a male figure - flying - in a golden suit with wings suddenly swooped down and took her off the ground. "HELP!" Kendra screamed but no one could possibly do so.

And then, just like that, Oliver took aim against Jinx again. "You have some explaining to do!"

"Oh calm down," Jinx wasn't even looking at him anymore. She raised her wrist that had the watch-like device strapped to it and pulled up several holographic screens.

"What the hell was that?" Thea came running over with Diggle.

"Not a 'what' but a 'he'," a big smile, like the Chestshire cat, was spreading across Jinx's face. "It's the other one! I've hit the jackpot!"

"Explain!" demanded Oliver.

"Sure, just lower the arrows," Jinx ordered. Begrudgingly, Oliver did so but his hand was still wrapped around the bow pretty tightly. "Look, don't worry, she's not in danger, alright? That's probably her reincarnated soulmate."

Everyone winced because Cisco had given a mighty big 'oh hell no' in their ears through the comms.

"What are you talking about?" Barry asked Jinx but the woman kept working on the device. "And what the hell is that?"

"I read about them, alright? There's two of them and Savage will always kill them both! It's obvious the guy has figured his powers out," Jinx sighed. "I should have gone after him instead."

"Whoever he is we need to find him," Diggle said.

"He's not gonna get far once he sees Kendra hasn't activated her powers," Jinx turned her wristwatch off. "I need to go after them before Savage finds them."

"You are not going anywhere," Thea warned her. "We don't even know your name. We're not letting you go anywhere near Kendra."

"If anything, she should be back in the base explaining things," Barry offered, much to Jinx's dismay. "We'll find Kendra and that guy...and we'll bring them back. But you-" he pointed at Jinx, "-need to be committed to cooperate with us. And you're gonna start by telling us everything you know and who you are."

"Fine, but on the other side, I'd like you to guarantee me that Savage dies. It's crucial for me, do you understand?" and in truth there was something in Jinx's eyes indicating this was more than a simple hunt for her. There was something important she was fighting for.

Barry extended a hand forwards. "Deal."

Jinx nodded and shook hands on it.

~ 0 ~

And although the strange man gave quite the chase, Barry and Oliver had managed to bring him down with some tranquilizing arrows. That of course didn't sit well with Jinx when they expressed the idea of chaining the man up.

"He is a key to all this!"

"He kidnapped me!"

"He was just trying to protect you!"

"You know, I don't like you very much," Kendra crossed her arms and glared straight at Jinx.

"You know, liking you has nothing to do with this. You're just a way to get to my goal," Jinx responded and glanced back at the unconscious, chained up, man across them.

"Yo, we trusted you enough to bring you in here," Cisco gestured to the base. "So mind doing your thing about explaining all this? Start with your real name, please?"

Jinx drew in a deep breath as she resigned herself to disclosure. She hadn't planned on revealing anything about herself while in the past, but to be honest she hadn't expected on killing Savage to be such a difficult task in the past.

"Yo? Name?" called Cisco once he felt like they were losing her again.

"Fine," the woman spat. She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. "My name is Graciela Haynez, but I'm also known as Jinx."

"And how are you connected to all this?" Barry then asked since none of them could figure it out yet.

"I'm not connected," Graciela clarified first. "But my life, as well as my entire world, has been affected by that man. Vandal Savage, as you have guessed, is a murderer. And where I'm from, he's a dictator."

"And where are you from again?" Felicity asked from the platform. She was leaning against her desk, refusing to be too close to Jinx for the moment. Jinx looked to the side, apparently reluctant to answer.

"Hey, you promised you would tell us everything," Barry reminded her.

Graciela threw her head back and rubbed her face. "Fine! I'm from the future."

"Okay, can we lock her up now?" Thea sarcastically asked.

"I'm not kidding! I'm from the year 2166 and I came back here to stop Savage before he takes over my city and the whole frikin world!"

But everyone continued to stare at her like she was spilling nothing but lies.

"Fine, you want proof?" Graciela raised her wristwatch and activated it. There were various images displaying a destroyed city and the last one showed Vandal Savage at the head of an army. When Graciela shut the device off, she was subjected to various horrific stares. "There's your proof. That's home sweet home for me."

"Wait," Cisco shook his head as if that would erase everything image he just saw, "You mean to tell me you time traveled back in time to stop Savage from ever becoming dictator? Isn't that like...against rules or something?"

"Oh yeah, but the thing is I don't care," Graciela said like nothing. "I've been fighting a rebellion for as long as I can remember and even though I know people can fight him, that organization has refused to do it. So, I'm doing it. So can we get this moving?"

Barry looked at Oliver to see what he was thinking. As usual, there was nothing describable in Oliver's face except for pensiveness.

"Might I suggest something?" Barry finally asked.

~ 0 ~

It took a lot of explaining, but after things were clear - or at least decently clear - Star City's finest returned to Central City with Barry, along with Graciela, in hopes of coming up with a good, airtight, plan against Savage.

First thing in order was to relocate somewhere remote.

"A bunch of superheroes in a farmhouse?" Thea gave a weird look at the grassy field they arrived at. "I feel like I've seen that in a movie before."

"We need a secure location," Oliver moved around their black van without so much of a glance to their surroundings. All he knew was that there was a decent home and it was far away from the city.

"And what's wrong with STAR Labs?" asked Belén just as she got off the STAR Labs van.

"Well, I mean, absolutely nothing if you forget about the revolving door you guys installed so the bad guys can come and go as they please."

Belén exchanged a look with Caitlin beside her, both offended on behalf of their beloved STAR Labs.

"And remind us again what happened to your old lair?" Caitlin was the one to respond first, but of course Belén had something else to add.

"Or the one before that?"

Oliver glared at both women.

"Well, lair number one was compromised by the police, and…" Felicity trailed off when Olivier's glance switched to her. She cleared her throat and looked down. "I will stop helping."

Oliver decided to stop paying them attention before he would lose it. Instead, he led the group towards the safe house. "Savage only let Barry and I live because he felt Kendra start to emerge as Hawkgirl and went after her. He can sense her and Carter's presence. We don't need to make it easier on him by staying in the city limits."

"Bet you wish you were staying at your mother's place now," Belén mumbled to Laurel since the latter had been staying in Central City anyways.

"Ha!" Laurel practically snorted.

It had been half an hour since the group settled into the house, and only then did Cisco, Barry and Graciela appear.

"Barry, you're late!" Oliver's sharpness had no effect on Barry anymore. He'd come to get used to Oliver's way of being a long time ago. Instead, he learned how to make comebacks.

"Sorry. It turns out, it's not easy finding the ass end of nowhere!"

"Yeah, for real," Cisco pulled out his cellphone and immediately checked for his internet status. "The roaming charges alone are going to bankrupt me."

"...are those my clothes?" Belén raised an eyebrow the moment she spotted Graciela wearing her pink cardigan.

Graciela, in turn, uncomfortably shifted on her feet while flailing her arms. "Yeah, and I hate pink."

"Be a little grateful, won't yah?" snapped Cisco. "We borrowed-"

"-my clothes?" Belén's voice started getting that same sharpness Oliver owned so well, and that was something Barry still had no comeback to.

"Uuuh…" Barry drew it out while he pulled Belén to the side in the meantime the others started gathering with Cisco's cart of inventions.

"Barry, she's wearing my clothes," Belén said quietly though in growing irritation. Her eyes flickered to Graciela who was indeed wearing everything that belonged to her. "I'm all for sharing but I'm not comfortable doing it with someone I don't know and who also attacked my friends multiple times."

"I know that, and I understand, but it's okay now. Graciela's okay. She's on our side," Barry tried to explain quick before she got actually angry. "She's from the future and she didn't have anything and you always have spares at STAR Labs, sooo…."

"Fine," Belén crossed her arms. "But can I at least meet her now? I mean, the only reason I know her name is Graciela is because you just said it right now. Last time we saw each other, she attacked us."

"It's been a busy day," Barry said in his defense.

"Mhm," Belén's hum was almost like a red flag.

It was a good thing Barry wasn't naive to believe it was all due to borrowed clothes. As soon as he'd returned to Central City yesterday, Belén filled him in on what had happened in his absence. She'd been forced to tell her mother that she the Azalea, they had Harry stabilizing back at STAR Labs (under the care of Nina), and of course no one could forget she was going crazy trying to figure more things out about Datura, and the lack of success was getting to her. Her training, while good, still felt like it was mediocre against Datura's and Poison Ivy's.

Borrowed clothes were merely the tip of the iceberg for Belén.

"We need to get rid of Savage's magic stick thing," Oliver couldn't believe he was actually saying those words.

"Yeah, Staff of Horus," Carter corrected but it really didn't matter.

"Well, it's protected by some kind of energy field," Graciela said bitterly. "It's impossible to get to. Believe me, I've tried."

"What about some mittens, then?" Felicity joked for a second until she got the actual idea. "Ooooooh, maybe some insulated gauntlets…"

Caitlin seemed to catch the idea as well since she chimed in, "Oh, yeah, yeah, the magnetic shielding could disrupt the-"

"-the staff's magnetic polarity!" Cisco even had a go and started leading the two women into the hallway.

"Well, while the geek squad works-"

"-heard that, honey!" Felicity called to Oliver, actually making him wince.

"While they work to get the staff away from Savage, we need to know everything there is to know about him." Oliver's eyes landed on Graciela and Kendra, but the latter seemed pretty uncomfortable to say anything.

"What's to know about him is that he's evil, manipulative, and powerful," Graciela listed off her fingers before shrugging. "That's about it, really."

"He's been around for 4,000 years - he should have a trail or something."

"You're from the future, right?" Belén moved closer to the group. "You obviously know more about him than we will ever know right now."

"I mean…" Graciela seemed like there was a lot she wanted to say but failed to come up with a way to say it. She dragged a hand through her short curls and sighed. "You have to understand that where I come from, he's already won. He's the dictator. He's all powerful and there's no way of stopping him because those two-" she jerked a thumb at Kendra and Carter, "-are dead. I don't know everything about Savage. I just know that in the 21st century he comes across metahumans that almost stop him."

"So what was your plan, then? When you first thought of coming here?" Barry wondered since her first appearance seemed a hellbent on killing.

"To be honest, I don't know," Graciela crossed her arms, looking rather guilty about her confession. "I'm impulsive and I…" she once again paused to gather her words, "...I read in the history files that when Savage goes up against the Arrow, the Flash, the Azalea, Black Canary...his weapons are his downfall. I thought maybe if I showed up and take the weapons I might have a chance of fixing my future."

"Okay, how about I check with A.R.G.U.S., see if they have anything on him?" Diggle offered since it was clear they had nothing.

"That sounds great," Laurel nodded her head. "And Thea and I can check police reports and stuff like that."

"It's not gonna matter," Graciela called to the trio who were moving to start on their tasks.

"We're going to do our best," Thea offered one sour smile before following Laurel.

"And Kendra," Oliver turned his attention to Kendra, the sudden gaze making the woman stiffen. "We need to find a way to utilize your new ability."

She blinked until it hit her of what he meant. "My ability?" Of course he meant her 'ability', because she now had abilities. Because she wasn't normal. She was...she was some...

"It might give us an advantage," Oliver's voice pulled Kendra out from her thoughts.

Barry cleared his throat as he moved on around the group. "Yeah, whatever you do, don't let him train you." At that, Oliver gave him a look, but Barry was full on straightforward with his words. "I'm sorry, but when it rains, I can still feel where you shot me with those arrows."

"He's not that bad," Belén spoke up on Oliver's behalf, though it earned her an offended glance from Barry. "What? You were being smug and you got shot with arrows. What did you say to me before running?" She pretended to think about it before mocking him, 'And give Bells a show'."

Barry nearly glared at her for bringing that one up. Okay, so he might have been a little over the top then but he didn't deserve to be shot with arrows.

"It's okay," Carter stepped forwards, hands held up, "I'll handle her training, then."

Kendra kept her mouth shut because the moment someone asked her directly whether or not she wanted to 'train' she'd say an automatic 'no'. Instead, she watched Carter leave the house for something in the van, no doubt that big chest box he'd carried with them.

~ 0 ~

"Where are you going?" Belén's question stopped Barry just as he was about to take off from the front porch.

"Well…" Barry prepared himself for what he knew would be a difficult explanation, "...I got a call...from, um...one of Oliver's…" he paused for a significant long time, making Belén rather impatient for she thought this would be him coming up with an excuse, "...frenemies."

"Which one?"

"Don't know...Merlyn?"

"You got a call from Merlyn?" Belén's tone of voice indicated she knew exactly who that was. Barry then remembered she and Laurel were completely close. "What the hell does he want!?"

"To talk to me and Oliver, I guess." Barry admitted to himself he didn't like the idea of meeting up with that type of man, but since Oliver was on his way too he had no choice but to go as well.

"Just you two? That's a bit rude," Belén folded her arms and deeply frowned. "And I'm sugarcoating it. You do realize this whole Savage thing involves a lot of people. Whatever he's going to say to you and Oliver, make sure you repeat it to us later, got it?"

"Got it," Barry dutifully said, even saluting for show. Once he saw a small smile trying to creep across her face, he knew she wasn't that upset.

"Just be careful, alright? I'll hold down the fort here," she said and looked to the side. She could see Kendra and Carter on the field, presumably training. "Though to be honest I think we might end up killing each other before Savage gets to us. Reincarnation, immortality and time travelers?"

Barry snorted with a laugh. "Yeah. This one's out of our terrain. But listen, Graciela? She knows a lot more than she's giving on. Maybe you can get her to talk more."

"Me?" Belén pointed at herself, relatively confused since she'd barely crossed a word with the time traveler. "But I haven't even met her. It's not like she's a big talker."

"Try to look at it from her perspective," Barry attempted to go through a different tactic. He stepped closer to Belén and lowered his voice in case anyone was nearby. "To her, this is a lost battle. It's like she said, she's already lost so this is technically one of her last options. And who knows what she left behind in the future. She could be fighting for something we don't know about. Someone maybe."

"I hate when you make sense," Belén sighed and ignored his smirk.

"Just try it. If there's anyone with a sweet voice it's you!" he swooped down and kissed her cheek.

"I'm gonna do it, you don't need to keep kissing up," she playfully rolled her eyes and pushed him away.

"K, gotta go!" Barry waved before rushing off.

Belén drew in a deep breath and prepared herself to go find that...unique...time traveler.

She moved back into the house in search of Graciela, but only found the three scientists working hard on those gauntlets-to-be, and then saw the other trio looking for traces of Savage. It led her to go back to the fields where Carter and Kendra were still going hard on that training, which looked rather frustrating for Kendra judging by those growls. Eventually, Belén spotted Graciela sitting on a rock just outside the shed. The closer Belén got, the better she could see Graciela was talking to something around her wrist.

"Show me London again," Graciela was instructing and suddenly a baby blue hologram flickered to life above the watch on her wrist.

It was not a pretty sight.

"Time hasn't changed," Graciela said with full disappointment. However, as soon as she saw Belén coming towards her, she pushed that disappointment to the back of her mind and turned the hologram off. She awkwardly cleared her throat and crossed her arms, effectively covering the watch.

"Hi," Belén was in the same awkward boat. "Um...I'm Belén, just in case you didn't get it before." Graciela gave a slight nod, but nothing more. Belén cleared her throat and came a little closer. "Were you talking to someone? Did I interrupt a conversation?"

Graciela shook her head. "Nah. People I talk to are a little bit busy right now...fighting…or dead..."

Belén raised her eyebrows, unsure of what to say to that. It looked like Graciela understood and decided to be nice and further explain the situation.

"I'm part of a rebellious group against Savage in my time….and even if I wanted to talk with any of my partners...they don't have this," Graciela revealed the futuristic watch on her wrist and gave it a gentle tap on its silver surface. "It's not even mine, to be honest."

"What do you mean by that?" Belén eyed the watch with a little more focus than before and saw it had some writing on the surface, but she couldn't make it out.

"It's my friend's - well, don't know if he qualifies me as a friend anymore. Either way, once he realizes I stole the watch from him he'll end up hating me even more, if that's possible. Unlike me, he's...proper," Graciela rolled her eyes. "He's part of this elite Time group and, to be frank, it's stupid. They know exactly what's happening to our world and they're not doing anything about it. And since my friend is too tied up in their rules to break anything...I did it." And even as Graciela retold the story, she didn't sound one bit regretful. "I have two friends in that stupid organization so I just waited for my moment to steal one of their watches. I needed to stop Savage."

Belén could see the struggle in Graciela's eyes to truly accept the consequences of her action. Graciela didn't regret it, but it didn't mean she was ready for what came next. "So it was worth it, then?"

Graciela's shrug was so little it barely looked like one. "I mean, I'm checking the future and everything is still the same, so...maybe it wasn't. I don't know." She shook her head and took a moment to calm herself by staring hard at the ground. She couldn't afford to feel doubtful, and much less to be ridiculous and cry. It was the journey she decided she would make for the sake of the world, despite what was coming for her.

"Are you-" Belén was just about to reach for Graciela's shoulder when the latter raised her head.

"Anyways," Graciela sniffed and rose from the ground with a whole new expression she was trying to make casual, "Sorry about your cardigan." She once again folded her arms and grazed the soft pink fabric of the cardigan. "Barry just offered them and I…"

"It's fine," Belén raised a hand to stop the woman. "I'm not that type of girl, trust me. Besides, you look good in pink."

"I don't like pink," Graciela bluntly reiterated.

"Right…" Belén looked away for a moment, and just in time to see Kendra falling flat on her back after a failed attempt to punch Carter. She scrunched her face, feeling the ghost of that pain from her own training. "That had to hurt."

Graciela followed Belén's gaze to Kendra and sighed. She walked a few steps towards the scene and watched it go on again. "If she keeps that up, we'll never take Savage down."

"She just discovered she's not really who she thought she was," reminded Belén. "That can't be easy to manage."

"We all have baggage," Graciela said too matter-of-factly to be genuine. "And we have to get over it in order to succeed. In order to live. Savage will use any weakness to kill. He's done it before."

"What do you know about him? For real?"

Graciela turned sideways to see Belén expectantly waiting for an answer. "That he's been here for a good while. He's helped build empires and he's watched them fall. All these centuries he's been calculating and he's struck whenever it was most convenient for him. He has an immense power that...only they-" she pointed back to Kendra and Carter, "-can take down."

"But why?" Belén wanted to know so badly.

"Because they're locked in a never ending cycle of life and death. I know you guys aren't big believers on magic, but it does exist. I would know," Graciela's eyes flickered a purple that made Belén take a step back. "I'm part of their world."

"You're definitely not a metahuman…"

"No. I'm something else, but…" Graciela shook her head, deciding it wasn't worth it. "It doesn't matter what I am. What matters is how we take Savage down. I don't exactly have all the time in the world. And to be honest, with every passing second I'm a little less faithful in those two over there."

"We just gotta give them some time," Belén's optimism wasn't met with much agreement.

"As much as it pains me to admit out loud, I'm going to need all of you," Graciela made a move to leave. Where she was going, exactly, she didn't know.

Belén turned after her, choosing to follow her. "Well I don't know how much help I'll be to be honest. I'm sort of struggling to hone in on my powers." That admission made Graciela abruptly stop. She turned sideways to give Belén a strange look.

"What? You don't have powers?"

"No - I…" Belén sighed, bringing a hand to her head, "I do have powers and I use them fairly well I should say."

"Then what's the problem?"

"That I'm weak. I've been dealing with a metahuman who's like me but not me. She's a siphoner and no matter how much I train, she still kicks my ass."

Graciela seemed to be confused judging by the scrunch of her face. "You're the Azalea. You're a botanical metahuman. Why don't you just go to the Green for help?"

Now it was Belén's turn to be confused. "The what?"

"The Green," Graciela shrugged. "That one place where botanical metahumans gather?"

Belén drew a blank on her words. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"This is why time traveling isn't allowed I guess," Graciela mumbled. "But screw it. The Green is famous for being the place where all botanical metahumans can meet and train, and converse."

Belén tilted her head while she thought about this place. "It's...it's kind of like the Speedforce with Barry. Like the place where your powers originate from. But how do you know about this place?"

"I read about it in the files," shrugged Graciela. "There's an article that, um..." she blinked then gave Belén a certain kind of look, "...you wrote, actually. It talked all about the Green."

"I wrote it?" Belén tried to wrap her mind around that one and considered it very unlikely due to the fact she didn't even know what that place was.

"Yeah, in the future."

"Well how do I get there?"

Graciela looked at Belén as if she were crazy. "I don't know. I'm not a botanical metahuman but you are so...figure it out." She have another shrug and turned to walk away like nothing, never seeing Belén's face.

~ 0 ~

It honestly was not that surprising that Merlyn had arranged a meeting with Savage to figure out what he wanted.

"What do you want?" Merlyn led the meet and hoped to God that Oliver and Barry would keep their idiotic mouths shut for once.

"What all living things want- not to die," Savage answered in well-mannered tone. For now, this was merely a conversation.

"I thought that wasn't a problem for you," Oliver said.

"Only if I take the lifeforce from Prince Khufu and Priestess Chay-Ara. The three of us are locked in a vicious circle played out over thousands of years. None of your concern."

"We've made it our concern," Oliver all but snapped and shot one of his arrows directly at Savage.

Savage, however, took the arrow to the chest like a scratch and pulled out the arrow like nothing. "Robin of Locksley. I taught him how to use a bow. He taught me how to not feel pain. I'm the enemy you can't defeat. The only way for you and yours to live through this is to render onto me what is mine. Turn over Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara within 24 hours, or I will lay waste to this city, killing everyone that you hold dear. And after that, I will travel to your home-" he directed a finger to Oliver, "-and do the same thing there."

"All right, I'm just curious- did you rehearse that speech in a mirror this morning, or this all just off the cuff?" Barry was slightly afraid, but it wasn't something he would say out loud.

"Why would you risk the lives of your friends and family for two strangers? 206 times I have killed them. What hubris possesses you that makes you think that you can prevent me from doing so again?" Savage paused his streak of questions to mock them with a laugh. "Oh, let me guess, the little time traveler? I certainly hope she's not your weapon because she will fail. I came to this meeting out of curiosity. It is now sated. Bring Khufu and Chay-Ara to Jurgens Industrial in 24 hours or I will see you dead and buried under the bodies of your loved ones."

He didn't even bother giving them a chance to respond. He was certain of himself and their choice anyways.

~0~

"We have 24 hours," Oliver started off exactly like that, without a readable expression. Everyone in the living room seemed lost.

"Until what exactly?" Kendra asked after a couple minutes of silence.

"Until we are supposed to hand you and Carter over to Savage, or-"

Carter all but rolled his eyes. He'd heard this so many times already. "Savage lays waste to Central City. Yeah. We've been through this before. 1887, the Huang He floods, Savage killed nearly two million people to get to us. And he did."

Though the revelation was huge, Plover didn't let it stop them. "We weren't helping you then. We are now. We have 24 hours to come up with a workable plan."

And no matter how much they discussed, it didn't make sense to Kendra. Eventually, she snapped. "No, this is insane! My life isn't worth millions of people's lives! You can all just stop!"

"Kendra!" Carter called as the woman stormed off.

"I'll talk to her," Cisco volunteered but Carter shooed him off. "Hey, I got this-"

Carter once again stopped him but this time with a mere look. "I said, I'll talk to her."

Cisco glared after the man then sourly said, "Hey, here's an idea- why don't we just toss him over to Vandal Savage?"

"Cisco," Caitlin disapprovingly said.

"Fine!"

~ 0~

"Hey," Belén called to Barry - who was inside the shed - but unintentionally startled him. He paused in what seemed to be a back and forth pace. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I was just wondering where you were since-"

But before she could finish, Cisco pushed past her in a dramatic manner. "-you basically missed the whole, save the city or turn my girlfriend over to an immortal psychopath briefing!"

Belén glared at Cisco's back but rolled her eyes in the end. She'd let it pass since what he said was indeed true.

"Um...sorry…?" Barry said in a questionable manner that forced Cisco to stop his complaining, and even the screwdriver he was about to throw in anger.

"Okay, what's wrong with you?" Cisco put the screwdriver down on the table.

"Seriously," Belén took full notice of Barry's nervous demeanor. He had his twitching fingers fiddling with each other when he wasn't putting his arms behind his neck...or his hands in his hair. "Can you stay still for a second?"

Barry dropped his arms when he realized what she meant. He'd been doing his best to keep it at bay, but the more he thought about it the more difficult it was to keep it a secret. "I...I don't really know how to say it…"

"Just say it, maybe?" suggested Cisco, earning himself a momentary look of sarcasm from Barry.

"Fine. Um...earlier when I was on my way to meet with Merlyn and Oliver...I ghosted."

"No…" Cisco immediately went, while Belén tried to understand on the first go.

"Yeah, I think I'm going-"

"-don't say it," Cisco wagged a finger at Barry, not that it mattered since Barry went ahead and said it out loud.

"I think I'm going to time jump."

"I just told you not to say it!"

"Cisco!" Belén exclaimed at the man in out rage while Barry apologized.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do!"

"Barry, you're fine, trust me," Belén said first, hoping to ease his guilt but Cisco had something else to say.

"The first rule of time travel is you don't talk about time travel!"

"Cisco!" Belén covered her face in frustration.

"Because by having this conversation, we're screwing history!"

"Cisco! What was he supposed to do? Keep it bottled up?" Belén gestured to Barry's already nervous state. "One more day and he might fall apart."

Barry wanted to argue in his defense, but it'd really only been a few hours and it was already killing him. "Look, I know that time travel has consequences. I mean, the last time you vibed-"

"-well, I'm not vibing anything right now," Cisco said, calmer than before. "Okay, um, all right, look, don't panic. A: you don't know that you time jumped for a bad reason. It could have been a good one, right?" Barry dutifully nodded, really hoping Cisco was right. "B: now that you know you time jumped, you might not do it, right? So knowing the future might change the present, which might change the future."

"My head hurts," Belén rubbed the side of her head, eyes flickering between Cisco and Barry. "How could anyone be attracted to either of you?"

Barry's and Cisco's looks of pure offence were rather amusing for Belén...not that she'd tell them.

"I'm gonna remember that one," Barry decided to warn, but Belén smirked in return.

"What are you going to do? Stop kissing me? Go ahead, we'll see who suffers more," she winked and turned to leave.

She purposely moved away from shed and even the house altogether. Once she felt like she was truly alone, she pulled out her phone and dialed.

"Belén, hello?" Iris' voice soon answered the call.

"Iris, hey! How are things at STAR Labs?"

"Don't worry, Nina and I are holding down the fort," Iris proudly said. Belén could even picture her friend smiling from ear to ear. "How are you guys doing with Savage and that time traveler?"

"Uuh...things could be better," Belén admitted. She brought a finger to scratch behind her ear. "Listen...I wanted to ask a favor."

"Sure thing! What do you guys need?"

"Well, it's not so much of a group necessity as it is...a necessity for me," Belén hated to admit right now when it was such a time for teamwork.

"Oh, okay, what is it?"

"I...I...I just recently learned that I can maybe meet with other metas who are like me...in another world."

"Really? How so?"

"I see it like Barry and the Speedforce. It's called the Green, and if I can access that world then I can maybe get a further understanding of my powers."

"That sounds cool! How do you access it!?"

"That's the thing. On my own, I'm not sure. I thought maybe if I found another botanical metahuman they could help me. And that's why I'm calling you."

"Okay, what do you need from me?"

Belén looked around as if someone was watching her. She didn't mean for it to be a secret, but right now it wasn't the right time to tell the others. They needed to focus on Savage. "Can you maybe start a research on any other botanical metahumans nearby? Other than Datura and Poison Ivy, of course."

"Of course," Iris repeated, both sharing a laugh afterwards. "I can definitely look into it. Just because we haven't heard about another botanical metahuman doesn't mean they're not out there."

"That's what I'm counting on," Belén sighed. "Because right now I need all the help I can get and this might be huge"

"I'll do my best, don't worry!" Iris promised.

Belén hoped there would be some light down that dark path Datura was leading her. Hopefully, it started with this...with another botanical metahuman.

~ 0 ~

"What do you guys have?" Graciela expectantly asked of Laurel, Thea and Diggle as soon as the trio returned from their unannounced trip.

"Has a simple 'hello' died in the future?" Thea joked, but Graciela looked unamused.

"Yes, that tends to happen when there's a dictator massacring people."

"Could've just said yes," Thea mumbled and moved away.

"We have something that might help us," Laurel pointed to Diggle who raised an old VCR tape.

Graciela looked lost. "What the hell is that?"

"Aw, I didn't know those still existed," Belén remarked as soon as she came in and saw said tape.

"Lyla hooked us up," Diggle explained. Of course ARGUS would hold onto something like that.

"Where's Felicity?" Laurel looked around for the missing blonde.

"Don't know," shrugged Belén. "Just like I don't know where Barry and Oliver are. You know when those two get together, their secret outings get annoying."

"Sounds more like Oliver's doing than Barry," Laurel said. "And you're right, it does get annoying."

"Well we don't need Felicity to play a tape," Thea motioned Diggle to come over to Felicity's laptop. "We'll just hook it up."

"I'll go get the others," Belén said and hurried to go find them. By the time she returned with the whole group, sans the three missing, Thea had successfully gotten the tape to display on the TV.

"The tape came from a conspiracy theory group that's interested in Savage," Diggle explained just before the tape would play. "Pentagon had a file on Savage back in '86, but it's all been heavily redacted."

Thea pressed the play option and soon a dark-skinned man appeared on the screen.

'My name is Dr. Aldus Boardman. I'm a professor at St. Roch University. The date is April 8th, 1975. I don't think anyone else knows this, and those that do, don't believe. He's a myth. An urban legend. He has been compared to Machiavelli and Nostradamus. He's gone by many names, but I know him as Vandal Savage, and he will be the death of the world. But I believe there is a way to stop him. Savage is an immortal, Egyptian priest. His long life is a result of an unearthly calamity. I believe that any object associated with this calamity should be able to undo its effects and kill him. And I suspect that our precious, fragile world may one day depend upon us doing so.'

Thea promptly turned the screen off and looked directly at Kendra and Carter. "Do you have any idea what he meant by these objects? This calamity?"

The two in question exchanged mutual confused looks.

"No, I-I don't recall a calamity," Carter answered first. "And the staff…"

"Staff of Horus?" Graciela chimed in. "That staff belonged to Savage back in ancient Egypt."

"How are you sure?" Diggle asked.

"Because I'm from the future and I read a lot?"

Kendra looked down at her feet when a couple images started playing in her mind. Though they were fast, and partly incoherent, she saw that golden staff in Savage's possession. Graciela was right. But she didn't want to admit she was remembering.

Luckily, Graciela always had good self confidence. She knew exactly what she was talking about. "That staff is key to killing Savage. We need to get it."

"Great, let's get it, then," Carter nodded and led the way.

It was dark when Barry, Felicity and Oliver returned to the safe house, though each at a different time. Oliver was the last and the moment he set foot in the field, Felicity caught him. Barry spotted them through a window and wondered what the hell was going on with those two, because one moment Oliver had him doing secret DNA tests and the next thing he knew Felicity was on his case for helping Oliver.

"What are you doing?" a voice startled Barry, making him knock his forehead against the glass. He quickly pulled away before Felicity or Oliver saw and turned around to see Belén standing there.

"What?" he rubbed his forehead.

"You have been secretive today and I feel like a babysitter," Belén stated plainly, thinking it was enough to make him cautious with his response.

"I...I honestly couldn't tell you what was going on because I don't know what's going on," Barry went with the honest truth. He was not going to get in trouble over something he had no part in.

Belén could more or less deduced he was being honest because he did look rather weary. She moved around him and peered out the window to see Felicity and Oliver presumably arguing. "Oh no. That's not good. Especially when we're about to fight an immortal man. What are they fighting about?"

"I don't know. Should we go out there-"

"-oh no," Belén whirled around, as if to catch him before he got the idea to go. "We are not getting anywhere near that fight. Our mission right now is to make sure Kendra and Carter are ready. Besides, it's a couple fight and...they're not really asking for opinions, are they?"

Barry gave a shrug. She was right. Oliver had been really secretive with that DNA test, making him swear to keep it from Felicity (which he failed but that's not the point). "Fine."

A couple minutes later, Oliver and Felicity came into the house but made beelines away from each other. One could only deduce that the argument did not end in good terms.

"We're coming up on Savage's deadline," Oliver took control of the group the moment he could. "Are the gauntlets working?"

"They have to be, we're out of time," Caitlin said after checking the clock in the living room.

"But I think they'll work," Cisco said in hopes of adding positivity to the mission. "That staff's going to go from "can't touch this" to "invisible touch."

"Savage doesn't know Kendra has access to her full abilities, which makes you our ace in the hole," Oliver's intense gaze on her made Kendra feel even worse. She felt nowhere near ready to fight, but there wasn't much of an option now was there?

"Okay," she nodded quietly.

"We're going to put you up against Savage; you attack with the element of surprise. I will lay down the cover fire. Barry, you speed in, and-"

"-snatch the staff, I got it," Barry said.

"So where do you need us?" asked Diggle.

"This is me, Barry, Kendra and Carter. We've got it."

There were various reactions from the group, but all seem to fall in a mutual disagreement.

"You can't sit us out," Belén frowned.

"No, we're not risking any more lives tonight than we have to," Oliver's tone hardened even more.

"I don't know how you run in the past, but I'm not following it," Graciela stepped forwards. "You can sit the rest out but I'm not doing it."

"It's not up for debate-"

Graciela's eyes flashed an angry purple, making the pipes of the house creak. Everyone around her, more so Felicity and Cisco, looked up in fear. "-you're right, it's not, cos I'm going."

Oliver stared her down but he had come to his match because she was not wavering. She knew exactly how these things went and she had enough practice as a crook to have her own strength.

"Let's go!" Graciela shouted to the others, choosing not to waste any more time.

However, even though she was on board the others were still more cautious.

"I think we can stay as backup," Belén was the one to say to Barry in the end. "I mean, I'd love to be there up front but...Savage might not realize it."

"Just don't tell that to Oliver," Barry muttered, watching Oliver head out the house. "He's out of it."

"Yeah, I really wish I knew what they fought about," Belén crossed her arms. "But look, right now we just gotta focus on Savage. Be careful, alright?"

Barry nodded. "You too."

"I've got the Black Canary on my side. I'll be good," Belén smiled cheerily. She leaned up and kissed his cheek, sending him on his way.

~ 0 ~

Savage was waiting in the warehouse just like he said he would. A sinister grin spread across his face when he spotted Oliver and Barry bringing in Kendra and Carter, the two wearing their suits as well.

"You brought them. And dressed for the occasion, I see," Savage moved forwards.

"We're only doing this because two lives aren't worth two cities," Oliver said.

"Well, in that case, you are wiser than I gave you credit for." Savage took a moment to look Kendra and Carter over, scoffing a minute later. "It's been a lifetime. Still wearing those ridiculous outfits, I see." He raised a finger to Oliver and Barry. "You don't need to be here for this. The culling has a tendency to be…" He paused as he drew a sharpened knife from his coat's inside pocket, "...unsightly." He turned the knife over for show, making sure both Kendra and Carter got a good look at what was coming. "Your new friends betrayed you."

"Just do what you're going to do," Carter snapped.

Savage smiled at Kendra, practically ignoring Carter. "It's wonderful to see you again, my love."

Kendra felt true disgust at the man. "I will never be your love."

"I know. That always makes this...easier. Chay-Ara, parting is such sweet sorrow." Savage raised the knife and offered Kendra one last smile before drawing it down.

"Now, Kendra!" Oliver screamed.

Kendra delivered a hard kick to Savage's stomach, knocking the man to the ground. She opened her arms, ready to become that weird warrior she was destined to be...but nothing came out. Graciela dropped in from the ceiling and shot a beam of purple energy to keep Savage down while Oliver prepared the gauntlets.

"LET'S GO!" she shouted.

Carter swiped the staff from Savage and tossed it over to Barry who, in turn, handed it to Oliver so that the gauntlets could make contact. A powerful blast erupted from the gauntlets immediately. It made Oliver stumble back but he kept his balance in the end. However, with all the energy hitting him, Savage was still able to get on his feet.

"Crap!" Graciela said just before Savage knocked her to the side with his own magic. Her body tumbled across the warehouse, only picking her head up in time to see him grab Carter's neck and stab him on the back.

Barry started speeding in a circle to create quick thunder, but Savage caught him midway with another blast. The speedster crashed into a set of metal machinery. Like Graciela, he looked up in time to watch Savage stab Kendra on the chest in one swift move.

"No! It's not working!" Graciela scrambled to get on her feet. Her eyes were a dark, almost demonic purple, as she made a run at Savage. The metal around her groaned as its properties were being forced to change at her will.

"Graciela!" Barry called, but at the same time the metal behind him pushed forwards. He barely escaped as it took Savage's body for a ride until Savage destroyed it with a hand movement. "What the hell…" Barry was truly tired of this magic business because he had no idea how to combat it.

He heard Oliver's groans and turned to see him still holding onto the staff and the gauntlets. "Oh God." His eyes widened because Oliver was starting to resemble an old man. The gauntlets and the staff combined seemed to be drawing Oliver's life source. "Oliver, let go!" he panicked when he was able to see bone.

"Barry? What's going on?" Belén's voice came through the ear pods.

"Oliver?" Laurel came in next. "We're coming in!"

"No! Don't!" Barry sped up beside Oliver. "Kendra and Carter are dead!"

"We're coming in!" Belén and Laurel said in unison.

"Please don't-" Barry couldn't finish on account of Graciela crashing into him.

Savage stretched an arm out for Oliver, but only attained his staff again. At the same time, both Belén and Laurel came running in to help.

"This isn't going to end well!" Graciela picked herself off Barry and looked back at Savage. "I know about this - Barry you have to time travel!" she said in quick whir, almost making Barry miss it.

"I have to what-"

"-A DO OVER! GO!" Graciela's scream came just as Savage plunged his staff into the ground, causing an eruption of bright blue energy. It wiped out everything around it, and before Barry knew what he was doing, he ran.

He didn't know what the hell was going on except that everything around him was being burned to death. His first thought went to Belén and the others. They'redeadthey'redeadthey'read.

But Graciela's last words came to mind: a do over. Time travel.

And that's when he remembered the 'ghosting'. All his previous fears of time traveling and causing a disturbance in the time lines went to hell. He needed to push himself or everything would be dead.

Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun. Barry went as fast as he could. The blue eradication behind him nearly caught him a few times but he was going to do it. Everything around him became a blue, but only for a few seconds did he see the 'ghost' of his past self running beside him. It disappeared within seconds...and as did the blurry world.

Barry came to a skidded stop in the same place Malcolm Merlyn wanted to meet.

"Thank you for coming…" he heard Oliver's voice, though it still sounded a bit garbled after all the running Barry did.

But once Barry saw the day was still early...he released a heavy breath.

A do over.

~ 0 ~

"What the hell is the Green?" Belén called out to Graciela after their odd conversation. She should've known talking to a future girl was not going to end well, but here she was doing what she could to help out. She turned in the opposite direction Graciela walked off to and started making her own way. She only stopped when she saw Oliver and Barry returning to the safe house after their meet up with Merlyn. "They're back!" she called to Kendra and Carter, forcing the two to stop their training (which, by the sounds of it, was not going well). She sprinted to get there first, and perhaps it was a good thing because Barry was not intending on keeping his time travel a secret. "Hey! What did Merlyn say?"

"Belén!" Barry forgot for a moment what he'd told Oliver and rushed to Belén. She was not expecting such a tight, needy hug but she would always accept one.

"Okay, what's wrong?" she patted his back and looked over his shoulder to Oliver. He had a face as well, like he was processing something.

"He time traveled," Oliver was the one to answer.

Belén's eyes widened in alarm, but even if she wanted to pull away from Barry to look at him...Barry wasn't budging. He pressed a kiss to her hair and held her tight. "Barry, you did what?" she pressed her hands against his chest to pull away. "Barry!"

With a groan, he finally let her go the amount she needed to see him face to face. "Yeah…"

"You're not supposed to do that…"

"Well, Graciela did it-"

"-yeah, and she's probably going to get into trouble. Believe me, I just learned she stole the time travelling watch on her wrist. Why'd you time travel?"

Barry lowered his arms to his sides and turned sideways so that he could talk to both her and Oliver. "We were fighting Savage but things didn't go so well. Everyone died...including you two."

"Oh…" Belén now understood his needy hug and felt the urge to hug him again.

"Graciela was the one to tell me to time travel and...I did," Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "She said she knew what was coming."

"She's from the future, of course she knew that," Oliver sighed.

"Look, what we were doing to fight Savage wasn't working. The gauntlets didn't work and Kendra couldn't access her powers. Savage killed them both and used his staff to create the explosion that killed everything."

"Okay, okay, we can work with this," Belén nodded, choosing to forget the death part right away. It technically didn't happen and she was just going think about that. "It's like when you discovered you went back in time to your mom. We use this as a study guide. We fix our mistakes."

"Right," Barry agreed and turned specifically to Oliver. "That means you, for starters."

"Me?" frowned the man in question.

"When we go up against Savage, your head's not in the game. You're not yourself. And I'm sorry to say this in front of Belén because I don't know if you were planning on telling anyone about it, but...I know you're going to ask me run a DNA test."

Oliver stiffened, ignoring Belén's strange look.

"That said test is going to cause you and Felicity to get into a huge fight. That fight sounded like it was over between you two."

"So when we go up against Savage, I'm not focused," Oliver concluded on his own. "I don't use everything we've got."

"What are we going to about the Kendra not being able to use her powers?" Belén quietly asked. "And the gauntlets?"

"I'll work on that," Oliver muttered, quietly thanking Barry for his knowledge of the future and walking off.

"Someone should tell Graciela," Belén said once they were alone. "She's already time traveled once, who knows what this might mean."

"That we failed?" Barry started for the house, rather glum now that he had time to settle. "She knew exactly what was going to happen when Savage took his staff, so this must have happened before."

"Which is exactly why we need to discuss with her. Maybe she has some pointers too," Belén picked up her pace and beat him to the front door, blocking his way in. "Let's make sure we don't make the same mistakes again."

"I won't," Barry promised her. A warm smile came to her face knowing what he meant. "I had to run and when I did...you were already dead…"

"Not happening again," she leaned forwards and gently kissed his lips. "Now let's do this...again…"

~ 0 ~

With the knowledge of their failed attempt to win Savage, the group worked harder than the first time. Cisco and Caitlin triple checked those gauntlets, and would have gone for a fourth had Oliver not convinced Cisco to try his hand at helping Kendra access her powers. The only one who seemed to be having trouble with the news, more than the others anyways, was Graciela.

"I mean, we'll get him this time," Barry attempted to ease her doubts before they gathered for another brief. Well, it was really more of a group effort with him, Oliver and Belén.

Graciela shook her head, looking far more concerned but it was pertaining to the fight against Savage. "You don't get it. You time traveled in the same period I did. That means they felt it."

"They? Who's they?" Oliver asked.

Graciela seemed reluctant to speak freely, but then again her options weren't so good anyways. She drew in a breath and leaned against the dining table. "The people I stole the watch from. They're Time Masters and...they have eyes all over the timeline. I knew that time travelling here would get me into some trouble, but I figured I'd have more time to finish things...but Barry time travelling in the same period I did, so close to the date I first arrived...they're coming for me, quicker now."

"Then we'll stop them," Belén said matter-of-factly, but Graciela shook her head.

"No, we're focusing on Savage. I want him dead by tonight."

"But if you're head's not in the right place, we won't be able to do that," Barry said, knowing exactly where he spoke from.

"I know," Graciela agreed. She took in a deep breath and used it to relax herself as much as she could. "I read about Savage's staff in the future. There were rumors that the timeline had been rewritten several times because he did the same trick. The Time Masters...they're very good when they want to be. They've restored the timeline, but...we can't let Savage do that again. For the sake of my home, and yours, he needs to die tonight."

"And I think I know how to make that happen," Kendra strode into the house with a new sense of confidence. Cisco seemed pretty happy as well, indicating his talk with her had gone well.

"I'm all ears," Graciela leaned off the table.

Kendra made sure the rest of the group were in the room so that she could explain herself. "I remembered how Savage killed us the first time back in Egypt. These sky rocks-meteors- they fell and they completely destroyed the royal palace."

"During the Middle Kingdom, Egypt experienced a high level of meteorite activity," Felicity recalled from her vast knowledge.

"That can be the calamity Professor Boardman was referencing in the tape," Caitlin realized quick.

"It makes sense," Kendra agreed. "The meteors, they had a glow about them. And Savage's staff had two gemstones with the exact same glow."

"So the gemstones might be made up of the same element as the meteorite," Barry made the connection as well. "That could be why the gauntlets didn't work the first time."

"Yeah, the gemstones might be made up of the same element as the meteorite. The Egyptians would use meteorite in their craftsmanship. And the minerals glow in proximity to each other," Cisco suddenly grinned when he got to add, "Like Sankara Stones."

"Oh, wait, the Indiana Jones reference is the only thing I understood," Thea looked to someone for help.

"Two pieces of the same meteorite, that is the key to counteracting the staff," Belén was proud to say that she understood.

Laurel got on her laptop fast when she remembered something about meteorites from their previous research on Egypt and Savage. "Look, there's there's a sample of the meteorite from the Middle Kingdom at the Keystone City Museum of Natural…"

But Barry took off without another word, leaving a wind trail behind him. He returned two seconds later with the meteorite in hand. "Got it!"

Cisco snatched it from his hand, gingerly holding it while he examined it. "I could synthesize the compatible isotope out of this and coat the gauntlets with it."

"That I did not understand," Belén mumbled to Thea who agreed with a hum.

"This can work," Graciela said with a newfound confidence. It was good because she knew by this time she was reaching high on the Time Master's priority list.

"It will," Oliver agreed. "Everyone else: suit up."

~ 0 ~

Like before, Savage was waiting for the group to arrive at the agreed place. However this time, everyone was ready for the 'trade off'.

"It's wonderful to see you again, my love," he said for Kendra, who shivered in disgust.

"I will never be your love."

"I know. That always makes this easier. Chay-Ara...parting is such sweet sorrow-"

But Kendra could not wait for him to finish. Oliver drew an arrow and shot the knife right out of Savage's hand.

Kendra immediately followed with her wings, and perhaps a hawk scream. She took Savage into her arms and pulled him into the air before dumping him on the ground. A black van screeched as it made its entrance into the building, making a quick swerve so that it's trunk faced the fight.

As soon as its doors flung open, the Black Canary's sonic scream filled the room. It forced Savage to stop fighting against Kendra and Carter for a second and fight off the sound waves.

It was then that Belén flung a vine and forced the staff out of Savage's hand. He growled and turned to retrieve it but Graciela delivered a consecutive wave of energy beams. Despite Savage's attempts to fight off the energy, he couldn't break free of the others' combats. It gave Barry the perfect shot to retrieve the staff from where it landed.

"Get clear!" he ordered. The group jumped out of the way just as he ignored the staff with the gauntlets. Savage was hit with the force of power, but it wasn't enough yet to take him down. He fought it with his bare hands.

Oliver joined Barry and together held the staff, hoping that between them it would be enough to stand against Savage. The others encircled the procession in case anything went wrong...but to their fortune...it didn't. The staff erupted with a new force of energy and burned Savage to ash.

Before Barry and Oliver knew it, the staff was no longer in their hands. It had disappeared.

"Did we do it? Is he gone?" Thea stared at the ash as if Savage was reform any second.

"Grace?" Belén nicknamed the woman without even noticing.

"I don't know, it's never happened…" Graciela admitted and turned her attention to Kendra and Carter for some additional help.

But like her, they were at a loss of words.

~0~

It was a beautiful day at Central City, especially when it was rid of villainous immortal beings.

"One Java chip and caramel macchiato for Belén!" a Jitters barista called as she pushed two coffee cups down the counter.

Belén was there to pick them up and return to the group waiting by the doors with their own drinks.

"Thanks," Graciela took her Java chip and took a moment to smell the sweet chocolatey scent. "Mmm, we don't have that smell at home anymore."

"Hopefully now you do," Kendra smiled, knowing Graciela was getting ready to return to the future.

"We'll see," Graciela raised her cup in the air before taking a sip. She moaned as she tasted the delicious drink. "Oh my God this is good!"

"So how do you feel now that Savage is pushing daisies?" Cisco asked Kendra and Carter once they were outside. "Does this mean you guys are the immortal ones now and he's the one who gets reincarnated? 'Cause that would suck."

"I just sprouted wings a few days ago, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around that," Kendra said, really just taking step by step.

"He does raise a good point, though," Barry admitted. It'd been the question they couldn't answer since last night. "Savage is gone for good now, right?"

"I don't know. We never defeated him before," Carter paused to think about something else they hadn't yet. "But we're free." Kendra agreed and hugged him.

"Ugh, get a room," Cisco muttered. Belén partes his back comfortingly, knowing he was doing his best to keep his feelings out of this.

"You finally have the rest of your lives in front of you. Have you thought about what you're going to do?" asked Oliver.

"Carter says in our past lives, we used to help people. And after everything you guys have done for me, I think I should give that a try," Kendra said with a sense of determination.

"You make it sound like this try is happening somewhere else," Belén noted, feeling worse for Cisco.

"In our prior incarnation, we used to live in St. Roch, and we really liked it there," Carter looked at Kendra, but she was already gazing at Cisco.

"Could Cisco and I have a moment?" she asked softly.

"Of course," Carter was the one to say and led the way away.

Graciela ominously checked her time watch and saw a red dot blinking on the screen. She quietly cleared her throat and took another sip of her coffee.

"Hey Grace - sorry," Belén has caught herself before and she hated that she kept doing it.

"It's fine," Graciela smiled. "I kinda like it."

"I was just going to ask...about that place you talked about before?" Belén awkwardly smiled. "The Green?"

"Right," Graciela released a breath, giving the wrong indication that she didn't want to go further on that subject.

"I mean I totally understand if you're trying to keep the timeline in tact and all...we don't have to-"

"-no, we can," Graciela looked at the whole group with a smirk. "It's not like I was one for keeping it intact, right?"

"Still…"

"Look, Belén, I'm not an expert on the Green. I just read about it, from your article I'll remind, and there's always rumors about it. Every botanical metahuman has a connection to that place."

"How do you get there, though?"

"You command it with the mind but you physically go in," Graciela shrugged. "I think it's just up to you to access it."

"Oh, well, that should be easy," Belén sighed.

Barry placed a hand on her shoulder. "And she'll get it. Because she always does."

"Thanks for the support," Belén languidly said and drank dejectedly from her coffee.

"So what are you going to do now?" Oliver inquired from Graciela. "Go back home? Or…"

Graciela didn't tell them she heard the alert on her watch getting louder, they'd soon see for themselves. "Home. I don't belong in this time and...I knew what was going to happen when I stole the time watch."

"About that..." Barry was cautious in how he spoke about the matter, "...the people you stole it from...are they going to be okay with that? I mean, you said your friend, right?"

"I don't regret it," Graciela reiterated, though now she was looking past the two metas. They, along with Oliver, followed her gaze to see a portal opening and letting in a group of uniformed men and women.

"Who are they?" Oliver narrowed his eyes on what he perceived as the threat.

"The Time Masters, coming to collect their prisoner," Graciela drank the last of her coffee and dumped it into the trash bin behind her.

"Graciela Haynez," a man from the group called as he led the way. "You are under arrest for theft and illegal time traveling." Just as Graciela was raising her hands, the man yanked her arms harshly and turned her around to cuff her from behind.

"What are you doing to her?" demanded Barry, ready to step forwards when Graciela called for them to stay still.

"It's okay! Don't do anything!" she faced the man that shot her with a glower. "It was worth it. The Time Masters' organization is a sham. It's full of convenience."

"And yet you fraternize with two of ours," the man behind her made sure to say loudly, as if it would shame her into silence. "You calling them fake as well?"

Graciela rolled her eyes. "They're my friends, and they're genuine, but they don't have the power to change the entire system. So I took it into my own hands. And now I'm ready to face the consequences."

"Graciela Haynez, ," the man pushed her to turn for the portal, but she fought to turn around and face him. "You have changed the timelines without consent-"

"-I don't care!" she snapped and smacked his chest with her shoulder.

"You also have murder on your tracklist, according to London's authorities-"

"-and!?"

"Barry, they're hurting her!" Belén attempted to move but Barry and even Oliver held onto each of her arms.

"She said not to," Oliver reminded, but it was hard to watch knowing how it was going to end.

The group had moved in on Graciela, each attempting to subdue her. Despite being cuffed, Graciela did put up a fight.

"I'm not resisting! I just want to say goodbye!" she yelled frantically. "That's my legal right, isn't it? Or has your corrupted system taken that out as well?"

The Time Masters seemed unsure and looked to their leader for a command. The leader, in turn, noticed the people around them starting to stare. He gave a nod for them to pick Graciela up and give her what she wanted. Once she was back on her feet, two of them held her arms and walked her up to the trio.

"What's going to happen to you?" Belén asked, her eyes flickering to the dangerous-looking people behind Graciela.

Graciela shrugged, returning to normal within the second as if things weren't going down like this. "I'm going to jail."

"And you say it just like that?"

"Because that's what she was always going to do," Oliver realized,

Belén whipped her head in his direction. "What?"

"He's right," Graciela nodded. "It was the plan. I said it."

"But why?" Belén found herself asking. And to be fair, it was a good question. Graciela had the means to run and hide after all. "That watch can take you anywhere."

"I also said I stole it from a friend that I...deeply care about," Graciela's eyes lowered for a minute. It gave enough indication of just how much she cared for this friend. "If I know this... organization enough, then I know they're probably dragging him through the mud thinking he gave me the watch in secret."

"You're clearing his name by putting yourself in jail," Barry nodded.

"I love him. I can't do that to him," Graciela nodded to herself. She would never openly admit that but she wasn't ever going to see any of these people again. "He's one of the two who are honestly trying to help people, unlike this lot."

"Will we ever see you again?" Belén assumed she knew the answer, but she had to try.

Graciela shook her head. "Probably not. But it was really cool meeting you guys." A big grin came to her face. "I always read about the metas from the 21st century. I think you guys are the most famous, honestly. The Azalea, the Flash and the Arrow - not to mention Supergirl and Solar? You guys are awesome. And for a crook like me to actually get to fight alongside you guys...it gives hope that maybe one day a new Jinx might take up the mantle and do some good."

"Let's go," called the leader.

"Bye guys," Graciela offered a smile before she was forced to turn around.

"No, wait!" Belén called but it was too late.

Graciela was forced through the portal with all the Time Masters around her as if she would escape. In two seconds she was gone with no trace after her. It was as if things never happened.

~0~

After saying goodbye to everyone else, and boy was it a decent amount of people, Belén was ready to return home. Home sweet home. But after such an intense two days, it was a bit difficult to unwind and just...be normal again.

"Not hungry?" Barry asked two times before Belén finally heard him. They were at her apartment, attempting to have a normal dinner that night. Things weren't going that well.

Belén stopped picking at her plate and put her fork down. "Sorry. I'm tired...and I just can't stop thinking about…"

"Grace?" Barry finished for her and got a nod from her.

"It's too bad her nickname caught on after she got sent to jail," Belén sighed and pushed her plate away. "I'm sorry. Thanks for dinner but I'm not very hungry."

"Yeah, I see that," Barry got up from his seat and moved to Belén's chair. He held his hand out for her and pulled her up from her seat. "And I'm sorry I can't do anything to help you."

"I'm not the one that needs help," Belén pointed out. "It's Graciela. I mean, she helped us take down Vandal Savage and what's her prize? Jail."

"Belén, she stole a time watch and she time traveled illegally. Those are crimes in her time," Barry sighed. "I mean I know I should look at who's talking, but…"

"I know," Belén nodded, but it didn't make it easy to deal with. "I just think it's not fair."

Barry took her to the living room and sat down on the couch. He gently pulled her body onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.

"Kind of puts our morals into question, doesn't it?" Belén rested her head over his shoulder. Her light breathing tickled Barry's neck. "She did a bad thing to do a good thing. And from what I got, she used to do bad things but she turned a new leaf. I hope she's being treated decently."

"Mhm," Barry pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Belén let a few minutes pass in silence. Her body was tired, as was her mind in general. She felt so comfortable with Barry right now, she didn't want it to end. "Hey Barry, can you stay tonight?" she picked her head up and brought a hand to his shoulder.

Barry didn't want to say it out loud but staying overnight was something they both needed. She died in an alternate timeline, after all. The burning blue behind him wasn't something he could forget so easily.

"Just...to sleep, just sleeping," Belén said after a minute passed without Barry's response. They hadn't really stayed in the same bedroom since they fought the Reverse Flash, but even then it'd only been to sleep, nothing more.

Barry felt his face warm up but he quickly nodded in an attempt to hide it. "Yeah, of course. Just to sleep. Sleeping is good. Good, good, good…"

A smile came to Belén's face, as well as a light chuckle. "Thanks. I love you."

"I love you too," Barry smiled with her. He tucked some of her hair behind her ear and kissed her.

~0~

Graciela was pushed down into a rusty, metal chair of an interrogation room. Her wrists were forced down on the table and kept there like magnets.

"Do we really have to go through this when I am pleading guilty?" she raised an eyebrow at the Time Master in front of her. "I just needed a chance to clear up any mistakes in your file."

"We already know what happened," the man said matter-of-factly. "The Time watch in your possession belonged to our fellow Time Master, Rip Hunter. Question is, how'd you convince him to hand it to you?"

Graciela didn't know whether to laugh at how ridiculous that was, or cry out of frustration that she had to once again repeat her entire guilty plead. "You're kidding right? I thought of a plan and I executed it on my own. Rip didn't have anything to do with this and the idea that he willingly gave up his watch is laughable." The Time Master stared long and hard at her while he deduced whether or not she was being honest. Graciela just smirked in the end because no matter much trouble she was in, it was damn worth it. "I did what you all wouldn't. A Jinx might have saved the world. Vandal Savage is dead."

The man across her did not seemed fazed. "Is he, though?"

Graciela's smirk faltered. "What?"

"Vandal Savage is crucial to our timeline, to our world. You cannot kill him."

By now, Graciela's smirk was gone. "What - what are you talking about?"

"He will live, because he is meant to." The Time Master snapped his fingers and the interrogation room door opened. "Because this is only the beginning of things. You did exactly what you were supposed to do, what we saw you doing."

"You don't - you can't say that! He's dead!" Graciela started pulling at her wrist binds, essentially pulling at the table. "He's dead!"

"He lives," the man reiterated with such confidence it rocked Graciela to the core.

"NO!" she started screaming when two men entered the room to unbind her from the table to take her away. "STOP! HE CAN'T LIVE! Not after what we did! STOOOP!"

Her echoes carried out even as she was dragged away.

#ocappreciation #arrowverseocs #the flash #legends of tomorrow #the flash fics #the flash imagines #fd: the flash #lot #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: Graciela Haynez #oc: the azalea #oc: the Jinx #fic: rise up #fic: redemption

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wafflesetc · 5 years ago

Text

I’ll be there for you, Chapter 6 (previously)

A/N: This one is long. So buckle up! I owe a kidney to @kkruml who has looked at about 6 different versions of this. And to @walkinginland and @happytoobserve who also read multiple versions, held my hand through some tough parts, and gave encouragement along the way. I couldn’t do it without you guys. And you know, the end of this chapter is a little NSFW. I mean, most people are working from home now.. But you’ve been warned.

The One With The First Fight (Part 2)

Jamie 2:30 AM

He looked down at the screen of his phone.

‘Just tell me you are safe.’

He had said things he hadn’t meant. He had said things that were sore. He had said words that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He thought back to growing up and having fights with Jenny. His Mam used to tell them to take back the words they had spoken to one another, that they were brother and sister, by tomorrow all would be forgotten because- that’s what family does.

He closed his eyes and took a sip of whisky. The bar was still somewhat alive, even for a Tuesday night. He could picture her right there almost as if she were standing right next to him: The bright red hair he had inherited from her, her soft grey eyes and that strong brow his sister had. He could see it: her hands on her hips, the small raise of her brow and a glare in her eyes that scared him deep into the marrow of his bones from the time he was a small lad.

“Ye are not here to help me with this one, mam.” He whispered to himself.

He knew better than to storm out in a rage, yet this was uncharted territory. He and Claire had moved so fast there had barely been time to realize that they had yet to set some boundaries in regards to their relationship. And Claire- the stubborn, fierce, strong woman that she was, was carrying newfound cargo- a life that was half of him, half of her. It was a surreal and sobering thought, the idea of bringing a new life into this world. Someone he’d have to love unconditionally, someone who’d need him for the rest of his. And by some miracle, it was also not just this small life, but Claire that was in it with him. She was no doubt his forever, surely he did have a small say in some matters.

He took another drink of his whisky, emptying the contents. He raised the glass signaling the bartender for another round.

Just this one more and then he’d go home.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and a familiar voice in his ear, “Fancy seeing you out.”

He turned to find Mary smiling at him. He saw the glimmer of a ring on her finger. A small sense of relief flooded through him. It wasn’t that he’d dodged a bullet, but in some ways he was thankful for Mary for letting him go- for she was the reason his daft mind finally made all the pieces click- that he’d been in love with Claire from the beginning. He was thankful she’d seemed to find the same happiness he had found.

“Looks like congratulations is in order.”

“Ah yes,” She took the seat next to him. “It was rather quick but I guess when you know, you know.”

The bartender arrived asking what she wanted. “A whisky, neat please.” She hung her purse on the edge of her barstool and smiled, “How are things with you?”

“Och,” He let out in a small Scottish grunt. “I am sitting alone in a bar in the middle of the night, how do ye think it’s going?”

“I know you, Jamie…” The server placed her drink in front of her and Mary reached for it, taking the first swig. He looked at her with pleading eyes, a sense of helplessness running through him.

“You’re a good man- a loyal one no less. I also ran into John at the store a few weeks back, he said you and Claire were finally together.”

“We are.” He smiled ruefully and took a sip of his own drink. “Happened rather quickly, but we are… And uh, we’re actually expecting too.” Jamie felt the tips of his ears burning.

“Seems like you sure move fast then too!” Mary grabbed her tumbler and tipped towards him, “Cheers then.”

“Uh…Cheers.” He attempted to seem like he was in good spirits, but he could tell Mary knew it was just a facade.

“Still, you’re not a man who tends to sit at a bar, alone, in the middle of the week.”

“And ye are no’ a woman to be here in the middle of the night like this either.”

She laughed at that and nodded, “You’re right. My fiance’s flight is delayed because of a mechanical problem… If I had gone home I would fall asleep. Figured I would catch a dram before I get him.” She took a swig of her own beverage. “But you, look like you need to talk.”

“It’s a long story…” He tried to stop there but she raised a brow at him and ordered another round of drinks.

And it came pouring out him-all of it. He hadn’t known he needed to talk about- least of all his ex girlfriend- but apparently he did. He told her about Claire- how she grew up, how she became a doctor, how he had moved in with her, how they had happened. She listened and listened, and finally once he was done speaking shook his head at her in sheer exasperation.

“Ye are a smart man, Jamie Fraser, but ye sure are a daft one sometimes.” He saw her laugh at him.

“I need ye to explain that one, lass.”

Her breath shook as her phone buzzed on the counter. “You are right- she needs to be more careful and she needs to listen to your concerns… But Jamie, she also is right. She’s a doctor and a good one from what I hear. She won’t do anything that would harm her or your child intentionally, but it’s her body. Only Claire can be the one to know when enough is enough.”

Mary stood and pushed her barstool in. “Neither one of you wants to concede to the other and I’m not saying there’s a winner in this fight, but Jamie… Giving her space and allowing her to be in control seems to be a big piece of who she is. This is all as new to her as it is to you, except she’s the one who’s growing the human.”

“So what is it ye are telling me to do?”

“Weel, I am telling you, that you need to tell her how you feel- but you need to be okay with whatever her decision is. It’s teamwork and compromise. You’ll find your balance, you both will.”

And with a smile she hugged him and was on her way. He felt a sense of peace rush through him, in some ways he thought it was almost relief. He would forever owe Mary for making him realize what he had with Claire. Mary had been good and kind to him, nurturing his soul in ways that he wasn’t sure he would ever fully understand. Yet, through the ups and the downs there had always been the one constant piece in all of it.

Claire. Sorcha.

He threw the cash on the bar top and shook his head knowing exactly where he was headed.

Ye wee daft man, ye must go and repent yer words while you still can.

Claire 4:45 AM

I heard the deadbolt.

He turned it slowly and opened the door. I knew he would know I was waiting for him. He always had a keen sense of things like that.

“And just where do you think you’ve been?” I finally asked once the door was closed.

I watched as he tossed his keys onto the table and shrugged his shoulders, “Out.”

“That doesn’t answer my question…” I sat up on the couch and wrapped the plaid blanket tighter around me.

“Sassenach… It’s late. Ye havena had a good night’s sleep in at least two days and I am exhausted. Go sleep in our bed. We can talk when yer rested.”

That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Just earlier he had reprimanded me for coming home and wanting to sleep and not talk- now I was the one who wanted to talk and he was telling me to go to sleep.

Circles, we were running around each other in circles.

It was infuriating me.

We’d talk, now, whether he liked it or not.

“James.” I rose from the couch and crossed my arms. I seldom used his full name like that.“You were out all night after getting mad at me when I said I didn’t walk to talk. I think I am owed the decency of knowing where you were!”

I could feel frustration oozing out of me.

I had worked nearly three days in a row. There had been accident after accident, trauma after trauma. I had nearly doubled my surgeries from my last three rotations earlier that week with this weekend stint at the hospital.

I barely had time to enjoy a cup of coffee, let alone a minute to tell Jamie what was going on. I hadn’t come home to eat, sleep, shower, or give him the knowledge of what was happening.

“Claire,” He breathed. I could hear a small sense of anger rising in the pronunciation of my name. “I went to clear my head, I stopped at the place down from here, the one that is open late.”

He took a step closer towards me and came into the dim light. He was still in his office clothes from the day before- he wore a solid white button down with khaki pants, but now he looked tired and worn down. Though the small light from the lamp on the end table didn’t illuminate the entire room, it was bright enough for me to still see a small piece of red lipstick on the outside of his collar.

I kept my arms folded, standing my ground. The anger and exhaustion was catching up to me. Tears were near the surface.

“Och!” He threw his arms up in frustration when he read the look on my face. “Ye really want to do this, then?”

I pursed my lips and nodded.

“Like I said,” He hissed through his teeth, “I was at the place down the street, I have receipts if ye must see them!”

“That’s not what I want to talk about and you know it!” My voice was louder than usual but cracked at the end. It was taking everything in me to remain even the slightest bit composed.

He fisted his hands and took a step closer to me. We were now just a foot apart. I could smell the whisky coming from him.

“What is it, then?”

I scanned his eyes and saw he was completely helpless- he really had no clue.

“There’s lipstick- on your collar.” I could feel the tears rising to the surface. It was a mix of exhaustion and hormones, that I was sure of.

“Sassenach…” He whispered my name, I could hear the plea behind it, “Ye dinna think, that I…. Ye mustn’t?”

I shook my head and sat down on the edge of the sofa, “No….NO.” I put my face into my hands. “I know you didn’t…”

“Let me explain.” He took a seat next to me but kept some distance away, but placed a hand on my knee.

“I was sore, said things to ye before that I dinna mean.” I turned my head and looked at him. His face was earnest and I saw a small hint of a smile. “I went there to clear my head, hoping ye’d get tired enough and just crash… But I see no’ telling ye where I was was no’ wisest choice.”

That earned him a laugh as I shook my head, “No, you bloody Scot. You kept me up worrying!”

“Aye, I see that.” He scanned my face and scooted a little closer. “I was finishing up when Mary walked in.”

That sent a flash of anger through me and caused me to stiffen in resposne.

“Let me finish.” His voice was shaky but I could hear the determination in it. He closed the distance between us- our knees were touching, my hands in his. “She’s engaged now… And she was waiting to pick up her fiance from the airport. We just talked. I told her all about you.”

It still wasn’t enough to make me feel better.

“I told her about the wee lass.” He reached and put a hand on the small swell of my lower abdomen. “And she helped put things into perspective for me.”

“And just how did she do that?” I was jealous. I had never disliked Mary- she was a kind, smart, well rounded woman. Her helping my Jamie in a way struck a chord in me that I didn’t know I had.

“She gave me warmth, when I was questioning all of my choices.” He took a deep breath and tilted my face to his so we were eye to eye. “She gave me understanding and a sense of enlightenment when I needed it most.”

Daft man. I laughed out loud and could feel my own fists clenching.

“That’s what I am supposed to be, for you! You bloody Scot” My voice was louder than usual and cracking.! I took a breath and shrugged my shoulders, “At least, I think that’s the way this is supposed to go!”

I laughed again and steadied my voice. “This is our life we’re working through. Our relationship, our child, our future! I know we went from zero to one hundred rather quickly.. But you need to talk to me and no one else!”

He laughed at me and I let a tear fall. “Ye are just as daft as I, mo nighaen donn.”

He wiped the tear with his thumb. “Ye are for me what I am for you, but this..” He rubbed my stomach, “Has turned our world upside down rather quickly and we dinna ken what we are doing, together. We ken what we would do when we were alone and no’ together, but it’s no’ like that anymore.”

Slowly, I was starting to realize what he meant.

We had both been overworked, over tired, and stretched thin. He hadn’t been understanding of the requirements of my job and I hadn’t been receptive of his issues, especially since I was carrying our child. Instead, I had walled myself in and closed myself off. I had thought only of myself through all of this, with little regard to Jamie’s concerns at all.

This was new to me- new to him. We were in uncharted waters and if it was scary for me then I knew it must be for him, as well. But at the end of all of this, I knew there was no one I’d rather navigate treacherous waters with, than him.

“I have you, and we have her.” He kissed my forehead. “We dove into this head first and havena stopped since. We need to set some boundaries- and I must be more understanding of the circumstances of yer job.”

“And I need to clue you in a bit more…” I turned my face to his, nuzzling our noses. “And be more cautious of the cargo I am carrying.”

“Aye.” He breathed.

He kissed me, soft and slow. His tongue traced my bottom lip and I reached for his neck, pulling him on top of me.

Swiftly, his hands were on the waistband of my scrubs. In one fluid motion he had them off and strewn somewhere in the room. It was a flurry of events: my hands were in his hair and then I was scrambling to lift his shirt over his head. I could feel the sense of urgency pulsating through him. The need for reassurance, the closeness we were both seeking. Our lovemaking was always a risk- exposing our most vulnerable parts to each other, yet my soul was safe in his hands. I always knew that.

His mouth was hot and heavy on my neck as I fumbled with the button on his khakis, “I want ye Claire. I want ye so bad I can scarcely breathe. Will ye have me?”

I laughed into his next kiss, surprised he was asking, but finding it oddly romantic, “Yes… Yes I’ll have you.”

It wasn’t like I was going to say no, bloody Scot.

He trailed kisses up my chest as his hands found their way to my scrub top. Slowly he pulled it over my head and tossed it into the abyss. I laid my back down onto the couch as I watched him discard his shirt. His muscles tensed and even in the dimness of the room, the moon illuminated his every definition.

By some miracle he was mine.

His shirt fell just between the coffee table and couch. My eyes followed the curve of his abs as his hands hastily pulled my undergarments down my legs.

“Mo Chridhe,” he whispered, “Mo nighean donn.”

His hand worked quickly to rid himself of his clothes as I took in his full form. He wanted me, he wanted me badly.

Jamie lowered himself onto me trailing kisses from the small swell on my stomach until he reached my mouth. He fisted his hands into my hair while reaching for my hips so he could align my body just right.

He stopped for a moment, his fingertips pulsing against my skin, but his eyes locked on mine. His face scanned mine looking for something. What- I didn’t know nor did I care.

All I wanted was him. Body and soul.

I was quite literally bare and naked before him- nothing to protect me. Yet while I was in my most vulnerable state, Jamie saw right through me, as he always did.

Whatever he was searching for he found the answer. He situated himself between my legs and guided himself into me. We were as close as we could be, yet it didn’t seem like it was enough. It never was.

His movements were slow and methodical. He was taking the time to make sure I knew he was mine just as I was his.

As his pace started to gradually pick up, I could feel the wave building and building. Our eyes met and I saw a small smile form on his lips. We rode it together knowing whatever murky waters we might face in the future, so long as we were together, that was all that mattered.

#Outlander #Outlander Fanfic #Jamie x Claire #Jamie Fraser #Claire Beauchamp #I'll be there for you AU #IBTFY II #YEAH IMMA DROP THIS AND THEN JUST LEAVE #craigh na queue

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travelingbytastebuds · 4 years ago

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CONGOLESE {DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO/REPUBLIC OF CONGO}

WHERE: Homecooked! I don't get to do a lot of field trip now that I'm working through the long list of African countries as there aren't as many African restaurants out there. And the few that ARE out there usually stick to cuisine from Ghana (already crossed that one off my list) or Senegal (which I'm saving for a field trip I can take in Spring) or what I will call just 'miscellaneous West African'. This weekend I got to go on a little tasting field trip though. Yay, getting out of the house! It started with going to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for their Congo Masks exhibit. I have been to the VMFA before for their picnics outside but in all my years of living in Virginia I never ventured inside. I always thought it was nothing more than a lot of European 18th century paintings, but I was surprised to see that it took 'art' to mean more creative cultural artifacts than just paintings. There were rooms full of Egyptian artifacts, Roman artifacts, Asian, ect and then some strange modern art fixtures. The Congo Masks exhibit was beautifully done-- lots of masks, movies of their dances, information on the countries that make up the Congolese rainforests. Most of it was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The giant map on the wall that showed just how many tribes were in the Congo blew me away. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is ethnically diverse, and more than 200 different ethnic groups have been identified in the region. An estimated 215 native languages are spoken in the country alongside French, which is the official language in the country. When you think about it, that's only one country out of 58 in Africa.. so take that 'hundreds of tribes' number and multiply it over and over and over again... and they all have their own music, food, clothing, religions, masks, art-- it's amazing how much culture is really contained in the continent. Europeans used to like to think that they "civilized" and "culturalized" Africa, but when you stand in front of that map and think about how much art and culture there was it's mind boggling. Especially when I know how hard and intricate some of that art is to make (African food will be the death of my kitchen, I swear). It's humbling.

I got to talking to one of the museum workers who were there about the Traveling By Tastebuds project after she asked me if I liked the exhibit. She was really intrigued and said I should start a blog. I'm working on it, I'm working on it... Then after MANY hours spent in the museum, I decided to see if I could remember where I had seen the package of instant fufu. All the ethnic grocery stores around here are starting to blend together-- I stopped by Europa Food Mart but they had never heard of it before. The lady looked at me completely puzzled and just asked, “Fu... fu...?” That seems to be the most common reaction when I talk to foodies about African cuisine. I go into cooking forums online to ask questions and I swear I can hear crickets. (Hence another reason why African cooking will be the death of my kitchen.) I find it strange that of all the cuisines in the world, African is the only that seems rare and unknown. Anyway, I was so sure Europa Food Mart was the place, but no. So off I went to 2 Fish & 5 Loaves Global Market-- which Google listed as an African grocery store. The store was pretty awesome. All these ingredients that I've been reading about after pursuing all these recipes were right there on the shelf, they weren't just words I thought the recipe writers were just making up anymore, heh. I found some red palm oil and yes, the instant fufu. The owner was very helpful and told me if I had any questions about recipes in the future I could always come back to the store to ask her. She even helped me with some pronunciations after realizing what I was trying to say and then having to correct me. There was also a guy there who was friends with the shop keep. He starred at my pale white ass and asked in a thick West African accent, “Fufu? How you know dis fufu?” I explained a bit about my project to him. “How you know how to make dis fufu when you get home?” He asked, teasing me. “I don't think you know how to make da fufu.” “Well, the instructions are right on the box.” I smirked and teased him back. “I'll just read them.” The shopkeeper started laughing at that and told him in her own thick accent. “She got you. She got you!” Then the guy realized I was serious about trying my hand at trying this meal, so he started talking about how to make it, how it was different if you cooked in a pot or microwaved, how many different flavor fufu came in, some of his memories from back home of his mother making it, what consistency it should be, how I could troubleshoot some cooking problems if they happened-- it really was a very interesting conversation that was practically a half hour long all about “da fufu”. I thanked him for all his advice and told the shopkeeper I'd be back again sometime. They wished me luck. They were really cool. Nice little mom and pop shop.

Once I got home, I made the chicken moambe (which is the national dish of both Congos). The stew came out really good-- full of peanut butter (African cuisine puts peanut butter in EVERYTHING-- never moved here if you have an allergy, lol), tomato and onions. I browned the chicken a bit too long though and the chicken turned out a bit like hockey pucks. Not inedible though, just oddly... crunchy. Lol I also made fufu-- which is eaten in a lot of African countries to sop up stew. I'm not sure if I made it correctly though. The guy in the store said it was supposed to be sticky, but it ended up tasting like yam-flavored putty with the consistency of pizza dough. Eh... I don't think I actually know how to make da fufu. I microwaved it though, next time I'm gonna try it on the stove. I also burned many of my fingers since the directions said to kneed it for a minute after pulling it out of the microwave, but it was so sticky that when I actually pulled it out of the microwave and dug my fingers into it all that happened was getting burning putty stuck to my fingers in a way that I couldn't get it off. I think I burned off quite a few of my fingerprints with that mistake. For dessert, I made a peanut butter (AGAIN with the peanut butter!) mousse dessert from the Republic of Congo-- with coconut and chocolate decorative garnish. It was my first time making mousse and first time using gelatin. I think I used a bit too much gelatin because it ended up really wiggly like Jello when I always thought mousse was supposed to be more of a firm pudding. The taste was good, the texture was weird. All in all-- it was pretty good but I need to learn to execute the recipes better. Again, I say, African cooking will be the death of my kitchen... but hopefully I'll get better with it! There are 54 countries in the continent after all! Chicken Moambe: Recipe Here! Congo Peanut Butter Mousse: Recipe Here! Fufu: Available on Amazon.com

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bone-wolves · 4 years ago

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The wolves of Rowan’s Shade pack were gathered round the large clearing before the gnarled roots of their titular tree. Some lay on the ground, relaxed and watching with interest, others were distracted by an itch, or an amiable snap-argument with their neighbor. But one wolf stood completely and utterly focused on him, and Srokacz felt the weight of that gaze like a chill wind cutting through him, as if she were looking inside him.

“You’ve grown so much since we found you,” Enit said, pleased. “You’ve become an adult, and with that your full status in the pack is realized.”

“I-” Srokacz stumbled over his words a little, hurriedly, to cut her off before she spoke more. “I have a request, lead wolf. Enit.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ears of those wolves in his peripheral vision perk. Pietro, who’d been laying on a root near Enit in the honored place of The Companion, tensed suddenly, eyes scrutinizing the young wolf in a way that sent a far different sort of chill through Srokacz.

“I know that your way...the way of this pack, is that you, Lead, grant a name to a wolf on adulthood,” Srokacz said, taking a deep breath and steeling himself. “But I, I already have a name.”

A murmur ran through the pack. Every wolf had a ‘name’, a nickname, something that the others called them through puppyhood and adolescence until they came into their true name. Srokacz had a few as well; Little Spot, Scruffy, Bright Eyes. But those weren’t his name.

“Oh,” Enit cocked her head, a flicker of something glittering through the air around her head, a flurry of movement in her fur, accompanied by the flash of white (like teeth, Srokacz thought), as a grin grew on her face. “You’ve been an interesting pup, and I see that you’re starting adulthood in an interesting way as well.”

“Well, you see,” Srokacz licked his lips, a little nervous though he wasn’t sure if the nervousness came from Enit’s hawk-eyed attention or Pietro’s continued scrutinizing gaze. “Before I came to your pack, when I was still with my mama and tata, before the...the bear.”

Another murmur ran through the pack - everyone had heard the circumstances he’d been found in as a few-month old pup. Though none of them had spoke openly about the tragedy, whispers had spread around the pack.

“Before that, my mama - in her pack, the pups were named as they opened their eyes, and so, she named me, and called me by that name,” Srokacz said, holding himself so stiffly he nearly shook. “I’d like to be known by that name in this pack, now.”

Enit watched him a moment longer, that flickering in the air around her the only movement, her eyes seeming to grow bigger, yellower, deeper, like wells directly into the sun with each word he spoke. He didn’t know anything, feel anything, see anything but that glow, until suddenly she blinked, and the world dropped back around him with a thud he nearly heard and definitely felt.

“Your name!” Enit laughed, tail wagging gleefully as suddenly every line of her body was filled with amusement, happiness, expectation? “You’ve had your name all this time, and didn’t tell us?”

“I, uh, I...” Srokacz took a step back uncertainly, ears flicking back, “I didn’t want to share it before, and when I heard about the...the whole adulthood ceremony, I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

“Well maybe it was good you waited, because now - as it is our tradition - your name will be spoken for the first time to the pack, and become the name you’re known by!” Enit bounded off the root down to where Srokacz stood, chasing a circle around him once before coming to a stop before him again.

“Your name, young wolf - tell it to us, so we can know you!”

“Srokacz,” He said softly, eyes meeting Enit’s. And then, louder, “Srokacz. My name is Srokacz.”

The pronunciation of the name was far different than any of those among the pack already, and his name was passed around from wolf to wolf, as they tried it out, worked to pronounce it correctly.

“Srokacz, that is my name, and,” Srokacz said, suddenly bolstered by Enit’s acceptance and eagerness. “And Enit, Lead Wolf, I know what my role is in the pack.”

“You,” Enit said, mouth split wider than he though possible in a grin, “You are full of surprises, aren’t you!”

“I just,” Srokacz dipped his head slightly, lower than hers to show her respect, “I know what I will do. What I have to do. I, I’ve heard a voice, in my dreams, Enit. And on the wind, and in the sun ray’s. I don’t know how, or why, but I have.”

Enit cocked her head again, ears perked forward.

“How strange, How odd. That’s not part of your aspect.” Enit said, tilting her head the other way then.

“It’s true, mother,” Eridani’s voice spoke up from the edge of the clearing, and Srokacz felt relief at hearing it. She saw things, felt things, heard things the others didn’t, and so when he’d started hearing the voice he’d gone to Eridani, hoping to find an answer. “He hears her.”

“Her?” Enit’s grin vanished as her mouth shut and her gaze grew bemused. “Her?”

Srokacz lowered his head, his eyes, even lower, “Arcturus. I hear Arcturus.”

If a murmur had followed his words before, only silence followed now, a stone deep silence.

“Even I can’t hear her,” Enit said into that silence, her voice at once soft and strong and cold and hot. “She has gone somewhere I cannot see, left a trail I cannot follow. You say you hear her?”

“Yes.”

“You think you can find her?”

Another voice, higher pitched and softer despite the barely-held-back force behind her words. Paws padded quickly over to them, and Srokacz lifted his gaze to see cream-coated Tara trotting over to them, her tail half-raised and her ears perked, her pale eyes glistening.

“You think you can find my daughter?”

Srokacz didn’t lift his head, but he met her eyes and said as earnestly as he could, “I think that it is my destiny to do so.”

Tara stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and hope. “I taught her everything I know, everything I have learned in all the places I’ve gone. Wherever she is, she is surviving, I know that. She is alive.”

“All she needs is to find her way back home,” Srokacz said, finally lifting his head to face both Tara and Enit head on. “And I, I feel it - I can do that. I know I can. Whether it’s my aspect or not, it’s what I’m meant to do.”

Soft paw steps approached on his other side, and Eridani stepped up to them as well. Srokacz didn’t miss the way Enit’s eyes brightened at the sight of her daughter, or the way Pietro’s gaze turned from furrow-browed scrutiny to uncertainty, wariness.

“I can help Srokacz with tracking her voice,” Eridani said with a soft grin. “He’ll be on his own finding her, but I can help him with focusing on her, at least.”

“Yes,” Enit said, shortly and with a finality, tail raising in an eager wag. “Yes! Yes! I agree, this is the plan. This is a good plan. I can see you are committed to this path, and I think you have chosen well.”

She spun around with a joyful, short howl, facing all the members of her pack.

“Everyone, Srokacz is now an adult member of our pack! His path has been chosen, and as a pack member it is our duty to help him on it! Do you agree?”

Tara was the first to raise her head in a long howl, Eridani close behind, and then more and more until Srokacz stood at the center of a chorus of wolves, his spirit lifting with their voices.

Lifting his own nose towards the sky, he howled as well, his eyes focusing on the sun as he reached out to the lost member of their pack, wherever she was -

Do you hear me, Arcturus? I’m coming! I’ll find you!

#wolvden #rowan pack lore #lost wolf saga #thank you ferox for the bg #srokacz tag #this is long so have a read more #cryptid wolvden

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 4 years ago

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Chapter 49: Assembling and Dissembling

Becoming The Mask

Bold italics are trollish.

+=+

There were, Barbara learned, two possible meanings for the word 'troll', depending on the context.

A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore, Volume 1 of 47 sat open on the table, along with a dictionary, and a sheet of paper where Jim had written out the trollish alphabet and the phonetic equivalent of each letter's sound in English.

Blinky had offered to teach Barbara to read trollish, so they could set up a book swap. He was intrigued by her medical textbooks. She was keen to learn more about this strange magical world she had found herself tied to. Jim had volunteered to teach Barbara instead, since living together would make it easier to work lessons around Barbara's unfixed schedule.

Trolls had a mostly phonetic alphabet. They didn't seem to use capitalization, but did have accents that appeared around certain words to indicate significance. Jim and Barbara had gotten onto this tangent when she noticed 'troll' was written in two different ways.

There was 'troll' meaning 'a person, a member of the species', which was the kind of troll meant by Jim's title 'Troll-Who-Is-The-Hunter'.

And then there was 'troll', usually prefixed by a tribe name, which meant 'member of the tribe'.

"The pronunciation is the same for both," said Jim. "The second one is probably what most trolls mean when they say Changelings aren't trolls, since we've been disowned and the Gumm-Gumms don't acknowledge us as full tribe members. Up till we get a Familiar we can't exactly pass as being a different species."

"Disowned?" Barbara repeated. No one had mentioned that part when she'd asked where Changelings came from.

(It might explain what Jim had said about not having a name before getting a Familiar, though, if trollish disowning involved stripping the person of their entire name rather than just the family name.)

Jim made an uncertain noise and wiggled his hand. "Sort of disowned, sort of presumed dead. Basically, after we're taken and altered, we can't go back to our first families even if we do find out who they were."

… What?

"I'm going to need you explain all of that. Starting with the –" god, which bit to even start with? "– with the 'taken' part."

"Okay?"

Jim shrugged and turned in his chair to face her more directly.

"So, Gumm-Gumms used to raid other troll communities, and sometimes they would take babies who would then be adopted into the tribe and raised as Gumm-Gumms. That sort of thing's happened with humans, too, right? And after the Gumm-Gumms allied with Pale Lady, they started giving some of those whelps to her, and she'd turn us into Changelings and swear us back into Gumm-Gumm service."

"Who's the Pale Lady? And why babies?" What was it with trolls and stealing babies?!

"Our Creator. You don't just get Changelings naturally; you have to turn a troll into one. It's safer the younger we are but it's still really hard. She's the only one powerful enough to do it."

Jim sighed.

"She disappeared centuries ago. There probably aren't going to be anymore Changelings after my generation."

That didn't exactly sound like a bad thing, from Barbara's perspective. No more kidnapped children, magically mutated to a point where members of their own species hesitated to acknowledge them as being the same species, kidnapping and stealing the faces and lives of other children in order to blend in …

"Anyway," Jim continued, "after a raid, any parents who'd lost their kids would declare them dead, since the Gumm-Gumms were too strong to launch a rescue mission against, and 'my whelp is dead' was easier emotionally – you know, for closure – than dealing with, 'if I ever see my whelp again, it will be as an enemy'. Since we're not old enough to remember our first families clearly, we can't track them down later, and since we're enemy agents by that point, it isn't safe to try."

He hooked an arm over his chair's backrest, which was beside him with the way he was sitting.

"I mean, that doesn't stop everybody, but those stories all end badly."

Barbara felt her breathing get faster and shallower. Oh no. Oh no. Had she – she had – no wonder Jim hesitated to call her 'Mom' anymore – pushing him away like she did must've stomped right on that sense of rejection, that fear of a parent seeing him as an enemy.

"We're getting way off-topic, though," said Jim.

His tone had stayed light and casual the entire time. He turned back to the table and the book and the page of notes.

"So, when 'troll' is spelled with this accent, you can infer that the word right before it is a tribe name, but the tribe names can also appear on their own. They all seem to have this same accent by the first rune," pointing to it. "At first, I thought it translated as a Significant Capital Letter, and it probably does, but it only seems to be used in this context, so it probably means 'this is the name of a tribe'."

+=+

AAARRRGGHH tapped the wall of the tunnel leading into Vendel's workshop, a hollowed-out space just within the Heartstone.

He tried to smile reassuringly at the younglings he and Blinky escorting. Mary and Toby smiled back. Claire and Darci tried, but their smiles looked as strained as AAARRRGGHH's felt. Jim was looking the other way, keeping AAARRRGGHH and Blinky and the humans in his peripheral vision while he watched for anyone else approaching where they were.

"Enter."

Darci had her arms crossed over the book the younglings had been writing, with stories about their families. AAARRRGGHH and Blinky had read it already. AAARRRGGHH didn't think it would sway Vendel on letting more humans know trolls existed, but the humans wanted to try anyway.

AAARRRGGHH was ready to physically carry all five of them back out again if they started pushing Trollmarket's Elder too hard, before Vendel could outright ban further discussion of the matter.

(They didn't have the other Changeling with them this time, so if it came to that point, AAARRRGGHH would be able to put Jim on his shoulders with the rest. Jim seemed protective of his fellow Changelings, so AAARRRGGHH had figured last time that Jim would be more comfortable being carried where he could keep an eye on – Enrique? Not Enrique? – and ensure the smaller one was being well-treated, and AAARRRGGHH didn't think he couldn't keep that strange canopied rolling chair secure on his back.)

Vendel was standing in front of his favourite chair, with a drink and a book on the armrest. Uh-oh. This might not be the best time to start asking favours.

"This is – about – what we asked before," said Mary. "About telling our families where we go, and who we see, here."

"I am still against it," said Vendel flatly.

"We hoping – we hope you will be more – more open to think about it," said Toby, "if you know more about our families. To know they can be trusted. Trusting?"

"Trusted," said Blinky. "You had it right the first time."

The humans would also have to be trusting, to accept that their whelps were safe among trolls, but AAARRRGGHH didn't think this was the right time to say, 'both work'.

"So we made a book," said Darci, holding it out, "with family stories. For you to read. To know them without meeting."

Vendel made no move to take the book.

"It's in trollish," said Claire.

There was another awkward pause.

Claire took the book from Darci and put it on Vendel's workbench.

"Will you read it?" she pressed.

"If I agree to read your book," said Vendel slowly, looking at each youngling in turn, "and once I do, I still refuse to expose trollkind to additional humans, you will accept my decision and cease to push this issue."

It was not so much an offer as a declaration.

AAARRRGGHH probably should've scouted out what Vendel was doing in advance, or something. Or maybe Blinky should've officially set up a meeting. Or AAARRRGGHH should've pulled them all out of there as soon as he realized they were intruding on Vendel's rare leisure time and so Vendel was going into the conversation already irritated.

The humans exchanged looks between themselves. He couldn't read most human expressions easily. AAARRRGGHH could recognize 'distress' from sheer exposure, and there was some of that, but there was something else mixed in as well.

"We accept your terms," said Claire and Darci, not quite overlapping. Claire continued. "If you give our reasoning full consideration and still find it lacking, we will not keep asking for permission."

Vendel picked up the book. "Then I will read it."

"So, to be clear," said Jim, after they left the Heartstone, "when he says 'no', you're just going to tell them without permission."

"Yeah," said Mary easily. Blinky spluttered.

"Just making sure we're all on the same page." Jim's jaw was tense. The lines on his armour pulsed closer to blue than silver. AAARRRGGHH wanted to reach over and pat his back, but Daylight hung there, and AAARRRGGHH had no desire to burn his hand on the magical sword.

Moving slow, so the Changeling could see him coming, AAARRRGGHH nudged Jim's side. Jim veered away.

+=+

"And Jim, stop by my office after school, please," Mr Strickler had said when class ended that morning. It was now afternoon, and Jim was dutifully reporting in.

Stricklander opened his pen to reveal the hidden key, and opened the partition between the mundane and magical sides of his office.

"How does that not mess up everything on your shelves?" Jim asked, gesturing to where the wall had slid away, to be hidden inside a hollow wall on a different story.

"It moves smoothly, and most of my curios have wide bases. I also added a few stability enchantments when I set everything up, in case of earthquakes, and those take care of the rest … Ask Dr Lake if she'd like some around the house, along with those security spells on the tunnel."

Stricklander opened the front panel of a box with an ornate, glowing crystal on the lid. He murmured while stroking the air around the crystal. Jim might have thought it was an incantation to unlock to box if he didn't recognize the crystal as an antramonstrum shell.

"I'm with Nomura," Jim said when Stricklander stopped chanting. "That seems like a risky thing to have in a school."

"It's well-behaved and well-contained," said Stricklander. "And it's not why you're here. You're here for this."

He held a blue stone, faintly glowing, with a colder light than the Amulet gave off. It was shaped like a pyramid with spikes near the point. Jim accepted the crystal and looked at the pyramid's base.

It had a pupil. Hazy, but there. Jim gasped and closed his hand around it. Stricklander did say he had access to …

"The Eye?"

"His Eye."

"It's �� still living stone." Definitely not a sphere; were trolls' eyes not eyeballs or was the shape distorted from how it had been cut out of his face? "Can he still see out of it?"

"That would take very specific enchantments, which would need to be planned and cast before the eye was removed."

"… Have you ever done that?"

"No."

Jim stole a tissue from the box on Stricklander's desk to wrap the crystal, got his pencil case out of his sweatshirt's stomach pocket, and zipped Gunmar's Eye inside.

"I'm going to be out of town for a short while," said Stricklander. "The school is under the impression a distant relative of mine has passed on and I'm needed for the reading of the will and so on; nothing so time sensitive I couldn't arrange lesson plans for the substitute, but also something that might drag on unexpectedly."

To a more experienced agent, this might sound condescending, but Jim appreciated when Stricklander explained the reasoning behind his chosen cover stories. It gave Jim a better understanding of how to craft his own.

"The Janus Order will be answerable to Jennifer Smith in my absence. She'll likely continue the lockdown of the main base. I expect to return within two weeks … hopefully having acquired something else of use."

Maybe he has a lead on the Birthstone, Jim thought hopefully.

+=+

The Trollhunter came to Vendel's workroom alone the following night.

"Vendel, Elder of Trollmarket," he greeted.

Vendel braced himself; the last time the Trollhunter had used that stilted, formal tone, Vendel had been presented with a severed head, and the boy seemed honestly surprised not to be praised for such … Gumm-Gumm-ish behaviour.

Vendel had done his best to accommodate him later – it was an important victory, after all – and ensure the rest of Trollmarket would not panic over what their Trollhunter had done.

"I have the first of the Triumbric Stones, the Eye of Gunmar."

At least he had it wrapped in some kind of satchel this time, rather than flaunting the severed body part.

"Blinky said you would know what to do with it."

Vendel considered this. It was a few decades early in the Trollhunter's training, but it would be apropos. He went to a shelf and retrieved a black leather box, which he placed on his worktable.

"The Triumbric Stones, once gathered, must be cleaved. Humans cleave stones to unlock their beauty. I presume you already have some concept of cleaving stones to unlock their power."

"How you groom the Heartstone for healthy growth," said Jim. "Or the body, symbolically." He touched his own arm, indicating where one of Vendel's carvings encircled his bicep. Or did the Changeling have a carving there, too, in his troll form? "Or the body, literally, when a troll is transgender. Glug told us about King Quag. Or like when a troll is made a Changeling."

Vendel scowled at that – that obscene, blasphemous comparison to a sacred skill – but held his tongue.

"I guess that one is more like metamorphosis," Jim added, more quietly. Vendel took it as a peace offering.

"There are exponentially more elements than the humans have yet discovered. Their properties account for much of how magic works. Merlin's Amulet is a relic of unfathomable power. It is said, when he forged it, he made it malleable, so that each Trollhunter could combat dangers that even its creator could not foresee. I have, under my guardianship, a few remaining stones that Trollhunters past have used to unlock their potential."

Vendel opened the box. Jim leaned in, eyes wide and gleaming in the reflected light from the crystals.

"Stones that will grant nimbleness," the Aequati Stone, used by Araknak the Agile to traverse any obstacle;"a glimpse into your enemy's mind," the Omniscien Stone, used by Deya the Deliverer to stop Merlin from being so damned cryptic all the time, according to what she'd told Vendel's father Rundle after returning from her quest to punch the wizard in the face;"even the power to walk in daylight."

"Wait, why isn't that one in the Amulet always?" Jim asked.

"The Umbra Stone is particularly temperamental and difficult to wield. Most Trollhunters do not have time to learn it."

"Shouldn't that one be first priority?"

"The Trollhunter is rarely aboveground during the day." The current one was, but he was an outlier to the pattern in every other respect as well.

"And when they are, they die. Kanjigar might still be alive if he'd had this stone with him." Jim looked away from the stones and up at Vendel. "Give me the Umbra Stone. I will make it part of the Amulet forever. No future Trollhunter will be killed by sunlight then."

Vendel closed the box.

"You should learn to properly cleave a stone before you start altering the Amulet. You do not need the Umbra Stone. Show me the Eye."

Jim glared. For a moment Vendel thought the boy would grab the box and try to steal the Umbra Stone from it, though he'd have to guess which one it was. Instead, Jim opened the satchel he still held, and extracted the Eye of Gunmar from its soft white wrapping. Some of the wrapping tore on the crystal's sharp protrusions.

Vendel put the box away, pretending he didn't notice the Changeling obviously making mental note of where he kept it. He led Jim over to his grindstone and picked up a stone about the size of the Eye with a set of tongs.

"You should be in troll form for this. The subtleties will be easier to observe."

Nothing he had read in human books suggested they had an understanding or interest in stone shaping for purposes other than aesthetics or building construction. Also, Vendel had some idea how squishy humans were – he'd feel less unnerved by a troll standing so close to the grindstone, where chips could fly.

Jim went rigid as stone without actually transforming.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Vendel rolled his eyes. "Would you prefer to have Blinkous or Aarghaumont present as a chaperone?"

"It's not that I expect you would hurt me," though, from the way he was inching back, he obviously hadn't ruled it out either, "it's more, what if someone else comes in and sees?"

"Without your armour, there would be nothing to see. Trollmarket is highly populated and popular. I doubt you look so unusual that you stand out to a casual glance." Blending in was part of what the Changelings had been designed for, after all. "It would not be the first time I demonstrated proper cleaving techniques to a visiting student."

Jim instead closed the faceplate of his helmet and turned his head to the entrance of Vendel's workroom. The entire suit of armour flashed blue as he did, responding to its wearer's distress.

… No, Vendel realised a moment later, when Jim physically pulled the Amulet from his chest to dismiss the armour. That blue flash had been the Changeling's transformation.

He looked so young.

Too young, in fact – the Battle of Killahead had been just over 400 years ago, and the whelp standing before Vendel now couldn't be even 200 yet –

"How old are you?"

"What? Probably a bit less than 450, why?"

Jim's brow ridges crinkled adorably – a Changeling should not be cute, but whelps were without trying – and then he made a sound of realization.

"Oh – oh, the age distortion. You've never met a 'young Changeling', have you? This is how old my Familiar would be if we never swapped, not how old I am. I'll start aging like a troll again once I hit human adulthood. Or catch up to the age I would've been without the age pause. We don't exactly have ways of testing those theories."

"… This is how young your human friends are, then."

"16 for a human is about 240 for a troll if I've done the math right."

He hadn't – he looked about half that age – although maybe humans had a delayed puberty? That didn't make much sense, for creatures so short lived, but it could happen. If they hit puberty in their second century instead of it marking their first – or, the equivalent thereof – that would at least make Vendel feel better about how ridiculously young the Trollhunter looked, a child should never have been even considered by the Amulet –

"… Should I switch back?" Jim asked, in English. He was wearing a human-like style of clothing, too, Vendel noted, as he started to get over the initial shock and take in more of the boy's appearance.

"No," Vendel decided. He picked the sample stone back up, having dropped it from his tongs when he'd been startled. "This is important for your education and your duties. Watch closely."

Jim was attentive, asking intelligent questions about how Vendel decided which planes to smooth and which angles to cut. Despite the boy's illusion of youth, Vendel felt confident allowing Jim to cleave the Eye himself.

(Stones always worked best for the one who cleaved them, no matter how well they worked for anyone else.)

When the shaping was done, Jim opened the back of the Amulet to insert the new stone, and Vendel saw another stone already in it. He thought for a moment that Jim had stolen the Umbra Stone already.

"What is that?"

"Uh … Remember when you let me bring a Heartstone piece to Draal? When I got it home, I noticed this tiny piece had chipped off. I didn't think he would miss it. I read in one of Blinky's books about Trollhunters putting stones in the Amulet and wanted to try. It lets me summon a knife." Blatantly trying to distract Vendel, Jim asked, "What do you think the Eye will do?"

"It's impossible to know for sure. Properly cut gemstones work in ways one can never predict – only discover."

"There must be patterns. Mineral type? Crystal lattice structure? Colour, age … nutrition?"

"The trollish classification of stones is rather more complex than the human one," said Vendel. "Minute differences in composition or the environment in which the stone develops can result in vast differences between two crystals of the same size and overall type. It is astronomically rare for stones to be identical."

Jim turned into a human again before he summoned his armour.

"I'm going to train and unlock the potential of the Eye. I will be back for the Umbra Stone."

Vendel watched him go, and slowly opened the book the human whelps had given him.

If they were really that young, no wonder they wanted their parents.

Honestly, it was a wonder their parents hadn't wondered where their whelps were wandering off to and beaten down the market door already.

If Vendel wanted to head off a human invasion, he needed to know who he'd be dealing with.

+=+

Previous Chapter (Heartstone pieces? In the Janus Order base? It’s more likely than you think)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Various characters grapple with insecurity for various reasons)

So, how about that latest Tales of Arcadia news, eh? Wizards release date, August 7th? Exciting! I'm not expecting it to change much of what's planned for this fic, but I said that about Season 3 and about 3Below, too.

I do know some stuff expected to come up which I want to know for other stories but also plan to ignore for this one: when exactly the Battle of Killahead Bridge took place, when Deya trapped Gunmar in the Darklands.

In this fic, as Vendel says, that happened 400-odd years before the main storyline, in the late 1500s, shortly before the trolls stowed away on the Mayflower in 1620. (And after Angor Rot got his soul ripped out by Morgana in 1297, because why would he need to protect his people from Gunmar if Gunmar was already trapped in the Darklands, huh, novel spin-offs?!)

This was a number I came up with back when I thought trolls only lived 1500-1600 years, based on tweet from Guillermo del Toro; and that Blinky was around 600 years old, as opposed to just having actively studied humans for that amount of time, based on that line about the human dances he's witnessed; and that Draal, obviously younger than Blinky, was either a whelp during the Battle of Killahead Bridge or not born until afterwards (rather than fighting in the battle) and that was a factor in why Kanjigar didn't want him involved in Trollhunting, because Draal was part of the first generation to grow up 'in peace'; and likewise Bular was a whelp during that battle, which was why he was the only Gumm-Gumm not trapped in the Darklands, or he was born after and sent to the surface by Fetch because he was the only one small enough, and either way he was basically raised by the Janus Order; and that trolls had an approximate 15:1 ratio with humans for age, based on the line about bowel control.

However, I have altered troll aging rates a little, based on the idea of Blinky participating in the Battle of Killahead. If he's 600-ish in 2016, that would make him only 200-ish in the late 1500s/early 1600s – which would also, proportionately, be the same age or younger than the humans are. (16x15=240)

So, how to have Vendel be scandalized at how young Jim is when a troll that age is apparently fit for combat? Shuffle the stages of development.

I decided, in this universe, trolls reach their full size a century or so before they actually become adults. So, a mid-adolescent troll would actually be 120, translating in human terms to be about 8 years old – still a child rather than a 'young adult'.

In other lore, I made up the names for the Aequati Stone and the Umbra Stone, based on mangled Latin for 'balancing' and 'shade' respectively. The Omniscein Stone, and Deya going on a quest to punch Merlin for being cryptic, came from the spin-off comic The Felled. 'Omnisceinstone' was all one word in the comic but that doesn't fit the pattern set up by the Aspectus Stone, the only one named on-screen in the show.

#Changeling Jim #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Becoming The Mask chapters #fanfiction #Dr Barbara Lake #Vendel #AAARRRGGHH #Mary Wang #Darci Scott #Tobias Domzalski #Claire Nuñez #Blinkous Galadrigal #Walter Strickler #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!

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